Now For Something Completely Different

Saturday I did something I have never done before: I went to a shooting range and shot 150 rounds through 3 different handguns. I have spent some time shooting riffles at Scout camp but two days ago was the first time I ever shot a handgun. I share this experience with you not to make a political statement. Instead I want to share what it felt like to be a total beginner at something when I felt everyone expected me to be an expert.

My youngest son has a brother-in-law that has gotten him into guns. My son has real natural talent when it comes to shooting. It is something we noticed at scout camp when he could hit incredibly small targets with a .22 riffle. As my son is now trying to develop that talent, I thought I would educate myself on the subject. I found myself alone on Saturday as my wife was in Idaho helping her parents move and so I headed to one of the local gun ranges.

I made sure to visit the website before I left the house so I knew what services they offered and that they would rent me a gun as I do not own one. I walked into the range and quickly filled out an online waiver. Then I met with one of the sales associates. I explained that I had shot a riffle but was there to test out handguns and had never shot one before.

The first thing he needed to do was make sure I was not some crazy guy trying to do something tragic in their gun range. He made me call someone that I had seen within the last 24 hours so he could ask a few questions. My first thought was to turn around and walk out. Then I found it very comforting to know that gun ranges take mental health issues very seriously. I called my daughter whom I had spent the morning rock climbing with down in Maple Canyon. He asked her a few questions and then could proceed with getting me set up.

This is where everything started to run together. I knew the basic rules of handling a firearm such as always assume it is loaded, keep it pointed in a safe direction, etc. Specifics about each gun sort of ran together though. I started with a .22 semi-automatic and the same 9mm that my son just purchased. The associate gave me a basic tutorial about both guns. I tried to remember it all but forgot a lot. Then I headed off to my own semi-private lane wearing eye and ear protection.

I got to my enclosed booth and put my target up and sent it out to 8 meters. It seemed really close but I wanted to start easy. Next I pulled out the .22. I then tried to remember how to correctly load the magazine clip. I did okay and quickly got over my fear that I would do something wrong. I put the clip in the gun and then pulled the slide back to chamber the round. Then I tried to remember what I was told about how to correctly hold the gun, how to aim, and to remember to bend my arms. Then I fired my first shot. It went down and to the left of where I aimed. I emptied the magazine (10 shots) and discovered I am a horrible shooter.

I play a lot of shooter video games and am a pretty good shot in them. Discovering that video games don't translate to real life should not come as a big surprise but it did. After the first 10 shots I wondered how much I would improve over the next 140. Spoiler alert, not much. Part of that is because I didn't have anyone helping me. I had read a few articles online and had an understanding of the basics, but I could have done with a coach there by my side helping me shoot. I shot a few more magazine clips of the .22 and then loaded up the 9mm.

I learned something new with the 9mm handgun: all those movies that make it look easy to load a magazine clip are wrong. It is actually very difficult at first. The spring is very strong and it is tough to push down the bullets into their enclosure. While the magazine held something like 10 bullets, the most I could ever get in was 9. I shot the first round and found I am much worse with the 9mm than the .22.

One of my biggest fears was that the gun would jam and I would have to figure out how to extract a dangerous bullet from a nastily jammed position. Well it didn't take that long for it to happen. All the information I got from the lecture before I headed into the range was immediately forgotten. I had to figure it out on my own. Fortunately I got it unjammed. When the pistol kept jamming, I made sure it was empty and then traded it for a different and bigger 9mm gun.

Towards the end of my time at the range I decided shooting handguns was not as much fun as I thought it would be. Part of that came from the fact that I really am a lousy shot, or so I thought. I finished shooting all 150 rounds, returned the rented guns, and paid my bill. Then I made sure to call my son and share my experience with him. The first thing he said is that the target was too far away for a handgun. To qualify for the concealed-carry permit, the target only needs to be at 5 meters. That would have been great information before I started. I might have felt better about myself and my abilities.

My experience at the gun range taught me a lot about what it feels like to be a beginner. I really should not have gone there without someone who knew what they were doing. Having a coach would have made for a much more pleasurable experience. Remember that as you go to try something new with technology. See if you can't get someone who knows what they are doing to help you along. Don't let them do it for you or you won't learn anything but see if you can get them to help you learn. You will be so much better for it in the end.

Engineering for Fun

One of the first things I learned in engineering school is that there is always more than one way to solve a problem. In school we always looked for the most efficient way as that is generally considered the best solution. Yesterday I saw a comic strip that showed a young boy skipping stones across a pond. You could also see his idea of how he could use a playground slide to skip himself across several wading pools. That is a fun engineering solution. Sure it may not work, but it looked like a very fun idea and brought a smile to my face. Now I am wondering if I missed something in my engineering classes and instead of looking for the efficient solution, I should have been looking for the fun one.

There is a video on YouTube that shows the fun way to remove a tree stump. It takes forever as you effectively burn it out of your yard and that takes several days, if not weeks. The creator of the video is right though, it is the fun way to remove a tree stump.

Perhaps the idea of engineering for fun is where Rube Goldberg got his ideas for elaborate devices he drew in his comic strips. There are now competitions around the world to see who can create the most fun contraption in his honor. Who says engineers are boring nerds that don't know how to have fun?

For most of the projects at work, I will need to continue to find the most efficient way of solving the problem, however, I also want to start thinking about fun solutions. My guess is that a chuckle or two will be the only benefit of this new way of thinking. My hope is that one or two "fun" solutions make it into production. If that is the case, I'll be sure to post about it.

Don't Forget Your Laptop Charger

My oldest son is visiting my youngest son in Ohio for the remainder of the week. I got a text from him this morning that he forgot to bring his laptop charger for his MacBook Pro. He has one of the latest models that still uses an Intel chip. That means he has pretty good battery life but not as good as the recent models that use the M1 chips. It also means that his laptop uses a USB-C connection to charge the battery.

I am not a fan of Apple constantly changing how to charge their devices. It doesn't matter if it is an iPhone, iPad, or a laptop; the charger used today will be changed on newer releases of the hardware. I did like the change to USB-C for their laptops though as it does offer alternatives to using Apple-specific chargers. Hopefully they stick with it for awhile.

When my son mentioned that he left his laptop charger at home, I suggested he try connecting his phone charger to his computer to see if that will work for the week. I know that USB chargers have some intelligence. They will start charging at the lowest specified power and then negotiate to charge at the highest power possible. The Apple-brand charger for their laptops are rated at 96 watts where a phone charger is rated to only a few watts. My son tried that and an hour later after not using the laptop at all, his battery power increased from 16% to 17%. That wasn't going to work.

Ultimately my son had to run into town and get a charger from Walmart. They had one for $40 instead of the usual Apple price of $70 so he could save himself some money. Having left my laptop charger at home on more than one occasion, I could feel my son's pain. Fortunately he came up with a relatively inexpensive solution.

Done with my Latest Hackathon Project

This week I have had the pleasure of participating in a Hackathon for work. Unfortunately I can't describe my project as we have been asked to keep them secret until after the judging has completed. Six months ago, I didn't worry about sharing my project as it did not relate to my job at Sony PlayStation at all. This project is actually a good idea that would benefit the company as a new product idea as well as being a good corporate citizen. Perhaps in the future I can point to an actual product or service and say that started as my simple project.

As with the Hackathon 6 months ago, this one ended up being completely virtual. That means I spent a large amount of time getting video of myself building the project. When you have to plan everything you do around a video camera, it really slows down the work. I also had to take time to create the 4-minute video that will be used to judge my project. I started this morning at around 11am and the video still isn't complete. Fortunately I am rendering the video and just waiting for iMovie to spit out the file that I will upload to the judges tomorrow morning. It has been rendering for the past hour and I hope it completes shortly.

Creating a 4-minute video is incredibly difficult if you want to do it correctly. For starters, there is so much to say about the project that it is tough to keep it under 4 minutes. I had to leave a lot of the details out. Some of those details are what makes the project spectacular and so you want to include certain things and then leave others out. Assuming you have all the footage from creating the project, you then have to narrate the process you followed. It took me about an hour to get all of my audio recorded. Then I had to sync the audio with the video and still images.

I have to confess that I prefer still images over video. If you need an extra second or two, it is easy to add with a photograph. If you have important steps you are showing in a video, you have to make sure the narration matches exactly. There are tricks you can use but it is not as simple as using pictures.

Ultimately I am glad I participated in the Hackathon as I learned a lot. I also had a significant amount of fun and think I did something worthwhile. I hope the judges agree.