This morning on my way to work I’m listening to NPR and the guest used the word “irregardless” which isn’t really a word. Sure, it’s in the dictionary, but only because scads of morons have decided to insist on using it even though it doesn’t make any sense.
Usually I wouldn’t care but the person speaking was a college professor. A college English professor.
And people wonder why I put little value on a college edjumacashion.
Tonight’s Gun Nuts Radio show the topic of controlling your breathing while shooting came up. At length.
The general consensus is that you should shoot while holding your breath during the exhale period. No disagreement there.
What I’d like to talk about is the physiological reason that it works best to hold your breath on the exhale, rather than the inhale.
The human brain has no ability to detect the level of dissolved oxygen in your blood. None. Zero. What it can do is detect the level of carbonic acid in your blood, which is what carbon dioxide dissolves into when in the blood stream. In short, your body cannot detect the “good” air — only the “bad” air. Obviously this works very well during regular life, and even when exercising. If it didn’t we’d die.
Where it breaks down, in practical terms, is something like pistol shooting. Your muscles aren’t in danger of running low on oxygen while holding a pistol on target, but your CO2 levels are rising while you sit there not breathing, and the brain starts to pitch a fit. A very mild fit, but enough to throw off your shot. The whole body starts a mild panic when the brain sends out the “BREATHE! DAMNIT!!” signal that only gets worse over time. Exhaling before the shot removes waste CO2 from your system. This gives your brain a little bit of peace and lets the body do it’s own thing for a while.
If the stability issue was directly related to the concentration of oxygen in the blood stream then we’d see folks saying that one should hold breath after the inhale, not after the exhale, but we don’t, and the above explains exactly why.
It isn’t about getting, or keeping, oxygen in the system — it’s about not letting too much carbon dioxide stay in the system.
Not that anybody expects me to be kicking out posts on a regular basis, but I’ve noticed a pile of things in my queue that I want to blog about but just don’t have the time or energy to lately.
The car accident is a big reason for that. Imagine not knowing just how badly injured your wife is after her car was hit by a semi for a couple of hours. That’ll peg your stress levels.
Anyway, things are looking up. We’re actually going to get a good hunk of cash back from Grange Insurance for the loss of the car after he lien holder takes their cut. Seriously, hats off to those guys for settling the matter in 6 days. That’s awesome. They’re also covering every bit of the ambulance ride, ER visit, prescriptions, etc. and they waived the deductible on top of that. The shop that we last took Theres’a car to, Ensing’s Auto, was nice enough to fax over an invoice of the recent repairs to help bump up the value of the vehicle too. That’s above and beyond and we appreciate that.
I keep telling the wife this excellent service is because of her new last name but she’s not buying it.
So, now we’re looking at buying her a new used car. Our budget is pretty much $9k and the requirements are an AWD or 4WD vehicle with excellent crash test ratings. I’ve asked elsewhere online and the Subaru Outback was highly recommended. I think we’re going to go that route, but if you’ve got a better idea leave it in the comments.
Todd Jarret can draw a pistol faster than Caleb’s camera can snap pictures.
Wowzers.
Bonus points if you know what movie the post title is from.
You can’t lose a phone that’s in your home. Cell phones can be misplaced.
If I didn’t have a phone in my home, provided by my employer, getting information about my wife’s accident would have been nearly impossible what with me misplacing my cell phone.
I will never again live without a home phone.
Today I got home, fed the dog, leafed through a catalog and opened up my laptop. A minute later I got an email message from my brother to call him.
I grab the home phone, see that I’ve missed 3 calls, and dial him up.
“Theresa was in an accident. She was hit by a semi on M-6.” he says.
Her car went sideways while getting onto the icy expressway coming home from work. Behind her was a semi truck. It impacted the driver’s side of her vehicle. Fire and medics were on scene quickly. It took an hour to get her out with the Jaws-of-Life. She was transported to Metro Hospital’s ER via ambulance.
And she’s perfectly fine, all things considered. She’s got a big bruise on an arm and a leg. Her left hand is cut up a bit from the glass, but no worse than what all of us have done as kids falling down on pavement.
Un. Fucking. Believable.
From David Hardy it seems that a federal magistrate ruled that giving up all your firearms as a pre-condition of bail in a child porn case is unconstitutional in light of Heller. You’ll have to follow the links for more details because I have no desire, and let’s be honest, or ability to understand what the ramifications of this actually are.
Looks like a good thing to me, just wish it wasn’t a case dealing with kiddie porn.
Authorities found a .40 mm Glock pistol inside the car.
Every time I see a news story about a “pit bull” attack I just head over to Google News and punch in ‘40mm Glock’ — I’m rarely disappointed.
Never trust a journalist to get the details right. Never.
Michael Bane fixed his Cannon safe. No drilling required.
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