Racing at the Daytona International Speedway

I’ve never been a Nascar fan. It’s just not something I grew up with or was interested in. (I’m sure part of this was growing up in the North. Then again, one of my best friends grew up in Connecticut and LOVES the Indy 500. Go figure.)

That being said, if I have no interest in car racing, why on earth would I haul my ass out of bed at 4:30 A.M. to travel to the Daytona International Speedway on a chilly Saturday morning?

Oh, Mike’s doing another race? Well, yeah, that’s worth it. 🙂

As much as I’m *not* interested in car racing . . . I must admit that it was kind of fun to ride around the track!

(I really have to remember to hold my iPhone sideways when taking video. Those black bars are seriously irksome.)

That’s as close as I’ll ever get to the real thing. Close enough!

P.S. Word to the wise: They serve free coffee, and it’s hot. However, that does not mean you should chug down three cups of it in a frantic attempt to raise your body temperature; should you unwisely pursue this course of action you will likely end up returning two of those cups via the porcelain god. Just sayin’.

A disappointing IDPA classifier

It was not a skillful outing for Lissa.

I went out to the IDPA classifier and came out as a Novice. It wasn’t close, either; it wasn’t borderline Marksman.

It was frustrating as all get-out. I’d been to the range the day before and, while it wasn’t perfect, I was certainly hitting what I aimed at.

So why did I suddenly start jerking the trigger like it would earn me points? Why was it so hard to find a sight picture? Something about the competition nature of the thing sent my heart trip-hammering and blew my Good Gun Habits all to hell. I even had trouble sighting down the barrel; somehow I’d point too high or too low and it would take me a good second or two to get the front sight framed between the back sights. Why?

I didn’t do too badly at seven yards, but I did poorly at ten yards and just plain crappy at twenty yards. The shorter barrel and front-heavy muzzle of Siguette doesn’t help matters, but it was my poor demonstration of skills that sealed the Novice deal.

Oh well. The next classifier is in April. Lots of time to dry-fire between then and now!

Friiiiiiiiiiiiiiiday!!!!

Put your paws up!!

Krav Ma-OMG: Part I

For years I’ve meant to get involved in a martial arts. I always thought it was a worthwhile proposition: to be able to defend myself when or if attacked. Why else do I carry a gun? But in addition to my firearm, I still think that force-on-force training was a good idea. There *are* times when I can’t carry, you know. Furthermore, if my situational awareness fails me and someone sneaks up on me before I can draw, what am I going to do? Roll over and play dead?

So I made the decision to stop procrastinating and went to my first Krav Maga class on Saturday.

Why Krav Maga? Because I’m not interested in how pretty my forms are; I’m not interested in belts; I’m not interested in learning how to fly through the air. I’m interested in knowing how to break out of a headlock, rupture my attacker’s testicle, elbow him in the head, scratch or poke his eye out and then run screaming for the cops. That’s what I’m interested in. Furthermore, since Krav Maga was developed for and by the Israeli army, it’s pretty gender neutral, and it definitely works for fending off an opponent that’s bigger than you.

Some observations from my first class:

I. HOLY MOTHER OF GOD I’M OUT OF SHAPE. I’m coming off the bench from the stupid sesamoiditis thing, so I knew I was out of shape and I thought this would be a good and fun way to get back into shape. (I’m much more likely to go on kicking and punching after I’m winded than do another stupid three miles on the exercise bike.) But I was actually so winded after one sequence of punches, falls and rolls that I was dizzy. I told the instructor I might have to sit the next one out and he told me to just go slow. Smart guy; I slowed down, concentrated on my forms and regained my wind at the same time.

II. I need to stop clenching my fists when we’re practicing. Half-tensed, half-relaxed open hands in front of you can be maintained a lot longer, and therefore make you less tired and more able to fight, than cranking into tight fists and holding that pose.

III. A wedding ring is your friend! (I think I picked this tip up from LawDog, actually.) Fiddling with my wedding ring allows me to have my hands up in a good self-defense area – they can be raised to ward my face much more quickly than if I had them crossed or at waist level – but is not threatening or aggressive in any way.

IV. My sparring partner is afraid to hit a woman.

Don’t misunderstand this one; I think men who are Men should in general be reluctant to hit women. That’s a good thing. But it’s one thing to hold that attitude in everyday life. It’s another to just be throwing lazy, looping punches so I can practice blocking, but your punches are such that if I didn’t block them they would a) barely tickle my skin; or b) not even touch my body at all, ’cause you’re not aiming.

More on that in Part II. I will say that it was more fun sparring with the instructor; he had no problem demonstrating to me (and ON me) throat strikes, eye gouges, groin strikes (though he whacked my upper thigh instead), choke holds, etc. Perhaps coincidentally, he’s no more than an inch or two taller than I am, though he carries what looks like an extra sixty pounds of muscle.

In summary: Loads of good stuff, tons of exercise, fun practicing, and the knowledge on how to break out of a choke hold, seriously f*** someone up and get free, all in less than five seconds. Yay!

Stay tuned for Part II . . .

What the hell is wrong with these people?

I recently came across two cases of people with their heads up their collective asses. I know, it’s shocking, but there are people out there who don’t know their eyes from their anuses.

Example the First: We have a non-client named Charlotte (not her real name, of course). She first came to see us last June and scheduled a follow-up appointment in July, which she then cancelled. She rescheduled for later in July and cancelled. She rescheduled in August, re-scheduled her rescheduling and cancelled. She finally made it into the office in September and we showed her our plan for her finances. She declined to sign the paperwork and said she had to think about it more.

In other words, we put a significant amount of time into winning her as a client and she turned us down. That’s fine; not everyone wants to work with us.

So what makes me say she had her head up her butt? I think it would be that she called us with one business day left in 2011 and instructed me to find out whether she had taken all of her RMDs. You know, from the accounts on which we were NOT the financial advisor. I tried to explain to her that we weren’t the advisors on these accounts and therefore didn’t have access to the information (which was nicer than telling her it was NOT OUR DAMN JOB). Her response was to insist that “back in September” she remembered doing conference calls with these companies so that we could get an idea of the balances and that therefore we should be able to call each company and get this information for her.

I ended up having to pass this off to my boss, who nicely explained to her that this was not our job and not our responsibility.

Oy.

Example the Second: Now, this one was TRULY amazing! After Mike’s half-marathon (oops! that probably deserves a post!) we spent the day at Disney World. We had the singular misfortune to pick a bag-check line that seemed shortest and therefore were behind Example Number Two: the Inconsiderate Parents. These two folks held up the line FOREVER. Why? Because they had a TWO FOOT COOLER FULL OF SNACKS AND DRINKS jammed underneath the baby in the stroller that had to be wrestled onto the table, painstakingly inspected, and then SHOVED back (and I do mean shoved; I was ready to catch the baby when it went flying).

So it was inconsiderate. So what? Maybe they all had food allergies and had to bring their own Cokes and Sprites and sandwiches. It’s not cool, but I could deal with it.

What I couldn’t deal with? They took up both sides of the bag-check table. Why? Because the parents went around to the right to get their purse and backpack checked and LEFT THE BABY IN ITS CARRIAGE BLOCKING THE LEFT HAND SIDE, SOME TWO FEET AWAY.

THEY LEFT THEIR BABY AND MOVED FORWARD!!!!

I cannot tell you how shocked I was. We didn’t even realize the baby stroller belonged to them at first because they were NOT keeping it within their bodysphere, nor were they keeping an eye on it. I came THIS. CLOSE. to calling out for Security and telling them there was an abandoned baby stroller in the lane WITH A BABY IN IT.

It was AMAZING. And NOT in the good way.

To sum up . . . . What the HELL is wrong with these people?!?!?

Reminders

Mitt Romney reminds me of …. John Kerry.

Newt Gingrich reminds me of …. Bill Clinton.

Remind me again why I want to vote in the Florida primary?