Me

Miniatur Wunderland

/ hsoi

Miniatur Wunderland has been around for a while, but someone sent some pictures of the place to me today and I went and looked at it again. The place is simply amazing.

Watch this “drive through”. If it wasn’t for the occasional giant showing up in the background, you’d swear you were on a real train ride.

And check out this water-way shot

I’ve always found miniature trains fascinating. Many times I’ve wanted to get into it, but I simply don’t have the space to do it. It’s a bit of engineering, a bit of art, and you have to just remember to have a child-like wonder about the world to really enjoy it.

My Secret Talent

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Well, I guess it’s not going to be much of a secret any more.

I sew.

Yes, some people love the dichotomy. Big me with my guns, motorcycles, martial arts, beer, hunting, etc…. and sewing. One of these things is not like the other.

I learned to sew out of necessity, to mend things. As a child I watched my Mom sew things to mend or adjust clothing. I’d often pull out the sewing kit myself just to dink around. As a kid, one Christmas my sisters and I bought our Mom a sewing machine; she never used it, but my sisters and I would always fiddle around with it. Fast-forward to about 5 years ago and I caved in and bought a sewing machine because it was much less painful to sew patches on Scout uniforms with a machine than by hand.

Make no mistake — I am not a seamstress. I do not have mad skillz. I actually think about taking some classes to learn how to sew things like clothing. But for now, I can do some things.

I made a toy pillow and mattress for Daughter’s doll crib a few years ago. We pulled the doors off Daughter’s closet and I fashioned some neat curtains for it. I’ve done a few other things too, tho no clothing because the notion of that intimidates me (at least until I can get more training; man knows his limits).

My latest project: blankets and pillows for my nephews.

A couple years ago Wife’s brother’s wife made some blankets and pillows for our kids that were pretty neat. When thinking about Christmas presents for my sister’s boys, I thought making them blankets and pillows would be neat as well. I asked Sister what colors the boys liked and headed over to Jo-Ann Fabrics. The plan was to make them double-sided blankets, with one side being a “novelty” cloth and the other side being this fuzzy fleece; fun and warm. When Daughter and I got to the store, they didn’t have much of the fuzzy fleece nor did we find much for cloth in the colors and patterns we wanted. We picked what we thought might be good, then I called Sister to ask her what she thought. Snapped a picture of the cloth, sent it to Sister (iPhone love!). I asked her to be honest and she said there was a good chance some of those wouldn’t be well-accepted. Fair enough, that’s why I was asking. While talking on the phone I was staring at a shelf full of camouflage cloth and asked her what the boys would think about that. She said it’d be great and the would love it.

So here we are.

Picked two different camo patterns so they boys could tell their blankets apart. Both fleece.

Originally we wanted to sew a fleece “blaze orange” on the other side of both blankets. Unfortunately with the bolts of orange fleece they had, only one gave us enough to do what we wanted (I wanted 2 yards, the other bolt only had 2 1.5 yard pieces). So we grabbed some of that black fuzzy fleece. Thus one blanket has camo on one side and hunter blaze orange on the other, and the other blanket is camo and the fuzzy fleece.

Jo-Ann’s also had some regular camo cloth, so I picked up a yard of two varieties and some poly-fill and made some very fluffy pillows too. I felt really geeky because I was all excited to find just bolts of Realtree AP. Gosh… now I could sew my own hunting clothing. 😉  In fact, Daughter wants me to make her a t-shirt with the leftover camo cloth; again, clothing intimidates me but who knows… maybe Jo-Ann’s will have a pattern and I can give it a try.

All very soft, very warm. Daughter helped me sew things, did some good product testing, and gave her seal of approval. No they aren’t perfect (there are obvious spots where things aren’t in nice straight lines), but they work and should hold up well. I’m generally pleased with the work and hope my nephews enjoy them.

First Roast

/ hsoi

A lot of Wife’s family are coming over to our house today for the annual Christmas season gathering. Should be fun.

I decided one of the roasts from my recent deer hunt would make for a fitting course. I also found some feral hog backstrap in the freezer and since we needed a little more meat to feed everyone, I thought making both would be good.

I decided to try out the crock pot approach.

Simple enough: flour, salt and pepper the meat then brown it in the skillet just to seal things up. Roughly cut up potatoes, carrots, onion. To the venison I added some whole cloves (started sticking them in the meat but it was so tedious I stopped and just put them in the pot). The pork got a mushroom-based broth. The venison a beef-based broth. Both enough liquid to cover everything (meat and veggies). A couple bay leaves in each. Also added a sliced up bell pepper and minced garlic to the pork.

Going to slow cook them for about 8 hours on “low” and we’ll see how they turn out.

It could be great. It could be a big disaster. Either way it’ll be fun to learn. 🙂

Updated: They turned out pretty good.

The cloves with the venison was an interesting twist. First, you have to like cloves (I do). If you do, give it a try. It added a really nice flavor to the venison. Nothing too strong, just a nice and different flavoring. The cloves also made the potatoes taste really cool. I don’t think we’ll use cloves all the time, but certainly it was cool to discover this mix.

The bell pepper made all the difference for the pork. It turned out very tender and just so flavorful from that one large bell pepper.

One key thing to do when serving is to keep all of the liquid the meat cooked in. Put some roast on your plate, shred it, then ladel some of the liquid onto the meat. Mmm.

Excuses Excuses

/ hsoi

Yes, posting has been light. Work’s been crazy. Second job has some work for me to do, which I’m happy to take on because I can use the extra money. Got many relatives from Wife’s side of the family coming to visit tomorrow. Just much going on.

Oh, and that posting on hunting with the .223 took me a while to write up (as you can tell by the length). Any spare time I’ve had lately has been working on researching the topic and writing that up. It’s a bit rambly, but there was a lot of stuff I wanted to record for posterity.

So go read that one long post instead of a lot of little short posts. 🙂

Morning with Daughter

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

Had a fun morning with Daughter.

The main purpose was to go to the gun range to have her try out the AR with the scope. But we made a morning out of it, stopping for breakfast at Denny’s. We were going to go to Waffle House but there was a Denny’s on the way and Daughter wanted to try it because she’s never been to one. No problem, we changed plans and stopped at the Denny’s for breakfast. I figured as long as we were doing firsts, I had a t-bone steak and eggs for breakfast; never done that before but always wanted to. It was terrible, but I loved every minute of it. 🙂

We were surprised how many people were out at the range this morning, given the temperatures were just above freezing. Apart from that tho the morning was very nice, so it made sense some people were out. We settled over on the “E” range because no one was there so it would give us the most flexibility. The one downside was I wanted to start her at 25 yards (thus originally I hoped to use position 41 on the “A” range), but 40 meters would have to do and frankly I didn’t think it’d be a problem.

Got settled in, got her set up on the rest. Still, she was too short. Luckily we found an old office chair and we could raise the seat up some, which got her there. Set up the targets on the 40 meter rails, and let fly. Daughter did quite well. A few days ago I had a talk with the kids about trajectory, “height over bore”, zeroing, point of impact vs. point of aim, and things like that. That this rifle was sighted to be zeroed at 100 yards, thus when they shot at the closer targets they wouldn’t hit where they were aiming. I told them, for, now, to keep aiming dead center on the target and just watch where the bullets impact and strive for good groupings. I’m glad we had the talk before we went as it made it much easier to handle things on the range.

Daughter shot for a bit, then I shot for a bit. I was pretty happy with my shooting, with some pretty tight groups. I did have some fliers and I know it’s because I am not used to that heavy single-stage trigger. I know the trigger also was giving Daughter some troubles, and I think that convinced her to dry fire the rifle at home to work on it. Between the cold air, the steady cold breeze, and the heavy trigger, I know it was giving Daughter troubles in breaking the shot. She had no trouble getting on paper and putting the bullet basically where she wanted, but doing it in a timely manner was rough. It’s just going to take practice with the rifle, but I think she’ll be fine. Next time we go out I’ll try “walking” the target rails on the “E” range (it’s a silhouette range), starting at 40 meters, then 50, then 75, then 100 and see how they do. I am pretty sure that as long as they can keep things steady, they’ll do fine out to 100 yards/meters.

Daughter didn’t get as much trigger time as she wanted — she was just too cold. So we packed it up and she sat in the car while I worked with my XD-9 a bit. No targets, just shooting into the berm. I’ve been re-reading the Brian Enos book and I wanted to do some stuff with grip, relaxation, and “floating the gun.” I picked up some good feedback and some points to ponder. I’d like to try running a lot of Bill Drills at this point and see how I do, as that’d give me a lot more tangible feedback. The cool thing was how much I stopped thinking about everything else and just let my eyes “drive the gun,” as Enos puts it. It really does make a big difference. As well, while I see lots of merit to the Todd Jarrett “grip 20% tighter kung fu action grip”, there’s also Enos’ take of being more relaxed and just letting the gun do its thing. You can’t be limp wristed, but yes I find the gun works a lot better when I have a “medium” grip and just let the gun do what it does. There’s a balance to find. More things for me to play with later.

A good morning. Not just because I got to go shooting, but because I got to spend time with Daughter. That’s the best part.

Updated: I forgot. Daughter got to learn some things about ammo. We were shooting Georgia Arms Canned Heat. Daughter pressed trigger, it went “pop” not “bang”. She looked up, puzzled. Her first misfire. I took care of it. I pulled back the charging handle and when the case ejected I noticed a lot of powder still in the case. Ugh. Good thing I had a cleaning rod with me. Bullet was only lodged an inch or two into the barrel, but I explained how this could be a bad thing. When I examined the case I immediately saw the problem… and I showed it to Daughter and asked her if she saw it (I didn’t say what it was), and she saw it. The primer wasn’t fully seated.

I’ve generally had good luck with Georgia Arms stuff so I’m not really holding this against them. But these things can happen. Glad Daughter got to experience and learn about them.

Back in the saddle, but needing a 15-gallon hat

/ hsoi

Over the past month-plus I’ve not been able to regularly attend my martial arts classes. 😦  Be it being injured, sick, work, life, something has just prevented me from attending classes. Things are normalizing and I’m finally able to get back into the swing of it. Damn it feels good.

One thing I’ve been working on lately is my kicking. No, I’m not abandoning all the kicking skills from Kuk Sool, but I’m really trying to learn Muay Thai roundhouse kicks. It’s just different. Whereas a Kuk Sool roundhouse would be more of a “flick” of the lower leg from a chambered position, the Muay Thai kick is quite different and far more devastating. At this point I have a basic understanding of the mechanics, so I no longer feel clueless… just inept. 🙂  But that’s what practice is for.

What I’m learning now I so appreciate more. It’s far more alive. It’s far more useful for real empty-hand fighting.

What I need to do is find a helmet. I’ve got rather a large hat size and it’s been difficult to find a helmet that provides enough protection for free sparring. I haven’t started total free-sparring at the school yet because 1. I wanted to get a little more comfortable with the place and what’s being taught. I’m now at that point where I feel comfortable enough to go, so 2. I’m lacking equipment. It’s just been tough to find something that fits my fat head.

Key thing is that it fits, is comfortable, and provides protection. Wife has a hard enough time when I come home all bruised up all over my body. She doesn’t want to see my face getting all banged up (broken noses and cauliflower ears are not acceptable). The school obtained a ProForce Headguard with Face Cage, which would please the wife, but even the XL size was a bit tight and just didn’t fit right.

Equipment suggestions are welcome.

These Dreams

/ hsoi

I wake up this morning from a dream. I figure dreams, at least in part, are your brain sorting through all the things flying through your head recently.

A dream where I’m in an airport. I have no idea where an airport came from.

I recall having a set of Makita power tools with me. I figure that’s from a discussion I had yesterday with someone about buying a new drill. But talk about a strange carry-on. I even wondered to myself how airport security would let someone take a cordless drill and a circular saw through airport security… but of course, not a 4 ounce bottle of water.

Who else is in the airport? Ted Nugent. I can guess why I’m dreaming about that.

And I go over to talk with Uncle Ted. I cannot remember what it was about exactly, but I remember trying to show him the picture on my iPhone of my first buck but not being able to because that’s about when I woke up.

I’ve got hunting on the brain.

I look at various animals now and while I admire the creature in and of itself, the immediate second thought is “gosh, look at the size of those hams… .can you imagine how big that backstrap would be? mmmmmmm.”

I think I’m hooked.

The amusing part? I believe Daughter is hooked too. She’ll sit and watch hunting shows on TV with me and comment about this buck or that antelope and just love it. I do hope to get her to the rifle club this week.

Mounted

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The rack from my first whitetail buck.

You know, that iPhone camera is OK, but it needs a LOT of natural light to get decent pictures. The above is from my iPhone 3GS, “enhanced” in iPhoto. Good enough to show things, but just not an overall stellar picture. Oh well.

The mounting kit.

The story of the buck.

Second Opinions Are Good

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Previously I wrote about a hunting AR.

Excitement got the best of me (and my wallet) and I went ahead and ordered a Burris Fullfield II 3x-9x-40mm rifle scope, the Burris AR-P.E.P.R. Mount, and a few other little things to go along with it (e.g. covers). Not so much that I want to modify the rifle, but more that the sooner I get this set up the sooner I can get my kids shooting with it. The sooner they can start shooting, the sooner they can practice, the more the practice the better they get, and eventually I can take them hunting. In the end, it’s all for the kids (but I get to play with new toys too).

I took it to the local indoor range this morning to sight it in. I started off having them do a bore sight. Note that the P.E.P.R. mount is 1″ to the bottom of the rings, 1.5″ to the middle of the scope. That’s rather high up over the barrel. You can see in the picture that I probably don’t need to be that high, probably could go with something like Burris XTR medium rings and drop about 0.5″. But this is fine. Trouble was, the guy doing the bore sighting couldn’t get it to work. He used this little deal they stick into the muzzle then when you look through the scope you’ll see a grid and line up on the grid. He had to put in a spacer to put it a little higher due to my higher mount, and I can’t help but wonder if that didn’t line things up right. Reason I wonder is because he cranked the adjustment knobs on the scope about as far as they’d go and couldn’t get things lined up. Not good.

It’s always possible the scope shipped broken from the factory… things like that can happen. While sitting there at the range/store they tried to talk me into buying a Leupold scope, but they were all $300+ and I’ve already spent more money than I should have lately so I wasn’t looking forward to that. I know this scope and mount setup should work, so if I just had to exchange the unit I’d rather do that…. but having bought from MidwayUSA any returns/exchanges would cost me money in shipping so I wasn’t looking forward to that either. I opted to put the rifle back in the case and look into it more when I got home. Spent my time checking out my handgun reloads, then went home.

The Second Opinion

I called Burris and spoke with a product support person. We checked out what we could on the phone and by all signs the scope was fine. I reset the dials to a midpoint, then called my local Academy sporting goods store. I seem to recall they did bore sights for free. So I figured to get a second opinion, it’d just cost me a little time. I figured if results came out the same as from the range, then the scope was likely FUBAR and back it would go. If the results didn’t come out the same then great.

The Academy had a similar muzzle-based bore-sighting setup, but no way to raise it up for my higher mount. So the guy pulled out a laser sighter, one that is shaped like a round that goes into the chamber, shines the laser down the bore, and off you go. We were only able to back up to about 18 yards, but that’s good enough. Sure enough, as soon as we turned on the laser, it wasn’t too far off on adjustment. Got it dialed in close enough, then I went back to the local indoor range. Saw the same guys there and told them I got a second opinion and smiled.

Went into the range, started at 25 yards and was on paper. Adjustments here and there, dialed in good. Went back to 50 yards and tweaked it, then back to 100 yards to get it properly dialed in. At this point the rifle is shooting well enough given the fact I’m using Georgia Arms Canned Heat, the heavy (crappy?) Bushmaster trigger, and whatever limits there are in my skills. Frankly the biggest thing I was longing for was a better trigger. But overall things are fine.

It was good to get a second opinion. I doubted that the scope was busted and doubted a problem with the setup as it’s common enough. Sure it cost me a little time, but no big deal in the end.

Next up… taking the kiddos to the range to get them comfortable shooting this setup! 🙂

Ugh

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Two days ago I get the call from the processor: my venison is ready to be picked up.

Crap.

I forgot I need to buy a chest freezer! What with Thanksgiving and family visiting, it slipped my mind. Big thing to slip my mind, I know. I had pretty much settled on something, called the store, they had a floor model I could look at but none actually in stock (too big to keep many on hand). But salesguy said they could have one delivered by Friday. That works. I seal the deal. I call the processor back and explain the situation. It’s a tough call because they need the freezer space so it’s not encouraged for me to keep things around their, but I also have no where to put it. But Friday or Saturday at the latest? No problem.

Today the delivery place calls. Apparently the freezers are out of stock, back ordered, earliest delivery is Tuesday. Uh…. OK, then how come they said there was one in stock… oh whatever, never mind, I’m talking with drones and they can’t solve the problem. So what can I do? Reschedule delivery for Tuesday. Call processor, explain the situation, but the guy that does the game processing is out sick. I hope I can keep a hold of my stuff… maybe pay a late charge, but I can live with that. Plus I’m calling almost every day trying to stay on top of things so it’s not like I don’t care… I’m just stuck.

My only hope is Tuesday doesn’t roll around and they call back with more excuses.

And I was so looking forward to having venison steaks this weekend. *sigh*