Mischievous Ramblings II

Dusting off the blog...

I haven't written here in years.  Blogging as a mainstream activity for individuals is mostly dead.

But long form writing on Facebook doesn't work.  Not only is the material disappeared very quickly, it's difficult if not impossible to embed non-text in a useful manner.

So here I am.  The topic will largely be COVID-19, and it will begin on 3 March, as I transfer writings from Facebook and email to here.  The first new work will come today or tomorrow,

Losing a Toccoan at GNB

Losing a Toccoan:

One of the "Band of Brothers" died yesterday at the age of 90.  William "Wild Bill" Guarnere, who was portrayed by Frank John Hughes in the HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers", died of a ruptured aneurysm at Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.  Guarnere received the Silver Star, Bronze Star with cluster, Purple Heart with two clusters, and the Croix de guerre with palm, among other decorations.

Red Hot Chilli Pipers at GNB

I only wanted to format it once, so I put my stuff about the Pipers show last night in Bremerton over on GNB.

"God made Men, Samuel Colt made them Equal"

Since I cannot physically practice Kenpo anymore, I've had to reconsider personal defense.  White American males of my age and class are not prime candidates for violent crime, and Kenpo has for years been more of a fascinating physical and mental discipline than a plan for Der Tag, but I do occasionally worry about my ability to deal with a situation since I can't practice and I can't count on my body to perform under stress.

When we moved back to the US, we had some specific concerns about Sara's safety.  She appeared on at least one list of people destroying America on some rather unsavory rightwing sites.  Having had some previous experience with a stalker, we took the matter rather seriously for a while, but eventually concluded that her lowered profile was probably sufficient protection.

During our research, however, we determined that Washington state has some of the weakest, if not the weakest, requirements to obtain a concealed carry permit in the country.  I'm not going to talk about the sense of that, at least not now, but we did look at obtaining carry permits.  With a carry permit (called a CPL -- Concealed Pistol License) you can carry concealed (Washington is generally an open carry state) in most locations and you don't have to deal with waiting periods while buying firearms in Washington state because they've already done a background check on you.  You still need to do background checks as required by law (e.g. any firearm you buy from a licensed dealer), but there are no statutory waiting periods.

Each having a background with guns (both of us had at least partially rural upbringings, and my father thought he wanted to be Ernest Hemingway when he grew up), we had seriously discussed whether it was necessary to teach our children to shoot and about gun safety.  We decided that they were more likely to be urbanites that we were, and put all our firearms in storage during their years in our house (and of course they stayed in storage in the US while we were in Canada).  We never expected Kiernan to be the paintball reincarnation of Wyatt Earp :-).

With our empty nest came a desire to re-examine and re-experience shooting.  We have bought several new firearms and visited a variety of local ranges as well as taking handgun training classes.

No, I'm not going to announce whether or not we have CPLs, nor am I going to announce whether or not we carry legally or otherwise.

But I will say that I have a new appreciation for pistolcraft as a martial art, having visited Gunsite Academy in Paulden, AZ for a one week Pistol 250 class in January.  I would say it took 3-5 years of regular training (2+ hours a night 3-4 nights a week) to feel comfortable in my ability to handle a situation with Kenpo.  One week of excellent training on top of years of casual shooting might have done it using a pistol.  I put videos of the two simulators on youtube here and here.

So there will be quite a bit more conversation about guns than there has been.  Since I doubt there are a whole lot of readers out there, I don't know if it matters.  If I offend you and you leave, sorry about that.

Back troubles, self-defense, & helping Mr. Frank Trejo

I studied American Kenpo actively for 10-ish years, covering nearly half my adult life when you consider the off-and-on nature of it.  I studied at Master John Sepulveda's Santa Clara Kenpo Karate in the Bay Area, Shayne Simpson's in Bellingham, and Chris Hermann's Alpha Martial Arts in Seattle, and other instructors included Mr. Buda, Mr. Tabb, Mr Graves, and Professor Skip Hancock from Spokane.  In late 2011 I received my black belt from Mr. Hermann.

I also seriously injured my back during the test.  I had first thrown my back out in about 1978 while moving into my dorm room at Pomona College by reaching out and lifting an empty cardboard box.  Periodically since I've had to spend some time doing PT, seeing a chiropractor, or taking serious painkillers because my back had gone out again -- usually because I did something stupid, like carried too much firewood, or pushed myself too hard.  In the black belt test I overexerted doing a pulling drill.  It was my breakthrough moment for the test, but it cost me.  I tried to return to the mat several times, but after re-injuring my back about six months later I gave up.

I have not been back to Alpha Martial Arts or stepped on a dojo mat since.  I've done months of Physical Therapy, worked (and still work) with a Personal Trainer, and am up to working out three times a week at a local gym.  But I know myself, and even at my now-best, I do not want to re-injure myself.  I know enough to know that I will not go 50% or 75% or whatever it is that I can do without injury.  I have to stay off the mat.

And it's too painful to go watch what I can't do anymore, so I have not been back into a dojo since about six months after my test.  Until Saturday (yesterday), when Alpha Martial Arts held a benefit seminar for Mr. Frank Trejo, who's got some medical issues.  I knew I could not get on the mat, and I knew that I should not stay and watch while I'm fighting a cold (no reason to infect others), so I just stopped by to drop off a donation.  I watched perhaps 5-10 minutes of Mr. Durgan teaching, and ached to be back on the mat.  It hurt not to get on the mat.

Because I can't do Kenpo anymore, I've had to reconsider my personal defense, and I have done some weapons and lethal force training, which I'll talk about later.

A Brief Note

Yes, I've been away.  No, I don't know if I'm back for good.  We'll see.

GNB: A New Emancipation Proclamation

A New Emancipation Proclamation

iDisemvowelU

In order to assist Sara with managing comments, I have created a disemvoweling utility application for Mac OS X.  I call it iDisemvowelU (control-click to download).  It was remarkably easy to create now that I seem to have finally wrapped my head around the basic Mac programming environment.

It works very simply.  Once you have started iDisemvowelU, just:

1. Get the text you want to disemvowel into your clipboard.  This would typically be done by using Cut (Command X) or Copy (Command C).
2. Click on the 'i Disemvowel U!' button.  The original text will be displayed in the left hand view, the disemvoweled text in the right hand view, and the disemvoweled text is also put into your clipboard in place of the original text.
3. Now you just Paste (Command V) the disemvoweled text wherever you want it.  Typically that might be wherever the original text was :-).

Yes, Comments are broken…

it's because of some of the anti-comment-spam stuff. I'm trying to decide whether I should fix it or just move over to TypePad or something where I don't have to worry about it.

Thanks for trying, though.

The Game Manager

The Game Manager is live!

I've started a new blog dedicated to the subjects of software development and managing software development. Many of my posts on those subjects have been copied from this blog to there, and I'm officially declaring it live as of today.

I expect to do most of my posting on those subjects over there from now on, and I hope to create at least one substantial post weekly.

Hope you'll come by and visit.