Me

Tourist in my own town

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

My Dad and his wife are in town visiting for a few days.

Dad is always on the go. For someone his age he’s so go-go-go that he tires out me, Wife, and Kiddos. 🙂  But it’s good to see him and it also forces us, every time he comes to visit, to think of new things to go see and do. Thus we finally get to do some of those things that you never do unless someone visits.

For instance, lived in this town how many years? And it wasn’t until some months ago at my buddy W’s wedding rehearsal dinner at Shoreline Grill that I got to see the famous Congress Street Bridge bats. My kids have never seen the bats, tho they do get to see some bats here and there because a few must live in our neighborhood as we see some bats flying at evening twilight from time to time. So one plan we made was to go see the bats.

One reason I wanted to post about this was to get more information about the bats out there. A big reason why I hadn’t taken the kids to see the bats was because I couldn’t figure out some of the logistical details like: when do they come out? (about sunset) where can you watch them? (anywhere around the bridge but…) where can you park? (parking lot of the Austin-American Statesman, which then has a little hill at the south-east corner of the bridge where you can sit and watch them, all for free). Just little logistical details like that. I’d search around and not be able to find anything like this. Oh sure I’d find lots that talked about the bats, just not covering logistical details. The best thing I finally discovered was the “bat hotline” at 512-416-5700 x3636. It’s a recording that tells what’s going on with the bats, some information about them, and about what time the bats are flying.

While we were not in peak season (it’s usually during warmer months that there is peak flight), certainly 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats still need to eat! We had lunch at Freebirds World Burrito, played 36 holes of golf at Peter Pan Mini-Golf (I finished both courses, each scoring 50, with a couple holes-in-one, and coming in 1st place; my Dad came in 2nd place; Daughter did pretty well too), then it was about 5:00 PM and with sun setting within the hour we opted to head over to the Austin-American Statesman’s building off the south-east corner of the Congress Ave (now Ann Richards) Bridge. Parking was no problem. A little walk down the hike-and-bike trail and we found the little grassy hill right by the bridge. Lots of other people were there, all waiting for the bats. You could hear them all “chirping” under the bridge. It was pretty cool. I kept remarking how I just spent 3 days waiting on animals to appear, I was getting kinda tired of that. 😉  Eventually a few bats started to appear, zipping right overhead. Then, the stream started. From where we were we could just see an endless stream of bats coming out from under the bridge. I do mean endless. It was wild to watch.

One tip I gave my kids was there were 2 ways you could watch. One, just hold your eyes still, and you’ll watch all the bats zooming by in a blur. Two, move your eyes with the bats and while you may only “see them” for a second or two, the complementary motion of bat and eyeball in the same direction will make the bat look “slower” and thus you’ll get a clearer picture of the bat and not just a blur going by. When I told this to the Kids they all appreciated it, especially Youngest because now he felt like he could really see the bats better. Tip for you parents.

After a while well… that was enough. We headed back to the car and over to Threadgill’s World Headquarters for some dinner.

Good times.

Off to the procesor

/ hsoi / 11 Comments

Just dropped off both of my deer at Johnny G’s. Totaled 100 lbs. of raw meat (and bone), consisting of 4 shoulders, 4 hams, 4 backstraps, and various other bits. Not a bad take I would say. Going to get the backstraps whole but cleaned up, the tenders whole but cleaned up, the doe hams will be steaked, the buck hams will be made into roasts, and everything else ground. The ground is going to be pure deer grind, no mixing with beef or pork or any extra fat as Wife wants to have it pure so she can mix and match it as she pleases. Johnny G’s will let it age a few days but who knows… with Thanksgiving they may not even start on it until Friday. I’ve been reading that aging venison at least a few days is good. Can’t wait!

Thing is, we need a freezer now. We bought a new fridge almost 2 years ago and moved the old fridge into the garage. Both are fairly full, especially in the freezer (what still with all the pork from my prior hog hunts). For some years Wife and I have talked about buying a whole calf or a side of beef, but we never pulled the trigger on the idea. The past couple months we’ve been doing some serious talk about it and have found a few places we might buy from (and keep finding more). Now with all this venison coming, push has come to shove and it’s time for the freezer to be bought. Hopefully we can buy one this weekend and there will be all sorts of sales going on. We’ll start filling it with the deer, then finish it off with some beef.

Meat good. 🙂

Oh yes. Need to finally buy a vacuum sealer too.

My First Deer

/ hsoi / 16 Comments

I got my first deer. In fact, I got two deer!

But the way I went about it was not what I expected.

As Mick Jagger once sang, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need.” That certainly summed up the past week of my life.

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Success!

/ hsoi

Yes!

After 3 days… success!

I know. Posting has been light… I’ve been otherwise occupied, but it’s been all good.

So what was it I was doing? I’ll write as soon as I have time. Need to tend to some stuff because family is coming to visit all week for the Thanksgiving holiday. Consequently, posting will be light all week.

I will post details soon. I promise.

How do you people do it?

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I am a Mac user. In fact, I don’t just use Macs but I write software for Macs as my chosen profession. I’ve been writing Mac software for over 17 years. The first computer I owned (well, parents owned it… first computer in my household that I had regular access to) was an Apple //e. I’ve been working with computers for over 30 years, and for the most part yes it’s been Apple-based. Sure I’ve used other computers and computing systems, but Apple computers and Macs are my mainstay.

Why do I prefer Macs? Because they are elegant, beautiful, “they just work”, there’s a familiarness in their use and design. Like any good tool, the tool should enable and enhance your ability to get work done and should not get in your way. This is the Mac User Experience. Granted, it’s not always perfect. Apple themselves have changed and refined the OS over the years, with some stumbles but some great strides too. Certainly you encounter 3rd party software that can be wonderful to use, and some that can be amazingly painful to use. Usually I’ve found the painful stuff is written by people who think they’re just writing software and don’t fully grok the notion of “user experience” and what that means and why it matters.

That’s why I write today.

I’ve been temporarily reassigned to another project within the company I work for. This particular piece of software exists on both Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. For the most part, that it exists on Windows matters not to me. However, I was just given a couple bugs (I didn’t write them, but I get to fix them) to investigate that necessitate the use of Windows.

I haven’t had to run or really touch a Windows box in over 10 years. Oh sure from time to time I have, at a friend or relative’s house, but in general I just have no reason or need for it. Thankfully the company has copies of VMware Fusion and some pre-made “virtual disks” with Windows XP already installed. A few hours of file transfers later (the VPN is slow) and I was up and running with Windows on my MacBook Pro.

That’s where the pain started.

How in the world can you people use Windows? 🙂

Apparently the XP installs were fresh installs, so upon first login I get bombarded with questions. Little balloons popping up everywhere trying to be helpful but only serving to overwhelm me with a desire to put my fist through the screen. You close one and another one immediately pops up, again, and again, and again, and a-fucking-gain. Oh hey it noticed some sort of hardware, tho I don’t know what, and it’s trying to help me cope with it but doesn’t tell me what it wants to cope with. And the stream of dialogs and “helpful” things just keep coming like and endless parade.

MY GOD WILL YOU SHUT UP AND STOP TRYING TO BE SO FUCKING HELPFUL!

The thing is, I’m a computer savvy person so I understand a lot of what’s going on and why. But I step back and try to look at this experience from the angle of someone like my mother, and I just cringe. No wonder she has to take her computer into the shop so often. No wonder she spends so much time on the phone with tech support. What a nightmare! And all I’ve done so far is log into the machine!

Yes, I’ve been away from Windows that long. I wish it could have been longer.

The I run some installers and wow, talk about more unfriendly and bizarre designs. I know some of this is merely because it’s the devil I don’t know… because it’s “not Mac”. Ultimately however it’s not that. It’s about poor user interface and user experience considerations and design. Granted it is not easy to do, to make something so complex, so technical, into something that just anyone can use. But I do like to think Apple’s done a pretty fair job with that.

I just cannot see how people can use Windows and enjoy it. Most people have to use it because work requires it of them, and then they use it at home because it’s the devil they know. As well, I know most people just aren’t into computers as much as I am so it’s not something they think much about. Or the old stigma’s remain about Macs that keep them away. It’s all about inertia.

I have to use Windows for a little while to deal with this bug. Thankfully it’s only for a little while. 🙂

If you want to learn more about interface and user experience design, check out stuff from Bruce Tognazzini and Jef Raskin. In fact, here’s a great little article by Jef on Tog’s website, about “intuitive”.

Frustration

/ hsoi

All weekend all I thought about was reloading.

I think the appeal is that there’s a lot of science, but there’s also art and craft to it. There’s satisfaction in working with your hands, and when you go and shoot the loads being able to say “I did that”. It’s neat.

While I certainly was thinking about the 9mm experiments, more so I was thinking about reloads for .38 Special. I spent a good bit of time pouring through books and reload data online trying to find something that would work. There’s the fact .38 Special cases have a lot of volume so you want powder that can fill that volume and ignite well and completely without creating too much pressure. I would figure I would want a faster burning powder since these loads would be shot out of a snub revolver. Plus the bullets I picked up were 158 grain jacketed round nose, and trying to find load data with such a bullet is impossible. I just don’t know enough yet about how to adapt existing recipes to cope. For instance, I can find recipes that are almost the same but would use a Hornady XTP bullet, which is a hollow point, thus the overall length of the cartridge wouldn’t measure the same. So how to adjust? I was told the rule of thumb for when in doubt is to go longer, so I’d likely do that. Plus when data tends to be for lead cast vs. copper jacketed bullets you might need to add 0.1 or 0.2 grains of powder to help overcome the friction of the jacket.

I just don’t want to risk anything. 🙂

So all sorts of things swirling in my head. Emails will be sent out to some experienced folk to ask for their input.

Crazy thing is, if I had a choice as to what to do today? I’d rather be in the garage cranking out some reloads. 🙂

My First Reloads

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

I finally reloaded (on my own) my first ammo!

I say on my own because truly the first reloads I did were when Karl was teaching me. But today I reloaded my first rounds on my own equipment. Insert a little James Brown “I Feel Good” right here. 🙂

Until now all I’ve been doing on my reloading equipment is resizing and decapping 9mm brass. I figure since all I have is a single-stage press I might as well do some things in bulk, so I’ve been going through all my 9mm brass. I haven’t finished because I’ve got a lot of brass, but the kids seem to enjoy helping with that effort so it’s all good. But I was getting tired of just resizing and decapping, I wanted to produce something. So a goal for this weekend was to produce something and shoot it.

Powder Throw

First I needed some way to mount the powder throw. I don’t know how exodus set up the throw for himself, but I didn’t want to mount the throw on the bench as I wasn’t sure how my workflow would go. Plus I know I’m going to buy a progressive press and that must be mounted to the bench so I wanted to avoid bench-mounted clutter. I had some plywood lying around the garage and opted to fashion a small base onto which I could mount the throw. That way I could have a stable mount and I could relocate the powder throw anywhere I needed to.

It’s nothing sexy, but it works. I did that last night, so I could do the actual reloading today.

The Reloading

I decided to only reload 20 rounds of 9mm Luger. Twenty rounds would give me something substantial to work with, but not too many in case of a problem that I couldn’t undo things. Plus I don’t see any reason to reload en masse until the recipe is known good. I used the RCBS’s press to bell and prime (instead of the hand-priming tool). Learning the feel for the priming wasn’t bad… just use firm but gentle pressure and listen to the tactile feedback you get. I do think I belled the cases a little too much, but no big deal… I’ll fine tune that next time.

I looked up the recipe in my reloading manual, weighed the powder and really took my time to weigh, re-weigh, and triple-check that everything was coming out right. Then I seated the bullet and gave it a taper crimp. Lots of using the calipers to ensure dimensions were where they should be. Eventually I had 20 rounds of 9mm Luger.

Here’s my recipe:

Bullet: 115 grain Berry’s TMJ RN

Powder: 6.3 grains Alliant Power Pistol

Primer: Winchester WSP standard small pistol

Cases: used Speer brass

C.O.L.: 1.135″

This was based upon what was listed in my Speer reloading manual.

Trying It Out

I figured if there was any gun I wouldn’t cry that much over if it went kaboom, it’d be my Springfield XD-9 subcompact (3″ barrel). Note that my goal is not to have some awesome load, it’s merely to have a load that functions in the gun, goes bang, no malfunctions. Just work.

Went over to the local indoor range, and as expected since it’s a Saturday, lots of people were on the range that I had no desire to be around. So my goal was to get in, shoot, leave. Sure I paid for an hour of range time and only used 10 minutes, but I’m OK with that.

I started by shooting some of the reloads I did at Karl’s. Worked fine in the gun. Then I loaded up one of my reloads. Worked fine. WHOO-HOO!! Eventually I shot through all 19 of my rounds. Yes, only 19. Before I left the house I ran all 20 rounds through the XD-9 SC just to see how they would feed. After I ran the rounds I remeasured the C.O.L. and one round had significant setback. I don’t know why, but I opted to pull that bullet and reuse that case at another time.

While shooting, I noticed significant muzzle flash; I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much muzzle flash in my life. I don’t know if that’s due to the powder or due to the 3″ barrel or due to something else or some combination of things. Something for me to jot in my notebook. But again, today was not to find some awesome load, just to load.

After shooting my reloads I shot another 10 of the ones I did at Karl’s, then packed up and left.

Success!

I’m pleased with how things went. Nothing blew up, everything functioned. Since the main pistol powder I have is the Power Pistol, I am going to play around with it some more. For instance, reload the same recipe then try it out of my XD-9 Tactical with the 5″ barrel and see how muzzle flash is. Then just continue to tinker with the load from there. (6.7 grains is the max, according to the book). I also have some TiteGroup, which according to this chart burn faster than the Power Pistol. I may play with that too to see how it compares in the 3″ barrel. Hrm. Maybe my next effort will be to load 20 rounds with the Power Pistol, 20 rounds with the TiteGroup, then take all 40 rounds with both my 3″ and 5″ XD and see how things compare.

It’s also sorely evident that if I really want to reload, I must get a progressive press. Certainly I’ll keep the single stage press for things I want the utmost precision on, like making hunting loads. But for bulk practice handgun ammo, a progressive press will be my friend. I am pretty much settled on the Hornady Lock-N-Load AP. Somehow I doubt Santa will bring me one, but I can dream. 😉  Getting a chronograph is probably also a good thing, eventually.

Goal accomplished. Good day.

Errand Day

/ hsoi

Got lots of errands to do today.

One thing on my list is loading up 20 rounds of 9mm on my reloading equipment. I cobbled together a base for a powder throw (pics later), so I should finally be able to do a full set of reloading on my own equipment.

More later.