Studio711.com – Ben Martens

How To Shoot Trap

Logan and I took the “Break More Birds” class at the Kenmore range last weekend. It’s a two hour class that includes two rounds of trap and only costs $35. it’s an incredible deal and I want to take it again in a couple months. Unfortunately it was raining pretty hard for the whole class, but that didn’t stop us from learning a lot.

The class started with us shooting at paper targets to check the spread of our shots at about 40 yards. The spread on my gun was a bit too large and explains why there have been a couple times when I know I was right on the clay but it didn’t break. I’m going to go two notches tighter and pick up a full choke to keep the pattern tighter. That means I have to be more accurate with my shots but it also means that there shouldn’t be any chance of a bird squeaking through a good shot.

From there we talked about foot positioning (I was too wide), arm positioning (my right arm was low) and some other details about how we mounted our guns. After that it was time to pull the trigger and they let us shoot at some birds and critiqued each shot. A lot of us were having trouble smoothly swinging the gun all the way through the shot so they let us load two shells and had us shoot twice to mentally force us to keep the gun on the bird through the first shot. That was a ton of fun. I’ve never loaded two shells into my gun at once and while a pump isn’t the best option for two shot trap, it was fun to pump and shoot again.

It turns out I’m not as sloppy as I thought I might be but they did have some good tips. It will take me a little while to adjust to the suggestions, but hopefully the end result will be positive.

Here are some of the things I remember them telling me during the class. This isn’t a substitute for taking the class yourself, but maybe it will give you a few ideas:

  • Elbows up! You want to form a nice solid triangle with both arms. As you raise your right arm you’ll form a pocket that holds the butt of the gun.
  • Your left index finger (for righties) should be pointed forward. It helps you to naturally point at the target with the gun. I picked that one up by watching the Olympics.
  • Feet should be shoulder width apart with about 60% of your weight on the front foot.
  • Swing through the shot. Don’t jerk ahead of the target, stop, and then shoot.
  • Pull the trigger quickly. Don’t pull slowly like you do for rifle and pistol.
  • Hit the bird on the way up. As it hits the apex, the bird levels out and the cross section is a lot smaller.
  • Each station should have it’s own stance. The more angle of your front foot really affects how easily you can swing to hit all of the shots that you might get from that station.
  • As you start at station 1, start your gun on the left edge of the box but your eyes in the middle of the box. The opposite is true for station 5. It helps you cheat to catch those shots to the sides.
  • In competitions, guys wear blinders and stare at the ground ahead of them when it’s not their turn so they aren’t affected by people who miss or hit behind them.

All in all I’m really impressed with the class. Two instructors for five students, two rounds of trap, and all that was only $35. Kudos to the Kenmore range for a great class and thanks to our instructors, Wayne and Nathan, for all their help.

benmartens January 30, 2013 Sports

Baby Names

While Tyla has been studiously reading through her baby name book over and over again taking notes, I’ve kept a simple text file on my computer and added names to it whenever I heard something I liked. Agreeing on something like this seemed like it would be pretty difficult so I refused to talk about it with her until we knew the sex and could cut the discussion in half.

The other night we shared our top ~20 boy names and surprisingly when we finished we had about half a dozen names that we both liked. We haven’t landed anything for sure yet, but so far it’s going better than I thought it would.

It’s a really tricky process. Do you choose a family name or naming tradition from one side of the family and ignore the other one? Do you try to combine them somehow or ignore them both? What if one of the names you both like happens to be the name of someone you wouldn’t consider naming your child after? How popular should the name be? We don’t want him to have 10 classmates with the same name but we also don’t want to give him a name that nobody can pronounce or spell.

One thing we did agree on right away is that we’re not going share his name until he’s born. You’ll all get to be surprised! But just to whet your appetite, here are a couple names I had on my list that Tyla did not like:

Dr Einstein von Brainstorm
Chief Kickingstallion
For you nerds out there: Hector Kirk Leo Martens (HKLM)
Middle name: WaitForIt
If we had twins: Copy and Paste

benmartens January 29, 2013 Family

Odds and Babies

Humans are terrible at evaluating risk. Did you know that you’re seven times more likely to date a super model than to die in a plane crash? Or did you know that 115 people die every day in car accidents which means you have a 0.015% chance of dying each year in a car accident? The odds of simply being in a car accident in a year are 2.2%! Or did you know that on average, you have a 0.84% chance of dying each year? Yet how many people are afraid of their cars or heart disease and how many people are afraid of planes or some random health story they read on the internet? We get distracted by the grandiose stories of dramatic events and focus on those relatively minor possibilities.

As prospective parents, our first few visits to the doctor were a barrage of testing options. There were a seemingly endless number of diseases and defects that we could test for, but most of the tests couldn’t produce a guaranteed conclusive result. So if the odds of defect A are 1 in 4000, then even if you get a negative test, you haven’t ruled it out. You’ve just decreased the odds to something like 1 in 20,000. I never thought I’d be using my math degree in a place like that.

But it doesn’t stop there. The doctor presented us with a few things Tyla could do to reduce the odds of defects like avoiding alcohol and smoking. Those seem like no-brainers, but the list could potentially go on and on depending on whom you believe. Some have medical statistics to back them up and some are old-wives tales. Good luck telling them apart with a lot of effort.

But it doesn’t stop there. As we read through baby books about the various purchases we need to make, there are many statistics that state things like 7 children died last year due to faulty X. Most of the odds are incredibly low, but it’s still a possibility and it makes you think.

It’s so easy to get wrapped up in these wild odds. If 1 in 4000 babies has defect A, then 3999 in 4000 don’t. If I told you there was a 99.975% chance it will be sunny, would you pack an umbrella? Tyla and I will take a lot of precautions like avoiding specific food and drink, getting recommended vaccines, and skipping our couple’s chainsaw juggling class, but we’re not going to let these random possibilities rule our lives. Given the odds, the most dangerous thing we’re doing to our baby is letting Tyla get into a car.

There’s a great song from Caedmon’s Call in the late 90s’s called Table For Two. The lyrics contain the phrase: “Given a chance and a rock see which one breaks a window, And see which one keeps me up all night and into the day.” It’s all in God’s hands so what will we gain by stressing out about it?

Also remember that statistics can say anything and you need to stop and think whenever you read one. For example, did you know that only 93% of all humans in history have died? Does that mean you have a 7% chance of not dying?

benmartens January 28, 2013 Commentary

Organized

This post will probably embarrass Tyla, but I need to share the incredible project that she recently completed. When I met her in 2008, she had a LOT of stuff. She wasn’t ready for hoarders, but let’s just say a box of random rocks had been transported more miles than anyone cares to count.

I think a lot of people reach a point where they realize that mental, physical, and monetary burden of having too much stuff is worse than the emotional burden of tossing/selling it. For me, it was some point when I was moving back and forth between Jersey and Minneapolis. Cleaning house was difficult, but it feels incredible to not have tons of junk following me around waiting to be organized. Tyla got to that point around the time I met her. If you ask her, she’ll attribute much of that decision to a book called Clutter’s Last Stand.

So for the last four years, Tyla has been spending random weekends and evenings going through her boxes. She gave some of it to me to scan and photo before throwing away, some of it got donated, some of it got thrown straight into the trash can, and some was important enough to keep. We both wish that we had some way to count the numbers of carloads that I took to Goodwill or the trash cans that got filled up. It would be an astounding visual. In the end, this is what’s left:

I’m so proud of her for finishing this seemingly insurmountable project one box at a time!

benmartens January 25, 2013 Commentary

Movie Theater Technology

The Hobbit is out and is one of the first movies to offer a higher framerate than standard movies. There was a bunch of other relatively new tech in the theater. Here’s my review of each piece:

  • Higher framerate: Almost every movie you’ve ever seen is in 24 frames per second. That means that 24 individual pictures go by every second and your brain sees it as a moving image. Home video cameras generally shoot video in 30 frames per second which is one reason why your home movies look a little different than movies in the theater. But generally, the more frames you have, the smoother and more realistic the video is going to look. Have you ever noticed how images on a screen get blurry when the camera pans quickly? There are a few reasons, but the low framerate is a big reason. With 48 frames per second, I was consistently impressed with how crisp the image was even when the camera was panning or things were moving quickly on the screen. It did look dramatically different and there is already outrage from some people who claim it “doesn’t look like a movie is supposed to look.” If someone had never seen a movie and you showed them 24fps and 48fps, I’m sure they’d pick 48fps. We’re just used to seeing video that has a little stutter to it and blurry fast action scenes. In 10 years, we’ll all be watching 48fps and wondering why we used to like those old movies. This one will take a while to become mainstream because of the additional production and display costs, but I’m giving it a thumbs up.
  • 3D: This was only the second movie I’ve seen in 3D. The first was Avatar. I figured I’d give it another shot with this movie, but I still didn’t like it. When you see a 3D image, your brain assumes it can focus in on any part of the screen. But only part of a 3D movie is in focus and trying to focus on something else will just give you eye strain. Green screen computer graphics effects also look exceedingly fake in a 3D environment to me. I want to see this movie again without 3D as the 3D nature of the movie kept taking me out of the experience. Thumbs down. I won’t write off the technology completely though until I’ve seen sports in 3D. That’s supposed to be the scenario that works very well. But I’m done going to see 3D movies.
  • Dolby Atmos: I thought I had blogged about Atmos before, but I can’t find the post so I’ll give you a quick overview. In a normal movie, the sound engineer and the director mix the sound into 5 or 7 separate channels. The sound is fixed to come out of the front right speaker, the rear left speaker, etc. They will also make a stereo 2-channel mix for people at home who don’t have 5.1 or 7.1 speaker setups. The problem is that you’re trying to make it sound good on someone’s TV speakers and in a huge theater. Dolby Atmos changes the way sound engineers work. Instead of saying what speaker a sound should come from, the sound engineer picks a point in a big virtual sphere around the listener and says that’s where a specific sound comes from. When the sound is played back, the playback system takes that point and figures out which of the installed speakers should play it. That means you can use 1 speaker or 1000 and the exact same soundtrack will work. Obviously, the more speakers you have, the more accurate the location where the sound originates will be. This movie was the first time I’d been in a theater with Dolby Atmos and it was my favorite part of the whole experience. The level of sound immersion was incredible. You really have to hear it to believe it. If I could pick just one of the three technologies I’ve mentioned in this post, Dolby Atmos is the one I’d pay extra to experience. The only downside is that this is at least a few years from coming to the home because you’ll need a new A/V receiver and you’ll need content that is mixed in this format. Neither one exist yet and there’s a chicken/egg problem.

Oh and how was the movie? It was good, but not great and that’s how I felt about the book too. If you like Lord of the Rings, you should see it. As with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the movie is about 20 minutes too long, but that’s Jackson’s style and he sticks with it. I’ll see the next two as well, but I might see them at home unless I can find a theater that will do 2D 48fps Dolby Atmos.

benmartens January 24, 2013 Geek

Enable More Flash Websites On Surface RT

If you use a Surface RT, you may have noticed that Flash only works on some sites. There is a whitelist built in and Flash will only work if the website is on that list. But what about sites like studio711.com? If you want to watch the Flash that is used here, you’ll need to do a little extra work. Of course you’ll be doing something that isn’t recommended by Microsoft so proceed at your own risk. Still willing to try it? Follow the steps at wingadgetnews.com and you should be in action.

The rumor is that flash isn’t enabled for all sites because there are lots of crazy flash apps that could cause problems on your Surface RT. It’s generally enabled where I need it to be though and with this trick, I can make it work in the other places too. Walking around the house with ESPN3 streaming to the tablet was pretty cool.

benmartens January 23, 2013 Geek

Beer Bottle Prep

I’ve made beer twice in my life so I’m an expert and would like to share my learnings with you. It turns out there is a lot more to beer bottle preparation than I knew. When the guys told me to start saving beer bottles, I did what I think most people would do. I kept the old box, rinsed out the bottles when I was done with them and dropped the bottles in right side up. Well what do you think happens when you put a slightly wet bottle in a dark place and leave it for a while? MOLD. It was pretty gross, but luckily they were salvagable. Here’s the process for reusing a beer bottle.

  1. Drink the beer.
  2. Rinse out the bottle.
  3. Let the bottle drain out by storing it upside down in such a way that air can get into the bottle. A dish rack works well for this.
  4. Once dry, store the bottle top down back in the box.
  5. Fill a tub or bin with water and add a scoop or two of OxyClean.
  6. Dump the bottles in. You can do a bunch at a time. Just make sure they are all submerged.
  7. Leave that to sit for 24 hours.
  8. Many of the labels should be floating now and if they aren’t they should almost fall off the bottles.
  9. Run the bottles under hot water and scrub off any remaining glue. Also rinse out the inside thoroughly.
  10. Dry the bottles again. I like to empty the dishwasher and stack all the bottles in there and let them dry overnight.
  11. Store the bottles upside down in the boxes again.

We brew our beer at Gallagher’s, and one of the many pieces of equipment they provide is a bottle sanitizer. In about 10 minutes, it will sanitize a hundred or so bottles. Note that this is sanitization only, not cleaning. You can’t put any moldy bottles or bottles with labels in the machine.

The best part about all this is that it’s relatively inexpensive. If you buy clean/empty bottles at Gallagher’s they charge you $1. That’s about what I pay for the bottle AND the beer at the store so by recycling the bottle, I’m basically getting free beer!

benmartens January 22, 2013 Commentary

Seattle Temperature Inversion

The Seattle area has been under incredibly dense fog for the last 4-5 days and it’s not going to end for a couple more days. The fog is caused by a temperature inversion. As you gain elevation, the temperature INCREASES. The temperature is right around freezing near the ground but if you go up 2500 feet, you’ll be at a balmy 60 degrees.

Inversions happen in the winter when we have a very stabile atmosphere. As cold air sinks and stays near the ground, a high pressure system can roll in on top of it and trap it. The hills and mountains provide the edges of a giant imaginary bowl. The higher pressure air up top is warmer because if you pressurize air it warms up. That warmer air sits like a cap on top of the cold air. If you head up about 1000 feet, you’re above that transition point and the skies are brilliantly clear, but down near sea level it’s thick pea soup. The air quality is incredibly poor because we aren’t getting any circulation. It’s also causing a lot of accidents as the thick fog freezes on the roadways overnight. Cliff Mass’s last few posts have been about this inversion if you want to read more.

Thankfully this should all blow out of the area on Wednesday the next system comes through.

benmartens January 21, 2013 Commentary

Surface RT Review

Tyla and I have had the Surface RT for a few weeks now. I’ve been putting off this review, but I’ll explain that later. First off, the device is great. If you want to step into the world of tablets, I have no trouble recommending this. It’s competitively priced and it has some strong differentiators.

Our device came with the touch keyboard. The first thing I did when I pulled it out was try a typing test. On my desktop keyboard, I average 100-110 words per minutes. On my first test with the touch cover, I got 66 words a minute and that includes backspacing to correct my errors. So yes, it’s slower, but it’s very usable and I expect that the type cover would be even faster. This unique keyboard/cover is the probably the single biggest win for the Surface. It removes one of my biggest complaints with tablets. You’re never going to type a two page email with an on-screen keyboard, but with one of these covers, it’s not too bad. However, unless you really want the super thin cover, I’d recommend getting the slightly thicker “type cover” which has keys that physically depress.

Word and Excel are included in the price of a Surface RT. I don’t use them a ton on the device, but if that’s something you need, your search stops with the Surface RT because no other (non-Windows) tablet can do this.

If you’re already heavily invested in the Apple world, stop reading and go buy an iPad. We know that’s what you’ll end up with anyway. Yes, they have more apps. I haven’t had a problem finding apps to do what I want on the tablet, but if you have some very specific app that you require, you should see which platforms carry it. You’ll only be able to run CascadeSkier if you’re on Windows 8. I’m sure THAT will drive millions of Surface sales.

So why did I say I’ve been hesitating to write this review? Well, it’s because I’m still trying to figure out why I want a tablet. Even Tyla will grab the laptop first if that’s closer. The only reason I pick up the Surface is because I’m bored while watching TV and it’s a novelty. Pretty soon I think it’s going to start gathering dust in the corner. I’m either in the mood to really use a computer in which case I’ll use a laptop or desktop or I want to kill time or play a game. In that situation my phone is already in my pocket. Why would I get up to get a tablet? That problem isn’t specific to the Surface. We don’t have an Android or Apple tablet for the same reason. The sweet spot for me seems to be as child entertainment or as a small device to take on planes. Neither one of those things apply very much to us at this point. I’m much more excited about devices like the Dell XPS 12 which functions most of the time as a laptop but can lay flat like a tablet.

I’m not going to complain about a gift from my company, but having a tablet in my house has convinced me that I’ve been correct in not spending my money on any device like this. If you have a need/desire for a tablet and want to try out a Surface before deciding, let us know! We can’t gift or sell this device, but you’re welcome to come play with it.

benmartens January 18, 2013 Gadgets

It’s A Boy!

Tyla had her big 20-week ultrasound yesterday and from the very first image that showed up on the screen, it was clear that we’re having a boy! I guess I didn’t know what to expect going in, but I was surprised that the doc spent 20-25 minutes checking out the baby. She measured various parts of his body, checked every vertabrae, examined his heart, and much more. He was wiggling all over the place which made it difficult at times. I had no idea they could roll over inside the womb. He even got the hiccups! Everything checked out normal and he is right on track. I would have been happy with either a boy or a girl, but I’m thrilled and thankful that so far he appears very healthy.

benmartens January 17, 2013 Commentary