The weekend approaches
And it's a big one! TEC comes! Yes, the young adult Catholic retreat I've been helping with for the past few years. It seems like I have a permanent position as the music guy, which I have no problem with. It's a lot of work, but it does act well as a retreat. A lot of people get an opportunity they don't normally have to find themselves. I just hope I'm able to help them do that.

So this week has provided a few different interesting events, but nothing groundbreaking, yet. The job hunt is starting to get depressing. I've been able to keep my chin up so far, but I don't know how much longer. It's looking like I may have to just take anything (which means ignoring the skills I've aquired with my Master's degree), in addition to finding a roommate to split the rent with. But we'll see what happens. I've still got hope.

Megan's last stint as choir director turned out all right. The music turned out quite nicely, and now Julie is taking the reigns as director. I don't know how the choir will go this next semester, but I think it may be quite nice.

And Monday was quite interesting. At kung fu, that is. We had a new student come to class. Nothing unusual, except for the fact that this particular student is in his 70s. Sifu put me in charge of breaking him in, which was a new lesson for me in patience. I still have no idea why he signed up for kung fu, because from what I can see, it looks like he's never done any martial arts before. I really believe that it's never too late to start anything, so I'm cool with him in our class, but it's a bit rigorous for even younger, fit people, so I just hope he does okay. It was something just to get him to have an idea of where the feet should be for each stance - I didn't even attempt to convey that we normally hold our stances at a level that keeps the thighs parallel to the ground.

Well, this weekend is the big fight, for Justin and Crystal. Justin's picture isn't up yet, but his opponent is. Here's the list. Justin's opponent is going to be the sixth guy down, named Brian Twitty. He's a third degree black belt in taekwondo, and has some Muay Thai experience, although how much we didn't really find out. Crystal's now on the list - check her out! Last one there, at the moment. And the age listing for her is wrong. She's not actually 14, she's 13. Her opponent is supposed to be a pretty tough girl, who's 17. Something Lopez - she's not listed there, though. We had one of the organizers come by tonight, and he saw Justin, said Justin had ten or fifteen pounds on his opponent. Apparently the organizer actually took kung fu from Sifu a while back, but couldn't hack it, and had to drop out. Which means he has more appreciation for Justin's skill than most probably do. We got pictures posing on their truck, which should turn out fun. I'll see if I can put them up when I get a copy. If you can make it, you should go check it out! If you can handle watching fights. Justin got his gloves today, and they are not soft. I think there will be blood spilled in the ring sometime on Saturday. And I can't be there! Ugh. I wish I could, but I'll be out of town. If you're curious about it, check here. Tickets available at Albertson's.

Okay, time for random links. Yes, links. I have a few. The first is a news bit my dad sent me. It is just too crazy cool - read for yourself. Another one is the band I've been listening to lately, I found a page they have on MySpace. They have a few songs listed, and I like them. Ooh, and for creative points, this page is just interesting enough be to be intriguing. And finally - most of you SHOULD know about this, but if you don't... you need to.
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 1:24 AM | 1 comments

 
Blogging is silly
Which is, of course, why I do it. Mmm, to blog. It sounds irresponsible, somehow. Perhaps it is. I'm sure when I do it, it is. I really don't know where I'm going with this.

Ah, another week. I'm still dwelling in the city's lovely lack of IT employment opportunities. Had an interview, went okay, but I'm not really the best fit, since I don't have a lot of the skills they wanted. So I may take another position where I would be ON CALL. Which is potentially a bad thing, but it might be okay. In some ways it's good, since every time I'll be working, I'll actually have something to work on. Which is the way I prefer things. So maybe it was a match made in Heaven! Or on Monster.com, anyway. I'll know more next week.

So this weekend was going to be the trip to Plano for kung fu. It still happened, but I didn't go. Mainly because Justin couldn't get off from work, so he wasn't going to do his full contact match, and I didn't need to drive anyone else there. Gas money is expensive, so it looks like the best thing to do was just chill here. Which is okay. Next weekend is what Sihing will be doing instead, which is going to be fighting full contact at the Tulsa Convention Center - Saturday at 8 (doors open at 6, music starts at 7). No headgear, ten ounce gloves, all in a ring (not an octogon). Find out more details here. I won't be able to be there, because I'll be working the TEC retreat the same weekend. Argh! I wish I could see him fight - I have a feeling he'll give his opponent at least a little bit of trouble. From what I hear, though, they'll be recording all of it and releasing it on DVD. So whatever happens, I'll be able to see it later, and it will be remembered FOREVER. Hopefully it'll go well.

So to prepare, we've been sparring a bit more this week. Yesterday Sifu was out of town (in Plano), so Justin, Cory, and I did the full contact class. It was a little different, but we ended up doing three two minute rounds, just me and Justin. (Cory didn't want to fight hard against either of us, for some reason.) We got rougher than I think we ever have, or at least in a long time. I had full headgear on, and he had 16 ounce gloves, so he was hitting me harder than usual. It was nice. We kept nailing each other in the head pretty hard. No kicking for our practice, so it was basically boxing. Hard and fast boxing. Cory kept time, and he let us run fifteen extra seconds, because we were going so hard he wanted to keep watching a little bit longer. It was a lot of fun, though. Thankfully nothing got broken or bloodied, which was good. Although we did knock the snot out of each other.

Okay. Random quiz!

The Deviant Geek You answered 82% of the questions as a geek truly would.

You're a geek and you know it. You've got all sorts of fringe hobbies and socially unacceptable tendencies. Chances are, whenever possible, you hate to be grouped with other people and sometimes go out of your way just to be different. You're smart too. You're more willing to depend on your own brainpower to solve problems, instead of relying on others to pull you through life. You probably read a lot, and generally enjoy learning new things. So what's it all mean? You may be considered by some to be uncool, but you probably don't care either. In social situations you may be either slightly passive or slightly loud (geeks always fall into the extremes). In a nutshell, you answered enough questions correctly supporting a geek philosophy to be considered a more potent geek than 60% of the population.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 77% on geekness

Link: The True Geek Test written by ambientred on Ok Cupid

Hmm. How geeky are you? I think I fit the bill.

So today's Megan's last day as choir director at Newman. I'm not sure what'll happen after this, but I think a freshman (well, now a sophomore) girl named Julie will be taking the reigns, by Megan's choice. Who knows if I'll stick around or not. Whatever does happen, I'll keep playing guitar somewhere. Guess we'll just have to wait and find out the details.

Okay, enough for today. Time for random link! This is definitely random. I'm not sure how I found it, but here are some additional benefits to kung fu.
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 3:38 PM | 0 comments

 
Quick Friday night blog action
It's Friday night! Another week gone by. Sadly, another week without a job, but hey, I say enjoy it while I can. Although I do have good news! I have an interview on Monday. So progress, that is good. Hopefully it will go well. I may have to review some material here before heading over, to brush up on the necessary information.

I just got back from seeing Wedding Crashers. It's rather crude, but you can't help but laugh at a lot of it. I thought it was actually a decent movie. I will say I also saw Million Dollar Baby this week, and it's a really good movie. I won't really say more about it - I'll let you judge that one for yourself.

Kung fu this week was fairly standard. Had some good moments. I felt a lot more "on" this week, especially in a teaching function. I felt very useful, like my knowledge was being shared and understood, which is very rewarding. That's something I've noticed over the years - the things I've learned a lot about, such as guitar and kung fu - I love sharing these things with other people, helping them discover it for themselves. Actually, that goes for several things. It's another reason I really hate ruining movies for people, I think they should see them for the first time without knowing anything, experiencing it the first time as a whole novel experience. This could be said about several things, but being that I just saw a movie, it's the first thing that came to mind.

I did just use my kung fu a few minutes ago! See, I was going to refill my orange juice, which for some reason was unusually delicious to me tonight. So I put my glass on the counter, still with ice in it, and open the refrigerator door to retrieve the juice. Alas! I bumped the glass as I reach for the door, and tip it over, off the countertop. It accelerates at 9.6 meters per second (squared) towards the unyielding linoleum! So, with my kung fu reflexes, I intuitively reach for the glass, and grab it firmly (but not too strongly), my fingertips circling the base of the glass. The ice did fall out of the glass (I'm not THAT good... yet), but a greater tragedy was avoided. I could not help but smile at the good fortune I had. It really is the little things that make our lives so much happier. Green lights, sleeping soundly, strangers smiling at you. That's why I'm grateful for every one of them - I try to make sure to notice them when they happen. It's very easy to notice the bad things, no matter how small they are, but it's much better to notice to good things. I think it's good for the heart.

I did get to partake in a Halo 2 LAN party this week. It was quite glorious. Three XBoxen, ten to twelve people at a time. It was a lot of fun. Crazy moments, but it was good times. Halo 2 is best when played with people you know, not the cranky bastards that talk schmack on Live too much. Ooh, those people push my buttons! And not the good ones.

So my band page has gotten some good hits, and I've had a few people notice me, which is cool. I've started recording a little bit again, although digital audio takes up a lot of space, and I'll need another drive before I can really get into full recording again. Oh well, it'll have to be put on a short pause. I can still write music, just not really record it yet.

So tomorrow's a big day! Tournament at Nathan Hale. I can't really afford to enter it, so I'm just going as a spectator, to help where I can. Although I kind of wish I could go into the sparring division, just to get another shot at those silly taekwondo guys who always try to give me advice on why my stance is bad. How I should turn completely sideways to leave less target available. That may work when you're playing tag, and the first touch is the only one that counts - but try doing that in a full contact ring, and you will get OWNED. I'm very interested to see some of our students spar, particularly Cory. A few of them are used to only continuous sparring, and with fairly good contact. Last time Cory was in a tournament he ended up hurting the other guy, and knocking his mouthpiece AND contact lens away from his face. I don't think the non-Chinese martial artists around here are used to that sort of sparring. We'll see what happens.

And after that, it's time for a friend of mine, Jon Mills, to actually join the Catholic church. He's been part of Newman forever, but he wasn't actually Catholic. I guess he's finally decided to go all the way, so I'll be helping by playing the music for him. Probably a good thing I won't spar at the tournament, so I can keep my fingers intact to play. Anyone who knows him and wants to attend, it'll be at Newman at 7:30 on Saturday. Yes!

Okay, I should get some sleep for the tournament. Might be a good idea. So I have a random link! I like this one a lot. Maybe my sense of humor is just weird, but it made me smile quite a bit. Why don't you check it out for yourself?
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 1:32 AM | 0 comments

 
I am up TOO LATE
Yeah, I'm up too late, but hey. What's keeping me up? One of my passions... no, not Pepsi - music! I put up my band page on MySpace, and it's starting to get hits. And I've had a few people add me as friends, and it's opening my eyes to what's really out there. And making me realize my music really isn't too bad. Even the one vocal song I put on isn't too bad, although I personally think it has a lot of room to go for improvement. But hearing what other people have posted for their music makes me actually feel like what I write is good enough to merit further improvements. Oh, I changed the page, to make it make a bit more sense - it's now at www.myspace.com/ericalanmusic. Yes, that's my middle name, but it rolls off the tongue a little more easily, which makes for good band naming. If you have any other suggestions, please let me know! I'm all ears.

I should probably start writing more music that is more than mixing multiple guitar parts, since it'd be good to be able to PLAY my music for other people. Maybe a couple of basic acoustic numbers. That would be a potentially good thing. And that would require the song to be recognizable when I'm playing just one guitar. Maybe if I get enough songs to make an album, I can sell it on CD Baby. Imagine that.

Well, it was a good weekend. Kung fu Saturday morning consisted of mainly attending to the testing for this period of two months. So I helped by holding boards (to be broken, naturally) and whatever else was necessary. And what else was necessary? One of the students who I don't see so much (since he takes during the day, not night) named Truman tested in a sparring set, the second one. I haven't practiced that set in multiple months. And he was trying to do it with a different student who's only known it for a little while. Sifu stopped them and had me step in to take the other side of the set. I'd never practiced it with Truman, so it made me nervous. But we got to it, and yes, I MESSED IT UP. I switched the ending of the first side with the second side. We finished it both times, but I felt bad. That, and I felt bad because I threw a technique he was supposed to block, but didn't quite block hard enough, and smacked him with the back of my fist right in the side of his eye. He commented after about it, saying that at least he knows I can hit hard. I did feel bad. He passed his test, though, which is what counts.

And full contact class followed all that. It wasn't quite as bad as last time, but it was still very painful. Rather, exhausting. The other students were laying into each other quite a bit when we got to sparring, it was funny to watch them. Justin and I took it a little easier, not going so crazy, but trying to pick out good techniques. Although he got a very good hit at the end of class. Good enough that Sifu laughed at me, because I said, "Ow... good..." as I bent over in pain, trying to get my breath back. It was a perfect heel kick into my solar plexus, totally took the wind out of me. Best kick he's landed on me in a long time. But it was still a good time. I found out from Crystal's (our crazy 13-year-old) mom that she gets nervous sparring me and Justin because even blocking our attacks hurts more than anyone else. She had a nice bruise on her arm, and she told me it was from blocking one of my kicks the day before. I'm not sure if I should feel bad or not, because she seemed to be more amused by it than upset.

Okay, I think I should get some rest. Big day tomorrow! I hope. For job stuff. I have some leads I need to follow up on, we'll see how it turns out. Random link? Okay! One of those very random links. If you feel the desire to post your results in a comment, by all means, go ahead.
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 2:43 AM | 2 comments

 
Quickie
What? Blogging two days in a ROW? Yeah, I am. I have a reason. I got onto MySpace after a friend invited me, and I found out there's an ability to upload music. SO... I went ahead and "made" a band. Check me out! Yeah, I named the band "closEnough". Creative, a bit, but I actually named it based on a band I had with a friend named Wojo. That, and "Close Enough" was already taken by some crazy UK guys. So I took something else. I put a few of my songs up - they only allow four, so I put four of my better (in my opinion) songs, although the one I have up there with vocals is going to HAVE to change. I think it still needs work, and I need to write a few more with vocals to have something halfway decent to put up there.

Oh, and if you're on MySpace, I actually got on with a normal account, too. If you're on there, add me, if you'd like.

That is all! For now. Oh, plus this random link.
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 5:12 PM | 2 comments

 
Ah, my blog... it has been too long
Huh. I almost FORGOT I had a blog. Go figure that.

Yeah, it's been a while. I've been busy! Sort of. Been back from the land down below (not down under, that's a different land entirely). Mainly looking for work, still. The one job I was hoping for never got back to me. Or their HR department, for that matter. It looks like they're in no hurry to fill the position. TOO BAD. For THEM. I've got a few irons in the fire, pigs in the blanket, frogs on the harvest, whatever - but nothing definite. One I'm looking forward to I'll hear back about sometime in the next two days. And this one would also rank in my "preferred" list. Something cool to work with, and good for my experience. I'll give more detail when I know more, and when it's more definite.

Aside from that, it was a lovely holiday weekend. I spent a night at the lake, got some nice bites all over my legs. Well, my feet. Got a decent amount of sun, some fun time with good people. Excellent bratwurst, too. A little bit of fireworks, but nothing overly fancy. The big fireworks were saved for Monday, at the river. And they were great! Before that, I went and met up with some friends on the shore, took my guitar and played until sunset. It always sounds so romantic to everyone I tell, except for the fact there were no women I was playing for, specifically. Maybe someday. I DID get some applause, though, which was cool. From random people. One from an older couple behind me, and the guy's name was Eric. So I complemented him, and he complemented me. It worked out. The actual fireworks were really good. And I got to hang out with some people I haven't seen in a long time - one guy I graduated with, named John. Big John! He's a cool Texan guy, now teaching high schoolers. His wife (Nadine) just got her Master's degree in some kind of psychology, which gives her bonus points. They're very good people.

So this week has been back to looking up work stuff. And kung fu, which started (in my new schedule) today. Full contact class - a new level today. New level of PAIN. Yeah - Sifu started us with some stretching, then the stances. Twelve minutes of stance work. Then several minutes of various aerobic exercises, such as push-ups, jumping jacks, etc. And then something like ten minutes of running. In a CIRCLE. Followed by five minutes of SPRINTING. Yeah, that's the worst I've been exhausted in a very long time. A minute break, then onto fighting practice, against the bags. That for a while, then sparring. So I sparred both Cory and Justin (Sihing), in a row. I guess Cory was supposed to be my warmup. It's the first time I was so tired I actually preferred getting hit to spending energy blocking. I saved up a bit, Sifu gave Cory some pointers on how to actually hit me harder, and then I put a bit back at Cory to make him actually stop. And since he did, Sifu put Justin up against me. So yeah - Sihing, being the superhuman he is, had plenty of energy, and we laid into each other quite a bit. Cory said later it looked like an all-out brawl, that we were beating the crap out of each other. And really, we kind of were. I finally had to stop from exhaustion, which made me dry-heave a few times. For the first time - I guess it's a new level for me. Ugh. We left some bruises on each other - he put a nice one on my ribs, very dark red. And I left a nice little reminder on his eyebrow. I think I actually tore some of his eyebrow hair out when I hit him. He rather liked it, though. I think he does like having battle scars, as do I. I think being in kung fu for a certain amount of time makes a person more masochistic.

And now I'm eating some quick Bueno, just finished watching the Core. Ugh. What a bad movie. It started promising, a few scenes that got me interested. And then they tried being scientific. I kept wondering about a few major issues they seemed to have skipped. But there was a big computer nerd in the movie that referred to his skills as "kung fu". As in, "my kung fu is good". So that did earn some bonus points. It started good, though, and only went down from there. It was asymptotically horrid. Exponentially incrementing in BAD MOVIE. So that the last few scenes were bad enough to make me realize I should have stopped the movie LONG BEFORE. Eh, seriously, I couldn't. I had to continue to see if the equation filled out. And yes, it did. The equation of BAD MOVIE. The Core completes it.

I'm putting up some Mexico pictures soon, when I get my camera back from the family. They were going to copy the pictures over, but I should get it back soon, so I can get some of my pictures, too.

Okay. Random link time. Want to know how fast you type? I had to find out. Apparently a net speed of 94 WPM, at 97% accuracy. Gross speed of 96 WPM. So not TOO shabby, I guess. Blogging probably helps. My kung fu is GOOD. Why don't you check yours out?
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 12:04 AM | 3 comments