Yup. I’m burned out.
Burnout… I has it.
Yup. I’m burned out.
Me
My double-barrelled 12 gauge
I’m listening to Pantera’s “Cowboys From Hell”
and when Phil sings about his “double-barrelled 12 gauge”, the thought that goes through my head is how inadequate that is with only 2 shot capacity.
What does it say about me? 🙂
Being Relaxed
Flipping channels last night, go by The Outdoor Channel and there’s Jim Scouten… talking about Steel Challenge. That’s fast shooting.
As I watched the show, watching the top shooters in the world drawing and drawing and drawing and drawing again it hit me what my problem has been lately.
I’ve been too tense.
When you’re tense, you cannot move fast. When you need to do a certain move you need muscle X to do it. But when you’re tense the muscles antagonistic to X are also tense… thus it ends up acting like a brake and you will not move fast. Or if you can move fast, it’s not as fast as it could be if you were relaxed. Or in my case, my brain is still wanting to move fast so I end up “rushing” it and the results are fast but sloppy.
I turned off the TV. Did some dry fire, forcing myself to relax between each draw. Amazing the difference.
This is constantly my problem. The sort of person I am? I can be high stress. Right now my life is full of stress. And it’s something that has once again crept up on me and I didn’t notice (until last night). So once again I must remind myself to relax, I must remind myself to loosen up. That there’s no need to actually think about moving fast, just move, it will be fast. If I think to move fast I’ll get all tense and thus won’t move fast.
It’s a problem I’ve struggled with for years. Very evident in my martial arts practice, which needs to be loose and relaxed, but I tense up… I hold my breath… and these things all lead to being stiff.
I’ve thought about studying something like Tai Chi or Baguazhang to see if that might help. Maybe even Aikido. We’ll see. Meantime, I just have to remind myself to be aware of my tension and do away with it.
Small win for APD
Going to give some kudos to Austin Police Department here. It’s a small thing, but it’s little things like this that add up.
As frequent readers know, we have a lot of ducks that hang out at our house.
Well, about 45 minutes ago my kids saw some random Rottweiler trotting across our lawn. I was called to come see, and so I went and saw. He was perked up, looking at something. My guess? The ducks, but a few houses down and out of sight.
I go back to work.
A minute or so later I hear my kids screaming in terror. The Rot was attacking a duck.
Granted my kids understand nature and life, but they are very fond of the ducks… so injury to these ducks is like injuring a member of the family.
I tear down the stairs and run outside looking for the Rot. He was behind/under a truck… apparently it was just some guy driving through and he saw things too and tried to do something about it (I guess… I really didn’t know, my only exchange with him was “That your dog?” “No.”). I chased the Rot, shouting and yelling. The Rot broke off his attack and retreated back into a yard in the cul-de-sac. I don’t know what happened to the duck, but I did see him waddle off… I don’t know his condition, but it is what it is.
The Rot eventually stopped and laid down. I took out my phone, dialed 911, explained, and they said police will be dispatched. My wife was also on the phone to 311 and they took the animal control call. Yes it’s just attacking a duck but my thinking is 1. it’s a Rot, 2. if he’s showing a penchant for attacking things who knows what else he could attack, 3. no collar so who knows if he’s a pet or feral. Who knows. My brother-in-law has a Rot and she’s a sweetie. I know Rot’s aren’t evil, but there’s no question there’s a legit reason for their reputation. I don’t want some unknown Rot wandering my neighborhood.
About 10 minutes after the call goes in, 2 APD cruisers pull up. We point out the dog, explain things, they drive over to the dog. You could tell there was some joking “you get him, no you get him”. A third cruiser pulls in, and that officer had some leashes in his trunk. A little figuring out of who will do what, tasers at the ready, and the third officer approaches the Rot. He tries calling him over and the dog obediently comes, a little unsure, but obeys. Leashed up, “good dog” petting, and into the back of a cruiser. Some handshakes and thank you’s to the officers, and what’s done is done.
My take
I don’t feel bad about what I did. Granted, as the event wore on it was evident the dog is fairly well-behaved. He’s certainly someone’s pet (tho lacking a collar, but hopefully not a microchip). He did show signs of submissive behavior, but he was also constantly alert. That’s good stuff, when it’s your dog. But again, I have no idea about this dog. He demonstrated attacking behavior, and well… I just can’t allow some unknown and potentially dangerous dog to be trotting around my neighborhood with other pets, small children, and people around. No apologies for what I did.
APD took about 10 minutes to show up, and my guess is they were there that “quickly” due to the fact the dog was seen attacking. I can’t fault them… it’s not like there was a cop right here, they did have to drive to get here, so 10 minutes is reasonable. But as with all things, it shows what response time can be.
I did have my gun on me. It shows that situations can happen suddenly and you have to run with what you have. There was no time to run and get my gun or get anything… I ran outside barefoot. If the dog was a problem, yes I had no problem shooting it. I wanted to avoid that at all costs of course, but if someone’s life was in danger (because again, I knew nothing of the dog’s demeanor, other than he was attacking a duck) well… that’s how it goes. While standing off with the dog, I asked my wife for her pepper spray, as that’d be my preference. I had a prior experience with dogs and wishing for OC. I still don’t have OC on me, because I haven’t found something suitable (even tho GT Dist has some decent options).
I do hope the dog has a microchip and can be reunited with his owner… and his owner is a little wiser for the experience so it doesn’t happen again. He was a good looking Rotty, and seemed to be a “good dog”, so I do hope there ends up being a happy ending to this story. But again, dogs are what they are, and I’m not going to take a chance.
APD did well. Took care of things. Thank you to the local Boys in Blue.
Star of Texas Fair & Rodeo
Yesterday I took my family to the Star of Texas Fair & Rodeo. It’s an annual thing in Austin, but this is the first time we went. I’m so glad we did. Weather was perfect, time was right.
The Kid In Me
I went to county fairs and rodeos all the time when I was a kid. My Dad had to campaign in various counties in Nebraska, and county fairs were good places to meet with the public. So Dad would be there all day pressing the flesh, and we kids would get to run around and enjoy the fair all day. I’ve got lots of fond memories of those times, from all the midway games I’d play, to the rides (I still will not ride The Zipper… not into things that make me throw up), to even the people I’d meet. A lot of the same carnival groups would be at the various county fairs, so I got to see a lot of the same carnies over and over. I got to actually know a couple fairly well because hey… I loved the “pop gun” booth (little pump rifles that shot small corks out the end… you’d shoot the corks at these little wooden stands and when they flipped off the back of the rail you won the prize) and spending so much time at that booth I got to know the lady running it. I also recall that’s how I learned about the band Bad Company; talking with another carnie, he told me to check out their album (their self-titled) and eventually I did and glad I did.
And of course, growing up in Omaha, there was Peony Park.
So with many fond memories in my head, I always wanted to take the kids to some sort of fair. There’s frequently a fair running in town, but I can never find out when they’re here. It’s one of those where I’m driving in town, I see it in the distance, “OH man!” and then we can’t go for some reason. But now we had a plan!
The Joy of Mobile Internet
Of course, I look up the fair online and find out they even have an iPhone app just for the fair! The iPhone app had a few rough edges, but it was pretty useful. I thought the best part was how they used the GPS services on the map to say “here’s where you are, and here’s where you want to go” to help you get around the fairgrounds. Nice!
But the real treat? I found out you could buy a carnival wristband for $20 online, which included the gate entrance fee. Sounded like a winner to me. But when I got there, yes it was an online-only deal. If you bought at the fairgrounds, $7 for adults $4 children to get through the gate, and $25 for the carnival wristband. Man… that online deal is a deal. So I went back to the car, sat down, pulled out my iPhone and purchased online right there in the parking lot. 🙂 That saved some money… or so I thought. It’s only saving money if you’re going to ride a lot of rides. Most rides cost 3 tokens and each token was $1. So you’d need to ride 8 rides or so to make it worth it. Was it worth it? No, because we didn’t ride that many rides (more on that shortly). The thing was, I was under the impression you could only do the carnival if you had a wristband. That is not the case. The wristband is only good for carnival rides, and you can pay tokens for rides as well. So if you’re all about the rides and expect to ride a lot of rides, a wristband can be the way to go. Else, just pay tokens as you go. Live and learn.
The Rides
For me, a big part of a fair are the rides. I did not know what to expect with my kids… would they like these rides? Would they not? The first ride? The Tilt-a-Whirl. That’s one of my favorites. I have many fond memories of riding that at Peony Park with my Dad while growing up. All 4 of us climbed into a car and off we went, tilting and whirling. I saw nothing but smiles on the faces of my kids. We have a winner!
I saw on the other side was a “scrambler”, tho this one was called The Scorcher. We climbed into that one, Youngest and I in one car, and Oldest and Daughter in another. Off it went. This one went a bit faster than I remember them going, so the G-forces were pretty strong. It was fun, we all enjoyed it, but we all also had the same thought: geez… this is getting boring, can you stop now? It just got old because it ran for quite a while. But I was happy the kids enjoyed it…. tho Oldest didn’t like it as much as he would have because well… I told him to sit on the out-side of the car so he had his sister squished into him the whole time. 🙂
Then… the bumper cars.
I’m glad this wasn’t a “modern” bumper cars where everyone was told to just drive in a circle and not run into each other. Yes, I’ve encountered those and what fun are those? The whole fun about this is to bump into each other. Head-on collisions are what makes bumper cars fun. 🙂 Daughter climbed into a car, Oldest into a car, and I took Youngest in a car with me. I gave them a briefing on how they work (e.g. press the pedal down and don’t let go, if you turn the steering wheel all the way around you’ll go in reverse), and off we went.
So while the kids and I were having fun bumping into each other, Wife was standing at the railing taking pictures. And boy, was Wife taking a lot of pictures. She was heavily interested in taking lots of pictures. Why? Because the carnie working the bumper cars was being very friendly with her. Not too friendly, but friendly enough that Wife did her best to be polite yet tried her best to make it clear she was more interested in her big husband than him. Oldest got mad that some other man was trying to hit on his Mom but he saw me laughing and not worried about it… but I can’t argue with my son’s desire to defend his mother. That’s a Good Thing.
Of course, what trip to a fair would be complete if there wasn’t a ride that was a little too much. There was a ride called The Orbiter. Didn’t get a picture of it, but this Wikipedia entry is close. The cars were more enclosed cars and it didn’t go 90º (maybe 45º??). The thing was, when we saw it earlier it seemed somewhat gentle, so Daughter and I went on it. Youngest wanted to go but Oldest didn’t and you couldn’t have single riders, so only Daughter and I went. Well… that was a mistake. The sensation was really weird and the G-forces very strong… because of the angles you were put at, the resulting angle of the G-forces just did not sit well with Daughter and she was most unhappy. I just cradled her to keep her from banging into the car, and eventually the ride ended. Cross that one off the list for the future. Me? I thought the ride was OK… it did mess with my equilibrium a bit (I had “sea legs” for a short while after getting off the ride), but how could I enjoy a ride while my child was hurting? Ah well… it was a good experience no matter how you slice it.
The Food
What can you say? If you can fry it and put it on a stick, it’s carnival food. Oh, and expensive too.
Actually the food was pretty good. Of course fried, greasy, salty, huge portions, and just horrible for you… but no question it was delicious. If it wasn’t so darn expensive we would have eaten more.
The one bummer? I didn’t get a funnel cake. I love funnel cakes. But at $7 a cake? Sorry… my wallet was hurting. I had to pass this time around. *sigh*
Attractions
There were a lot of cool fair attractions.
They had some small bands playing free shows on a back stage. There was a ZZ Top cover band called Cheap Sunglasses that were playing when we arrived. They were actually pretty good! I enjoyed them a whole lot. Later that evening another band was playing… I don’t know who they were, but they were doing a horrible job butchering Bon Jovi’s “Bad Medicine” and I couldn’t stand it.
We wandered through the livestock barn. Lots of cattle and pigs, a few goats and rabbits. Spent a little time watching the judging of a youth cattle show. All I could think to myself was how much tasty beef was out there. Eventually we had to leave as the smell was overwhelming everyone.
Of course, there was a petting zoo with llamas, goats, sheep, some sort of deer… and again, I just kept staring at those deer, finding that kill zone. Now that I think about it, I should have used that as a time to talk kill zones with the kids! I mean, I had a live sample right there and could have walked right up to it and pointed everything out! Missed opportunity.
Concealment, not cover.
There was a cowboy shootout. Not a lot of action, but the comedy was funny with 3 bumbling robbers and eventually the sheriff coming to break up the party. They shot blanks, which were pretty loud so everyone would jump when they shot. I did think it was cool how they ended it tho: having all the “dead” robbers get up to show that no one was really hurt. But they also talked about how they used blanks and that blanks can still be dangerous (they shot an empty soda can pointblank and you got to see it blown apart). Then saying to be thankful for the police so we can live our lives today without us each having to carry around 6-shooters ourselves. Uh huh. 😉
One more thing on the shootout. Those guys had terrible trigger discipline. But I’ll chalk it up to old-time realism because Jeff Cooper wasn’t invented yet. 😉
We missed the “Swine Sprints”, but we did catch Whiplash. Whiplash is a little money dressed up like a cowboy that rides on the back of a dog. The show actually started off with a young man doing roping tricks, which was pretty impressive. Then onto the show. A little money, in a cowboy suit, on the back of… a border collie. That’s important. What was the show? Three sheep were released into the area and Whiplash the monkey cowboy (or is it cowboy monkey?) herded them around. But the reality? The monkey was just the attraction that put the butts in the seats. The real work was the dog, and the dog was on. The moment those sheep were let out of the carrier, the dog was locked onto them. It was so cool to watch how tuned in he was. And the sheep were huddling together, because they knew there was something out there with fangs. And the dog went to work, and the monkey just held on. Wife and I didn’t care about the monkey, just the dog. He was awesome.
Heading Home
So a long afternoon and evening spent at the fair. No, we didn’t get to see any actual rodeo, because that cost a lot more money. Apparently there’s a rodeo in Marble Falls in July and we may go check that out.
But still, we had a good time. Got to see animals, got to see some shows, got to ride rides, got to learn all about carnies, got to eat terrible but delicious food. The kids had a great time, and Wife did too (tho she wishes she had worn her Ariats and not her Luccheses). For me? Reliving some childhood family memories and making some new ones with my own family? All worth it.
Busy busy
So many things going on….
Refinancing the mortgage on my house. When we bought the house we received a rate that was good at the time, but of course times have changed. There’s enough of a difference in the rates, so might as well refi. It’s almost done, set to close next week. Never refinanced before, but this was surprisingly non-painful. Just lots of papers to shuffle in a timely manner. Don’t want to count my chickens too soon tho… there can always still be pain yet to come. 😉
Also working on establishing an LLC for myself. This has involved lots of reading and researching to figure out which entity would be best (C Corp, S Corp, LLC). I used to like Nolo Press for such things, but recently their materials are rather thin and cross-promoting. That is, it’s hard to know which book to buy then when you buy it you find out it doesn’t answer all the questions but for another $30 you can buy another one of their books to learn more. Bleah. Friend turned me on to LegalZoom, which seems cool but I’m a little nervous. On the one hand, will the end wording actually suit me or could it risk being too general? Thus if I really need to get things done right I’d have to see a lawyer anyway so why waste the money on LegalZoom in the first place? As well, using LegalZoom creates no relationship, but having a lawyer does. There’s something to that, should things go ugly. But, I’ve got lots of lawyers in my family, so I’m talking with them too. 🙂
And of course, the day job is rather involved. Deadline is quickly approaching, the expectations are … um … ambitious, to be polite about it. But I’m enjoying the little projects I’m working on. I’ve come to accept that in life. That there’s always going to be loads of bullshit around you that you can’t control, so try not to sweat it. Meantime, just find the little gold nuggets in what you can control and influence and relish those things. I will say, being able to discover little obscure nuggets like what the hidden info fields in an FSVolumeInfo structure mean and interpret out to? Kinda cool.
How can I really tell I’ve been busy? My slacking off has fallen. 😉 I can’t blog as much as I want. Facebook just gets the occasional glance. And blog reading… lord, I’m so far behind. But ah well. It’s how it goes sometimes. I’m at least happy it’s time spent productively.
Glock dreams
Ever wake up and know that you had some sort of crazy dream, it was so vivid, so many details… but yet, within moments of waking up you can’t remember much about the dream except one key aspect?
I had one of those last night.
All I can remember is somehow I got a free Glock. I think it was probably a G22 (.40 S&W, standard size) because I do remember mentioning in the dream wanting a G17 or G19 (9mm, standard or compact) instead.
And I actually liked it. Well, at least I was enjoying shooting it. The fact Glock’s still feel kinda “cheap Tupperware” in my hand didn’t change. But I was happy shooting it.
My guess? Somehow stems back to last weekend, because I got to shoot a stock Gen4 and actually liked it.
Crazy. 🙂
Note: the reason this is surprising to me is because I just don’t like Glocks. I don’t like how they feel in my hand. I don’t like the trigger. I don’t like the sights. I don’t like how they point for me. I just generally don’t like them. I grant their reputation and aftermarket, and that’s a huge plus for Glocks. But I just haven’t liked them. But that Gen4 wasn’t horrible. I did like the “stipple” on the grip, and while the trigger wasn’t ideal it did have good “feel” to it. Sights… they’d be changed immediately. But really… it wasn’t so horrible.
Heard It On The X
I’m up late working… need music to get me through.
A little bit of boogie woogie blues from that Lil’ Ol’ Band from Texas sure gets you through.
Stupid iPhone
Last night at the Motörhead show my iPhone crapped out on me… again.
So much for getting pictures.
I actually had taken a couple pictures of The Sword.
I intentionally left the phone on “Camera” so I could take more pictures, especially of the Motörhead performance. But then I pull out the phone, press buttons and no response. Damnit. I fiddle with all the buttons I can, and nothing. The phone, she’s dead. Last time this happened to me I had done a similar thing: the phone was likely left on an application, I put the phone into my back pocket, pull it out and she’s dead. That time I had plugged in the phone and eventually saw the battery come alive with almost no charge… so the battery had run down. I figured that’s what happened here so I just forgot about it until I got home.
However when I got home and plugged in the phone for a while, it didn’t come back. Uh oh. I Googled about it and apparently this is not an uncommon problem. The solution?
A hard reset.
Press the power button and home button together and hold… you might have to hold for a little while (30-60 seconds?), but eventually you should see the Apple logo on screen. When you do, it’ll churn away and eventually you go about your business. I did have about 70% battery left, which means some battery was drained but not everything.
Digging deeper into my ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporer/MobileDevice/ folder of my sync machine, it looks like the phone had a kernel panic.
Ah… modern computing.
Anyway, now that I know about the hard reset, next time this happens I’ll try that and see how it goes.
To Daddy, from Daughter
Daughter wrote me a poem last night.
When the clouds become dark,
And when the dog doesn’t bark,
I become very, very sad.
The only way
For me to be gay
is sunshine, a treat, and Dad.
🙂
Note: this poem comes from the innocent and loving heart of my Little Girl. Don’t twist it around (e.g. “gay”).
Stuff From Hsoi 