Hot on the heels of the cat, we now have the hamster.
Me
Tesla – unplugged @ WGN
Tesla did a little “in the studio” spot on WGN. Click here to see it.
It’s Jeff, Frank, and Dave in the WGN studios promoting their upcoming show, the “Forever More” album, and their “Commin’ Atcha Live 2008” DVD.
There are 4 videos to watch, the longest of which has the boys singing “Fallin’ Apart” off the new album. A little clip of “Signs”, and some brief fillers (kinda cool they had “Breakin’ Free”).
I keep listening to “Forever More” and I just love the album. It’s so strong.
Damn cat
We have 4 cats. Two are old, two are young. This is about the older cats.
Quiet
Sorry for the lack of posting…
Mired in stuff at work. Working through creating a generic data-driven generic object model mini-framework to drive NSRuleEditor. Didn’t even get to the dojang today. 😦
Lots of child-based crises today. Not with our own children, but with neighbor and friend children. One side-effect of being at home all the time is we often get called upon to help out, babysit, or other such things. Comes with the territory. Someone asks you for help, you don’t say no.
Today’s also a milestone date with my wife. I love you.
So, just many other things going on… doesn’t leave much time for posting.
Notes from my workout
Went into the garage this morning and worked out with the heavy bag (Wavemaster XXL… I’d prefer a real hanging bag but don’t have the infrastructure to handle the abuse). Worked on various things. Some random notes:
- If you want to “get off the X”, you cannot open with a kick…. feet gotta be used for moving, not attacking.
- Continuing to work on “eyes level“. Eyes need to be in a middle ground between focused and uninvolved. Aware, I guess is about the best term I can come up with. Helps spin kicks and spin back/side kicks too. Even just turning for moving.
- Continuing to work on hand positioning. The more I work with this, the more I like it. I find more and more how it fits the combatives approach/road I’m going down.
- I want to hang a tennis ball (or something) from the garage ceiling to help work on bobbing, weaving, dodging.
I also finally circumscribed my bag. I’ve got an older Wavemaster XXL with logos and words running vertically up the length of the bag, so I knew about where the “S” was was about the level of the solar plexus, and other relative locations to body parts. Trouble was, if you weren’t facing that side of the bag, you could only guess. So I finally got a magic marker out and drew circles around the bag about where things are. I opted to draw lines at the level of the waist, solar plexus, nipples, and chin. This helps when looking for areas to target, with whatever you’re using.
Daughter stuff
Daughter has been growing her hair out for some time now, and today she finally got to get it cut.
All for Locks of Love.
It’s a bit shocking to see her go from long hair to rather short hair, but the stylist Wife goes to is very good and Daughter looks great. All is good.
So… now I get to take her to see The Hannah Montana Movie this afternoon. It’s good time with Daughter, but I just hope my ears don’t bleed. 😉
Update: I survived the movie. Truth be told, it’s not that bad. Not some great cinematic tour de force, but it was OK. Certainly there’s no need to see this movie unless there’s a Hannah Montana fan that needs her Hannah-fix. Plot was predictable and cookie cutter, but it served the purpose (i.e., making lots of money for Disney, including cross-promoting their latest teen-star du jour). No real character development, and honestly I was hoping for more laughs. I was annoyed at how some “new song” would be whipped out but somehow everyone else knew the song well enough to sing, harmonize, dance, play the instruments… but hey, gotta suspend reality, right?
I will say, while at first I didn’t get the whole Hannah Montana thing, now that it’s infiltrated our household I have to admit it’s not that bad. I actually do enjoy watching the show (Jason Earles is a funny guy). If Daughter is going to be listening to music, Hannah/Miley music isn’t all that bad. Sure it’s got typical “teenage girl chasing boys” type of songs, but that is a fact of life and believe me there’s far worse ways of presenting such topics. Off the new movie, the song “The Climb” has a pretty good message to it (cliché but acceptable). There are some other songs of hers that I’ve also felt had a pretty decent message too, but don’t ask me to name them because I don’t know them.
But for me, the bottom line is spending time with Daughter. Now we just need to go to the gun range together. 😀
Delicate infrastructure
I work for a company in California.
Right now we’re supposed to be having a lot of meetings using a mix of telephone and Internet for voice and video, screen sharing, all other sorts of technical goodies.
But it’s been odd. I haven’t seen anyone from the office online yet. No IM’s, no emails. Meeting is supposed to start but no one is around, nor is anyone calling me into the meeting. I pick up the telephone and start calling. Every line is busy. That’s odd. I call mobile phones, they all kick immediately into voice mail. That’s really odd. I tried a few people’s home phones (reach the spouse, ensure I have the right mobile number) and they were busy. Now things are just getting weird. Of course any attempts to connect via the Internet to the office (e.g. VPN) aren’t happening.
I called the company’s main office down in southern California. They confirm the other office seems to have no phone or Internet. This sometimes happens, so I think no big deal, but coupled with all the other inabilities to get through (e.g. mobile phones), I hit Google.
That’s basically the area where the office is located. So best I can say is this is the problem. So who knows how long we’ll be high and dry.
Think about the implications of this:
- An AT&T fiber line was cut. As a result, 50,000 land lines were down, mobile phones are down, Internet is down. This leaves a massive number of people without any means of communication to anything further than shouting distance.
- Report says that people may not be able to contact police. They are saying if you have an emergency to go to the nearest police station. Think about that. If you ever counted on the police coming to help you, how can they know to come help you if you can’t tell them to come help you…. again, unless they’re within shouting distance.
- If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you can probably figure out what I’m implying here.
- Of course, emergencies aren’t just police. What about medical emergencies? What if your house catches fire?
- How are hospitals coping?
- If everything can be brought to a screeching halt by severing one line, what does that say about infrastructure? Lack of redundancy?
- How much commerce is affected? Not just our company’s inability to do business, but think about simple credit card transactions. I doubt those can go through. No grocery shopping, no buying gasoline, no nothing. Heck, I’m sure ATM’s aren’t working. Got cash?
And there are many many other things that you can imply by the fact that one line was cut and all this goes down.
Technology is great, but how much do we depend upon it? And how fragile is it all?
Updated: Word I hear is that this is now being view as vandalism. That someone maliciously cut 5 fiber optic cables. It’s created all sorts of chaos, it demonstrates how reliant we are upon such technology, and it shows how fragile things can be.
Updated 2: Looks like the plot sickens. Interesting quote:
“We would never condone any kind of destruction like this,” [Communications Workers of America union] spokeswoman Libby Sayre said. “We didn’t do it this time. We would never do it.”
Emphasis mine. This time. Mmm.
Random thoughts from the gun range
I was able to make a quick trip to the local indoor gun range this morning to try out my new purchase. Nothing really cohesive here… just a bunch of thoughts from the trip.
First, the Buck Mark was so nice. I cleaned her before I went, to take off the manufacturing/shipping residues and ensure it was well-oiled. Daughter helped me. I do think she’s more into shooting than her brothers, which is great! She can’t wait to try out the Buck Mark. I just didn’t have time this morning (and I refuse to take my kids to the indoor range), so I’ll soon be making time to take her to the outdoor range as soon as I can. Meantime I told her we can do some dry practice with it at home so she can learn it.
At the range, it was nice. This is why I prefer going early on weekday mornings: I was the first and only person on the range. Shot benchrest so I could get the rear sight adjusted. Shot at 7 yards to get it on paper, then out to 15, then 25, then back to 7. Fine tuned along the way. Should be sighted in, but after squinting so hard for so long my eyes were getting upset with me and it’s so dark in there, so I may need to re-verify the sight-in later. I have a hard time shooting with both eyes open, but it’s something I work on and I’ll get there eventually.
The Buck Mark itself was quite nice. It balances very well (has a 5.5″ barrel). The grip is very comfortable, but either it’s a wee thick (nah) or the magazine release button is a little short (this)… I can’t quite get my thumb to drop the magazine. I’ll have to see if there’s an aftermarket replacement for the mag release that’s just a hair bigger, but it’s a minor nit. Trigger felt nice. The magazine is a little tricky to load but once you get the hang of it, not so bad. I did buy one of these HKS magazine speed loader things, tried it once, didn’t use it again. Not that there’s anything wrong with it (I’m sure it’ll make things a bit easier for my kids), but it’s just another gadget to lose or break or forget and doesn’t really offer me any sort of advantage… certainly didn’t help me load any faster.
All in all, I’m happy with it. I really want to shoot some steel with it… that’ll be fun!
As for other things at the range…
When I arrived there were a group of guys in the parking lot talking. I figured they had just finished up and were talking before leaving. But as I was finishing up I saw they had moved into the ready area and were coming in. So, I only put about 70 rounds total downrange and did feel I got her dialed in fine, but with them coming I opted to leave a little early (only thing remaining was to just shoot offhand for some fun). I have no idea what their gun handling skills were like, but seeing some of their targets at 3 yards with holes all about well… better safe than sorry.
When I was back in the store area waiting for a cashier, I observed other people. One guy was at the rental counter trying out different guns. He would hold the gun at his stomach to rack the slide, violating rule 1 in a few ways, the biggest of which was that “into your stomach” is not a safe direction for a muzzle. Another man was getting his gun worked on. Looked to be a Ruger Charger Pistol, looked like he was getting a bore sight. Bore sight completed, employee handed the gun back to the man, then I don’t know what he was doing but he then proceeded to aim at the ground (and his feet) and do something… with his finger on the trigger. I did my best to stand somewhere else.
The shop/range wasn’t all that busy this morning, but it was enough. I try to avoid this place for these reasons (amongst others), but there are some things it’s good for (e.g. sighting in). So, when I was leaving to go there this morning I had to explain to the kids why they couldn’t go and why I won’t take them. When I got home, I was able to give them specific examples as to why I won’t take them there.
On the drive home, I thought more about the Ruger Charger. Oldest likes it because of how it looks. He really wants one. I tell him it’s just the same as the Ruger 10/22 rifle we already have (it’s the same action), just different stock/grip and shorter barrel. So that’s why I haven’t been interested in getting one as I haven’t seen the point. However as I thought about it, I think I do see a point. Sometimes I don’t like shooting the 10/22 because I want to shoot a handgun, not a rifle. Then when you consider the Ruger 10/22 is the most popular rimfire rifle in the world and has a big aftermarket, what that means is with the Charger you can have a .22 pistol with a massive aftermarket, so you can really customize and tune it just like you like it. That’s actually a pretty good thing. So no, the Charger isn’t on my “to buy” list, but now at least I’ll consider it.
Speak up or stay quiet?
While out buying the Buck Mark, I actually did visit a couple stores. I knew where I would buy, but I also knew they wouldn’t have some other things so make a round to a couple stores and pick up the bits and pieces as I go along.
So there I am. At the store, and it didn’t matter which store… the experiences were essentially the same. Looking through the case cases, or waiting my turn, or just walking the aisle. I hear people talking. Unfortunately most of what I hear isn’t good. I hear less than ideal advice, I hear incorrect suggestions, I hear well-intentioned but wrong direction. Much of it coming from the sales guys. I cringe, but I keep my mouth shut.
Then I’m at the counter. I ask to see a gun. Guy pulls a gun out of the case, doesn’t check it to ensure it’s unloaded. I lost count of how many times the sales guy covered me with the muzzle (I’d side step and take other measures to avoid the muzzle). I grant they take solace in their company policy that the guns in the glass cases should be unloaded, but that’s still no excuse to violate rule #1 (be it Jeff Cooper’s rule 1 or NRA’s rule 1). I say nothing, just keep my awareness up.
On my drive home, I think about the things I heard, the things I experienced. I think to myself, should I have said something? When a sales guy is giving bad advice to someone, or one customer says something to another that’s wrong… should I speak up? I feel I shouldn’t because it’s not my conversation, I shouldn’t be eavesdropping (I’m not trying to listen, but you just can’t help but hear their conversations). They didn’t ask my opinion, why would they want to hear mine, and who am I in their eyes that they should care and heed what I have to say? Then with safety violations, should I ask the sales person not to cover me? Would it matter, because if they’re violating the rules, how is chastising/correcting them going to improve anything? Should I tell the manager? Would that matter because if he tolerates the behavior now, what would my complaint change? Furthermore, there’s only so many gun stores in town and I don’t feel like becoming known as “that guy” and having a difficult time getting good service.
I want to say something because it’s hard for me to watch such things going on around me. But social graces and a rationalized feeling of “it’s not going to improve anything” keep me quiet.
Should I bother?
New addition to the fold
Just got back from purchasing a Browning Buck Mark.
I’ve been wanting to buy a .22 semi-automatic pistol for various reasons, biggest of which is teaching. A firearm chambered in .22 LR is a great way to introduce people to shooting because it has almost no recoil, is fairly quiet, and is easy for almost anyone to operate. It’s a great way to start off. Of course, it’s great to stick with as well… it’s a lot of fun to shoot with one of these! I’ve been hum-hawing around, trying to figure out what to buy and finally settled on the Buck Mark.
You may notice I don’t have just a plain old Buck Mark… no… it’s got color accents! I know, this makes me less tacti-cool, but my daughter likes it so that’s good enough for me. 🙂 The reason I purchased this particular model? I called around to various stores to see if they had any Buck Marks in stock and if so what models. Of all the places I called, this was the only model in stock that did not have grips with finger grooves. Since this will be a trainer gun used by people with all sorts of hand sizes, finger grooves were not desired. Furthermore, this was the 2nd to least expensive of all the ones in stock (the least expensive was only $10 less but had finger grooves). Sure I could have bought another model, but why? I’d spend more money for the gun, then have to spend even more money to replace the grips. While the next model up did have a fiber optic front sight (which I would have liked), it was $50 more, and that’s almost the cost of 2 extra magazines (which I obtained as well). Besides, I kinda like the coloring. It’s a fun accent.
Just need to give it an initial cleaning, then gotta get some time to get to the range.
Updated: Can you dry fire a Buck Mark? I’ve been Googling and finding conflicting information regarding this, so I thought I’d call Browning and ask.
No, they do not recommend dry firing a Buck Mark, at least without something like a snap cap in place.
While I know that, in general, you shouldn’t dry fire a rimfire gun (on an empty chamber), there are some where this is OK (e.g. my Ruger 10/22, the manual explicitly says it’s OK to dry fire). So I wanted to know for sure one way or the other, gave Browning a call, and there we go. Don’t do it. 🙂
Stuff From Hsoi 