Me

Little things

/ hsoi

I can’t remember where exactly I read this (and my Google-Fu is weak tonight), but I’m pretty sure it was either in Suzi’s blog or Ron’s blog. S or R was talking about little things and how wonderful they were. That time together didn’t have to mean going out on some extravagant date. One was saying how the other needed to go down to the corner store to put gas in the car and asked to go with. Sure it wasn’t an extravagant date, but it was time together. 

I shared that with The Wife and since then we’ve been doing little things like that. Walk down to the mailbox with each other. Walk around the block. Run a quick errand. Whatever works. We’re even doing it with the kids, Oldest, Middle, and Youngest. I need to run to the store, go with me. I need to fix the sink, come watch. You’re reading your book? I’m reading my book. Come sit next to me and let’s read together.

Sometimes lots of little things adds up to more than just a few large things, y’know?

Sugar, sweet sweet sugar

/ hsoi

The wife and kids went grocery shopping. They come home, I go downstairs to see what goodies have been brought.

Seems the kids talked my wife into buying Kool-Aid and mini marshmallows.

How do I know this?

I see the children… mixing a purple powder in a glass… then adding marshmallows on top of it.

So… we have sugar drink topped with fluffy sugar pellets.

I think it’s time for the kids to go outside and run a few hundred laps around the house, eh?

One of those happy moments

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Here I am. Sitting at my computer working (or pretending to). One of our cats, the “weird one”, opts to seek me out. Jumps up in my lap, spends a few minutes getting her head scratched. Then she opts to park it in my lap and take a nap. Purring away. Happy. Content. This is rare behavior from her… she’s not a lap cat.

But it’s welcome, both by her and by me. The wife and kids are out of the house, so it’s just me and the cats. It’s a nice, warm, peaceful moment.

I’m fortunate to work from home.

Use it or lose it

/ hsoi

I find our bodies to be amazing things. They naturally strive for preservation and efficiency.  You exercise and work hard for a long time to make physical gains, then you lay off for just a short while and all that work disappears. Our bodies strive to maintain just the level it needs, which is great, but frustrating when it takes so much time to gain and so little time to lose.

One area I see this is my legs, not just in strength but in endurance. In Kuk Sool we strive for low stances. This can look very nice when performing forms (especially on taller and thus longer legged and torsoed people), but moreso it’s a matter of training legs for strength and endurance. You don’t really fight in a low stance, but it’s a lot easier to duck via bending your knees when your legs are strong enough to allow you to do this.

I think what motivates me more than fighting, self-defense, or any sort of martial activity is growing older. I see people much older than me and even people my age, that just can’t get around. Getting off the couch is an effort. Picking something up off the floor is a strain, and they bend from their back then complain of back problems when they right themselves. They haven’t used their body, so they’ve lost it. I don’t want to be this way as I grow older. So, I do my best to just use my body fully in my daily life. If I need to pick something off the floor, I bend at the knees, either squatting or quasi-lunging to do so, but either way using the full range and ability of my body. If I need to stay down for a long time (e.g. scooping out the cat litter box), then I assume some sort of low horse stance while I do so… again, not being bent over at the back and feeling the lumbar pain as I’m down working for so long. Lifting a heavy object? Use the legs, baby. Things like this. Just ensuring that whatever I do in my daily life I do fully (other implications implied).

Doing such things in everyday life won’t turn my legs into something Tom Platz will fear, but it helps to keep my legs and body usable. As I said, the body likes to maintain just the level it needs, so my hope is if I continue to use my body every day at the level I wish to have when I’m 70 years old, hopefully when I get there I’ll still have it.

Easing them into life

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

My friend Ron stopped feeding one of his sons today.

I think it’s a great idea.

I hadn’t thought about doing this specific thing, but I’m going to add it to my agenda for my own kids. I have been allowing Oldest to make more of his own choices mistakes, which is good. He’s got enough knowledge and experience in his head to be given some free reign and jurisdiction over himself. We still guide him and sometimes we have to make the decision for him, but in the end the consequences (good and bad) are his to receive, and any mistakes are his to deal with.

I have felt that when 16 years old comes around, we won’t buy any of the kids a car. If they want a car, they pay for it. I might go in half with them, we’ll have to see how prices are. But things like gas, insurance, money for whatever fun they want to have… they have to get that on their own. Basically, if you want things in life, you gotta work for it and earn it. It’s how life is (or at least, is supposed to be), so get used to it.

Also once they can start to drive I want them to take at least one class at the local community college to get used to how they are. Again, easing them into the real world.

Anyway, thanx for the idea Ron. Good one.

A simple pleasure

/ hsoi

One thing I love about being home so much (side-benefit of the work-at-home situation) is my wife’s cooking.

Not just eating it and eating it 2-3 times a day, but smelling it.

I’ll be sequestered in my office. I’ll be deeply buried in code or debugging or some other software development joy. Then it hits me. Some smell… it has crept its way through the house. It might be the smell of garlic and onions sautéing. It might be bread baking. It might be the wonderful smell of bacon frying. Whatever it is, it’s always a wonderful smell. It’s always a pleasant surprise when it hits. Sometimes I’ll head down to the kitchen to see what’s cooking, other times I’ll just savor the aromas from afar and wait to see what else floats my way so I can try to figure out what she’s up to. 

The printer is in my office. I’ll hear it kick in without my initiation, so I know it’s Mrs. Hsoi printing out a recipe she found. I do my best to avoid looking at the printout. I don’t want to know. I don’t want the surprise to be ruined. Let her cook. Let the clues waft my way. The simple please of deciphering the magic she’s performing in the kitchen.

I am a fortunate man. 🙂

Updated: You know how I know my wife reads my blog? I post this. I go get in the shower. I come out of the shower and smell… bacon. Sweet sweet thick cut smoky fatty bacon. She received the above subtle hint.

My wife is awesome.

Apparently I’m doing ok

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Was out all day today, thus the lack of blog entries.

One thing I did today was “beta test” some handgun drills/tests. For an idea of what I’m talking about, check here (and the PDF files linked to on that page); those aren’t what I shot today, but it gives you an idea. It’s handgun shooting drills, timed, to assess knowledge and skills.

I have to admit, when I was told I was going to be beta testing the drills I got nervous. I was going to be watched, judged, my performance evaluated. *gulp*  Furthermore, I would be shooting with two other gentlemen whose experience and skills are far more vast than mine, so I was just hit with this feeling of pressure and nerves. But a few seconds after that all washed over me I said to myself: “Don’t worry about it. This isn’t a contest. This isn’t to compare you against them or anyone but yourself. Just shoot the best that you can shoot. Take your time and get hits. Be accurate. Don’t rush and try to shoot fast, even if the other guys can and do shoot faster than you, else you will mess up and shoot poorly. So, just stop being anxious and just shoot your best.”  Just had to let the wave of nerves and apprehension wash over me, then be washed off me. 🙂

We went out to shoot. I kept my mind calm and didn’t worry about anything. I’d shoot however I’d shoot, and as long as I didn’t work myself up I’d shoot fine. Just focus on that front sight, good trigger press, and that’s all you can do.

We shot the tests. If I remember correctly, I scored a 97%. Was I surprised? A little. I didn’t think I’d shoot that well. What surprised me was that I held my own with the other guys. Not that this was a competition or a need of an ego stroke, but that I’m my own worst critic. I will be hard on myself in assessing my skills, abilities, and knowledge in anything. These guys have always told me I shoot well, and while I never thought they were blowing smoke up my skirt, I didn’t think I was good enough. They might say “You shot that well”, but I knew what mistakes I made, I knew I could do better. But now to see me shoot and hold my own with these guys, it did show me my skills aren’t as bad as I think they are. These guys gave me a neutral measuring stick, so to speak, that I could measure myself against instead of just always telling myself “no not good enough”.  Note: I do believe these gentlemen could still outshoot me in competition, don’t get me wrong. 

I also know that I did shoot well on my own accord. I just kept to the fundamentals, e.g. “cleardistinctfrontsight-press-cleardistinctfrontsight”. I did NOT look at the target at all while shooting (it’s a habit I’m working to break); I kept my eyes focused on that front sight. Good trigger presses. Stayed relaxed and calm, focused on nothing but myself and my shooting. I was aware of all of this as I was going through the drills, and that made me most pleased. I was especially pleased in that I did not care about how I was performing. All too often I get caught up in how I’m performing and that causes me to screw up the performance. I just shot and didn’t care what happened, at least until well after the shot was over. So that’s what surprised and pleased me most. It was me performing as I should perform, and it paid off. So I was happy. It wasn’t an ego stroke, but it was certainly a good gain of confidence.

In the end, I realized I’m not as bad as I thought I was. Sure I’m still going to be hard on myself, sure I’m still going to work to improve myself. But it was nice to have something that gave me a bit of a reality check, to put things in some sort of perspective.

 

In related news, I am very pleased with the modifications done by Springer Precision. The improved trigger certainly helped, but what helped most were the sights. There’s no question in my mind regarding today’s drills/tests that I would not have shot as well as I did if I still had those XS Sights on (that may be (part of) my problem… having those XS sights on as long as I did and my shooting sucking as much as it did, that may have brought my confidence and “belief in myself/skills” down). The bright red fiber optic just draws my eye to the front sight. The rear sight is clear and unobtrusive. The sight picture is just great. I do believe having better tools helped me. 

I’ve also been working on my grip, especially my left hand. I’m placing my left palm heel a bit higher on the grip/frame, which gets more of my left palm in contact with the frame and allows my left hand to have as far forward a cant as possible. I’m finding a “sweet spot” for where to place my left hand in terms of how it wraps around my right. And I am working with the Todd Jarrett “grip 20% harder” rule. I believe it’s making a difference in recoil management and thus ability to reacquire my sight picture. Heck, I shot some quasi-Bill drills (6 shot rapid fire strings) today and had no loss of left grip, no need to reset my grip, and good sight picture reacquisition and control. 

Bottom line for the day: I got a nice idea where my skills are, and that my practice and work is paying off. So with that, off to practice more.

And the sun was shining. The weather was great. I got about 120 miles of motorcycle riding in. A good day.

Humility may save your life

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

I train in an empty hand martial art. I train with guns. Some would say I have a greater ability than the average citizen to hurt other people and perhaps end their life. And there’s no question, when you start to learn these things you get a big confidence boost in your ability to take care of yourself. Unfortunately, ego can get in the way… and you can get over-confident, and that could get you killed.

Over-confidence can lead to a false sense of what your skills and abilities actually are. Over-confidence might lead you to make choices, especially in the heat of the moment, that turn out to be less than correct and could lead you into greater trouble. And worse? Being over-confident might lead you to be arrogant, and that could lead to you getting your ass handed to you.

What is the point of self-defense? To come out alive with as little injury as possible. A realistic humility aids in this endeavor. If I know it’s a bad part of town, while perhaps I could take care of myself just fine, why should I even put myself in that situation in the first place? If there’s no need to go there, don’t. There we go, I’ve just defended myself, came out alive, no injury to myself. I didn’t let my ego get in the way with a “I’m going to go there, and if any punk tries to mess with me I’m going to fuck him up good!” sort of mentality — that’s more than likely just going to get me in trouble.

Realize as well that just because you have those particular skills doesn’t mean you have to use them. It’s the old “you have a hammer so everything looks like a nail” problem. I recall my first “force-on-force” scenario. I had a (fake) gun, I felt like I had to use it (it’s a gun class after all, right?). But in fact, that was the wrong answer; the best answer was to just call the police and avoid putting myself in a potentially dangerous situation. It was a humbling experience. Yes, my ego felt really bruised to have gotten the answer so wrong. I wanted to rationalize, I wanted to make excuses, I wanted to save face. But that’s the wrong way to go about it because I wouldn’t learn. Better to make the mistake in a forgiving environment and learn from it. The experience was humbling in and of itself, and by accepting my mistake in a humble manner, it’s a lesson that’s stuck with me and I’d like to hope I’m a little better off for it.

If someone opts to get in your face for something stupid, just apologize. Back off. Yield. Take on a submissive posture (tho still have the mental preparation and wherewithal to respond should the situation turn ugly). Even if you were wrong, still apologize. What’s more important? Being right? Or being alive and uninjured? This isn’t to say be wishy-washy, it’s to say you should be smart, you should be wise, and you should maximize the course of action that allows you to stay alive and unharmed. Don’t let your ego, your testosterone, your fantasy, your false sense of honor, get in the way and get you hurt.

Be humble. Yield. Knowing how to yield is strength (Tao Te Ching 52). Ponder Tao Te Ching 59:

The generals have a saying:
“Rather than make the first move
it is better to wait and see.
Rather than advance an inch
it is better to retreat a yard.”

This is called
going forward without advancing,
pushing back without using weapons.

There is no greater misfortune
than underestimating your enemy.
Underestimating your enemy
means thinking that he is evil.
Thus you destroy your three treasures
and become an enemy yourself.

When two great forces oppose each other,
the victory will go
to the one that knows how to yield.

Me and my Leatherman

/ hsoi / 8 Comments

What can I say. I like tools. I especially like useful tools.

One of my favorite useful tools? My Leatherman Wave.

Sure I had a pocket knife when I was a kid; in fact, I had a bunch of different pocket knives. You’re a young boy. You’re in Scouts. You get your Whittlin’ Chip. You get your Tote N’ Chip. You have knives (and work with other things too like axes and saws). You learn how to be responsible in the use of these tools and how to use them correctly and effectively. It’s just what you do as a kid. 🙂

I’ve also had various other knives, and sure they’re great and fun, but they’re just not always useful and handy. Tools are really most useful when they’re available to you at the point in time you need them. So you need to cut something? If you can’t get at your knife, what good is it?

So when I finally was able to get a good knife, the first thing I looked for was the ability to get the knife into my hand and the blade in a position where I can cut. Even better is if I can do this one-handed, and even better, if I don’t have to look to do it.. There are certainly lots of knives out there that do this (I like Spyderco Delica‘s too). This is one great thing about the Wave. When it was introduced, most Leatherman tools had the blades on the inside, meaning you had to open up the whole tool just to get at the blade, then close everything up to be able to use the blade. This was not handy at all. Leatherman realized this and created the Wave with the blades on the outside of the tool (seen at right). Now you can pull out the Leatherman from your pocket or sheath, and the blades are right there. You can place your thumb in the hole on the blade and with one hand open and lock the blade and off you can use it. One subtle but important thing Leatherman did was understand the importance of the sense of touch. There are 4 blades on the Wave, 2 blades are within easy deployment by a right-handed person. But when the Wave is in your hand and you can’t see what you’re doing, you can feel! There’s a small bumpy ridge on the back of the serrated blade (bumps, serrated, get it?), so you can feel for this with your thumb… if you feel the bumps, you’re in position to deploy the serrated blade; feel smooth, the straight blade. So this was a key reason in my choice of the Wave back when I bought it. These days it seems most of Leatherman’s full-sized multitools offer the blades on the outside, so that’s good to see.

The other reason for choosing this over a traditional pocket knife? More tools! Well, that and locking blades (most traditional pocket knives don’t have locking blades… something you appreciate the first time something slides and a blade closes or nearly closes on your fingers). It’s nice to have tools. There are countless times I have used the pliers, wire cutters, screwdrivers, bottle opener, can opener, ruler, scissors… yes, I’ve used just about all of it. But this is me and what’s right for me. What’s cool is there are many different combinations and variations out there. For instance, check out the Leatherman Crunch and it’s different pliers. The pliers have probably been one of the best things… you don’t realize how much you can actually enjoy having them handy until well… you’ve got a set always handy. Another thing that was novel about the Wave when it was introduced was that when the pliers were in use, the handles were smooth and rounded, which made it very comfortable on your palms, especially if you have to grip hard; Leatherman’s with pliers at that time didn’t have this and it wasn’t enjoyable to use the pliers.

There is only one problem with the Wave. It lacks tweezers. The first Leatherman I actually owned was a Micra. I received it as a Father’s Day present long ago because it was small and had a good pair of scissors. Why scissors? Well, my children were very small at the time, but able to sit up and drink from beverages with straws… which were always too long… which would always cause drinking problems…. so I wished I could just trim the straws down to size for the kids. And lo, I was given the gift of the Micra. I will say, the scissors are better than the Wave’s, but the Wave’s are sufficient for most needs. The real bonus with the Micra, again, is the tweezers. And I still carry my Micra, on my keychain. No reason not to. Splinters happen and need to be removed.

Keep your Leatherman handy. In your pocket, on your belt, in your bag, whatever works for you. Useful tools, on hand when needed. Leatherman ranks high on my must-have list.

Children and shoes

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Oldest’s shoes died a quiet death this past weekend. A little duct tape was used to keep them in play for a bit longer, but there was no question they were gone. Plus he’s growing and his toes were scrunching, so without question he needed new shoes. Darn these kids… they keep growing for some reason. 🙂

Oldest wanted some Dad time, so I took him shopping. Had lunch at Carl’s Jr. (they just opened here in Austin, tho I’ve been to them before when visiting California… it’s a burger, but it’s novel for the kids), then off we went for shoes.

Shoe Carnival? Nothing. Payless? Nothing. Wal-Mart? Nothing. Target? Nothing. JC Penny’s? Nothing. Then we hiked it across town to the Mall. Finish Line? Nope. Sketchers? Nope. Journey’s? No. Vans? Nope. Foot Locker? No. There’s a store or two that I’m forgetting, but they were “no” as well. Why so many failures? Well, some were just lack of selection… I tell my wife that Payless is great for women, and it is, but that’s all. Also Oldest’s feet seem to be at a stage where he’s maybe youth size maybe adult size (size 6), but either way there isn’t always enough available in his size. So when we can find a store that’s even plausable, then there’s nothing he likes.

Me: So what do you think?

Oldest: I don’t know.

Me: Well, did you see anything you liked?

Oldest: I don’t know.

Me: Did you see anything you didn’t like?

Oldest: I don’t know.

Me: *sigh*  Well, you said that pair you maybe liked. So… what did you like about it?

Oldest: I don’t know.

Me: *sigh* The color? The style? The fit?

Oldest: I don’t know.

Me: *sigh*

And so on… the conversation went. Yes… those teenage years are upon me. I suppose this is my penance  for my teenage years, right? Karma’s a bitch, man. 😉

So I explained to Oldest about guiding through decisions. How you gather information. If you liked this, what did you like about it? color, style, fit, etc.. If you didn’t like this, why didn’t you like it? Again, take a catalog of it. Make an explicit bit of work to figure that out. Tally it up. Eventually, if you pay attention to what you’re doing, you’ll figure it out.  I kept working with him to help him figure things out, to help him sort it out, but letting him ultimately make the choices.

And so, eventually we get to Champs. We stood outside. Oldest was obviously tired and frustrated and wanting to give up in all of this. But I just stood there, reminding him that his current shoes were dead and giving up wasn’t going to solve anything… he’d just have to be back out again, so might as well deal with it now instead of prolonging the pain. We go into Champ’s, and the first few he tried he didn’t like. But we talked, he seemed to catch on to the decision making process. I might ask a question, have him compare to a prior shoe he tried. He’d tell me this felt better or worse, he didn’t like the color on this one, or whatever… so there was a breakthrough here, which made me happy. And eventually he found something. And lo, it was comfortable. It wasn’t too gaudy. Could be something casual but he could even wear them to church. They were in his size, good construction and fit. We had a winner.

Finally. 🙂

And Mom seems happy with the choice too. So, Oldest seems happy. Mom is happy. I got to have some time with my son. I got to teach him about a few things, and he seemed to catch on. So, there’s hope!