Mar
3

Last week, I gave my justifications for using dry firing as a regular technique for improving marksmanship. I mentioned that I cover some rules meant to make [...]
Feb
24

One of the things I cover in my CHL class is how to dry-fire safely. I present some rules for dry firing that arose from an unfortunate [...]
Feb
18

I got my SmartCarry holster back in July (See my initial review). At the time it was my favorite holster, the only one that I could find [...]
Feb
12

Sealed Juvenile convictions are no longer considered when applying for a Texas CHL. You still have to report the arrest, and provide documentation of the order to seal the records.
Feb
11

Even though I have more than 30 years experience as a programmer, I am fairly new to web programming (after all, from my perspective, the Web is [...]
Feb
7

My ‘little’ brother (also a CHL Instructor) has been collecting and investigating phishing and related scam emails lately. Here is one of the ‘better’ ones, employing some [...]
Jan
28

For me, it’s time to buy a gun pretty much anytime I can afford another one. In fact, I’m shopping for a couple of them right now. [...]
Jan
25

As a CHL instructor, I have gotten into the habit of always having a set of those memory-foam earplugs in a little case in my pocket. I [...]
Jan
17

The name Bob Taylor isn’t particularly rare, so I didn’t really think much about my cruise dining companion for the first couple of days. I was on [...]
Jan
7

It’s cold this morning in Dallas, but the streets appear to be passible, and I don’t anticipate any problems getting to work. Unlike some folks in other [...]
Nov
22

I have had some semi-serious interest in internet marketing for some time now, although I have been thoroughly turned off by MLM and other obvious scams targeted [...]
Oct
28

Contesting: The Name It and Claim It Game : Wineuvers for Wishcraft by Helen Hadsell, published by Top of the Mountain Publishing. I saw this book super-hyped [...]
Oct
21

I got on the plane, put my stuff in the overhead bin, and sat down & fastened my seat belt. After a few minutes, a female voice [...]
Oct
18

I’m about 5 book reviews behind (yes, I read a lot), but life just happens while you are busy making other plans. I’ve been really busy the [...]
Sep
27

Healthcare has been in the news a lot lately, and that has caused me to reflect on some of my own experiences with healthcare.
I had a brief [...]
Sep
8

I signed up for project 2996 about a month ago, and was assigned a name of one of the 2,996 people killed in the WTC atrocity. The [...]
Sep
5

About once, sometimes as many as three times, a week, I get a call from someone who has little or no experience with handguns, asking me for [...]
Aug
26

Rest in Peace, Mary Jo Kopechne.
Aug
16

A common acronym used by the military to teach elementary marksmanship is BRASS. I use this in my CHL classes. It stands for:
Breathe. The sequence of events [...]
Jul
30

It’s been a while since I did a book review, so I thought I would plug one of the most important books that I have read in [...]
Jul
21

Back when I first got my CHL, my instructor warned me that I would probably spend more on holsters than guns. I didn’t believe him.
For a long [...]
Jul
3

Epiphany (n): A sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or [...]
Jul
1

Now that I’m no longer president of the Plano Early Lions Club (http://www.planolions.org), I should have a little more time for other things — including being more [...]
Jun
29

I had a busy weekend. I made the trip up to ShootSafe Academy to take the 20-hour instructor’s course to qualify to teach the NRA Basic Pistol [...]
Jun
1

I now have an up-to-date CPR card good for two years; I took the CPR refresher course yesterday, and also took the basic first aid course. I’m [...]
May
26

It was both easier and harder than I anticipated to move the blog. Easier because the Wordpress software did a lot of the work for me, harder [...]
May
25

When I went back to correct a typo in the last post, I discovered that the word count in that post was 380.
May
24

You have probably noticed that .380 rounds are simply not available anywhere at any price, and if you carry a .380, you are probably wondering what happened.
Here [...]
Apr
30

Have you read the Constitution? Lately? Are you generally familiar with what it says?
If not, why not? It’s easily available (at least for now) on the internet. [...]
Apr
26

20 Confirmed cases of Swine Flu across the US, and there is a National Emergency. Sometimes I wonder how this sort of thing grabs the headlines. The [...]
Apr
22

Well, I finally got around to writing about the last step in the LEAPS sequence.
“Solve” would also work here, except that you just can’t solve every problem. [...]
Mar
27

This is the feedback step, one of the most important parts of the LEAPS process. This is how you confirm that you really understand what the other [...]
Mar
19

In order to communicate your empathy, it is necessary to ask questions. Your questions need to be neutral and obviously geared toward soliciting the other person’s viewpoint.
Of [...]
Mar
6

To have empathy for someone does not mean that you agree with that person. It means that you understand what that person is feeling, and perhaps why [...]
Feb
2

The first letter of LEAPS stands for listen, a typically underdeveloped skill in most folks. I know that I’ve personally found this to be a challenge.
There was [...]
Jan
29

There is a highly effective way to improve interpersonal communication that is taught as a regular part of the Texas CHL course, in the section entitled “Non-Violent [...]
Nov
28

This morning, a WalMart clerk was trampled to death by a mob of morons that charged the door as it was opened.
This Black Friday crap has gone [...]
Nov
4

If you aren’t sure about who to vote for, just consider that you do not have any duty to vote. You should just sit this one out, [...]
Oct
12

The subject of bigotry came up in my last class, and I didn’t really get around to discussing it in much depth. It occurred to me that [...]
Oct
10

Over the last 8 or 9 months, I have noticed that even as my new-applicant classes have been consistently full (and occasionally, I have to turn away [...]
Sep
11

Seven years ago today, a handful of young Arab terrorists were able to murder more than 3,000 people because US airline crews were unarmed.
Terrorists and other criminals [...]
Sep
10

Silly me, I have been running an old version of WordPress for this blog ever since I started it. I was blissfully unaware of the existence of [...]
Jun
20

I have been hearing from my March and April students that they haven’t gotten their licenses yet. According to a local radio news story, the DPS is [...]
Apr
23

I mentioned before that I was interested in internet marketing in general. Well, I finally broke down and bought one of those $9.95 e-books, mainly because it [...]
Mar
28

I don’t much care for overbooking. Airlines do it, even with the possibility of having to deny boarding to some passengers if everybody actually shows up. They [...]
Dec
29

Ok, I finally got a chance to look at Joyner’s multi-media blogging course. Kind of amusing, in a melancholy sort of way. I’ve been following several different [...]
Dec
20

I see that I’m not exactly setting the world afire with this blog, so I thought I’d try something different. I follow a number of mailing [...]
Oct
6

For those of you who are not Funky Winkerbean fans, you are missing out on a great comic strip. This strip is a bit out of the [...]
Jul
22

Back in early 2005, I got what turned out to be the strangest gig I have ever landed. I was chosen to be a soloist for a [...]
Jun
20

I have tried posting book reviews before (a couple of years ago), but I was doing it by hand in HTML, and it got so tedious that [...]