Welcome to the first article in my “Know a Knot” series! There’s little that tells me more about a man that his ability to tie a knot, or not. Knowing how to tie a knot or two means you’ve taken the time to learn how to tie a knot, when it is useful, and when it isn’t. If you’re stuck at home, learn to tie a few knots over the next few weeks. This knowledge will serve you well (to steal Jack Spirko’s line) if times get tough, or even if they don’t. Today we’ll start with a very important knot: the Figure-8 loop.
Why the 9mm 1911?
I recently received the following question from a reader: “How about a blog post on what led you to your current EDC handgun? A 9mm 1911 isn’t the most common choice, and I know you had been working with revolvers for a while there.” He’s absolutely right; a 9mm 1911 is a pretty unconventional choice for several reasons. Let’s take a look at them, and the gun itself.
Digital Security Primer Part III: Cloud Stored Data
In my last post in this mini-series, I talked about Step 1 in my Security Framework: Malware Resilience. The steps there are all designed to minimize the chances of contracting malware. There are other steps, more advanced that can be taken, and maybe I’ll cover those in the future. They get much more technically demanding and time-consuming to implement.
Dry Practice Function Stacking: Targets
With a lot of you working from or otherwise hanging out at home, I hope a lot of my readers are using their time to learn some stuff. One thing I hope everyone stuck at home is doing is dry-practicing. Another thing that might nudge some into dry practice is the current ammo shortage. Today I’m going to talk about some very simple, low-cost things you can to do increase the value of your dry practice time.
Your Dry Practice Plan 4: March 16 – 31
If you carry a gun, you do so because you believe you might be in a gunfight. If you knew you were going to be in a gunfight tomorrow, would you spend some time dry practicing today? We all waste countless minutes per day mindlessly scrolling social media or watching TV. Take just ten of those minutes each day and better yourself. Here is your dry practice plan for the next two weeks.
Adjusting Your Safety Margins
I could have also titled this article, “Two Places I Don’t Want to Be Right Now.” We haven’t been out much lately. We were about a week ahead of the curve on “social distancing;” we stopped eating from restaurants, going to the gym, and going to BJJ. My girlfriend works from home and my work is travel-based, so naturally that’s shut down right now. As a result we’ve been pretty isolated.
My Thoughts on Military Service
This is the answer to a question I’ve gotten twice from the same reader. The first time was a couple years ago on another platform. He recently got back in touch and said he’d be interested in hearing my thoughts on military service. I’ll give you my thoughts and my biggest pros and cons. Keep in mind these aren’t in order of importance, I just wrote them as they occurred to me.
Eating Through the Quarantine: Favorite Recipes
My girlfriend and I haven’t dined out in over a month, or ordered takeout in three weeks. This isn’t totally because of COVID-19. It’s mostly because we usually cook at home for financial, health, and lifestyle reasons, and dine out only occasionally anyway. We are very atypical. With restaurants closed across the country, many Americans are probably having a hard time. Today I’m going to offer a few of my favorite “quarantine” recipes. Hopefully they spark your imagination.
The Myth of “Go As Fast as the Slowest Student”
My recent article, “Lessons Learned as Professional Instructor” was a reasonably popular article However, it also drew some pretty vitriolic criticism. Today I’m going to respond to one particular criticism that popped up several times.
Ammo Rotation with a Heavy Dry Practice Regimen
I have dry practiced every day this year and I dry practiced over 320 days last year. The vast majority of that practice has been with my carry gun. This necessitates a lot of loading and unloading of my carry gun, and some wear and tear on my carry ammo. This is how I manage ammo rotation with a heavy dry practice regimen.