Tools

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This is what I carry:


Glock 17, 9mm x 17, plus one in the chamber.
Extra 17 round magazine.
Shivworks P'kal folder.
Ka-Bar TDI fixed blade.
Shield.


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Gear selection is a constant process. Trying stuff out, seeing if it works, seeing if it stands up to abuse, seeing if it works better than what you had before or is just different. Does it require new skill-sets to put into play, or can you run it off your existing 'software'? How does it fit in with what you've already got?

It's easy to spend a lot of time and money chasing after the new cool thing. It's also easy to find what works for you and then never change it, and maybe you lose out on something really good.




What I have is spare and simple and battle-tested.




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I also have a metric shit-ton of stuff that didn't work out, or is for special evolutions. I got more knives and pistols and holsters than I do pairs of socks.


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But I've spent a lot more money, and a hell of a lot more time, investing in training than I've ever spent on equipment. If you have good software, you can make almost any hardware work for you. But if all you ever do is buy the cool guns and wazoo laser-sight/strobing tactical light add-ons and you don't build yourself the corresponding skill-sets to deploy them, you're fooling yourself.

It isn't the tool that solves the problem, it's who's running the tool.


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So, keep it simple. Make sure it is rugged and reliable and you have it rigged securely and then you build the reps in deploying it. You train with your set-up every day, in the clothes and shoes you'll be wearing, and you do it over and over and over until you've got it hard-wired and then the tool is going to be in your hand before you've had time to consciously decide to deploy it. Which frees up cognitive processing space that you can then direct toward your threat and your environment.




Making you a deadly motherfucker.




World without end, amen.


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What I've found it that with my spouse gone the world just seems drained of color and life. I feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog day, except that nothing happens and I don't learn anything. I'm just a hamster on a wheel. Get up, go to work, come home, sleep, repeat.

I guess I'm lacking in self reliance or something. I'm bad anxious, pacing and grinding my teeth. I can't settle down. Soon as I sit down I jump up again, then in ten seconds I'm back on the sofa.

I got no peace like a river in my soul.



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I watched "The Parking Lot Movie" last night. Indie documentary about this crew of over-educated slackers that work in a pay parking lot and take the job, or at least their thoughts about the job, to a semi-psychotic extreme. There are in-depth discussions of the rise of "parking lot attendant God" delusions, the role of parking lot attendants in balancing the scales of karma, and how to throw a wrench into the windshield of a rich, entitled, SUV driving yuppie that refuses to pay his three bucks to park.

It was both enjoyable and horrifying, on many levels.


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I wish that I could find a way to calm myself down and just enjoy things the way they are.


That, however, is not my destiny.


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Namaste.



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