Ken Nelson

 

"To jump into water and navigate a river in a swiftwater rescue is common. You get into the river and swim. You have to do it," Branford said. "The fact these guys don’t understand that is disturbing. Making contact immediately with your victim is essential. It’s not about who is in charge. It’s about the safety of a 13-year-old girl. You are going to do everything in your power to insure the safety of your guest, and if that means in Idaho Springs you get arrested, well I guess we’ll just get arrested."

Duke Bradford
Owner, Arkansas Valley Adventures

On one of his guides being arrested for helping a stranded 13 year old girl.

H/T Instapundit

Collins, a lifelong sailor who has competed in long-distance races and endured winds up to 80 knots, said possible scenarios in these extreme conditions include "pitch-poling," which is when a boat flips end-over-end. Boats in heavy seas also have "submarined," which entails riding down a wave and driving nose-first into the water, possibly flipping.

From this article on Abby Sunderland, the 16 year old who was attempting to circumnavigate the earth when she set off her distress beacons yesterday.

This weekend our family visited Greeley, CO and Brian and I shot the Rocky Mountain 300 USPSA match.

As you can see these stages are long and have lots of positions/reload options. We shot with 6 GMs (top ranked in our sport) in our squad (a nice learning experience) and you could see even them backing up, missing reloads, and forgetting stuff. Fun!

All of these are of Brian, I didn’t ask him to video me as he had plenty to think about.

Should basketball coaches bench players for “foul trouble”?  It makes no mathematical sense, but everybody does it. As a perennial 6th man, I loved it – I got to play. But it never made sense to me as a policy. Basketball hasn’t yet made the jump to quantitative analysis that baseball has. And the stats they use (points, assists, rebounds) don’t really help in determining who will help you win.

Jonathan Weinstein thinks it is silly too. His commenters bring up some interesting counter points.  But in the end, I think his position holds.

For instance, what about the theory that a player with 4 fouls will play softer than a player with less fouls, and that the other team will play against them more?  I’d submit the player will play smarter – which he should have been doing all along. Less fouls, means less free throws and less penalty situations. I’d want my player to play like they had 4 fouls the whole game.

Basketball has a glaring quantitative hole in it that I wish the Utah Jazz would walk through.  Unfortunately, they keep Jerry Sloan for the umpteenth season, and go home after 4 straight losses to the Lakers.  Come on Jazz, cut the payroll, dump Sloan and hire some statisticians!

It is hard, out of the short rough, to get this kind of spin on the ball.

BTW: If it is me playing… the people by the pine tree would be in serious danger.

"This was the toughest and the best one. My congratulations and empathy are with the Butler team, who played winning basketball. It was a game we won, but they didn’t lose.

Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski
Last night

You didn’t vote for me? Screw you.

Sportsman generally hate Obama. I’ve never met a serious shooter, fisherman, or ATV rider that didn’t tilt way right or libertarian.

Obama hates them right back and appears ready to give the greenies a big thank you by banning fishing in some waters:

The Obama administration will accept no more public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing some of the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.

Never mind that Obama is supposed to be EVERYBODY’s President, not just be for those that donated to him.   No, he listens to the greenies and they want fishing stopped, because, as you know, eco-kooks lay awake at night worried that somebody somewhere is having fun outside.

Given that the scope of this process appears to include a new set of policies for all coastal and inland waters of the United States, the omission of economic considerations is inexcusable."

This is not the only access issue threatening the public’s right to fish, but it definitely is the most serious, according to Chris Horton, national conservation director for BASS.

I’m tired of fighting Obama and his minions and we are only a year into it.   I don’t know why they hate us, and America so, but they do, and I guess we will just have to suck up a little wind and continue to fight back.

What I’m really tired of is having a President I’m sure hates America. How the hell did that happen?

The USA Memory Championship was held yesterday, further proof that people will compete at virtually any human endeavor. The winner validated his surprise win from last year:

"I am beyond happy because I had to prove that (last year’s victory) was not chance, so now I am totally at peace. I love to compete against myself and getting better and better," said Ronnie White, of Fort Worth, Texas.

Which begs the  question as to why he couldn’t memorize a longer victory speech (-:

I participate in niche sports too, so I’m not mocking. Not at all. I think its great that we like to compete. I hope our economic competition survives the latest onslaught.

The competition sounds tough… memorize 99 names, 100+ digits in the right order. I’d get a headache. But I’m glad somebody can do and enjoy it.

http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/assetid=19d63b12-7bfe-4a49-9df7-5402200a2b59.html#lindsey+vonn+unplugged

Not as wild as Franz Klammer’s run back in 1976, but pretty darn close.

Julie Mancuso finished second by less than a second. Her run was pretty good too.

And here is a link for those who only watch for the crashes…

The student becomes the master…

I knew it had to happen sometime. I just didn’t quite expect it so soon.  My son smacked me down. Sat on me. Owned me. In pistol shooting… that is.

In the past, he had beat me once ,by a very small percentage and only when I’d had severe jamming of my pistol.

But yesterday, he started with an early 1st stage smack down, and then turned on the heat. He finished 4th overall (of 36 shooters) , with 116 seconds, I in the middle of the pack with 157 seconds. His score was within 1.5 seconds of 2nd place.   I would have had top ten if I had not had a lot of jams on the 5th and 6th stages, but even if the gun had run, I wasn’t in his league on that day.

Which pleases me (-;

This match didn’t have a lot of movement. I can still move better than him, but in stages stressing shooting and gun handling – he has an edge…. for now.

Oh… and he’s just 12.

My son has a goal of becoming an A class USPSA shooter before he turns 13.   I think he will be able to do it because he shoots fast and straight and the classifiers are usually just shooting, not movement.

But matches have lots of movement, so he is working on that too.

Monday, Wed, Friday, and Sunday he does SPARQ training using a rope ladder and cones. Drills like this:

and

http://adland.tv/SuperBowlCommercials

Newser asks:

Can Evan Lysacek Make Make Figure Skating Cool?

A: No.

Further evidence:

I admire the skill and perseverance to do male figure skating at a high level.  But it ain’t, and never will be, “cool”. Sorry.

But until practical pistol shooting has its version of “Ice Capades” I guess male skaters will have a better chance of using their passion as a profession.  So maybe they get the last laugh.

Whether finger style guitar, downhill skiing at 80+ miles an hour, or making incredible basketball shots, what humans can do astounds.

The shots are amazing even if shot conventionally. But behind the back in the air – sick! 

Santa brought Brian a Western Arms gas blowback replica of an SV Infinity 5”:

Thrown in a CED Air Soft timer, and some 1/7th scale USPSA steels and plate rack to make a complete training system in garage, basement or backyard.

The system uses “green gas”, which is basically propane without the scent. One $19 tank of actual propane and a $5 dollar tube of silicon oil will keep him shooting for a few thousand airsoft shots.

The system blows back the slide and is an exact replicate of an SVI Infinity 5”. They fit in my 2011 holster system and the magazines fit in the magazine holders on my belt as well.

Once we sorted it out (the manuals are in Japanese) we found it quite realistic and very accurate.  Using a USPSA target sized to simulate 20 yards, he got 1.30 second draw to A zone hits in our first tests.  Hitting pop cans at 15-20 yards is no problem. We have the system dialed down a bit now, but we can rev up the gas it uses to better simulate recoil.

Driven by the popularity of airsoft IPSC in Japan and Asia, there are many after market options for these guns.