BLOG OF POOTENHEIMER... Fear it, Love it

Happy 2010!

2010-01-01T13:50:00.002-06:00

It's a new year. And I stayed up way too late. And have been thinking about things, new year's resolutions and all that. So one thing to do that was sitting on my mind was to go back through all the old posts and remove horrid spam comments. I actually was dreaming that somehow, woke up with it on my mind. So now all the horrid spammy comments are GONE. You can leave nice lovely NON spammy comments, if you like, though, those make me smile.

So my online time has been spent much more on non-blog stuff. Well, non Blog of Pootenheimer stuff. And it's been a learning experience. Quite. But it's been fun. And I'm still learning. And must get off to doing more pensive thought on what to do this new year. But I'm thinking doing a bit more fun blogging might be a good thing to do this year.

Speaking of fun blogging, I did find an interesting bit about a black hole that you may find curious.

What? Are you reading this?

2009-09-01T23:44:00.004-05:00

Ha! So if you're reading this, I am IMPRESSED. Because I have not posted anything since February! That's silly, I know.

I've been heavily involved in this crazy thing called running a business. It's been taking all my time, pretty much. So the only real social networking I do is with friends on Facebook, a little Tweeting here and there, and then my company's blog. Which I should update more often. It's all about internet marketing and all that. I try to put good stuff in there, about all the relevant information I come across, but should do it more often.

So in my endeavors, one of the things I did was take a class from a guy called Perry Marshall. He's a cool guy, one of the best-known gurus for Google AdWords in the country. It's on my list of things to do to meet him someday. I did get to meet him on the phone, talk to him one-on-one. He's a good guy.

Anyway, I took his class, it wasn't exactly cheap (I went for the "Gold" package"). It was to cover all the bases on my gaps in my AdWords knowledge. And I did learn a bit, although I think I knew more than a few others in the class.

At the end of the class he had a competition. He asked anyone who wanted to enter to put info about the knowledge they had gained and how they were able to use it to improve their AdWords results. I was able to get some good results with a client of mine using Perry's info, so I entered. Turns out I won!

So what does this have to do with anything? Well, most of my friends (and sister) have an iPhone. I haven't caved yet, partly because of the cost (and the fact I have no spending money right now), partly because I didn't want to get the first release of the iPhone. But hey - the prize for being one of the 3 winners of Perry's competition was actually a shiny new iPhone 3Gs. So it works out! And it turns out this new model actually has a video camera built into it. Plus, being Apple and all, it of course can upload directly to YouTube.

Basically - I'm considering moving my blogging to more of a personal perspective video blog (vlog, I believe is the common term for it). I've already created a matching YouTube account (I snagged it just now, actually, mid-paragraph). I was just curious about anyone who MIGHT be reading this still - would that be a worthwhile adjustment? Could it be cool? Video is the online revolution, so perhaps it could be interesting. Just put vlog posts up when I see something video-worthy. Although my awesome random links won't fit in quite as well. But I COULD post them in the description next to my videos.

Let me know what you think!

And of course, I can't stop without putting a worthwhile random link here. I still find them, just haven't been sharing regularly. Naughty me! But this one might make up for some of my lacklusterness. It's a true story - it's all about a boy on a full mysterious adventure... an awesome one.

Some catching up

2009-02-08T15:55:00.003-06:00

Yes, yes. I've not been blogging in MONTHS. Yes, a very long time. But blogs are good! I've been learning all about the perks of them. It's all part of my master plan. My master plan to work for MYSELF. Instead of The Man. It might just work.

All of the previous standard things are still in place. Yes, I still play guitar. Yes, I still do way too much kung fu. But I've taken my side business stuff and refocused it - it's now my main business. I had mentioned wanting to focus on my marketing - well, the business partner and I didn't really work out. I got some good experience, but that door is now closed. Now it's time to move forward in the direction I think I've been wanting to go for a long time, now.

I've got a basic site up, the company's together, I have a few employees - I've been busy. I need to redo the design on my web site, but for the most part it's functional. I've got a few pages set up for each of the areas of internet marketing I do, such as search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising (PPC), and so forth. But the main focus of the site (and company) is internet marketing. So I do internet marketing full-time now. And I love it! (Yes, if you're checking the site out anytime soon after this post, it's still not PRETTY - I'm not a designer, I'm a coder. I'm having one of my designers fix that sometime soon.)

It's quite fun, I must admit. A combination computer science, business, and psychology. Overall it's a big puzzle, and I like puzzles. And it's more work than any of my other jobs have ever been, by far. But the difference is that this is work that I LIKE. The main cool part of it is that I can actually increase business for companies that use my services. I'm starting with local companies, smaller businesses. Having a jump in online traffic can do wonders for a business's profits. If they have a good site, it helps, too. But knowing that what I'm doing is helping someone else achieve their goals and dreams is the main reward that keeps me loving doing this work.

So yes, my blogging has become lax. Because I'm WORKING. Working all online, which is ironic, I realize. Meaning I really don't have a good excuse for not blogging. But hey. I'm working, here!

I'm still busy, so this won't be a crazy long post, but it's a little catching up. I'll have to come back and give more details later.

That doesn't mean I won't still do proper random linking. This is a link I had a friend send me. It's a series of videos with a grade-school level of explanation for why what we're doing to the Earth is BAD.

Birthday post

2008-09-30T23:56:00.002-05:00

Yes, it's my birthday. And yes, I'm OLD. It's not really anything particularly special. I don't grow or lose any specific appendages or body organs. But since we live using a decimal system, this particular celebration of my day of birth is notable. I am THIRTY. It's a little depressing, because I'm now seeing ads on Facebook about "Women Over 30". It was a good picture, I'll give you that. But still.

I know, I KNOW, I'm still relatively young, but it just makes me realize - life moves on whether you want it to or not. So I was thinking about things. Introspection, as I tend to do on a regular basis. Thinking about who I am, and who I want to be. Who do I want to be? I want to be a good person. That's pretty much it, the rest is just gravy. (Even though I don't like gravy, that means it's GOOD.) I'm looking at Americans in general, how they age. I have the good fortune of coming from parents who both look about ten years younger than they actually are. So yes, I look a bit younger than I actually am. Especially when I'm not wearing glasses or facial hair. Perhaps that's the reason I spontaneously decided to shave all mine off for the first time in years. It's weird. I still don't completely recognize myself in the mirror. But I've gotten complements, so I think I'm leaving it this way for a while.

That, and then doing some revisions on diet and exercise. Yes, I still do plenty of kung fu, but I'm thinking about going back to the Navy SEAL workout. I did it once before, and it put some serious muscle on me. It might be an interesting change to try out. The main thing I'd have to do is give up almost all soft drinks. Which would be a major change for me. I mean seriously - I'm a computer scientist. That's a given staple of our diet. That, and pizza, naturally. Giving up pizza and Pepsi will be very hard, but I think it might be worth a shot.

And the rest of things are on the work-related issues. Working for a living, doing things that I personally want to do. My business partner and I will be doing two projects, and then after that, it's time to focus on my marketing. I think if I put some full-time work into it, I can make at least enough to live off of. Perhaps more. We'll see how it goes, but I WILL need to motivate myself in a serious manner. I have the tools necessary - now it's just time to use them.

Anyway - it's time to get back to relaxing for my birthday, for the last few hours of the night (even though it's now technically no longer my birthday). So that means random link for you. Not too random - I did mention it before. But if you're interested in what I'll be doing to get in better shape, here you go.

Life moves on, sometimes quickly

2008-09-26T00:45:00.003-05:00

So things are progressing. It's late, and I'm pensive, so this may be an interesting blog post.

I'm starting a new business with a rather new friend of mine. He recently broke up with his boyfriend (yes, that's correct) of 2 and a half years. Since he lived there, he didn't have another place to go. Since we're working together, it made some sense for the decision to be made to have him move in with me. I have two rooms I wasn't really using, anyway, and now I'm getting paid for the use of them, so that's a definite positive thing. Yes, new roommate, new business, things are CHANGING.

It seems like this is something that's happening to not just me, but several of my friends. There have been a variety of breakups and moving. I had my ex move out, the business partner move in. Another friend of mine moved into a house with her fiance, and now it seems that relationship has shattered and he's moving out. It's been rather stressful for her, because he's not handling it well. She's been hanging out with all of us, the group of friends who all seemed to mesh together at once (including the new roommate). And apparently has already found another guy within the group, but it seems like the two of them getting together was inevitable, if she was going to ever be single again. Which she is.

So YES. Chaos. That is life. And sometimes it can be good, sometimes it can be bad. As it is, now I'm still working through finishing up the move. This week has been filled with that, and determining how to manage finances until the first paychecks roll through.

Love life still mystifies me. I'm turning 30 at the end of the month (yes, I am OLD), and am single yet again. It makes me wonder if I'm being too picky. I did finally make contact with a crush I've had for four years. That's a very long story, but suffice it to say, it's also how I met a lot of my new friends. After much deliberation and introspection, I've decided it's not someone I should "hold out" for. It made me sad to come to that decision, because it was one of those dreams always sitting at the back of my head, the "what if". To see it fall is slightly depressing. I did learn (yet again) that it's dangerous to put someone on a pedestal. With almost no exceptions, people placed in such a precarious position cannot possibly hold up to all expectations. And yes, after getting to know this girl better, I did find some (in my opinion) flaws. It made me quite disappointed to find out what her limitations were, and what type of person she really was. I had hoped for more. That, and the fact that she had a shot at ME (who, in my opinion, was the epitome of a SPLENDID CATCH for her, in particular) and gave it up means all her marbles are not in the right place.

There is still soap opera developments to be potentially unraveled in the future, as we're set to take salsa lessons together (with some other friends), as well as go see Nine Inch Nails together, in concert. It might make things interesting. And if some of the facets of her personality that I found distasteful DO change, then there'd be a possibility for something in the future. But I'm not holding my breath. Just makes me mad I do find her so attractive, and I can't turn that OFF.

So yes - the business. You may be wondering what it is. If I were you, I know I would be wondering. What is it? Well, it's actually something I've been thinking about for years, but it was tricky to find a way in... game development. To do it for a major console is almost impossible with a small company. So we're starting small. iPhone gaming. We'll see how well it does, but I'll say this about the first app - it's pretty freakin' cool. It's addictive like crazy, which is good. And very basic, the idea is novel, I think it should do okay. Hopefully enough to pay some extra bills. When we release it, I'll post the details, but until then, it's SECRET. Nondisclosure, all that.

That's most of it. Kung fu continues, as always. I've recovered a bit. I've been thinking about the fact I've been doing it now for close to nine years. And the idea that a lot of 200+ pound guys get twitchy and nervous if I raise my arms around them in class makes me think my skills have gotten to a decent point. I have had several people ask me why I haven't entered in the full contact matches, and it's making me start to wonder about trying it. I'd have to change my diet and increase my exercise routine in a large way, but I think it could be interesting. Still considering it.

Anyway, that's enough for tonight, I think. I'll leave you with two vids I stumbled across that I actually was surprised at the quality of, primarily because it's from CollegeHumor.com. But they're good enough to pass on. One is a trailer to a potentially upcoming movie, and the other is how I think rap should be.

Changes happen all at once

2008-09-14T11:37:00.002-05:00

I've said it before, but I think it's very true. When things in your life change, they have a tendency to change in several ways at once. That's happening for me, and I think it's still in progress.

Work is the one place that people spend their life. Eight hours a day (usually, or more), five days a week. That takes the majority of your life. It affects how you feel, who you are. I had quit my job at IBM, mainly because I didn't like the pressure with the work from having expectations to work on increasing levels of work without any extra compensation or assistance. And a large level of stress was lifted when I left. So I went to another company, a small company with only a few people. It seemed very good, doing work on machines that are top of the line, with all necessary software. I was put on a fairly large project. And the more I worked, the less exciting the job started seeming.

Anyway, changes. Yeah, I don't work there anymore. And I'm taking a risk by going into something completely independent. But I think it was only a matter of time before I got there. This might be it. I'll give details when I figure it out.

So the girlfriend is done. No more model girlfriend - although I will admit, I probably will NEVER AGAIN. Guys all (on some level) think it'd be awesome to date a model. But I think they might be a little overly dramatic for my tastes. And I'm still being nice to her, and I think we'll probably be friends on some level. I think I need people a little more grounded. Not someone who's eager to launch off to a new life every couple of months.

Been making new friends, hanging out with different people, and I think life's been changing for the better. I think it has potential to get even better - I can hope, at least.

That's some of the latest. And kung fu STILL GOES. We had our tournament yesterday and I'm STILL tired. Started at 8, finished at 11 PM. Two tournaments, actually. First was a normal tournament, where I competed and did lion dancing AND was in charge of some self-defense demonstrations. I stayed busy. Then after that, the full contact tournament. I didn't compete, but I was a judge. Ring-side seat. Very good. Some of the fights were great, particularly one with one of our students. He came to us to learn how to fight, and was in the super heavyweight division. The guy he fought was pretty scary looking, but he actually used what we trained him for. I've worked personally with him a lot, so I was particularly proud when he used his new skills to pound the tar out of the other guy. The crowd was going crazy. He ended up winning the first two rounds by decision, it was a great fight.

Random link time! I found a good one for you. I'm a big nerd, and a lot of people reading probably are too. So you should appreciate this.

And we're back

2008-09-01T22:56:00.003-05:00

Apparently there are at least a few (very important) people who still check this silly blog. So it's back on!

I'll have to take another day to catch up on things a bit. My life is currently going through one of those life-changing all-at-once happenings. Multiple women issues to deal with, job stuff, kung fu continuing onward, side business stuffs. Mainly the first two things. Which is actually more than just two.

But yes. I'll post some more, not sure how often, but it will be regular as oat bran. And of course, plenty of random linking. Ah yes! I did get a Mac. Finally caved. It's quite nice (I'm on it now). And it's made me appreciate HD and the finer qualities of high quality imagery. This fits right into all of it.

Second post of the new year

2008-08-29T09:53:00.001-05:00

Haven't touched my blog (lovely blog) in a little bit. Just posting to see if anyone even CHECKS this thing anymore. If you do, and you'd think it worthwhile to read more, leave a comment! Tell me yes! Or no!

Thank ye.

First post of the new year

2008-01-07T15:11:00.000-06:00

Yes! First post of the new year! And also, first post since before all the holiday craziness. A lot happens over the holidays. What happened over your holidays? Well, for me, it's been chaos. Some good, some not so much.

There was the ice storm, to start with. I lost power for about two and a half days. Lost all food in my fridge, and it was a bit cold, somehow. I spent a bit of time with my family, since they kept power. Makes you appreciate things you have.

Another not so good thing was my side business. I had been bad about only keeping one campaign running. Well, when the merchant I was using got shut down, it meant my side business was crippled to almost nothing. So I'm sort of struggling with much less income than I was making before. It means back to work for me! So I've been working diligently to improve things, and with multiple campaigns this time. It'll take time (and much effort), but things are looking better this month. We'll see.

But in other news - after breaking up with the previous girlfriend, I was ready to be single for a long time. You know what that means, right? Right. I found a girl fairly quickly. She's essentially the perfect woman. At least, for me. Seriously - if I had made up an ideal girlfriend, I don't think she'd be as good as the one I found. So say I made up a girlfriend, what would she be like? She'd be beautiful (inside and out), she'd be a model or an actress, definitely have some musical ability, it'd be nice if she had some martial arts experience, of course she'd have to like video games, she'd be healthy, have goals, and have intelligence enough to entertain my silly conversations.

So what's the real thing like? She's beautiful (inside and out), she's a model AND an actress AND a dancer to boot (has her own IMDB entry, and no, I'm not listing that here), she sings (and has done so professionally), she's a black belt (alas, in taekwondo, but oh well), she's a hardcore video gamer (enjoys both playing and watching), and is healthy, has goals, and talks to me at length about anything. So yeah. The perfect girlfriend. Her name is Tiffany.

That's been a pretty good thing, made the holidays a bit better. Got to spend them with my family, had a good time. I actually snagged Super Mario Galaxy from the folks, and it is quite sweet. Tif and I have been playing it and won it this last weekend. With 99 stars. Still working on finishing out the next 21. It messes with your HEAD. Because of the distortion with gravity and direction. But it's definitely fun.

Aside from that, I started my new role at the company. The first one is now complete, so I got transitioned to a new position. So far, it's been going okay. Not perfectly smoothly, but not too shabbily. I think it won't take too long to get acclimated and fit into the scheme of things here. At least I'm no longer on call, which is VERY GOOD.

I've been away from kung fu for two weeks, so I'm getting fat. Okay, maybe not really, but I definitely am still on the pizza + Pepsi diet. Because it's so sweet. And that plus no kung fu can't be good for me. I went back for the first time for lion dance practice, and they asked me if I had actually lost weight. So apparently I'm not getting too fat. But I need more kung fu! Going back in tonight, should be a good move back into things. We have our big demo coming up for the Chinese New Year at the beginning of February. I'll be in the lion (of course), and doing a crazy hard form for the demonstration. We'll see how that goes. Still have some time for training.

Oh, I must say - I went and saw Juno this last weekend, per recommendation by my sister. It's surprisingly good. I'd recommend you go check it out, if you have a chance. But don't go in expecting it to be good, just make your own decision on it.

So for now, I'm working hard, trying to get my side business back up and beyond, and working at work work, and kung fu, plus spending time with the perfect girlfriend. It is nice, because a lot of that time is doing stuff I'd normally be doing for fun (movies, gaming), just with someone who also likes the same stuff (and who happens to be extraordinarily hot). It's a happy place.

Ooh! Random links! Okay, one is some music I learned about from Tif. They're a Canadian Band. A little bit electronica, rock, and Cocteau Twins all mixed together. I do like them. Oh! And I forgot to mention, Fred and I got Rock Band. It's a very, very good game. Loads of fun. Even those nasty reviews seem to like it.

Bored at work, and it's lunchtime

2007-11-16T11:55:00.000-06:00

So I'm writing. I actually haven't updated in longer than I would like to have updated and I feel like this sentence is already way too long but I realize I could continue writing it with connections from various conjunctions that make it seem like the entire construct of the sentence makes sense but in reality is simply ridiculous.

And I think I'll start a new paragraph. So one big thing that happened was my dentist appointment. I have a new dentist. I went in for the initial checkup, x-rays, etc. For starters, most dentists do a few x-rays. You know, maybe up to 6 or even 8. But this dentist is a perfectionist, so he took something in the neighborhood of, oh... 18. And I had a filling from my last dentist, but the new one didn't like it, so he said he wanted to redo it. And that's what my last appointment was. It was definitely a story. And this... is that story.

I went in, like any normal appointment. There were some delays, some issues with a medical concern and a pregnant individual. But I finally went in, they sat me down. I was given topical ointment to numb the gums initially. That was a new experience for me. And then she asked me if I wanted to listen to some music, and I looked at her with a little confusion. That had never been an option for me before. She saw my look, and said, "Oh yes, we can give you an iPod to listen to." So I said sure, why not. And there was a full variety of music on their iPod Mini. The latest Evanescence album, a bit of Collective Soul, random pieces from Mozart, a bit of country, a bit of R&B. I think I finally ended up with Collective Soul, good classic stuff. So they wait a little while to let it set in. Then he comes in, they take a look, he gets all the equipment ready, then they do the injection. And he's apologizing for the sting, and how he knows it doesn't feel good. But it's not really all that bad. So I end up talking to the dental assistant for a little while, about various things. And how they had all been treating me very nicely, and everything was so much more than what I had received in previous treatments from my other dentist (which was true). And she looked at me and said, "Oh, and I didn't even offer you the virtual reality glasses." I figured she was kidding. And then I thought about it, and asked... "You're kidding, right?" She laughed and said, "No, actually, we do have them." Apparently you can get these video glasses that connect to a video iPod and they'll hook you up with a movie or a TV show of your choice, if your treatment is long enough to watch one. And they have some pads they can use to keep your mouth open comfortably, so you don't even have to open your own mouth.

They did have to inject me again, because apparently if you're fit (which I guess I kind of am) your higher metabolism makes it harder for the injection to set in. But once it was good (which took a while), he went to work. It was rather easy, and he did comment that it was a good thing I had come in. The previous filling was very rough and had jagged edges, so it had been irritating my gumline a bit. That, and there was one big edge were it was supposed to be in line with the tooth and was not, so every time I flossed it would catch the filling edge and tear. He finished it and said that I wouldn't be able to appreciate it fully, but it was 1000 times better. After getting home and finally checking it out, I can say I have to agree. His filling looks impeccable - as though it's just my tooth. I can't even see the filling (it blends in perfectly), and it feels identical to the same tooth on the mirror side of my mouth. It's quite lovely. Best dentist EVAR.

Beyond that, it's been work and play, much more work than play. Lots of kung fu. Buck Sam Kong came to town this last weekend. So, of course, I was up being chosen by him to do instruction with. Which means he'd have me punch at him while he'd smile and do a counter attack at faster-than-normal-human speeds. It was a lot of fun. I got some good techniques, and mainly it helped me realize I've actually learned a lot, because these techniques were all familiar to me. I simply need to practice them enough to make them automatic. There were a lot of people in the workshops, and I got to play kung fu with Shannon. Shannon is leaving this next week, which makes me sad. Justin is gone to the Marines, Shannon's heading to Colorado to open his own school. That leaves me as Sihing number one. No pressure. I think I can handle it now, though. After about eight years of training, you tend to learn some things. Oh! And I found a video. On YouTube, of course. This looks like it was recent, so you can see Buck Sam Kong as he looks today. A few caveats - he's not in the same shape he used to be, but it doesn't matter. He's 70 and looks potentially like a weak old man... to those who don't know him. Even as he is now, he's probably more able and faster than anyone I know, for anything related to martial arts. Here you can get an idea what it's like to be his test dummy, with a little bit of Chin Na technique. Basic techniques, nothing too fancy. And the guy he's practicing with is pretty funny. I think I'm masochistic, as every time he gets me with something particularly painful, I just smile, and say, "Ooh, that's good." Good kung fu!

Oh, and bonus bonus. Buck Sam Kong may be 70, but HIS sifu is still around. Well, around Hong Kong, anyway. He doesn't leave that city. His name is Lum Jo, sometimes spelled Lam Cho. I had the honor of actually being able to shake this legend's hand. And I have a few pictures of him, with our group with him, as well. But in this video, he's 96. Tell me if you don't think kung fu is good for health after seeing this.

And last bit, I picked up a new game. And it is sweet. It is called Assassin's Creed. If you've never heard of it, I highly recommend you go and check out the trailers on that site. In particular, the second trailer, although the first and third are also very good. Yes, it really looks that good. My quick review on it is this - if you play to just try to accomplish the end results in a hurry, it's not for you. Don't play to try to win as fast as possible. If you can play and just emulate how you would do it in real-time, it's much more rewarding. Something about the time it takes to properly set up your mission and to hit your target, if done slowly, properly, deliberately - it's quite fun. That, and the fact that he does free running (AKA Parkour), martial arts, and weapon fighting with a badass outfit - yeah, of course I love it. Running across the rooftops is particularly enjoyable. It does take a while, and the way the story is set up is unique. There's a bit of a twist in the way they introduce everything, and some people don't like it, but I actually really enjoyed how they did it. Very nice.

So I should probably get back to work. And I've given you a ton of links. But they've all been relevant. Oh, and I'm still stressing out about the ex, it's something that'll take time to get over. So here's a little bit of logic for you:

And the random link! I can never get enough Top Gear. Even when they don't get it quite right.

Getting back to it

2007-10-30T13:54:00.000-05:00

So the past few weeks have been a little rough. It happens that way, though. Yeah, I broke up with the girlfriend, and that was pretty sucky. Before you ask, it was fairly mutual, although I really was the one to make it happen. So that's been wearing on me a bit. Then last week I was on call at work, and I got at least one phone call EVERY NIGHT. Which means I didn't get a full night's sleep at all. Add to that working over the weekend last weekend (when it wasn't my turn - the guy who was supposed to was out of town) on an issue that came up, and I put in close to 60 hours. With broken sleep. It didn't help me out much at all. Thankfully, Friday morning after working from Thursday night at 10-ish to a little after 3 (yes, AM), I decided to go ahead and sleep IN. So I e-mailed my co-workers to let them know, and thankfully, they did not disturb me. I got a lot of sleep caught up, but it was still rough.

Things like that are what are prompting me to push forward a bit more with my internet marketing business. I've been seeing a lot of success with other people in the forums, and it's making me curious about where I might be if I had kept working on improving, instead of just letting it roll after I got some success. So I'm going to get back to it, put the nose to the grindstone, etc. Hopefully it'll improve my income a decent degree, we'll see. Mainly it's been from seeing the stories from people in the forums on the site I use regularly for reference and input (yes, it's their sales page, but the forums are members-only). Especially one specific individual who managed to earn $2500. Not in a year. Not in a month. No, not in a week. But in a day. Pure profit. I kid you not. So I'm figuring if I can get to that point sometime, I'd probably be pretty peachy. Ppppppt. (I think I've used up my ration of "p"s for a while.) But yeah, I've been working quite a bit on trying to gain more knowledge, put up more sites, figure out how it works when you do it right. We'll see how it goes.

Aside from that, Halloween is coming up, and I'll be giving out candy to the kiddies. I should get some GOOD candy. Not to be nice to the kids so much as so I have something decent if there's any left over. Mmmm, candy.

Okay, it's time for a random link. All I have to say is this: I really like Top Gear.

Life moves on

2007-10-12T15:27:00.000-05:00

So a lot has happened since my last post. I got a little older. It was fun, good times at the Cheesecake Factory. Got some good stuff from my parents, including a crazy alarm clock. I've tested it out, but I'm scared to actually use it. I think it would definitely get me up, but for some reason I like hitting my snooze button.

The big news, though, is the fact that I'm single again. It's pretty sucky. I think it's probably the right way to go, but it doesn't make it any easier. Thankfully I have a ton of stuff to work on to distract me, so hopefully it'll be something I can not dwell on too much.

I'll probably have some sort of introspective thought process later on, but for now, my brain is kinda mush. So I'll just leave you with a random link. Even though I was feeling crummy, this still made me laugh.

Staying busy, getting older soon

2007-09-25T15:30:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I'm probably yet again doing MORE than any sane person should. Still doing kung fu, although I think I might need to take a bigger break. And soon. I'm looking into a few properties for investment purposes, and my internet marketing has taken a jump up. I have some motivation to succeed, so we'll have to see how it turns out.

Well, there's that, plus the fact that a little piece of software was just released. You might have heard of it... Halo 3? Yeah, I (being the true nerd) went to the midnight release. Seeing some of the other individuals there just made me smile. I got some free pizza as well as finished off a level at expert difficulty in the in-store copy of Guitar Hero 2. That, and I did play a little after getting home. I'm feeling it a bit now, and my girlfriend wasn't particularly happy about that (she said to show some restraint and hold back - I'm apparently not THAT strong). But yes - the game is glorious. It's gorgeous, and it sounds awesome, and it's FUN. And I shall play it again tonight.

I'm getting older soon. Sunday, to be exact. And I have no idea what I'll be doing. Perhaps I should just relax and watch a cinematic adventure. Or perhaps play some Halo 3. Or even some guitar (that's kind of been lost on the wayside with all my other activities). I might just lose some more hair and feel old. Fun times!

Okay, so I'm still at work, so I should go. I'll go ahead and post the random link here for now. This is another blog I found out about from CNN. It's both horrific and entertaining, something all blogs should aspire towards. Check it out!

Blog birthday tomorrow

2007-09-17T16:08:00.000-05:00

How odd. My blog will be four years old tomorrow. That's pretty old for a blog. And it's been fairly quiet for the past year. But this past year has not been so quiet for ME. I think those things are related, somehow.

So lately I've been thinking a lot about life, and how I'm getting older, and jobs, and women, and family, and so forth. What do I want to do with life? That's one I'm still working on. Apparently all my questioning is not something that is completely unusual. I don't normally jump into astrology analysis, but a friend forwarded this to me and it struck me as oddly correlating. (For those that scoff at new age web sites, here's the wikipedia entry.) It matches a LOT of what I've been dealing with lately.

So what's that mean? I've been a big computer nerd for basically my whole life. That may change in the next year or two, apparently. I might end up being a real estate guru. Who knows. After that I might open up my own bank. Or become a movie director (something I've wanted to try for a long time). But sitting in a cubicle, typing in code for a program that's most likely not going to be used for an extremely long period of time, while worrying about the company I'm working for being bought out and a large percentage of employees being laid off - that's not something that I want to do for the rest of my life. And that I KNOW. So the question is now... what DO I want to do? What's rewarding? What's fun? What's both, and can still allow me to pay my bills? Can I do more than one thing at once? Could I be a real estate investor and a rock star AND a kung fu teacher? With some movies on the side? (Clean movies. I know you were thinking it would be pr0n. You pervert.)

And then what about family? When am I going to get married? That, I have no idea on. What about kids? I know I want one (preferably two), but when's a good time? These are all things I've been thinking about, aside from my learning for marketing and real estate.

Speaking of, I went to a workshop for real estate rehab this last weekend with Nicole (my girlfriend - she's always been interested in rehab work for properties). The guy giving the workshop is known as "Mr. Rehab" - Pete Youngs. He's a good guy, and he gave a ton of very good tips. I'm eager to try some of his techniques on a property, so I'm looking for some that need rehab work. The kind that people look at and say, "Ugh!" I really am thinking this is something I'd enjoy. It's manual labor with a very visible product. It's work with results you can see. That, and the money's okay, too. If you happen to know anyone selling a property that needs work, or if you just see a property that looks like it's abandoned (with much better looking houses around it), let me know. (Hint, hint - I pay a referral fee for any properties I close on, and it's a fairly sizeable chunk of cash. Ask me if you're interested and/or curious.) I think it'd be a rewarding job, and something that would help improve things for everyone. That, and I could get some sun instead of being stuck in front of a computer all day.

Anyway, my life will go forward somehow. I'll just have to see how it moves forward as I get there.

Time for random linkage! I'm still hooked on YouTube. It's the source of many of my musings. It can even be educational. If you smoke (or know someone who does), you may want to check this out.

Yes, the blog LIVES

2007-09-12T12:42:00.000-05:00

Yeah, it's been a long time. A very long time. I've been overly busy, and just have (to be honest) forgotten I even had a blog. But I've put enough time into it in the past, and it contains memories, as well as being cathartic when I put entries into it, somehow.

I've been thinking a lot lately about life in general. My birthday's coming up, I'm not getting any younger, and I'm thinking more and more about what I should do with my life. Both what I want to do, and what I should do. In the past, I approached various endeavors with commitment, to make sure I learned the things I wanted to. Looking at myself today, I can see the results of these.

I've completed two degrees in computer science, stemming from my childhood interest in programming (started at 8 years of age).

I've learned how to play guitar. How good I am is debatable, but I am a fan of my 12-string Seagull, as well as playing on my electric guitars (nothing quite like the fun of ripping through a song on an American Strat).

I've learned kung fu. I'm now a black belt and one of the senior students at my school, and I've heard from many people they very much like my teaching style, which is rewarding to hear. That, and it's fun, plus it keeps me in shape, which allows me to keep my horrid vice of pizza and Pepsi.

I've achieved a few of my life goals in the past few years (actually, past year or so), including buying the car of my dreams new and driving it off the showroom floor, as well as purchasing a decent house.

I'm still very goal-oriented, and at the moment my latest interests have been in other occupations. Mainly that of internet marketing and real estate investing. I've established a decent income with internet marketing (helped buy my car), and I definitely have the knowledge necessary to move forward with it. I've learned a lot with real estate and am in the process of pursuing some property acquisitions to learn first-hand more about it. I know enough now to get started fully, and expect it to happen soon. That, and I've recently been peeking into the wide world of poker, which I'm moderately decent at (consistently in the top three of 8-10 player tables in my weekly game with the guys). There are people who make six figures a year from it, so it might be a fun hobby to bring some income in on an occasional basis.

The bad things about all of this is that it keeps me very occupied, moreso than most people I know (or even have heard of). My girlfriend is not a fan of that detail, which is understandable. I'm coming up on my birthday, and while I'm still young, the age that I'm reaching is large enough that it's making me start to think about what I should be doing in life. I want to have an impact on the world in a good way, and working in IT for the rest of my life is not going to do it. So I need to figure out what I want to do that combines nicely with what I SHOULD do. It's been on my mind a lot lately, and I'm still wandering a bit through possibilities.

Anyway, perhaps a stream-of-consciousness style of discussion with you here may help me delineate my potential life paths enough to make a confident decision. Or maybe it will help me discover new ideas. For now, I'm doing more things than really should being doing, and at ONCE, so I should start looking on what I should focus more fully on, then drop the attention so much on everything equally, in my multi-faceted lifestyle.

A very introspective blog entry for you today. How about you? Have you considered your own life? Where it's going? What you'll be doing with it? These are things for you to think about. I won't know about yours, but mine are here. I know some might consider concern over publicly discussing one's life so openly, but the reality is that in our fully connected world today, any of these details that anyone wanted to know they could find fairly easily, if they looked. So... eh. It's okay.

And yes, I haven't forgotten a random link. I'll actually post a link to another blog that I found in my revamped poker interest (I started playing originally when I was under 10 years old). He waxes philosophical about many of the same things I've talked about here today, and it's inspired me to continue my own blog, as well as think more deeply on my life's direction. You can look for yourself if you're curious (from the first month of entries, oldest posts at the bottom, newest on top).

300th post!

2007-07-11T13:35:00.000-05:00

I really don't know how I've managed 300 posts, when I don't post more than about once a month. Bleah. I think I'm packing my schedule too crazily. Why do I say that?

Well, I've been a bit busy. Bought a house, moved in (with a U-HAUL, no less). Yeah, I had some great friends help me out, but moving a moderately large TV (as in, one that weighs twice what I do or more) down six flights of stairs is a bit nerve-wracking. Crammed everything into the U-Haul, moved it over to the house, pulled everything out. It's almost like a home now! Still unpacking a bit here and there, and my computer desk didn't survive the move, sadly. Ooh, and Neil (my first roommate) is now my neighbor! Not VERY close by, but within the same square mile.

That, and the company I work for has, yet again, been bought out. Which means I'm now in the state of flux with my job. I may actually end up working with a small group of guys, doing REAL coding, instead of web "development". Or using proprietary modifications of Access databases, which are badly done. We'll see what happens, probably by next week.

And kung fu moves on! I'm still training. Working out for full-contact tournaments, although I don't think I'll be competing in this next one. Why not? Because I'll be playing guitar at a wedding, so I should probably practice THAT a bit, and not risk breaking things that are part of my body before then. Busy, busy.

So things are changing, they are in flux. I do still have my girlfriend, Nicole, and she is quite Nicolicious. Mmm, hmm. Ah! Random link time! I have a good one. I've been quite hooked on this. So you've been warned. It's fun to play, though. It's called Weewar! That, and bonus random link about the best thing to do with an iPhone. And what to do after.

Ugh! Busy!

2007-05-30T13:17:00.000-05:00

Yes, my blog has been slightly abandoned. I'm sorry, blog! I've been overly busy. Busy? Kung fu is continuing to take a lot of my time, although the weekends lately have been a bit less committed. Free time? Not quite. Girlfriend time? Yes, quite.

That, and I'm starting up on my phase 2 on making money independently. How? Well, I won't tell you, but I'll give you a hint: it involves investment in a BIG way. In other, COMPLETELY unrelated news, I've decided to finally move out from my apartment. To what? Why, to a house! It's crazy, I know. I've got a contract, but I don't close until the end of next month. So I have some time to back out if I choose to, but I'm thinking I'll probably go ahead. It's in Jenks, so it's pretty far away from a lot of my friends and family, but not TOO far. I'll have to get trained on how to maintain a property, as well as actually keep it clean. Mainly my paperwork/mail will have to be kept on a daily basis, instead of tri-monthly. That, and I'll have to start doing lawn and garden work. And pay for extra expenses. But I'll have a house! Play guitar late at night if I want! Play DDR with no worries at all! Have room to do it two player, if I choose! And other things non-game related.

Actually, I don't game much at all anymore. I did get to play a bit at a bachelor party I recently attended. Much Halo 3 was played. Yes, I said 3. We got our hands on the beta, and much fun was had. It's the first time I've played in a while. I've been to a lot of bachelor parties lately. Seems like EVERYONE is getting married. In fact, my old roomie Nick just got engaged. So yeah, lots of changes, life moves forward.

I'm at work at the moment, and changes are happening here, too. Williams Power was bought out, so lots of changes are going to happen. Which means I need to start getting my side businesses rolling soon, to make sure I'm not freaking out about maybes. We'll see how it all turns out.

Random links? Okay! One I got from Nick. I saw the Pirates of the Caribbean 3 movie this last weekend. I myself do NOT like these movies very much. I guess I'm not alone, because someone made a list of why it doesn't suck. (Spoilers ahoy, arr!)

Oh, and one more random link. I found this from CNN's news. This guy apparently was hit so hard by... certain people's paranoia, that he went ahead and created a live alibi feed. This is his page, and he has an updated feed on where he is every moment, as well as a shot of the environment he's at at that moment. Is he crazy? Or just creative in his dealing with other people's paranoia (because of his name, mainly)?

Yay! ALMOST two posts a month!

2007-04-24T13:00:00.000-05:00

Bleah, I've been really REALLY busy. It's been a big combination of work, other work, kung fu, the girlfriend, and then more kung fu. That, and being on call can SUCK.

For example, last week I was working after standard work hours every day except for Wednesday. And that includes the weekend. So yeah, it was very very sucky. Many of those days I was working after midnight, too, so I lost a lot of sleep - that can wear you down quite a bit.

After all that, it's made me MOTIVATED. Motivated to get back into side business! I'm learning about a new area to make money with, but it's still being researched. So for now, I'm going back to what I was learning last year, and building on it. Hopefully it will all be good. Perhaps learn a bit more! It should be good.

Quick update on kung fu - our tournament is THIS weekend. Saturday and Sunday, most of the days. Starts at 10 AM Saturday, we should have a good demo right at the beginning. It will be at the Nathan Hale gym. If you can make it, it might be worth checking out.

Since I'm at work now (and still working), I can't write a LOT right now. I have been a little more hooked on YouTube lately, too. Why? Well, for my random link, I'll give you one little reason.

Oh! And one more I ALMOST forgot about, that I have Seanicus to thank for finding. Make sure you check out the last items on the "Merchandise Mart" page. Just be prepared.

Okay, so I missed a month

2007-04-09T15:27:00.000-05:00

Yeah, lots of stuff has been changing. I don't know if anyone even READS my blog anymore. If you do, you can post an anonymous comment (or not anonymous, if you're brave), let me know. Then I may post MORE. You know, inspiration.

Quick post, since I'm at work. I've decided to cave in to the popularity that is YouTube. But use it how? For music, naturally. So I'll be posting some vids of ME. Maybe. If I'm brave enough. Doing music, you know. Either that, or dancing madly. But probably just music. Or maybe my mad skillz at gaming. But I haven't done any real gaming in a while.

Yeah, lots of stuff changing, I'll give more of an update later. One not so happy change was me throwing out my back a week ago. Trying to throw a guy one MORE time at practice. A guy who weighed about twice my weight. Yeah, okay, not the smartest move. But I had been doing it successfully.

Random link! Sort of. Since yesterday was Easter (happy belated Easter!), it's only appropriate to put in an easter egg. A WINDOWS easter egg. Muahahahahaahahaaaaaaa... Try copying and pasting the text on the next line, then immediately typing after that. In Notepad, or something. See what happens.
‭‮(Ω_Ω)

Okay, need to blog

2007-02-26T10:13:00.000-06:00

Too much has happened, I need to talk about it. Yeah, it's been a while, but it's still February! So maybe I'll blog some more. Maybe. Maybe not. It's like I say I need to go to Golden Gate more. But I don't. Even though it's quite delicious.

But yes! To start, it was a busy weekend. I guess to START, I should say that yes, I have a girlfriend now. Her name is Nicole and she is quite lovely. (Luscious, even - but these are words that really shouldn't be shared publicly.) We went out to see Breach on Friday, and it was an interesting film. It was actually more interesting because of the fact it was based on true events.

Saturday was eventful, because although I took a break from kung fu fighting for the morning to recover sleep from working on call, I got some in after class. An old student from the kwoon was making a short film. We still see each other occasionally, so he asked me if I knew some people who might be interested in participating in a fight scene for his film, particularly any kung fu students. So I got ahold of Jordan and Shannon for the event. And it was very interesting! I won't ruin the plot, as I may be able to actually get the footage. But the main fight scene we just put together on the fly, and I think it might actually turn out okay. I got a bit dirty tumbling in the dirt, but it was okay. Fun times!

Then Saturday night, staying moderately quiet, watching some Pride. Sunday got crazy busy with all sorts of free food. Top Gear (that awesome British car show) is back on the air! So I watched a few episodes. Richard Hammond is back, and has recovered from a crazy accident they were doing in the previous season. And the show is, as always, highly entertaining. But yes - met up for dinner with the lion dance team. Lion dancing went fairly well this year, and I shouldn't, but I will share with you a little bit of what we did. Since it was captured on film. So here!

Just a close up of the lion I was in. So that's me! Just waking the lion a bit.

Me and Cory are in the middle lion, and I'm partially standing because I'm shouting at him to prepare for our stack. He didn't realize right away, so that's why there's a slight delay. But yes, this is the lion dance standard stack.

Sihing! This is Justin performing part of one of his tournament forms.

And yes, the final demo. This is something that we often do at demonstrations. Just so you know, that's rebar, and they are NOT using their hands. Justin on the left, Shannon on the right.

That was at Nam-Hai last weekend. If you missed out, now you have a mild idea of what you missed. There was a lot to see. But there have been changes at kung fu! Sihings are changing. Justin has decided to enlist in the Marines. I know, there are a lot of people who are surprised at this, and wondering why, but this is something he had prepared to do (ever before Iraq started). So he leaves on March 19th. We will miss him, but he'll be back. Shannon is now sort of taking his place, since he was the senior student before, and is now essentially in the same position as Justin was, with a similar set of knowledge. So I'll be practicing more with him now, and he IS another one of my Sihings. Now it's Sihing Shannon.

Changes, indeed. But yes, Sunday we all went out to eat. Sadly, I went to the WRONG PLACE and had to go back over when I realized I went to the wrong Chinese restaurant. It happens.

After that it was time for poker action! A bunch of friends, two tables, 11 people. Texas Hold 'Em until we were down to 8 people, then move to one table. Guess who won? Woo! I did! For decent money, too. I won last time, as well, out of around 10 people. I almost felt bad winning again. I figure next time my luck will swing the other way, so it should balance out.

But yes, busy weekend. Not too shabby, either. So it's time to start another week! I think perhaps my blog needs to have the rust brushed off to be used again. It may be time.

Speaking of time.... random link time! Guitar Hero is awesome. But there are other options, too. Oh, and when I have a child, I'd imagine he might look like this. And do you think you're a geek? Make sure you check out this list to enhance your geekdom.

What? A post in January?

2007-01-21T01:08:00.000-06:00

Yes! I thought I'd go ahead. I miss my blog. I don't blog enough anymore. It happens when you get distracted. Busy. You forget about things. Which probably isn't good. But I'm back to my blog! For today, at least.

So what's new? Well, I'll tell you what ISN'T. I still do oodles of kung fu. I work too much. Been hanging out with a new lady, which is rather fun. Driving just one car lately, because of the crazy weather. You can guess which one.

Kung fu! Been a lot of it lately, preparing for the Chinese New Year (February 18th). Lion dancing and such. Back into full contact. Today wasn't so good - I'm working on not turning my back, so my guard isn't up to practice. Which means I got hit a little more than I should have. In my FACE. That, and the throat, which made me gag a little bit. I need to remember that for future reference. But classes are going well.here it

One big piece of news in kung fu. Yes... Sihing Shannon. Remember him? I've mentioned him before. He was senior to Justin when he was still taking under Sifu in town. Well - he's come back to town. That's right. He's now back in our classes. So I have two Sihings now. And he's definitely got enough to give me a few more lessons.

So yeah, I got a Wii, and it's lovelii. I beat Zelda in less than a week, because it was so awesome. And I love the ending of it. I've been using the Wii latelii for it's sweet online browser option. For frii. Mainly to watch silly YouTube videos. Which I still watch way too manii. Of.

Hmm. That's the gist of things - I did get my car stuck in the ice a few nights ago, which sucked. I scraped out all the ice from under the tire that spun. Behind it, that is. And I got ALL the ice away. Down to the pavement. Some two full inches. But it didn't matter! My car was facing down a hill, but against a curb corner. So it was stuck, no traction at all. I ended up having to leave it there. Thankfully it was in the apartment complex, just not in my normal space. I had some of the maintenance guys help by pushing the rear of the car until it was facing uphill, which meant I could get traction. And get to work! Yay! Right. But it turned out okay.

So I need to start getting a little less busy. Maybe get back to things I've been neglecting. Such as my blog. We'll see how it goes. I have one silly random link for you today, but I have BONUS random linkage for you today. You've always wondered what our classes are like. Well, I'll give you an idea. With what? How about... VIDEO. Yes, that's right. Finally, some video for you.

Jordan working on his horse stance.

Sihing Justin helping teach a novice a few moves.

Justin and Shannon getting a little bit of practice in.

Justin and Shannon sparring for points. You might have to watch closely to see Justin's last backfist land - it's kinda fast.

Mmmm, yes. Kung fu! And I have one more bonus for you. A little demo we did at our Christmas party, between me and Sihing Justin. A sparring set. Well, my dad wanted us to repeat it, so we did it again for him so he could record it. And here it is (downloadable). Hopefully you'll find all of this a little educational to get an idea of what it is I really do.

Tis the Season

2006-12-22T20:09:00.000-06:00

I've pooped. So not much time. I need to blog more. I had almost forgotten English. But for the holidays, I have a special gift for you. Ladies, this one's for you.

Merry Christmas!

Que paso?

2006-12-20T00:37:00.000-06:00

Ya lo se. Que hace casi dos meses que no has visto nada de mi blog aqui. Bueno! Voy a regresar muy pronto! Es nadamas que no tengo tiempo. Trabajo, y kung fu, y mujeres. Todo eso y tambien mi Wii nuevo.

Algo para ver que me gusto. Que chistoso!

Pero todavia voy a poner un random link aqui! Ten, puedes ver esto: gente que hacen mas ejercicio que hago. MUCHO mas.

Good times

2006-10-30T23:37:00.000-06:00

Life goes on. Make sure you pay attention while it moves by - because everything going by? That's your life.

So I'm a little more pensive now, for some reason. Things have been going okay. I've gotten back in touch with a couple of the women who vanished mysteriously. Seems like they have just vanished from everyone, being busy with life. So I don't hate ALL women. Mostly. For now. But I think I'm still going to keep a good distance for the time being.

Work's been cool. Learning new stuff, starting to actually get opportunities to show my skills in various ways. I'm looking forward to making a difference. And my side business (which I'll just call "my business" from now on) is on the verge of a new development. I'm just finishing up a class I took online and over the phone that took two months. I'm quite excited to get moving onto the new stuff. I think it should be very interesting to see how it compares to how I've been doing so far.

And kung fu is excellent, of course. I've neglected to mention the fact that we have several people in our full contact class now, and that many of them (I think six) are actually competing in a tournament that's going to be on the weekend of the 11th. And Sihing? He's fighting the champion. But of course. So he'll be in the title match. Should definitely be interesting. I'll give more info as I find out. I'm not competing, myself, but I'm training with everyone. So my skills are coming back up to a decent level. It's been too long since I've really trained. I'm actually gaining muscle weight again.

That, and Sigung is coming! He'll be in this weekend. Buck Sam Kong. Sifu's Sifu. He'll be giving some workshops. Not just that - but I'll actually be having my next test. Under Sigung! That's right, it's my next level. Phase 2. Completion of the forms I've learned as a full group, with Sigung's blessing (if I pass). Next step is Phase 3, which only Sihing has completed. So if I can get that far, then I'll definitely have accomplished something big. For now, Phase 2 will do. Which is most likely going to require me to demonstrate Gung Gee for him. Which is STILL the hardest form I know. Ugh. But hopefully it'll go well.

And I've found something out interesting, in the lines of physical activity. I don't know how many of you have ever gone OUT to a movie with me. But I have a tendency to not walk down rows, having to avoid ten people's knees to get to my seat. No, I take the DIRECT path. Which is usually straight over the front rail. Occasionally over the first row of seats, as well. And sometimes, the top of that front rail is five feet off the ground or more. So vaulting it is not something seen too often. That type of stuff I do in lots of places, when I get the need or chance to. Well - I just found out that all of that has been categorized as a sport. Called Parkour. So since it's a sport, I'm going to have to learn the rest. The basics, since I appear to only practice some of the more advanced techniques. The basics are learning how to land properly (from a height), as well as learning how to roll correctly (which is used in conjunction with a landing from a higher height). Perhaps when I get a decent amount of practice down, I can get some video of it. Maybe put it on YouTube. Who knows.

Okay, more pensive stuff. I actually got this quote from a video I found about Parkour. But it works for anything. "We do not stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." I like that quote a lot. It makes me feel a little less guilty about enjoying getting a new toy or two every now and then.

Speaking of which - the car has been keeping the smile on my face. I've learned how to drive it a little more effectively. And I'm comfortable enough now with a manual gearbox to not panic too much when I pull away from a stop. Even at a slight incline. The thing that does worry me is how easily the thing can reach a three-digit speed. It feels almost casual. ALMOST. But not quite. The rush from hearing the engine scream as it climbs at that pace is unreal. I've had a few experiences already that are memorable. Most of which involved witnessing another silly driver driving by at a reckless rate of speed. Which, of course, made me curious to see just how fast they were driving. So I had to catch up. Which meant I had to go FASTER. Over the weekend there were three.

The first of these was a little white Japanese car - I think it might have been a Nissan. There were three or four guys in it, most likely teenage. It blew through the light traffic on the BA as I was headed west. So I latched on behind them, punched it up to around 99 or so and caught up. Just from watching, it was disturbing to see how bad of a driver the guy really was. He seemed to not have full awareness of his surroundings, as he was not exactly driving optimally. My exit was right around there, so I just punched it again and got out of there.

The second and third were both 4 wheel drive vehicles. I was taking a little road trip with Nick, going out to see what's south of Bixby. And I'll say this - it's really pretty! Especially in the fall. A good cruising road. On the way there, we were just pulling out of Bixby when we got behind an SUV. After Bixby, the speed limits go up a bit. The SUV picked it up speed and was going rather fast. The speed limit was about 65 (I think), and he was definitely going over that by more than 10. We just kept up with him, enjoying the scenery. Then we pulled through a little podunk town, with a speed limit around 35 or so. The SUV seemed to ignore it - perhaps he knew that there aren't any cops there, or something. I obeyed the limits of the city, and so he was way out in front when we got back out of the limits. I looked at Nick and said, "Let's catch up to him." It didn't take too long - I put the little Honda up to around 110 or so. Which is a record for me. And I'll say this - when you're going that fast with the top down, the wind noise is unreal. But the rush was crazy. Eh - I'm not TOO crazy. There weren't any other cars around, and it really was in the middle of nowhere.

The third one was a pickup on the way back. I had pulled behind a couple of slower cars, and was thinking about passing them when the truck blew by all of us at a crazy rate. So, of course, I had to catch up to him. I did about the same as I did the first time, and caught up without issue. I DID consider trying to pass him to see what he'd do, but I think there's a line around pushing the limit, and passing him would be crossing that line. But all in all, it was an eventful weekend, and I got my fix on seeing what hitting triple digits was like. I don't plan on making it a regular event, but it was definitely a rush. Although many bugs were killed in the process.

And now it's officially Halloween! Don't get scared. I went and saw Saw 3 over the weekend. The first Saw is actually very good, in my opinion. And 2 isn't too bad, either. 3 is probably not as good as either, but it wasn't BAD. Although I will say that all the gore the left out of the first one and the second one they put into the third one. And then doubled it, just to be sure. Yes, it's VERY gruesome and violent. One scene in particular made me a little perturbed, and it usually takes a good amount of gruesomeness to make me irked. This did it. So you're now warned. Although if you haven't seen the first Saw - I recommend it! It's a good Halloween flick. Most of the violence is implied but not shown. There IS some, but it's not overly done. I liked it mainly for the new angle they used. It's refreshing to see a new idea in an American horror movie. That doesn't happen much anymore.

Okay, enough blog for today. I need to get some sleep. Work in the morning, and such. But yes! Random linking first. The idea of superficial judgement turns my stomach. And the fact that I find myself doing it unintentially makes me sick, as well. I wish we didn't judge people on visual things. But it happens. And the images we're given don't help that. Oh! And bonus random link. Since I was looking for fun scenic routes to drive, I found one in particular. It's about 3 hours away, but if you're willing to do that drive (especially before fall's over), you might check it out.

Okay, so I vanished a bit

2006-10-16T22:37:00.000-05:00

Call me distracted. I have been rather busy. That, and I'll admit a new obsession with a show called Top Gear. In fact, I was just watching an episode now. It's British TV. It actually has won an Emmy - so it's not a bad show at all. And it is all about CARS. It's quite fun. And how do I think it is? BRILLIANT. Here, let me share a few bits with you. They have full competition episodes that are broken into various parts, they have silly (and hilarious) episodes, fun comparison episodes, and of course, they have really bloody fast cars. Although, those cars may be insanely fast, there is one that's obscenely fast. And you wouldn't think it, looking at it. But oh yes - IT IS. While my car is very, very sweet - this last one here is oh so tempting. If I can get to where I can afford crazy toys that I really shouldn't get.

Although I will admit - I am totally enamored with my Honda. And yes, it's been on Top Gear, as well. In a bit of a fun comparison episode. But what about what I think of driving it? It's unlike anything I've ever been in. I can't help put have a stupid grin every time I get behind the wheel. Which is pretty much daily. I have, indeed, broken the 600 mile "break-in" requirement, which means I was able to push the RPM to the redline, into VTEC land. Although I'll admit - I couldn't quite make it to 600. Maybe it was a little closer to, oh, 510. And I took Justin (Sihing) out for a drive. And breaking into that VTEC was a rather sensual experience. There's just something about hearing the engine rev to a point that you think you NEED to shift, then letting it continue for another 3000 revs before shifting is insane. Basically - when the engine hits 6000 RPM, the Honda turns into a RACE CAR. Seriously. The only problem is (and I'll quote something I read somewhere for this), once you hit the VTEC, you go from 0 to illegal in very little time. So it's only something that's able to be consumed in bite-sized pieces. But perhaps that's what makes it so much more... LUSCIOUS.

And how's it handle? Like it's glued to the road. Take a 90 degree turn at 30 miles per hour, and the tires don't even squeak. It's just like the car's saying, "Okay." Where if I tried that with my Chevy, the car would be saying, "holy crAP ARE YOU INSANE!" I am very happy with the new toy.

So what else? Work has been definitely keeping me busy. Getting more to do, although I like it that way. Kung fu is continuing as usual - slap on some lion dance practice and restarting full contact training, and yeah, I'm a LITTLE busier than I have been. Plus more sore, somehow. And this last weekend was more loaded than normal. I went to a martial arts tournament for under 18 students to help judge. It was definitely educational, and rather fun. Sifu said it was about time I start getting seen around the martial arts world more, so it's time to go help at tournaments. It was good.

That, and my family's all out of town this last weekend, so I had to stay at the house and dogsit. With FOUR dogs. All of which missed the folks, I think - which means I got no real sleep at all. Grr! They're cute and all, but after they jump on you two thousand times and take a crap in the living room AFTER you just let them in from being outside (to, oh, maybe, take a crap?) and make all sorts of noises ALL NIGHT LONG, you get a little tired of it, somehow. Yes, he really did crap in the living room. So yeah, I didn't get enough sleep, and it's been pretty much like that for a while, now.

Random quality humor photo montage:

So that's been pretty much it. That, and me being sick of women. I think I might turn chauvinist for a while, just because I'm tired of their CRAP. Which, things being as they are, would probably attract hordes of females. Basically, you can add a couple more to my list of females who simply stop communicating with me. Suddenly. For no explained reason. No, I didn't go out and insult their weight, or eating habits, or even try telling them something like, "Boy, you're cranky - you must be PMSing!" No, I've been fairly cordial. But I seem to have somehow aquired an anti-mojo. Which is like mojo, but works in the reverse fashion. Maybe I need to just find a way to pass on my antimojo to some other unsuspecting chap (hmm - chap? perhaps a little too much Top Gear). Then I'll have my old lovely mojo back, and have the five-woman minimum that I used to have. All lovely ladies just aching to spend time with little ol' me. No such luck nowadays. I'll just have to give them up and spend time making oodles of money, driving excellent vehicles with my pimpin' shades on, enjoying playing guitar and singing, and keeping in tiptop physical condition whilst learning how to kick ass. Oh well.

Okay - so that's been a good catchup blog, I think. But of course, there's more! How about random YouTube links? Instead of just Top Gear? Might as well suck all their bandwidth while you can - who knows what Google will do now that they're in control. For now, enjoy some fairly random videos. Funny stuff, music, destruction of childhood dreams, and a Google video about the one guy who kicks more ass than ANYONE.

And yes, the birthday was excellent

2006-10-01T22:37:00.000-05:00

So my birthday was yesterday. Yes, I am now older, according to the silly calendar year we adhere to, according purely to the number of revolutions around the large star in the middle of our solar system that our planet circles. That was a long sentence. Yeah - the birthday was quite good. I spent some time with the family, had some kung fu in the morning. And at night I had a surprise visit from some old friends. Bret and Kimberly! I haven't seen them in a long time, and it was good to hang out with them. I got cake and ice cream, and even some gifts. Random things from Bret, which isn't surprising. Indeed. Dolphin-shaped light bulb, flash cards about the presidents, 2006 calendar of Pope John Paul II. And Pepsi, which is always good. It was good times.

So what did I do during the day? Here, this is a little hint:

Oh, and for a more thorough view you can download a bit of footage I shot here (be warned, it's a 9 MB file).

The glorious Honda S2000. Yes, a 2007 model. It's my dream car. And it's sitting in my garage. I'm still in disbelief. I drove it all weekend, which took getting used to. It's my first standard transmission, so it has taken some learning. I will admit, I've killed it a couple of times. Yes, the first time was AT the dealership. Which was funny, but okay. Two more times when I was parking and forgot to take it out of gear. So it just died in the parking space, which isn't bad. But so far (crossing fingers) it hasn't died IN traffic.

So so far I've got about 200 miles. Most of that came from driving it back from Bartlesville. But I've driven around town a bit. I have a bit of a sunburn from it. And wind burn, probably. I'll admit - the more I drive it, the more I love it. I know it has a lot of power under the hood I haven't felt yet, but I have a respect for an engine like that. So in time. For now, I'm taking it very easy.

I will say I drove my other car (which I'm keeping), the Monte Carlo, around a bit tonight. My parents told me that I'll feel the difference right away, and they were right. I had spent so much time getting acclimated to the Honda, I had forgotten how my Chevy drove. And I did find myself pressing for the clutch a couple of times. When I floored it to get on the freeway, it made me laugh. It felt like it was trying, but just wasn't really grabbing the road. And the first turns I took I was pushing the car a little harder than I realized - that is to say, almost TOO hard. In the Honda it felt natural. And like it was a casual turn. In the Chevy, it was almost like it was shrieking at me, "What are you DOING?" And I'll say that I have NOT floored the Honda yet. I'm waiting until after the break in period. The break in recommendation is 600 miles before pushing it beyond 5500 RPM. Yes, that's correct - 5500. It redlines at 8000 RPM. The VTEC kicks in around 6000 RPM. The handling is unreal. It just picks up and goes wherever you point it. Yes, indeed - it is LUSCIOUS. And hella fun.

I'll be driving my Chevy to work for the most part - I can't handle the idea of putting the Honda in rush hour yet, or trying to park it in a packed parking lot. But I'll definitely be taking it out a bit at night.

Anyway, I'm quite happy about it, in case you haven't figured that out. It's the first sports car I've ever driven, much less owned. It IS my dream car, and I've been planning on getting a new car for a while. It just happened to work out that the time that I could do it landed on my birthday. And I'll happily share it with anyone who wants to check it out. Oh, I'LL be driving. But taking a spin is never a problem. (And sorry, but I won't drive multiple states just so you can see it.) I'll admit - it's a very pricey toy. But MAN. What a fun toy it is.

That's been taking most of my time lately. Working, kung fu, and getting ready for this last weekend. Oh! I did almost forget a little detail. I'll share this. 'Cause it's FUNNY. So I was driving around in front of the kwoon (kung fu) after dropping off Cory, who came with me to Bartlesville. You know, checking out the clutch, the feel of the transmission. Feeling it out. Well, there was this red Eclipse parked in the lot. It just sat there as I drove around. There were people in it. So after I drove around a while, I stopped by them to ask what they were up to. It was a couple of girls, and the driver talked to me. She said they were going to leave, but they saw me driving around and were trying to figure out if it I was going to sell the car, if I was test driving it, or if I owned it. We talked a bit about this and that, and I continued with my testing of the vehicle in the parking lot. (A large EMPTY parking lot, just so you know. Except for that Eclipse.) And after a little while longer, the girl stops me. I don't remember exactly how it went, but essentially she said, "I'll be out of town during the week doing some training for my job, but I'm here on weekends." And then she handed me a piece of paper. With her name on it. And her PHONE NUMBER. Yes, that's right. I hadn't even gotten HOME yet, and already this car had landed me some digits. Sure, she might be a gold digger, but it's pretty funny. I went ahead and gave her mine, since I'm very skeptical about someone sharing digits purely because of the vehicle they drive, so I probably won't call her anytime soon. But hey, if she wants to call me, then let it be. It cracked me up, though.

So yeah - it's been a good weekend. I'm tired, for some reason. I think I'm going to have some lovely ice cream that Kimberly gave me, maybe watch part of a movie (I wish I had a copy of Ronin right now...), and then sleep HARD. Thanks to everyone who wished me happy birthday on either MySpace, Facebook, or in person - all the details helped make it an awesome birthday. Yes, even completely excluding the CAR, it was an awesome birthday.

So time for random links! A video my friend Bret shared with me that I found rather funny. It's longer, but it's worth it for one video shot they got that was awesome. It has to do with how silly some speed limits are. And then I found a bunch of fun things with Google Maps. There are a variety of things. Well, I'm a fan of Escher, but seeing it on maps kind makes me feel woozy. Apparently the iPod has had more of an impact than people realize. Versailles is cool - did you ever notice the stick figure that is visible from above? Look carefully, and see if you can see him smiling at you. And to finish - I think Google Maps still has a few bugs in it.

Happy Birthday, Blog!

2006-09-20T23:38:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's my blog's birthday. Three years! Can you believe it? Kinda crazy. All sorts of weird events have occurred in those three years. Ah, the memories.

So this past week has been productive. Doing work, doing more work, kung fu, choir. I got my first full paycheck, about the same time I got my business check. It was a good feeling to deposit that much money. I couldn't help but have a stupid grin on my face. I'm not sure if the girl behind the counter thought I was just admiring her or what, but it didn't matter. So yeah - it looks like after the next pay period, I'll have enough to put down my set down payment on the car. But I should PROBABLY be responsible and wait a couple more weeks so I have a little more extra money to spare. Ugh. It's hard to be responsible, sometimes. Especially when some things are just so beautiful.

Kung fu's been rough this week. Sifu had shoulder surgery, so he's been out of it this week. Which means other people are covering for him until he's better. And Sihing has work most nights. And what does that mean? It means I'm in charge. Yep, scary, I know. I've been leading class (by myself) this whole week. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Two hours at a time, two separate classes. Monday we started late because all the students showed up late. So I went ahead and pushed them a little extra to make up for that. 160 crunches, 30 pushups (on fists or fingertips - I myself prefer fingertips), plenty of time in the horse stance. I even pushed myself more than normal. With the expectation I'd be able to recover the next day! But no, turns out I led class again, after a clearup of some misunderstanding I had with Sifu's decisions on who was leading when. I didn't push them QUITE as hard, but it was still pretty rough for the advanced class. And today was the same - although I decided to go ahead and turn all MY crunches into situps. After doing so many hundred crunches every night, you might as well take the next step. Yes, my abs are aching nicely. As are my legs, and my chest, and so forth. It's enough to motivate me to start doing the SEAL training workout regimen again. Maybe I'll gain twenty pounds of muscle again.

And guitar has been definitely still part of my schedule. I found an old Foo Fighters song, Everlong. And decided to see if I still remembered how to play it. Turns out I did, and that I actually figured out how to play it better than I had previously. It was quite cool. And it sounds glorious with my new setup (guitar/amp combination). That, and I learned how to play Cold. It was easier than I expected. Just a drop D tuning, and you're good to go. The only part that took a little longer to figure out was the solo, but I got it down. Oh, and I've also been looking into learning some Monte Montgomery. Because he's awesome. I particularly like I Know You By Heart. Some of his chords are NOT easy to change to quickly.

Yeah, and the new choir's got their first full "test" this Saturday. The Madalene at 5:30. Should be interesting. Hopefully it'll all go well. I just hope we get enough people to show. But I have faith. It'll all be splendid.

And work's going nicely - it's quite cool. I think I'll like it. I'm learning a lot, and I think I'll be able to actually contribute a substantial amount. And my business (not so much just a SIDE business anymore) is growing. I'm currently taking some classes to help me figure out how to expand it, and I'll be taking some major steps in a month or so to build on the business. If it goes well (and I think there's a decent chance it will), I'll be doubling the income from there or more by the end of the year.

Yes, so that's my blog's birthday post. Silly blog! Always here. To entertain and enlighten, and occasionally obfuscate. Hey! Did you know that Jet Li's new movie is coming out this Friday? It is luscious. I have seen it, and I know. Okay!

Time for random links! Yes, more than one. A few sent by my friend Nick. He finds lovely things. Like tales of how our childhood entertainment has taught us. And how some people have more gaming systems and games than me. Yes, even MORE than ME.

Ach, the Balance

2006-09-10T00:04:00.000-05:00

So I seemed to have recovered some nice emotional stability after doing my weekend introspection a week ago. Unfortunately, I have since experienced much physical INstability. I sparred two of the better fighters in kung fu on Friday (last Friday). In a row, with no break, of course. I think I left bruises on one of them, although he threw a knee into my calf. Not my shin (that would have hurt him worse, I think), but my calf. I'm not sure, but I think it may have sprained a tendon or something. I've been feeling my leg achey all week. Definitely not normal. I did leave three quite visible bruises on just one of his shins, so I suppose we can call it even.

Then yesterday I appear to have eaten something for lunch that did NOT agree with me. Yes, it's one of those things my body considered, and then decided that it must be REJECTED. Yes, indeed. So my body was making sure it would have NO PART of that food. Which was a very sucky 24 hours for me. I finally got an appetite back around 7 today (at night). A full day without food! Yay!

And it wasn't just me. Sihing (Justin) has apparently managed to get himself damaged, as well. Although for him it was at work. A very large (more than 6', 200+ lbs) male decided he was going to take some items from where Justin works. Since it's his job to make sure that doesn't happen, Justin basically told him he was not going to leave. This ungentlemanly individual decided he didn't like that, and a scuffle ensued. Basically, it started with Justin doing a hip toss and then putting him in a chokehold. The guy shoved him backwards and Justin hit his knee during the throw, hitting it on the concrete curb. The guy then proceeded to take his keys and jab them into Justin's arm, then rake them up his arm. Not pleasant. This only prompted Justin to tighten his chokehold quite a bit, so the guy passed out in less than five seconds. The guy's had previous charges against him, so it's very likely he'll spend some decent time in prison for all of it. Justin ended up with a very swollen knee and a couple of nice scrapes on his arm.

So yeah, this morning during sparring class, both of us were pretty sad looking. He was limping around, I was holding my stomach and being weak from lack of food. I think it's okay, though. We'll both recover and come back to play.

In other news, we had our first full choir rehearsal today. I'm getting excited about introducing the new choir to the church. It'll definitely be a change. I expect some people will like it, but some people probably won't, as well. We'll find out soon enough, I suppose. We go LIVE in two weeks.

And I had my first week at work. I think I'm actually going to like this job! For the first time in a long time, when I wake up I actually am looking forward to going in to work. Between that and starting some serious work to multiply things in my side business, the employment thing is going nicely. It's weird having money. I'm used to having to deal more often with deciding if getting gas in the car or EATING is more worthwhile. Seriously. Not that I'm complaining.

So next weekend is going to be the busiest weekend I've had in a very long time. For one thing, I'll be having my first high school reunion. Yes, that does display how old I really am, but eh. Everyone ages. Some better than others. I guess I'll find out how much better some have aged than others this coming weekend. It'll be very interesting to see the differences. That, and then I have a Newman alumni gathering, as well. Alumni all over the place! And a TEC reunion. So yeah, I'll be busy.

For funsies, it looks like I may be able to get the new car as early as the end of the month. It just comes down to deciding what color. Either black on black, dark silver on black, or dark silver on black and red. Sadly, they've discontinued the brighter silver, but oh well. I really have to say I feel almost guilty buying a new car. I don't really NEED it. Since I have a functional vehicle. It really is going to be more a toy than anything. The biggest crazy toy I've ever bought. But boy, will it be fun! And I have figured out what I'll be putting on my license plate. If it's not taken and/or illegal, I'll let you know after I get it. I'll just say this - it is definitely nerdy, and still very much me.

Oh! And I almost forgot. I normally grab a guitar and play on a moderately frequent basis. Most of the time I'll end up just doing improv stuff. I haven't been able to remember a lot of what I play, because I didn't have any way to record it, since I didn't have any drive space. Well, now that I DO have drive space, I recorded the last thing I was playing around with. It's still sort of exploratory, but this is something I thought up last week. Hopefully you think it's more good than bad.

Hmm, well, it is late. And I am going to sleep IN tomorrow. Which is lovely. For my random link today I'm going to put something rather random. A video by some guys who've made a number of videos. Some of which are actually rather funny! I thought this one was particularly amusing.

Some Things Matter More Than Others

2006-09-03T15:35:00.000-05:00

It's been a pretty long week. Some nice recover time with the three day weekend. I got to catch up on my sleep, which I needed a lot. And in my recovered state, I've had time to think. So this is my introspective dump, as my blog is sort of a public journal.

What have I learned? Well, I've been thinking about people in my life, quite a bit. Most of my best friends have moved away, and I rarely talk to them anymore. I had my three day weekend, and I realized it'd be a good time to hang out with friends. Unfortunately, it also made me realize the fact that I don't really have any. No really good friends, that is. I have a ton of acquaintances, I have some friends that I hang out with on occasion, but I don't have any friends that I can just call up to come over on a whim's notice, someone that I feel comfortable enough talking to that I can spill my soul's burden upon. If you have a friend like that, consider yourself blessed.

At the beginning of the year I thought about what types of things bothered me, the things that stressed me out. One of those things was money. Paying off the student loans, making sure I had enough to cover the bills. Especially when I was freshly graduated, looking for work that matched my skill level. So I set a goal to relinquish myself of that worry. By becoming independently wealthy. I told a few people about it, even asked some people if they'd be interested in learning how to get there with me, after I had started. Most people didn't take me seriously, or weren't interested. So it set me on my path by myself. Which I'm still walking down, making progress. It looks like I'll reach the goal I set, before I turn 30. I still have every intention of making it, and working my butt off to get there. Not having to worry about money is nice.

So yes - having money is nice, but the things in life that are actually worth something? It's the people in your life. Having someone you care about, who cares about you. That's worth more than anything else. People need each other to survive. You can be the strongest man on earth, the most independent being, but if you don't have other people in your life, you're not a full human being. Something crucial is missing. And that's how I'm feeling right about now. I've been put through a combination of experiences in my life that have made me become very independent, rather strong-willed. It makes me worry, though. I feel like it sets me apart from connecting to other people because of it.

I've had a number of people lately that I thought I was friends with, that sort of fell out of my life. In some cases, they just stopped talking to me. Had their own things to deal with, maybe better friends that were more worth their time. I actually believe in karma - what you give you you'll get back, in time. Perhaps everything that's been happening lately is for a reason, but whatever reason it is, it sucks. I wish I could count the number of people who've gone away like this on one hand, but it's more than that. I wish I knew why, but I don't. It's not for lack of trying, either. And anyone that knows me knows I'm not a jerk (on a regular basis, at the very least). I'd imagine that anyone who just drops away from a person for no rational reason is not a real friend, anyway, so maybe I'm all the better for it.

I do find myself in leadership roles in many aspects of my life. I think that does have something to do with it - when you're a leader, the rest of the group bonds, but the leader often stands alone. You can see this easily in military examples, or in the classroom. Perhaps I just need to follow more. I'm just trying to figure out exactly how things work, why things are they way they are. It's the obsessive analytical, logical nature I have. Maybe it's something that can't be figured out. Maybe it just is.

Something fun that added to my feeling of being pushed out was the cop that showed up at my door last night. I like to use the guitar as an emotional release, and while pushing the limits of sound with the latest guitar/amp combo I have, seems that I got a little TOO loud. So one of the neighbors called the cops on me. They didn't come up and ask me directly to quiet down a little, but just called the cops. By the time he came, I had stopped for almost an hour, so it was a moot point. He was nice about it, seemed like he wasn't particularly happy about checking it out. I did it on a Saturday night, before 9, so I figured it'd be the best time to get loud, if I was ever going to. Looks like I'll have to keep the volume on my amp below the halfway point from now on.

Regardless of my more somber tone today, I'm still an optimist. And I will say that I DO have some friends, and I enjoy spending time with them when I can. The one thing missing that I can honestly say I wish I had is a best friend, someone I trust implicitly, someone I know won't back out on me. Maybe I just need to wait until I get married for that one. Until then, it's being Mr. Independent, working on all my goals, enjoying the simple pleasures in life. Perhaps I'll just stumble across some new friends, and it'll hit me without me even realizing it.

Speaking of simple pleasures - I did go by the Honda dealership yesterday. I didn't stay for very long, because they were closing. Imagine being nice to the car salesman because you don't want to take up his time. It's an odd feeling. But yeah, I went in and checked out a 2006 model, a black S2000 on the floor. It was BEAUTIFUL. I sat in it for the first time, and I have to say I'm already in love, and I haven't even driven one yet. It really does feel less like something you get IN, and more like something you put ON. It's like you're wearing it. They're continuing into 2007, so it's not being discontinued, which is good. I'll probably start shopping right around my birthday. If you know when that is, then know that I'll probably be driving one sometime during the thirty days that follow. Woo!

As far as my work week went, this week I had orientation in Virginia. I got to also see my sister and her roommate, an old friend of mine. We hung out a bit, it was good to see her place and how she's living her life. I also go to see some friends of the family, and see an old friend of mine (one of the best friends that moved away). We talked for a while, got to vent about our personal frustrations. It was good.

The orientation itself was okay. Nothing overly exciting. We did get laptops, which was sweet - it's my first real laptop! It's a work machine, but they pretty much belong to us, so we can use them for whatever we want. The orientation leader just said nothing illegal, and nothing nasty. I guess I'll have to stay away from news pages. They're nastier than nice, especially with all the crazy weather lately on the east coast.

So yeah, orientation, then the last two days of the week were for work days. It wore me out, not stopping at all. I think I'll like working there, though. The people are cool, and the work might have a learning curve, but I think I might actually enjoy it. I've already run into several people downtown I know. It keeps reminding me how small a place the world really is.

Okay - even though this has been a more journal-style blog entry, there's still plenty of room for random linking. I've shared some of my life experience and learning with you today. But there are other people you may be able to learn from.

Changes Begin

2006-08-27T15:10:00.000-05:00

Not a lot of time to post today, but wanted to just throw something up here. LOTS has happened. The big thing is that last week was my last week at the last job (HSBC). Got the last three days off, which was lovely. I start my new job at IBM tomorrow! I don't have time today, though, because I'm headed out on a flight for a business trip in a few hours. With the crazy airport security analness, I need to be there about two hours early. Crazy.

I'm looking forward to the new job a lot! It should be fun. I hope I can actually use my skills well at this one, instead of just wishing I could do productive things and not be offered the chance to.

The other major change - between this and my side business, my income has just DOUBLED. I'm not even kidding. I used to think of a raise as something like an extra dollar an hour. This is unheard of. I'm sincerely frightened at the idea, though - I don't know if I trust myself with this much more. I'm going to try living like I'm not making anything extra, but it'll be hard when you have a giant pot of GOLD just sitting there, shining at you. I don't think it'll sink in until I get the next few paychecks. Eh, looks like the hassles I had continuing with graduate school are finally paying off some.

Random news stuff - I mowed my parents' lawn a few days back. The back lawn was at obscene levels of height. As was the temperature. So I was out there, soaking in sweat, glistening in the unrelenting sunlight. I drank three large cups of orange juice. And the whole thing took me over two hours. I think it may have been unhealthy to be out in the heat (100+ degrees) for that long. Pushing the mower, mind you - trying to make it run on its own was ludicrous. The mower would have none of that. It would notice how high the grass was and just sputter and quit. Basically a nice, "Hell, NO!" So I had to sneak up each inch on the mower. "See? It's not THAT much. Just ignore the several feet left in front of you. Just these two inches are okay." It was rough. Here, you can get SOME idea what I'm talking about here.

Anyway, I gots to finish packing and get out of here to make my flight. But that's the news lately. Oh, and I did play at church at the Madalene for the first time. No choir yet, but I actually got a ton of complements for just me and my guitar. So it's a good start. I think the congregation will be open to some changes in the music there.

Random links! Since I had to make a shorter blog today, you get TWO. First one - everyone loves Guitar Hero. Just be careful you don't get too out of control. Second one - there are good reasons to make sure you keep track of any food you accidentally leave behind the couch. Or on your lawn.

Mixed Day

2006-08-16T23:32:00.000-05:00

An interesting day, indeed. Things are both really good, and really annoying. Eh, I'm more of a bad news first type of person, so annoying first.

Seems my friends are somewhat sporadic. I've called a number of people in the past 24 hours. And either my phone is broken, or people just don't return phone calls anymore. It's a pet peeve of mine when someone doesn't communicate clearly. Take, for example, previous girlfriends. I'm sure this has happened to some of you. "What's wrong?" you ask, genuinely concerned. "Nothing," she says, when her body language communicates completely the opposite. Well, DAMMIT, you need to say something! I'm not going to sit there and play Operation on your emotions. Is it a problem here? BZZT! Get shouted at or condemned for making the WRONG GUESS. Is it this? BZZT! Freakin' JUST TELL ME. Communicate. And it's almost always the WOMAN who has this problem. Which I find ironic, since it's usually the woman who values communication more than guys. Guys may not always want to talk, but if you ask them a question, they'll straight up answer it. "Why were you late?" "I had diarrhea." It doesn't matter if it's embarrassing - if it's a straight question, you get a straight answer. With women, though... "Why were you late?" "Mind your own business." GAH.

Okay, I've vented. It does piss me off, though. On the other side of things, there've been some nice moments. Today I went and got some lovely Burger King, and on the way back I saw some GQ middle-aged guy on a motorcycle - didn't look/sound like a Harley, but he was behind me at the stoplight, I couldn't tell for sure. I saw him looking to the left, so I turned to see what it was. It was a middle-aged woman in a car, in the left turn lane. Neither of these were exactly models, but they were fairly attractive people. The guy on the bike winked and blew her a kiss. She just looked flustered and flattered all at once. The light changed for her turn, and she looked like she had to make a rushed decision - so she finally just blew him a kiss back. But in a hurry! So she could make her light. It cracked me up, I actually laughed out loud quite loudly.

I've been playing a lot of guitar lately! It's good. And the whole directing the choir thing looks like it might be good. If anyone ever SHOWS UP. So far, the outlook hasn't been too promising. But I have faith. Irony of word choice recognized but not explicitly chosen, there. Lately I've been hooked on playing a particular song. It's rather difficult to play. Some people play it in their own style, which, to me, is BADLY. But there are others who play it as it should be played. And it's glorious.

Ah, and the job situation. So I'm going to work at IBM, it looks like. And I'm looking forward to it! I think it's a much better fit than my last (technically current) position. They didn't actually walk me out the door. I'm thinking it's because I actually gave a full two weeks notice. So I'm still working there, possibly for the rest of this week and next week. Although I have a half day Friday, because they're pulling down all the cubes to move to a different floor. So for a few weeks, everyone's going to be working in a pod. A big circular pod, about the OPPOSITE of a cube. Everyone gets a slice. Like a pie of misery. I think I'm leaving at a good time.

But yeah, IBM's going to be a decent raise in pay, real work to do, and I even get a work computer. Sweetness! And my side business is growing steadily. I've made even more progress in the last two weeks, roughly doubling what I had before. And I think there's a chance I may double it again. Which means, potentially... combining my new salary with the income from the side job, I might (and I'll admit I'm hesitant to say this) actually be pulling six figures. Which is INSANE. It's a big step up from what I'm used to making, believe me. And because of that, I'm thinking I need to keep living the way I have been, and just stash all that extra green away somewhere. Like in a Roth IRA (which I have). Or a 401K setup (which I will). And maybe - just maybe - a little bit into payments for a lovely little vehicle I like to call a Stooky. (S2K - just pronounce it like one word. You'll see what I mean.) To be honest, it scares me a little to be making that much. First you get the money. Then you get the power. Then you get the WOMEN.

Okay. And to fit in with my mixed mood, here's a lovely little picture.

Yeah, that's about right.

Oh, by the way, my eardrum seems to back to normal. Which I am grateful for. So it's on to abusing it further with electric guitar madness.

So it's been a weird mix of stuff. Oh, that, and I rented a JACKED UP movie. Yeah, it's got about the most raw violence, sex, and language combined of any movie I've seen. I hadn't really heard anything about it, and I felt like some vicarious aggression, so that was my choice. I'm a little taken aback by how screwed up it was. Just warning you now - if you have any sensitivity to issues that can be displayed in a movie, any sensitivity WHATSOEVER, you might continue perusing your choices at the rental aisle.

Time for random linking! Random linky? Linky rando? Scusey whosey? Yes, this one is random. But fitting for the time. See, it has to do with leaving jobs. Although I think my resignation was more peaceful than some others.

Things Are Changing

2006-08-10T23:44:00.000-05:00

Yep, things are definitely changing. Not sure if it's good or not, but I think it has potential.

So what's changing? The big thing - my job. It looks like it's solid enough that I feel I can actually talk about it. That's right, it's CHANGING. I've finished some interviews at two different fairly major places. So I should get my offer(s) tomorrow. I'll let you know after I make my decision. It should be a good bump in pay, and I'll actually have WORK to do. Which I prefer. Maybe a little more work than I should, but hey. I'm okay with that.

So that means I'll be able to actually get my Honda! Soon, soon. Probably end up purchasing right around the time of my birthday (hint, hint... last day of September). So that might work out nicely.

Speaking of pay raises - my side business is growing steadily. I'm at the point now where I'm making a solid profit every day. I'll just say this - if it stays where it's at or grows, it'll be enough to cover the new car AND insurance... by itself. Without needing the new job's income. I've worked my butt off to get this far, so it wasn't easy, but I guess hard work does pay off.

And my sister has MOVED. She's living in Ashburn, VA now. She managed to get a job fast. She only got there this last weekend, and she started a new job today. She didn't even have anything lined up when she got there. I guess she just worked hard to get it rolling. It's her first time to be away from home, so it'll definitely be interesting. I may end up visiting her in a week, depending on where I end up getting hired.

And kung fu is changing! Prices are rising, the classes are different. Now we have two classes every day - beginner and intermediate/advanced. I teach a little of each. And Sifu's having us focus on teaching more self-defense, as how movements from the forms can be used in various methods. It looks like I'll be getting back in better shape. That's a good thing. Because...

I'm getting fat! That's right, I'm starting to pack on my pizza and Pepsi pounds. I think. Probably not, but perhaps it's because I haven't been going crazy kung fu working out as much as I was before. And my six pack isn't as blatantly obvious. I actually have to flex now for it to be easily visible. Bleah. I still haven't broken 140, but it's pushing it. I might have to give up more Pepsi. I don't WANT to, but it'd be the right thing to do.

Yes, and I'm sure a few of you were groaning to that last paragraph. I know it's because of the deep sympathy you have for me. Or maybe you're secretly happy. Who knows. YOU do, of course. But me? I do not. I know not what people's opinions are of my fatness. Unless they tell me.

And my friends are changing! Well, a few of them are. How? By getting ENGAGED. Mostly women I know. It's freaking me out. A friend I know through Brandon is now engaged. My friend Courtney is now engaged. And my ex, Becca (of all people) is also engaged. Everyone's getting married! Except for me. (This is where you say, "Aww....") I think it may be in my destiny to not be married until my mid-thirties. That's how it was with my parents. My dad didn't get married until he was 35. That's okay, though, because my mom was 27! (If my math is right.) And I'll go ahead and say it - my dad was a big nerd, and my mom was a hottie. So there's hope for me yet.

Okay, time for a joke. I found this a while back, and it's got some vulgarity, but I think it helps the punchline better to leave it in. Thou hast been warned.
A woman's husband had been slipping in and out of a coma for several months, yet she had stayed by his bedside every single day. One day, he motioned for her to come nearer.

She sat by him, he whispered, eyes full of tears, "You know what? You have been with me all through the bad times.

When I got fired, you were there to support me.

When my business failed, you were there.

When I got shot, you were by my side.

When we lost the house, you stayed right here.

When my health started failing, you were still by my side...You know what?"

"What dear?" she gently asked, smiling as her heart began to fill with warmth.

"I think you're bad luck, get the fuck away from me."

Hee hee! Yes, FUNNY STUFF. I like funny stuff. So here's another bit of funny stuff.

Oh yeah, baby! I like nuns. I'm related to a few. Did you know that? Yes, that's right. Actually, all of my aunts (not aunts-in-law, of course) are nuns. How is it that a family with Aztec blood can end up producing a Mother Superior? Who knows. It's all part of life's great mystery.

What other changes? Oh yes - the choir. I'm leaving Newman. I think I've mentioned it already, but there it is. I'm actually going to be leading a young adult choir over at the Madalene now. I have a key to the church and everything. I feel special! Hopefully I can lead them all right, but I think it'll be okay. Speaking of which, I led the music on TEC this last weekend. I think it turned out well - a lot of people were there, and I actually think everyone that went got something out of it this time. It was good stuff. And I think people thought the music turned out okay, too.

Okay, those are my changes. At least the ones I can think of. Oh! And I also went out and got Dead Rising. Zombie madness! It's actually a pretty good game. Very reminiscent of Dawn of the Dead. LOTS of zombies. Everywhere. So far, I've had interesting experiences smacking a few zombies with a big screen plasma TV, ricocheting a soccer ball off of several after a well-placed hit, jamming a zombie's (detached) hand into another zombie's face (where it stuck), and mowing the lawn with a very large lawn mower. A lawn full of ZOMBIES. It's pretty fun!

Hmm. I think I'm in a good mood, somehow. My blog always seems to lose cohesion and get sillier when I'm in a good mood. Maybe that's a good thing. Oh, and hey, my blog has broken the 5000 visitor mark! Woo! Now time for RANDOM LINK. This is an older one I don't think I ever linked to. Since I was talking about churchy stuff (TEC and choir), I think it's relevant. That, and I played with them when I was a kid, so... play with this, kids!

It's BROKEN

2006-07-29T02:22:00.000-05:00

Yeah, this last week just hasn't been so great. Well, the week from Wednesday a week ago to this last Wednesday. A few things happened. Not so happy things. For one, I did buy Fearless, which is awesome. But! The disc was bad! It was broken. So I have to wait for a replacement. Thankfully, the guy I bought it from said he'd send a free replacement. So that's good.

And my ICQ account got hacked. It's broken! I had a horrid, horrid password on it, and someone cracked it. So if you got any rude messages from me on ICQ, you can ignore it. I'm thinking about trying to hack it back, but it'd require using tools I prefer not to dirty my hands with. We'll see.

Oh, and I got a nasty ear infection. It hurt my ear. And my eardrum? It's broken! That's right. I took a day off of work (from lack of sleep and stress), and THAT NIGHT I wanted to get extra sleep. So I hit the hay and then promptly at 1 my ear starts hurting. I couldn't sleep until around 5. If you've heard that ear infections are painful, then you heard right. You might know that I take kung fu. I think I may have mentioned it. And when it comes down to it - between the ear infection and taking a punch to the face, I'd prefer the punch to the face. I finally fell asleep, though, and went to the doctor the next day. The blood on my pillow in the morning wasn't a good sign, and the doctor made a comment about me deciding to put off going to the doctor. I told him that I didn't notice any ear pain/discomfort until that previous night, and he told me that my eardrum had popped. So it means it sounds like I have a pillow against my head all the time, and it FEELS plugged. It's not happy. In the past couple of days I've started to hear a little better, but I'm hearing extra pitches on top of the other ones (and all of them at reduced volume). It's starting to drive me crazy.

Yeah, I'm on antibiotics, but it's just to prevent reinfection. And it doesn't really hurt anymore, it's mostly annoying. You don't appreciate a lot of things as much as you do after they're broken. I can add my hearing to that list, now.

So lots of broken things. Bleah. But in other news, there's some happy stuff. I replaced my amp! I spent a little more than I intended, but I managed to get a great deal, so that did it for me. I got a Crate amp, a little block of power called (ironically enough) the PowerBlock. And that's just an amp, no speakers included (it's just a head), so I had to get a cabinet to go along with it. I found a used cabinet, and the guy at Guitar Center made me a great deal for both of them put together, so I had to get it. The only thing is that this cabinet is a little big. It's hard to move, as it weighs more than half my weight. But at least it has wheels. And the saddest part was that I picked up both the day AFTER my eardrum broke. So I couldn't really check it out properly. But I have played a bit on it, and it is luscious. I haven't even pushed it, but it can pump out some serious volume. I'm sure my neighbors love me more than ever.

In kung fu news, today we had testing. A few more people tested, and I got to help out. It's always cool to see how much people have progressed, and there were a few that were definitely noticeable in their improvements. It's rewarding. The crazy thing is seeing people lose serious weight and start having a substantial amount of increased energy. One student in particular has lost over 25 pounds since he started. And considering he's changed a lot of his weight to muscle (which weighs more than fat), that means he's actually lost a lot more than just that. He's looking a lot healthier than when he began. And we had another student test in Gung Gee today! Gung Gee is the first truly advanced form. It's over three hundred moves, and it's not easy. He did it, although he still has some room for improvement. I helped him with his self-defense, though, and he did smack me pretty nicely. As well as kicking through four boards. Sifu was smart enough to recommend I put on some headgear we have that has a facemask over it. I'm glad he said so, because when the student (named Truman) kicked through the four boards, large chunks of them hit me in the face. He did well, though.

I also got to help a new student start today. The main reason I helped him is because he speaks hardly any English. I must admit, my Spanish has been improving, because I do use it on a regular basis to help teach kung fu. He did well, and he got to experience the pain that is the horse stance. He smiled when he realized how much the stances can hurt, which is a good sign. If you smile at pain, you're probably good for kung fu.

Okay - it's quite late, so I should get some sleep. Before continuing more kung fu in the morning. Random link time! I have a nice one today. It's political in nature. Did you ever see Superman II? Then you'll appreciate this potential for our future.

It's late and I'm sleepy

2006-07-18T00:26:00.000-05:00

Yes, sleepy. I have been losing sleep periodically over the past week and a half. It's because I'm a busy guy. What can I say?

So I thought I'd write a bit of blog before crashing to bed tonight. I've decided to get back into guitar a little more. The whole thing with me changing choirs has helped spawn some of it. I learned how to play a new song! Actually, an old song (the second one on their playlist). It's a good song.

Lately I've been a teacher a lot. Guitar for one, and kung fu for another. And also my side business stuff - I help teach people on a forum I use. But tonight was a big kung fu night for me, for teaching. I taught two classes. The beginner class first, which was pretty big, and then the intermediate/advanced class. Normally Cory handles warmups for the first class, but he seems to have injured his eye at a tournament this last weekend. So I took both warmups. There are several crunches, pushups, that type of thing in our warmups. I got extra tonight, which might be why I'm especially exhausted. But I think I taught a few people some good stuff. I felt useful, which is a good feeling for me.

Yes, there was a tournament this last Saturday. I actually competed in it, in the forms competition for adult black belts. Sifu was a judge, and he gave me a 9.8 (which is quite good). However, it was a karate tournament, and karate judges tend to not like kung fu as much. I got 9.5s across the board from the rest of the judges. I had several complements on my form, so I think I did okay. A few people made the comment that I got robbed, but it's okay. Maybe I should make up a karate tournament-ready form. One that involves a lot of screaming, jumping, and kicking above the head. Since it appears that's what it takes to get good points. Not that it has anything to do with actual EFFECTIVE manuevers. Eh, I'll just keep working on improving my forms.

Speaking of tournaments, there's another one coming up this next weekend. A big one, in Plano (by Dallas). Sifu's going, Cory's going. I was thinking of going to support, but Sifu made the comment that perhaps I should compete. I don't know if I should - I'm almost burnt out, and I think it might be an idea to take a weekend off. Imagine that. It's something I have to figure out, since it seems lately I've been around kung fu more than Sihing, so Sifu seems to be counting on me more. I respect him, so I try to help him where I can. I'm just trying to figure out if this is something I need to do or not. It'd be a four hour drive each way, leaving Friday night, coming back Sunday evening. A bit of cost for gas and hotel. I guess I'll have to sleep on that one.

Okay - random interjection of something funny. If you're a nerd, you'll find this funny. If you're a bilingual nerd, you'll find it especially funny. It's fitting with the latest pirate craziness. (Although I STILL don't especially like the new movie.)

In 1588, invasion was beginning.
Drake : Ahoy, me hearty! What happen?
Mariner #1: Oh my! Somebody set up us the invasion.
Mariner #2: We get flag signal.
Drake : What!
Mariner #2: Main mast turn on.
Drake : It's you!
Pedro de Valdes : Como estáis vosotros caballeros!
Pedro de Valdes : Toda vuestra flota está perteneciendo a nosotros.
Pedro de Valdes : Estáis en su camino a vuestra destrucción.
Drake : What you say, matey?
Pedro de Valdes : Joer! Que no tenéis oportunidad de sobrevivir hagad vuestro tiempo
Pedro de Valdes : Ja Ja Ja Ja....
Mariner #1: Well, I never!
Mariner #2: Captain!
Drake : Avast mateys!! Take off every galeon!
Drake : Yarr!! You know what you doing.
Drake : Move cannons.
Drake : For great justice.
Drake : ARRR!

Oh yeah, good stuff. In other news, I've started learning Tai Chi. I'm adding it to my skills to balance out kung fu. Soft and hard, yin and yang. So forth. It's very interesting! It's similar to kung fu, but at the same time, VERY different. I think it'll help me learn a lot more, though. I was influenced to start learning by a particular gentlemen who gave a workshop a few weeks back. Yes, the one who made me spin around on the floor many times. You can get an idea of what he does here. And although it might look almost fake, the guys he's playing with are not faking it, believe me. It's a lot easier to believe it when you're the one he's throwing around. I'm starting to learn from Sifu, but in time I'll be visiting him to get additional training. Good stuff, indeed.

Oh! Related to kung fu, there's a movie coming out. September 22nd in the U.S. It's with a certain fellow named Jet Li. You may have heard of him. This is his last martial arts movie. Not his last movie, just his last martial arts epic film. I think it looks quite good. You can check for yourself. (Although I think this trailer is better.) And yes, I'll be going to see it midnight on release (or earlier). But you know what? I'm too impatient, and the movie looks TOO GOOD. So I bought it. Yes, that's right. I went ahead, found it on DVD (online), and bought it. It's on its way. The movie was already released in China a while back, so it's out on DVD there - it's legit. I'm going to have a good kung fu movie night when I get it, so if you're interested, let me know. It will be luscious!

Goodness! That's a lot of stuff to write about. And I wanted to make it quick. Oh well. Seems I already put a lot of links in today. But I still have a RANDOM link! Again, one that I got from Nick. He's just full of splendid randomness. Did you ever play Pac-Man? Probably. Did you like it? Probably at least a little. Were you good at it? Did you learn the tricks to playing? It's a complicated game, you know. Don't worry, there are some people who can help you out. Oh! Bonus link. I want this.

An interesting weekend

2006-07-10T00:21:00.000-05:00

Yes, it was definitely an interesting weekend. For starters, I ended up spending a chunk of money unexpectedly. One part of the chunk was to fix my car (again). Silly water pump went out, so my coolant would simply squirt everywhere while the car was running. Took care of that and the fan belt, changed the oil, everything's better now. Although it did take a nice slice of cash to do it. Bleah. Oh well.

I also spent a chunk of money on a new vacuum. I don't actually own a vacuum. I DO own a steam cleaner. Go figure. But yes, the vacuum is quite lovely. Sihing has connections, got one for a very small amount, so I bought it from him for about $100 under the retail price. And it's the ideal vacuum for me. It fits my laziness and my geekiness all at once! Why do I think that? You'll understand, after you see the vacuum.

I've used it a few times. I think it cleaned out things from my carpet that were there before I moved in. It's quite effective, I was impressed. I couldn't stop watching it the first time, it's hypnotic. But my carpet's now cleaner than it's ever been.

So in other news, I took my guitar out to my patio on Saturday. I usually do that on weekends if the weather's nice. Sit on the patio and sip a Pepsi while I get some sun and make some sounds. Hopefully pleasant ones. Well, I was playing, and a neighbor of mine in the building next door saw me as she walked back from the pool. She didn't recognize me at first, then realized I was someone she had met a few days before. She made a comment that, "You SO need to come out to the pool and play for us!" So I went ahead and did that. Got to meet some people, and got a decent number of complements on my playing, which was cool. I need to learn more songs. I also got to meet a guy there who said he was opening up a new bar, and was interested in getting some acts to play for Monday and Tuesday. He said he wanted something a little more laid back, and my style fit very well with what he was looking for. So he basically offered me a position, which is cool. It'd be in a few months. But I think that it'd be fun.

And as I was headed out to church, I had another neighbor stop me and tell me she liked my guitar playing. She lives underneath me, and she said that her 5 year old granddaughter visits on weekends. She said her granddaughter would comment, "I hear the music!" And she'd open her patio door so they could hear me play. She said they liked it, that she thought I was quite good. So that made me smile, and I was happy to hear that my playing actually got heard and appreciated.

Church went well, the music was good. We've got a new guitarist, a young guy. He's only been playing about three years, but he's very good. Practices around 3 or 4 hours a day. Doing that tends to make you good. Ironically, after getting complements throughout the weekend, I had a conversation about a request for me to STOP playing. I had been thinking about it, but looks like I won't be playing at Newman for too much longer. I've been there for ten years now, and I think it's time to move on. I am curious to find out what the difference will be like, and if people will notice. I might take a break, go to a different church, see if I can find someplace that can use a guitarist.

Afterwards I gave my friend Andrew his first guitar lesson. He's a good guy, and he's excited to start playing. I think he'll do well. He picked up a lot in one day, and I think he'll advance fast. I guess we'll find out in time.

And a random bit of info - seems like my kung fu/tai chi developed strength is getting out of hand. I successfully destroyed not one, but TWO articles of clothing this weekend. The first was one of my kung fu shirts. It had a bit of a hole in the armpit area. But when I was taking it off, I guess I pulled a little too hard and the whole thing just tore apart. On some level it made me feel more manly, but it sucked that I ruined the shirt. Then the next day I was taking some trash to the dumpster, and when I was coming back, I walked too close to the edge of it. It caught the edge of my pants. Now I'm thinking most people would have their pants caught and it would stop them from moving too fast. Not me, apparently. I just kept walking without even noticing that I was moving and my pants were NOT. Tore three large rips in the pants leg, almost split it neatly in half. It's too bad, too. I liked those pants.

Hopefully I won't be tearing apart too many more bits of clothing. If I start ripping shirts or pants when I take them off on a regular basis, it might be time to either start wearing button-ups more, or just find stronger clothes.

So yeah, definitely an interesting weekend. This week might be just as interesting, who knows - we'll see. For now? Random link! This is one my friend Nick sent me. It's quite cool, and I can't help but watch it over and over again. It might be the musician in me, but it might be just that it's SO COOL.

4th of July!

2006-07-04T01:03:00.000-05:00

Yes, technically, it's the 4th. The remembering of our country being founded as its own entity. Well, its own country. Sadly, I think the birth of our country and its 230th birthday mark two very different entities. I say sadly because lately, it has been kind of sad. But I don't like talking about politics, so I'll stop there.

Hmm, it's still been a bleah sort of week. I had yet another single friend (one of the few left) go unsingle on me. So trying to find single friends to hang out with (of either gender) is a challenge. I should take it as a glass is half full sort of way, and think that to conquer such a challenge is a glorious event to strive for. But eh, I'm just sick of having no friends that I don't have to share at every moment. And double negatives always make things more confusing.

So Sifu's going to be gone another week, looks like me and Sihing are splitting classes to take over for Sifu. I do enjoy teaching classes, though. I get to put my own flavor on things, and try helping people understand a little better. Plus the bonus of picking my own self-defense techniques to teach is always fun. I'm working on updating the web page, we'll finally have something up a little cleaner. I just need to finish the graphical side of things. And we might just put up some videos, too. Some good videos. I'm voting to put up one of Shannon laying some waste during his sparring competition at our last tournament. That one should be good. I'll set up the link when I get it done.

The whole mystery of human relations has been on my mind lately. I've been thinking of how it seems to be that confidence is one of the most attractive traits a person can have. It's true, and it definitely helps. But oddly, one of the other most attractive traits is a significant other. At least for women. It's one of those catch-22 things, that you don't have it until you don't need it anymore. Like a new job, credit card offers, etc. Most of the people who get attention are the people who actually are dating someone. And the ones who WANT to date someone are the ones who never get attention. Partly tied into the confidence bit, since your confidence jumps when there's someone you know thinks the world of you, and drops when no such person exists in your life. I think it lures women partially because a LOT of women like a challenge. And a confident taken guy is the ideal challenge. You know I'm right. How twisted is that?

Personally, I'd like to find (someday) a woman who is not looking for that type of guy. Thankfully I'm okay being single right now. What I WANT is just some friends I can hang with that don't come with an attachment to make me feel like a third wheel. Maybe I'll find a woman who can beat the crap out of me. That would satisfy me in multiple ways, oddly. I never thought of myself as into S&M in any way, but a woman who excels in fisticuffs becomes more attractive to me, for some reason. Maybe it's just late and my head's on a little loose tonight.

So in guitar news, I sold my amp. Back to the guy I bought it from, ten years ago. It's a little sad, I'll miss that amp. But he actually plays in live sets, and I think he could really use it better than me. I just used it to jam in my apartment, and occasionally took it elsewhere for public exhibition purposes. So I might need to get a new amp. I'm using my first little Peavey right now, and playing on it again makes me realize how crappy it really is. I think it might be time to get my new hard drives hooked up so I can start recording music digitally again, without having to worry about amp quality.

And it's early in the holiday morn, so I should get to sleep to be ready for my big day of goofing off. So that means random link time! I have two today. Well, the first one is sort of two. See, it has to do with this lovely organization everyone should be a part of. And within this organization, there's one rather new individual who you should keep watch on - trust me, he'll shake things up a bit here, sometime soon. Perhaps today. And my second link is closer to my computer nerd side. I've learned most of the languages used on computers, including nasty ones like FORTRAN, Eiffel and even assembly language. But I still have not learned other things such as COBOL, Erlang, and this lovely language. Maybe I should.

LONG week

2006-06-24T01:13:00.000-05:00

Ugh. Yeah, it's been a very long week. It should have been a horrid week, but I grabbed it by the cojones to make sure it didn't completely jack me over. A lot of it's been stuff at work. My boss and I haven't been getting along so well this week. Although he's not been getting along with a lot of people this week. We also had one of the guys from our group leave, move to another job. I think there might be more following up on that. It just hasn't been an extraordinarily happy place to be lately. Made me feel kind of like this in recent days:

So considering I spend eight hours every day there, that wasn't great. Thankfully, kung fu's been okay. Although I think I may have broken a finger. I'm not sure. If I did, it's just a fracture, because I've still got total functionality. I've just had a weird sort of soreness and swelling between two knuckles in one of my pointer fingers. And it's right in the middle, so it's not a joint thing. But it really hasn't been bothering me, so I'm not really complaining. It's just weird.

And I've been trying to get time with my friends, but they're all busy. Busy DATING people. Which is making me ill. I'm tired of not being able to spend time with friends because they're busy being all gooshy about someone else. Especially my female friends. For some reason their boyfriends all seem to feel threatened by me and are uncomfortable with me spending any time with them, unsupervised. So anytime I've seen my friends (of the female variety) lately, it's been with their guy right by their side.

Yeah, I'm single right now, and it's the whole summer love thing that's being pushed in my face. And it's starting to piss me off. Just about everyone I know has a committed relationship, and it's being rubbed in a little too much for my own comfort. Especially all my ex's that I still talk to. Even ones I don't! My most recent ex I saw at Best Buy the other day, with her new guy. We don't talk anymore - she's the type of person who terminates all contact upon breakup. So I saw her, and her guy (who was at least three inches shorter than she was) with his arm wrapped around her waist. She didn't see me notice her, and I looked away. When she did see me, she made like a tree and got out of there.

Rebecca did come to visit, which was sort of both good and bad. Yes, she has a committed guy, too. Thankfully, he didn't come attached to her waist. But he did come attached to her phone. He seemed to be nervous about her seeing me at all. I guess I'm just TOO MANLY for some of these guys to handle. What, with my rock star kung fu skillz, I can understand. I hadn't seen her in a long time, and it was good, but it brought back memories. Which probably didn't help the whole rubbing summer love in my face whilst I be single.

But like I said, I took my bad week by the cojones, and I took a SICK DAY. Yes, I was feeling rather ill, so I split my week in half, and it made things better. Caught up on some sleep, got some more work done on my side business. And watched some decent movies. Saw Firewall, with Harrison Ford. It was pretty good, I was surprised. Also saw 16 Blocks, with Bruce Willis. And it was actually a good movie, too. It had an alternate ending, which was interesting, although I think I was okay with the theater ending. I have yet to watch Braveheart, which I haven't seen in forever. I think it'll fit my week's mood, though.

In other news, looks like I'm selling my amp. My guitar amp, yes. It's a Roland Cube-100. Very rare to find, but the guy who sold it to me (MANY years ago) wants it back, apparently. So I'll probably sell it back to him, get a new amp of some kind. Probably something a wee bit more portable. The Roland is large and in charge. And much heavier than it looks.

The new car is still on - have to wait until I have verified income to cover it, but I'll be doing it. Hopefully by the end of next month, while there are still a few months to do road tripping in good weather. It won't be any sort of solution to life issues, but it sure will be fun to have. Probably very good for the stress reduction.

Now time for random linking! I've got a few today. First, in the guitar theme. It's just cool. And for those of you still in school, you will LOVE me for this. Even those of you who are graduated and finished, you'll still find appreciation. If you look closely. Finally, it's been a while since I've linked any files, so video time. I used to be huge into magic when I was a kid, and I haven't gotten over it completely. Of everyone I've seen, lately the one that's been making me wonder is a guy named Criss. Oh, he'll do something that I understand the explanation of sometimes. Then he'll do things I don't understand the explanation of. And he'll do things that are a little freaky. Then he'll do things that are a little more freaky. And sometimes - he'll do things that are a lot freaky.

Tournament WAS Saturday!

2006-06-13T00:54:00.000-05:00

And if you didn't go, too bad. You missed out on a lot of good stuff! The biggest tournament Sifu's had in a very long time, perhaps ever. I think over 300 people were there. Oh, and if you're not Amy, you probably weren't there. Shame, shame! You can ask her about what you missed.

The quick version: We had some excellent demos to start the tourney, from various schools. They were all very different, but good. Finished it up with our own demos, including a sparring set between me and the other Eric (which we did without messing up, yay), a bit of demonstration from the kids (including some rather exciting board breaking), and wrapping it up with the lion dance. The lion dance seemed to have gone over well. We got several complements, and above all, Sifu was very happy with it. Sifu doesn't get very happy about much. So the fact that he did about this was a fairly big deal. There were video cameras there, hopefully I can get a copy of some of the events.

Then it moved onto the actual competitions. Black belt forms was first (after the horse stance competition), so I competed there. And I won! I didn't have too much competition for my category, but I think I did the form okay. After that I spent most of my time helping out around the tournament with various things. Including being a scorekeeper as well as a judge for the continuous sparring with some categories. Sihing was pretty much in charge of the tournament and Sifu just kept watch to make sure he was running things okay. Everything turned out fairly well, though.

So went through all the various competitions, and then it ended with adult sparring. And FINALLY with black belt sparring. I got matched up with a guy who had faster kicks than anyone I've fought previously. He nailed me in the head with a snap axe kick. Although I did rack him multiple times. Apparently not hard enough. I think only once was it noticed very well. It was a close fight, the judges were split on who won each round, but in the end he got the match. It was okay with me, because after me he had to face Shannon. And no, he didn't beat Shannon. I'm just glad someone else was there to get pounded by Shannon instead of me, this time. It was almost becoming a tradition for me to face him to see what kind of pain he could inflict. It was quite a pleasure to watch someone else in the hot seat. He fought two guys and won first. I still feel bad his first, erm... victim. I'd never seen this guy at a tournament before, so I had a feeling he was rather new to our style of sparring (continuous). Shannon hit him once in the side of the head and the guy (a rather young guy) got rocked. HARD. His eyes looked like they started rolling back in his head as he stumbled off to the side for about two or three seconds. When you're in the middle of a match, two or three seconds is a LONG TIME. And it didn't really improve for him from there. Shannon did make the crowd (whoever was left at the end of the tourney) entertained, though.

So at the end of the night, I had a couple of new bumps and bruises, I was sore and exhausted, but the tournament turned out well. It was good stuff. In the morning I went back to the kwoon for the workshops, starting nice and early at EIGHT AM. Holy cow. I'm not a morning person, and I was still sore from the day before. So what was the first workshop? Why, Chin Na, of course. Joint locking techniques. From an older Chinese man who was VERY GOOD at it. I still have bruises from it. I think that might be on video, too. Hopefully they recorded the time where he grabbed my wrist and threw me to the ground with enough force to spin me around (lying down) on my butt about six times. Seriously. He didn't look extraordinarily strong or big, but he was more powerful than anyone else in the workshop by FAR. He was just playing with us. But it was fun. He'd just say, "Chin na me. Chin na!" And we'd try doing a lock on him - he'd either melt away from it or reverse the lock to put us on the ground. Our wrists were all very sore by the end of the workshop.

We had a few more workshops, including a staff form workshop, a self-defense workshop (that really wasn't anything new), and Sifu's takedown workshop. Oh man. Sifu's workshop only had three of us. One older student from Tai Chi and Crystal (who's 14). So yeah, I was Sifu's demo dummy. And I got thrown to the ground plenty of times. But there were some good techniques. I need to try to remember at least three of them.

That was essentially my weekend. I'm still sore from it, but I have some good bruises. I might post pictures of them later this week. This week it's back to the grind, work and such. But it's late! I should get to sleep. So I'll leave you with a random link. Random link action! I was watching the ultimate guy's movie earlier - Road House. It always makes me smile. Somehow Patrick Swayze reminded me of Shannon. Don't know why. Anyway, I found a blog that's related to the movie. Sort of. Well, you can see what I mean.

Oh! And since I've been thinking about cars lately (don't know why), bonus random link. Not everyone knows what my first car was. But I'll tell you what. It was faster than people assumed it would be.

Tournament Saturday!

2006-06-07T23:16:00.000-05:00

That's right, the tournament is this Saturday. Starts at 10 AM, at the Hicks Park Community Center. That's at about 33rd and Mingo. So if you're interested in seeing some crazy kung fu action LIVE, then you should come check it out!

I'll be competing, doing lion dance, helping judge, being busy all day. Black belt forms are first, but sparring isn't until the end. Don't know why it's like that, but oh well. Chances are I'll be fighting Shannon (again). Or Sihing. Well, technically Shannon is ALSO my Sihing. But I'm definitely the low man on the totem pole. Should be interesting, definitely.

Aside from that, work was productive today. I actually did finish a project. I think it was my weekly project. Tomorrow we have a get together at Jamba Juice. Not sure why, but I guess it's a team building thing. I find it funny. I'll tell you why... later.

And my side business continues. It's building, slowly. I have a part of it definitely working, making some money, which is COOL. Now I'm working on expanding it. To give you an idea of how this is going - the combination of all of my various incomes means that there's a good chance I'll be making six figures. By the end of this year. Seriously. I still can't believe that - it's crazy. But hey! Since I've got a little more money coming in than normal, it means I'll be able to get, oh, say... a NEW CAR! Yes, I've decided which one I'm getting. And I have to go with Honda. Why Honda? I'm not sure, but I think I might be in love. And depending on how things go, I may have it as soon as the end of this month.

If I get it, that'll be the first car I've ever chosen. So it's almost like a first car for me. Although, ironically, it'll be a second car, since I'm keeping the current one. You know, to head to work and such. Since a two seater isn't the best for standard errands. Although I have a feeling I'll be driving the S2K quite a bit when I first get it. Just a hunch. So if you want a ride, let me know - I probably won't have a problem picking you up. Hee hee! It makes me rather excited.

So in other news - we've been preparing for the tournament. I helped Justin (my Sidai, not Sihing) work on his sparring. Amy came by and got to witness class, so she has an idea of what it's all about. And Sifu's changed Monday/Wednesday classes, so we now have two separate classes: one for beginners, one for intermediate/advanced. I'll be teaching the second class. Just makes me realize how far I've progressed. It's crazy!

That's what the rest of this week will be, is tournament preparation. I just hope we get our lion dance perfected for Saturday. We'll see!

Okay, random link time! I've got a good one today. Have you ever sold anything on eBay? Did you know that people can ask you questions about your product? Did you know that there are a lot of dumb people out there?

May is ALMOST over

2006-05-31T01:21:00.000-05:00

But not yet. Not yet. It's late, yes, but I felt a blog was in order. It's been crazy here and there. How?

Well, we did have a lovely three-day weekend. I spent 1.5 of those days CLEANING. Which is sorta sucky, but good at the same time. I realized the majority of my cleaning involves taking care of old mail. Because I don't like messing with mail. Not sure why. That, and I have a few magazines more than I probably need. But I did get a lot done! So I feel accomplished. Just need to take out a few loads of trash, vacuum, and it'll be better. I also realized I have not enough shelf space for my DVD collection. Goodness! What's a nerd to do? Maybe I just need to upgrade my shelf. But not yet. Not yet.

Ooh! Mike (a sihing from Vegas) is looking like he'll be around for a few months. We got to have a day of sparring on Friday. It was very educational. I realized I haven't sparred in TOO long. So I sparred with the other Eric, and then with Mike. The other Eric's gotten quite a bit better. To be honest, he's got lots of speed, but he's still sort of a wuss. I pull all my punches (I probably need to stop doing that so much), but he hits. The problem for him is when he hits, it doesn't really hurt. I don't know how much harder he can hit, but I'm thinking he still has a ways to go. I mean really - he kicked me in the FACE and I didn't really even wince. That, and he throws very high kicks. Which, in our class, just begs for a specific counter-attack. So yes, I racked him three times. I was nice, though, again pulling punches. Or in this case, kicks. And threw a shin into his thigh. And at the end of the fight backfisted the side of his head. I think that's what ended our match. Then he went up against Mike. Mike racked him, too, but didn't pull it as much as I did. He ended up hitting the ground, and was done for the evening.

Then it was MY turn to fight Mike. I do like fighting him. He's had many more years of experience, and a lot of his is in street fighting. So he does a lot of shin kicks. A little different from what I'm used to, but it was cool. We traded some hits, I actually did rack him (well, I could have, but I thought it wiser to not pull it too close on him). He popped me a few times nicely, I got him a couple, and then it ended when he countered a punch, spun me, circled me, and put me into a rear naked choke. I could have tried to get out, but I just tapped. He had it pretty good, if he hadn't let go, I venture to guess another five seconds and I might have blacked out. It was a lot of fun! And no, I'm not kidding. Maybe I'm just masochistic.

So then today we had class again. I led warmups, standard fare. After class was over a lot of the students cruised over to Chris's school. Chris is one of the other black belts under Sifu (one of the two students I trained next to who now run their own school). Chris is a little crazy, but he was excited to see me and show off his kwoon. They have a pretty cool school - it's out in north Tulsa. And by north I mean north of 244. So yes, in the sketchier part of town. His students are interesting. Mike showed up, so... yes, inevitably, it turned into sparring. Mike sparred with Chris's students, taught them a few things. It was fun to watch. I just sat on the side, watched him and Eric spar the other guys. And surprise! Eric got racked AGAIN. He really needs to learn that throwing high taekwondo-style kicks is begging for pain. Afterwards I went in to talk to the guys about different techniques, and checked up on their conditioning. Apparently my shins are still a little above normal on the "OH MY GOODNESS THAT HURTS" scale. I think I left a few bruises around there. On other people's shins. But it was interesting to talk to the guys. They do love their kung fu, so we got along just fine. I think I'll have to get back up to speed on my sparring, then get into it with them again sometime.

Aside from kung fu, what else has been happening? Well, the cleaning. The puppies! They're all gone, except for three. I think one of them will be picked up tomorrow, and one my parents are keeping. The other is still up for grabs. If you're interested, let me know.

And now time for a little side story! Well, preceded by some pictures. CRAZY pictures. Yes, these are real. And yes, it's in Oklahoma. Surprise.

The fellow in the pictures is Larry Earley. He lives about 30 miles from Tulsa, in the very rural community, just off the 412 turnpike. He has 20 acres of land and on it, a few cows and horses. Mostly it's pasture land that is fenced with woods surrounding him.

He is neighbored by a larger cattle ranch.

His neighbor has complained for several years that wild hogs had been raiding his cattle feeders and salt licks.

Last month he saw what he thought was a cow in his pond and went to see if it was stuck in the mud and would have to be pulled out. When he got close enough to realize it was a hog, the thing made a charge at him. He had driven his truck down to the pond and carries a pistol in it (as any Oklahoma redneck would, and I say that with genuine affection). He got his handgun and when it came at him again, he shot it twice and killed it.

Wild hogs in Oklahoma usually run from 100-400 pounds with a 400 pounder being a monster. Because this one had been feasting on grain for several years it had grown to mammoth size. When Larry took it to the processor it weighed in at over 1100 pounds! The meat has no wild taste, as it was grain fed; and Larry is quite the hero. He has fed many in the county and provided the homeless shelter in downtown Tulsa with a couple of meals.

Isn't that lovely? Mmm, yes. Actually, I HAVE bacon. I need to get one of those microwave bacon pans. I tried cooking some on the stove. It didn't work out so well.

Okay! Time for random link! Today it's just random. Nothing overly fun or cool. Just random. It's something that I've been researching. And I found it something good to know about. Just in case I might need to know in the future.

Changes

2006-05-22T00:04:00.000-05:00

I've talked about it before, but I do believe that there are cycles in our lives where things change. Not just one or two things, but LOTS of things. It seems to be one of those times for me. So what's changed? Ah, well, I'll break it into individual paragraphs (as I have a tendency to do).

One change is the whole side business thing. I think it's shifting to a point where it really is a side business. I'm not just playing around anymore, I'm actually making some money with it. How much? A decent amount. Enough to cover payments of...

A NEW CAR! Yes, I just felt like saying it like that. I haven't bought one yet, I'm probably going to wait a few months. But if everything goes as it has been, I'll be able to afford it. I'm debating between two. They're about the same price, which is moderate, a little more expensive than my current car, but not much. Choice One: A Toyota Prius. It gets 60 MPG, has all sorts of gadgetry inside, and just has the cool factor of being a hybrid. It's not the best-looking car, though, and it's not very zippy. I've had a few people mention that they somehow don't see me in that car. They see me in something more like Choice Two: A Honda S2000. It gets a little worse mileage than my current car, but my current car is actually really good for mileage (averages around 25-26 MPG). It's VERY zippy, it's small and cool-looking. Plus, it's convertible! If I went with it, I'd probably keep the old car, use it for my main ride (to put the most miles on), and use the S2000 on weekends and for fun. I'll probably decide and buy one in a few months. If anyone has any recommendations or advice, feel free to toss it into a comment.

Kung fu! Things aren't too different, although it's something that's changed a little since I got the belt. However, we have one of the original students coming back to Tulsa. At least, there's a possibility he will. His name's Mike, and he was living in Vegas. Some stuff happened, and I guess he just wants to move, so he's thinking about coming back. From what I've heard of him, he was one of the best fighters in our kwoon. I've fought him once - he left some very nice scars on me after that one day. They faded, but he definitely knows how to mix it up. That has the chance to change things quite a bit. Also, we have our tournament coming up - you should come! June 10th. Details in the future. We'll be doing a lion dance, there will be other demos there. Should be luscious.

I got a new guitar. Just now, actually. My sister Marni's roommate Marni (there's no typo there) is moving tomorrow morning and needed some rent money, so she wanted to sell her Fender Stratocaster. American made, a high quality instrument. I was planning on buying one eventually, but this just pushed it a little sooner than anticipated. That's okay - it's really a great guitar, and feels awesome to play. I might have to record some new songs with it.

Which I can now do, once I install my new hard drives! I spent $200 at Best Buy. How much space does that buy? You'd think something like, oh, 250 GB, right? Or even 300! But no, with that money I purchased 640 GB of space. I'll be RAIDing them so they're mirrored, or perhaps doing a manual backup. When you have 320 GB of stuff, you don't want to accidentally lose it, much less with 640 GB. So I'll sacrifice half of it to keep a solid backup. Which means I have space for Naruto! And music, both other stuff and my own. I might just get a new computer to put them in sometime.

And I have an old friend coming into town who I haven't seen in forever. Rebecca! She's an ex, and we separated purely because she had to move away. It was a tragic tale. But I haven't seen her in a while, so it'll be good to hang out with her.

Speaking of redheads, I finally got to meet another friend of mine who I've known for over a year. Has that ever happened to you? You meet someone somewhere, online, or on the phone, and don't meet them for a while? We were pen pals, basically, for over a year. We finally got to hang out, and it turns out she's very cool. Better in person than online, I must say. We had some eerie similarities in taste, such as what she chose to start learning guitar with (song choice), and the fact she's a math guru. We'll probably see each other again sometime. Maybe even before another year passes! But who knows.

Oh, and my old roommate Nick has moved into the neighborhood. Well, he's moving a mile away in about a week or so, so we might actually start hanging out a little more often. That, or perhaps car pool to work. He's got two roommates, they bought a house. If they don't kill each other, it might turn out very nicely. Oh, and we'll only car pool if I get...

A NEW JOB! Well, I'm leaving it open to possibility. I've had a few pokings into new job opportunities. I'm just hoping to find something that uses my education (aherm, it's annoying that no one seems to notice/care I have a Master's Degree at my current job) and can actually give me some fun work to do, with upward mobility a realistic possibility. I may know if this change will happen within a couple of weeks.

So yes, many changes. A few rather major ones. Plus the whole buying a house thing. No, not yet. But that's probably going to happen around the time of the next "cycle event". Need to get my new job (if it's going to happen) and solidify my side business, first. When I'm making six figures, I might be able to afford a house comfortably. And that might happen sooner than I originally was expecting it to.

And that's all! Well, I have a few pictures on my phone I wanted to put up, but I'm feeling lazy, so not today. I WILL put up a random link, though. So random link time! So random. Hey! I do kung fu! Did you know that? Kung fu started with the Shaolin temple. Or so they say. Did you know that there are still some Shaolin monks that are around? And that some of them like to mess with people who don't know anything about kung fu? Now you know.

Carpe Diem

2006-05-09T00:20:00.000-05:00

Yes. Seize the day! I've seized a few days lately. One of which was Friday. I had a co-worker come by, we got some food. It was Cinco De Mayo, so maybe that was motivation to be a little crazier. We picked up some food to go, and I was talking to the girl at the counter. She was rather cute, and when we get back to the car after grabbing the food, I was thinking, "Why should I hesitate?" So yes! Yes, dear reader, I went back inside and asked her out. I must admit, it's the most unique response I've gotten yet. She laughed and smiled, said thanks, and said, "Thanks, but I've got a girlfriend." Yes, that's right. A GIRLfriend. I made some comment about saying that was a valid excuse, and she gave me props on being brave. Not sure if it was because I reacted in a more positive way to her admission of having a girlfriend, or because I came in and just asked her out. And if you think she made it up, I actually made a comment about she didn't have to make that up, if she didn't think I was "worthy" (in so many words) she could just outright reject me, and that'd be better. She said no, she was telling the truth, and showed me a ring. So looks like I just picked the wrong girl.

Oh well! It's probably better that way. It's too bad, though - she was quite lovely. But I did seize the day. Or the night, I guess.

And this past week I've been seizing days all over the place! Yes, working my butt off. Not at work, mind you, but after work. Trying to get my business going more. And it seems to be working! I actually seem to be in the black on a daily basis now, which is a BIG accomplishment for me. Deep down, I'd like to brag about it, but I don't think I have much to brag about. Yet. I'll just keep my nose to the grindstone and so forth, and perhaps I'll get there.

Speaking of bragging and things I don't brag about, I DID get my black belt. Finally. It feels weird to be wearing it now, but I rather like being in all black while I'm teaching. Ooh! We have a lion dance coming up. For a birthday party. Imagine that. There will be some rather surprised girl this next weekend. Should be fun.

Speaking of lion dancing, Sifu's teaching me and Cory a new move. He wants something fancy for our tournament (June 10th), so we need to learn something new. And something new we've learned. It involves jumping from elevated positions. Rather scary, but since Sifu seems to think I can jump rather nicely, he has no qualms asking us to do it. So that means we have no choice but to do it. Hopefully everything will be polished by the time we perform it.

Speaking of performing, Sihing and I went to the Renaissance Fair on Sunday. It was crizzazy. Straight out of my childhood imagination. I was impressed. We got to check out all the booths, and we were there in time to see a jousting competition. I have video of it, but I'll put that up a little later (I need sleep soon). And we also tried our hands at archery, which I haven't done in forever. Turns out my skills were actually not too bad, for not having done it in forever. I nailed the target dead on a few times. Maybe that could be a side hobby. Could be fun! At any rate, we'll probably go back again sometime this month, but with some cash to partake of the lovely events and massive food items.

Okay, that's enough for tonight. I should get some sleep. Work tomorrow, then more work, then play! It'll be good. Random link time - don't know how many of you check this regularly, but Google's video page has some crazy stuff on it. You know, cute things, amazing things, and sometimes just weird things. Oh! And one more thing. Even though Wii is weird for a name, I'm definitely going to get one. And I think you might want one, too, when you see what it's like to play it.

Saturday Afternoon

2006-05-06T15:08:00.000-05:00

It's Saturday, I'm chillin' with not much to do (at the moment). It's a rare moment of peace. Although I do need to take out my trash sometime soon. Which is more like a rare moment of piece. Something like that.

Yes! Hopefully this weekend will go well. I don't know about as well as last weekend, but well will be okay. Why did last weekend go well? Kung fu was good all around, and it kicked off nicely with a little game of poker. Higher stakes than normal. Since it was payday, I figured why not. It was okay, since I turned out to have the upper hand! Yes, I won the majority of the jackpot, which was lovely. How much, you might wonder? Not too much. A measley $65. Considering I only put down $5 cash, that wasn't too bad. I actually won $95, but I had to subtract my buy-in. Texas Hold 'Em! Gotta love it. At least when you're doing well.

So that was quite nice. Bought me some dinners and covered my work munchies for the week. And a movie rental or two. Speaking of! I rented The Fly. Oh man, I had forgotten about that movie. It's actually really good, although one of the more horrific movies I can remember ever watching. If you're brave, try it out. One of Jeff Goldblum's best. That, and I just finished watching Ichi the Killer. It did the impressive accomplishment of making me almost stop watching. It has some quite horrific scenes as well, although a bit less tasteful than The Fly, if you can believe that. Definitely not something for the weak-hearted. The gore is above and beyond, plus some other scenes that won't fly in American releases.

As far as movies go, I went to an early showing of Mission Impossible III with Amy, who managed to find out there was Thursday night showing. Thankfully, almost no one knew. We walked in at ten 'til, almost no one there, and there were already people lining up for the midnight showing (which more people knew about). So a decently calm showing. It was a good movie! Even though Tom Cruise is INSANE, the movie was good despite his being the main character. And Philip Seymour Hoffman made for a very good bad guy. Plenty of twists and turns, I was entertained enough by it that I might actually go to see it a second time.

Work lately has been bleah. Our boss's favorite phrase is "Is that work-related?" which he says at least five times a day, I think. Since most of us are done with all of our current projects, it's hard to stay work-related. I had been checking on my logs for my side business, and even that was too not work-related for me to do, so apparently I can't touch anything related to non-work stuff when I'm at work. So no e-mail (that's not work-related), no independent research on stuff, no online mail, no chat programs, etc. It's a lovely sort of business constriction. At least we still get CNN and Slashdot. And also The Daily WTF, which I like quite a bit. Somehow Friday's entry felt a little too close to home. Oh, and everyone at work loves their Engrish, too. Makes for great desktop backgrounds.

So yes, I'm still working on my side business. It takes a lot of my time, but I'm making progress. I am actually making money with it, so that's good. Not a lot, but it's probably just enough to off-set the rising gas prices, which I'm happy with. If I keep getting progress, then I might actually be able to pay some bills with it. Who knows? The sky's the limit!

Okay, so it's time for the weekend. Take out some trash, maybe play a little, get some R&R. Random link! I'll share something we talked about at our weekly meeting at work. Yes, one of my co-workers actually printed this out and gave everyone a copy. He said he printed it because we wouldn't believe it if he just told us. And you know something? He was probably right.

It is almost Wednesday

2006-04-25T23:50:00.000-05:00

Yeah, it's a pointless title, but whaddaya do?

So this last weekend was CRAZY busy. I had to get out of work early to go to a high school alumni reunion. I got to see a few people I haven't seen in, oh, TEN YEARS. It was crazy. The slightly depressing thing was that they were all married. All except for me. Eh, someday. Maybe. But yeah, I got to catch up with some people, and it was cool.

Then from there it was time for a meeting for the middle school retreat I was helping with the next day, called ERIS. Had the meeting, a few things organized, then time for a movie! Which movie? Silent Hill, of course. I'm a very big fan of the games, especially Silent Hill 2. The movie pulled a lot from that game in particular, and it did a good job where it did. The sounds and visuals were dead on! It started very well, got some definite creepiness going on for the first half of the movie. Unfortunately, they tried making a new plot to wrap things up, and it didn't quite fit with the feel of the original game. There wasn't as much cohesion in the movie as in the games. It slowed a little much near three fourths through, and they probably could have cut it down a bit more. But overall, it was much better than your average video game to movie adaptation.

Yes, it lasted a while. Then bedtime! So I could get up for the retreat. Which was an all-day thing. I did it last year, and apparently I was so popular playing one role in a skit that's done near the end of the day that they requested I revive my role. Who do I play? Why, none other than Satan, of course. Since it's apparent he's better if he knows martial arts. That's all I'll say.

So I was very tired, yes indeed! And I came home, tried to read e-mail, and kept passing out before I could finish. So I passed out, then it was birthday time for my mom. Went home and helped her with crazy yardwork. Moving small trees/plants from one yard to another, digging extra holes for her to plant stuff in, trimming shrubberies, etc. Then more church, then bedtime again! Which I was ready for, after spending a day doing manual labor in the SUN. It doesn't happen often. But I think my mom liked it, which I was glad about. Oh, and it also happened to be Sihing's birthday! He's turning a big 20. We'll be going paintballing this weekend for it, most likely.

Speaking of Sihing, for almost everyone else in the kwoon, I am also a Sihing. For those that don't remember, "Sihing" means "older brother" in kung fu-ese. And what's special about this particular Sihing this week? Well, I happened to finish testing last week. So that means I get the black sash this week! Specifically, this Thursday, at 8 PM Central Time. Class starts at 7, and then we slow things down a bit for cake and ice cream and a fancy belt for me. I'm honestly getting more excited each day as it gets closer. It's been 6 and a half years for me to get this far, and a black belt in kung fu is (daresay) a bit farther than black belts in most other systems. It's quite a big deal, which is why Sifu's putting together a ceremony for piddly ol' ME. Anyone who can make it is welcome to come, for the ceremony, or if you can (and are curious to see what I do), both the class AND the ceremony. This only happens once. I don't normally enjoy openly bragging about kung fu stuff (although I DO enjoy talking about it relentlessly) or being proud, but I think for one day I'll let it slide a little.

That's the big news. In smaller news, I saw a car coming back from the retreat on Saturday. Yes, a car. See if you can figure out what it is - I got two shots with my phone (I like having a video recorder in my phone). I got one that was okay, and another one that was a little better. Somehow I don't think I see that type of car on the streets around here too often.

And I saw what is quite possibly the most disturbing movie made in recent times. It's called Hostel. I rather liked it. I guess it just appealed to some twisted level in me, and I was impressed at the distance the filmmakers went in this movie. I recommend it ONLY for people who like disturbing movies. The reason I liked it was because the director did not pull any punches at all, and had a vision that he followed through with. Not that that makes it a quality movie, by any means. But it was a bit crazy.

Okay! Time for random linking! This is a good one. You can thank me for it, if you'd like. (Especially you, Seanicus.) See, it's not just something to see, but something to experience.

Time to blog?

2006-04-18T00:31:00.000-05:00

What? I have a blog? Oh yeah!

So I do. Actually, I've been feeling kinda pooty lately, so I decided to wait until I had a GOOD day before blogging. I find positive blogs are much better. And today was a good day! Yes it was.

Another day at work, got two new projects, both of which I finished rather quickly. So it was productive. Then time for good leftovers, from Texas Roadhouse. Ooh, their steaks are GOOD. Yummy yummy yummy, yes it's LOVE in my tummy. Plus I have cherry pie. 'Nuff said.

And I got some good kung fu in tonight. The news there - I'm finally getting my black belt. I've sort of had it (in many people's minds) for a while, but this is the formal thing. There's not a date set yet for the ceremony, but I'll most likely post it when I find out. So I led class tonight, pushed them all nicely to the limit. And then got to work on one my forms, then punish the pole. The large metal pole in the middle of the kwoon, yes. I read an article about a guy who learned serious conditioning, and he also trained primarily against metal objects. So it inspired me to get comfortable with the metal pole again. I have to say, there's nothing quite like hearing the ringing sound from it when your throw your shins against it. Mmm, yes.

And I saw Logan's Run tonight. It was an older sci-fi movie. Actually not too bad! I was impressed with the ideas they played with. I don't get to watch movies as much anymore, mainly since I've been hooked on Oblivion. Yes, it's luscious. And Carlos got his care package we sent him! He especially likes Ghost Recon, as I had suspected he might. So that helped my day.

In other news, not too much has been going on. There was Easter, and it was lovely. Although I realize now I need to restring my guitar rather badly. It's lost its brightness. Must bring it back.

I did break up with the girlfriend, so I'm a single bachelor YET AGAIN. That's okay, I have more money that way, somehow. It was a good thing, though, it needed to happen. Perhaps there will be some unsuspecting victim to lavish my affections upon around the corner. Muahahahahahahahahaaaaaa!

And now time for a random picture. Related to love. Sort of.

Yeah, I got that from work. Speaking of, work makes me frustrated sometimes. Ever since we got bought by HSBC, they've shut us down from the outside world. No e-mail, no instant messaging, limited access to the web. "You must NOT have contact with the outside world!" I probably shouldn't say too much more. They might be watching. I'll just say it doesn't make me pleased.

Grr. Other things in the world have been making me UNpleased, as well. Such as the RIAA. Grr! Their shenanigans know no bounds! There was an article about a horrid suggestion they made to a college student, but I may have to find that for another time. Oh, and there are also people who have jacked up ideas on how to improve the world. That makes me unpleased, as well.

In happier news - my family's newest dog had her puppies. Five of them. They're quite cute. What do you expect? They're puppies! Just look at them.

And I even have a video of one of them. Although it was taken with my phone, so not that great of quality, but Quicktime should be able to see it. They're only starting to learn to walk, and as you can see, linoleum is a little harder to handle.

So yes! Okay, that's all for tonight. I think it's random link time. Two random links. I'm making up for blog brevity and abandonment by bringing bounties of bootiful PICTURES. And this one I think is quite lovely. I like puppies, and you can see how I feel about cats with this excellent product.

And for just a link, well, I haven't been nerdy enough in this blog entry, so this will have to do.

Strangest day EVAR

2006-03-12T20:45:00.000-06:00

Okay, so I haven't blogged in a month and a half. I've been pushing myself probably a little TOO hard, not having proper time for family, friends, or my lovely blog. But today was the strangest day I've had in a long, long time, maybe ever. So I have to write!

It started waking up with a dream about an ex, which was weird. I dreamt she was talking to her mom about a guy, and mentioned his name. I know she just got a boyfriend not too long ago, so if I find out that his name is the same one I dreamed, that will freak me out. Although it would fit fine with the rest of my day.

I woke up, took care of a few things I needed to do, then had a friend over to play some Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. Which, by the way, is a bloody incredible game, on the 360. Seriously. I mean, look at it. So we enjoyed a bit of that, and then I had to run to kung fu (yes, on a Sunday) to get ready for our lion dance tonight. We had one scheduled to help a fund-raiser for the zoo, and it was to be at In The Raw, the sushi place.

So I run to kung fu, we set up the schedule for it, very basic stuff. And then Sifu lets us go for a while, since we had until 7 before we had to get ready to go. So we go and eat at a Vietnamese place. Don't remember the name of it. I got some pork fried rice, but I'm not sure it was really pork. They had HUGE fish in their fishtank.

We go back to the kwoon and Sihing and I wait outside, since it's very nice outside, with a warm wind. We talked about business stuff, which was cool. We also walked down to where the old kwoon was, and reminisced. The old times - somewhat melancholy conversation. But then it was time! We went back, packed up the lion, got in the car, and headed to In The Raw.

This is where things started getting weird. For one, my GPS, which is usually never without fail, pointed us to a residental address for In The Raw, about a mile away from where it should have been. It was okay, we made it there in time, but that was unusual. So we get out, get everything set up over by Brookside By Day, so we can walk up to the people in the sushi place without them suspecting us. We're sitting there waiting for our cue, and the weather's looking sketchy. We're just waiting, and a minivan (maybe it was an SUV) stops, a guy leans out and asks us, "What are you guys doing?" So Sifu tells them, a lion dance, for the sushi restaurant. Then the guy leans further out, and shouts, "Gesinski?!?" I was a little surprised, and said, "Yes? How'd you recognize me?" Apparently they had seen my picture (in the lion dance gear) in MySpace, and that's how they knew. It was two guys I went to high school with that I hadn't seen in TEN YEARS. Seriously. My ten year reunion is coming up soon, actually. Which is kind of scary.

So that was weird, and the fact that random people knew who I was off the street made me feel weirdly connected to the world. The weather started looking worse, and then large drops started appearing on the ground. Sifu said, "It's time, let's start!" And we get into the lion. As we're setting up, Crystal (playing the gong for our music) said, "Something hit me!" I figured they must be very large raindrops. Then after getting into the lion, I realize, it's not rain. It's HAIL. Yes, hail. During about 70 degree humid weather. So we're dancing the lion (which, by the way, had one of the lights in the eyes out, which was also random) down the street towards the restaurant. The people inside see us and start pointing and such. We come around to enter the door, and as we're about to step inside, the hail STOPS. Yes, it was just enough for us to experience while walking outside. So we move in, do the dance, and everyone loves us! It was a big success, lots of applause. Then we do some kung fu demos. The space inside is very, very tight. There's a sword form, then me and Sihing do a short sparring set (which I mangled slightly, but we recovered okay), then Lau Gar Kuen, then Sihing does his double sword set. He managed to do it very nicely, considering he was swinging two swords around everywhere in close proximity to tables full of people. He made lots of them nervous, I think, but he did it with excellence.

As Sifu leaves the lion up for people to take pictures with, I notice one of the waitresses looks somewhat familiar. I wait for her to walk out, then ask one of the others about her name, and specified. They said, yes, that was her. So then I catch her while she's coming out, and ask her name - she says, "Yes?" with a look like, "Who the hell is this and why does he know my name?" And then recognition slowly crosses her face, and she says, "Eric?" And I confirm it. Unfortunately, she didn't have time to talk, and we had to leave, so we said our quick hello, so forth, but I think we'll get in contact with each other again sometime soon, somehow. Oh, and I haven't seen HER in about ten years, too. I don't know her from high school. Our parents were good friends, and her mom actually used to be my barber. Which may come in handy, since my hair is getting CRAZY long, because I haven't been able to get in touch with my normal barber. I kind of like it, but it's getting to the point where it's out of control. When I have a guitar on, it works, but when I'm at work, it's not so good.

We headed back to the kwoon, and I realize only then that I left my PANTS at the restaurant. Yes, I left my pants there. Don't worry, I had another set on, but the lion dance pants I removed to do the other demo, and in the rush, didn't realize they were still there. So it looks like I'll have to head back over there to retrieve them. Maybe it's meant to be, who knows. How I didn't notice they were there, I have no idea, since they're golden and shiny.

So that's my strange day. Yes, it's been very, very strange. Justin said I should go play the lottery, and maybe he's right. In other news, I'll be testing in my next form on Saturday, called Fu Hok, also known as Tiger Crane. It's the last open hand form in our system that's publicly taught to our students, which means after testing, I'll get my black belt. That's something I should have had a long time ago, but finally it's going to actually happen.

I've also been spending a ton of time trying to set up a side business, for independent income. Minor success, but I still have a long ways to go. When I finally get there, I may detail it further, but at the moment it's sort of my little secret.

I'm also going to go out of town on a business trip next month sometime, to California, for two weeks. My first business trip! I hope it goes okay. I don't really like flying. I used to like it more, but it's a serious pain nowadays. Alas, for business, it needs to be done.

So! My apologies for such a lackluster month and a half on my blog. It's been a long time, and I have missed it, myself. Speaking of... random link time! Many random links today. Let's begin! First of all, this is just too cool, and you can get me one for Christmas. And there are blogs a plenty to be seen! One you can't touch, another is verbose in many ways (explore it, the older entries are better). From my old roomie Nick - some people take movies a little too seriously. And here's some downloads: the way REAL men fish (real men being lazy). And I'll finish with a small download, about a lovely evening some guys had at a hotel.

Lion dance schedule

2006-01-25T21:40:00.000-06:00

While I have the information, here's when and where we're doing our lion dances, starting this Saturday:

Saturday at 11 AM: Nam Hai Grocery (21st & Garnett)
Saturday at 1 PM: Golden Touch Jewelry (71st & Memorial)
Sunday at 3 PM: Tulsa 66'ers game (Expo Pavilion at the Fairgrounds)
Sunday at 6:30 PM: Royal Dragon (51st & Memorial)
Monday at 10:30 AM: Viet Huong (I think it's 21st & Memorial)
Tuesday at 8 AM: Holland Hall (81st between Sheridan and Yale, I think in the high school) - this one might not be exactly public, but it's at 8 in the morning, so that's okay

A lot of the performances will have kung fu demonstrations in addition to the lion dance, although we will only be doing lion dance at Royal Dragon. You're welcome to come check out any of them, if you're in town. Hopefully they will be COOL.

Too much has happened, and I MUST BLOG

2006-01-23T22:21:00.000-06:00

That's right. It's been crazy busy lately. But I want to write it down, even if it's so I don't forget some of it. Because it hasn't just been crazy busy, it's been crazy CRAZY.

For one thing, we're back into practicing for lion dancing. Chinese New Year is this next weekend. We have six demos we're going to be doing, so hopefully they'll go okay. Two of them are going to be a little crazier than the others. But I'll have to put the schedule so those of you in TOWN who have managed to randomly check my blog between now and then can come check it out. So, along the lion dance bit - we've been practicing studiously. Yesterday we were working the double lion routine, and going through the whole thing. It was going fairly nicely. The first lion did the bit where he got the offering, and came back. So it was our lion's turn to get our offering. We go up towards it, where the pot is there. Well, since we don't need the pot (it's what we usually use to jump onto, or stand on, for various reasons - it's big and red), I decided I'd push it out of the way. So I walk up to it, the lion sniffs it, and then I put my foot upon the pot, to PUSH it away. Well, I push, but it doesn't move away. No, no it doesn't. It moves APART. That's right, the whole pot shattered immediately. I paused in disbelief, and some of the other students made the comment I had put a little too much chi into my push. Apparently I had, because there were pieces of the pot all over the kwoon floor.

So we stop at that point to clean up, and then Sifu teaches the other lion team a new stack. Normally the tail of the lion gets into a bow and arrow stance, which is where you get low and the front leg is bent, the back leg is straight. Then the head jumps onto the front leg and raises his other leg into the air, into a crane stance. That's the standard stack. Sifu taught the other lion team a new stack, where the tail sat in a horse and the head jumped, both feet, onto the tail's thighs. It took them a few tries, but they got it. Well, watching them jump gave Sifu ideas, I guess. And he made a comment similar to, "Hey - Eric can jump pretty high..." So naturally, that leads to Sifu having the idea for our lion to do a new stack. A shoulder stack. Which means the tail gets into a horse, I jump onto a pot (the surviving one) and then onto the tail's shoulders, all while holding the head of the lion. And then the tail stands up, and then I stand up. It's a bit scary. We actually got it a few times, but it'll take more practice. The idea of just jumping onto someone's shoulders while holding a large object makes me nervous, for some weird reason.

And then tonight, class was very light. Just me and Andrea, who's my senior by a few years. We practiced hard, and had two guests come and watch. Turns out it was a couple of freshmen (pssh, frosh) from TU. Imagine what major? Yes, computer science. So we ended up having a nice conversation about a certain Dr. Shenoi and Dr. Hale. They're still trying to figure out their path fully, but it was interesting to see how small of a world we really live in. Hopefully we'll see them again sometime, they seemed cool.

And after that I had a very different experience. Some guy was wandering outside, and approached me. He had a massive shiner, so I was a little sketchy about him coming close. But he came up and was asking if I could do something for him. I figured he'd ask for money, but actually, he asked for milk. I guess he had gotten some cereal for his family (don't know if he actually had a family for sure or not), but didn't have milk. So I told him I'd go pick him up some milk, I had to finish some quick business with Sifu first. I did that, came back out, and he had wandered off. I went ahead and went to go find a shop to get milk, and he was there. Someone else had gotten the milk for him, so I went to check on it. He asked for another favor, and that was that he just wanted some food. Since he just wanted food, it seemed legit, so I couldn't refuse. We both went in, he grabbed some bread, some lunchmeat, some chips and a 12-pack of Dew. I got it for him, and he took it, shook my hand and said thank you. I told him it was okay, just go take care of his family. He left, and I ended up talking to the shop owner. It was a little shop, like a gas station style shop, and the owner was an older middle eastern guy. He seemed a little iffy about the guy, said he was pretty sure he'd seen him smoking some reefer (he didn't say that, but implied it) or something. I told him I just got him some food, and you can't do anything with food but eat it. He said if he really wanted some help, he could get it - people like that could go to churches, or other places where they could actually get some help. I told him maybe the guy didn't realize it, and next time he saw him he might try telling him that he could get him some help. The owner seemed to be a little thoughtful about it, and he made a comment that it was nice of me to have bought him food. I told him that we're all human, and we should try to help each other when we can, and he shook my hand. It was definitely an educational experience. It's made me think for a while tonight.

Anyway, I do hope he turned out okay, at least for the night. And his family, if he does really have one. It's made me think about how many more people might be like him, outside in the cold on a night like tonight, just trying to find something to eat. It's unsettling, but sadly, it's reality.

So yeah - all of that has happened, and now my mental constipation has settled a bit more. I need to blog more! It helps my soul rest. And if it entertains other people in addition to just appeasing myself, then that's cool. Speaking of which, did I hear someone say... random link? Okay! Let's a-go! I got a forward today from a co-worker that was just too cool. So I'll share it with you. Oh, and if you think that link is coming from a weird place, YES, it's MY web site. It's so good. I still don't know what I'm going to do with it, but you have to realize I now have the coolest e-mail EVAR.

A month between blogs

2006-01-12T17:00:00.000-06:00

Yes, 30 days between blogs will STOP. I think I shall start blogging again. Only not today. Except for this blog. Which is just to tell you - I have a 360 for sale! Check it out, it is lovely. I even have pictures. And no, it's not the one I play - that'd be silly.

Lots of stuff to update, but the quickies are here:
- I have a girlfriend
- Sifu's in Hong Kong
- TEC (a retreat) is this weekend
- My sister got an iPod for Christmas
- For some unrelated reason I'm now $200 poorer

More later! Ooh, random link. I like toys.

No time, no time

2005-12-14T22:29:00.000-06:00

And I've set a NEW RECORD for blog MIA. And I'm still crazy busy. Yes, crazy. And busy. Crazy busy.

No time! Have to do the shortened version! Bullet points to sum it up. You can ask me details on any of them, I'll lengthen upon any particular ones soon.

- Kung fu: The kwoon has MOVED. We moved a couple doors down, closer to Memorial. I think the place a bit cooler, more visibility. Moving was hard work.
- Work: I still work FAST. Which means no real projects. The company was purchased, so now I work for HSBC. Same basic work, job description, etc. I got a free shirt!
- Sausage: Blue and Gold! We did it for kung fu fund-raising, so now I have sausage! And chicken! AND bacon! Mmm, good. I'll have to get some eggs and try some crazy egg frying again soon. With MORE food than just eggs.
- Toys: Yes, I have an XBox 360. Yes, it's luscious. I like it a LOT. Finally can use the HD on my TV. And I got a new phone! The Razr, by Motorola. It's pretty. Pretty cool.
- Health: Dangit, I got another sinus infection. Sinus infections suck. I will prevail. WITHOUT antibiotics this time. I hope.
- Social stuff: I'm dating! Yes, a girl. Yes, she's cool. Her name's Christina, and no, you don't know her. The short of it is this - we connected through martial arts. As in, we both love it, and do it/have done it a lot. We haven't "connected" through martial arts by fighting, or something like that. Yet.

Okay, so that's it. Mostly. If there are questions, feel free to comment a question. My life is generally an OPEN BOOK to my blog readers. If there are any blog readers left after the sad, sad abandoning of it for a while. Forty days and forty nights! Well, close to it. And no random links! Not right now. Okay, one. This is one my old roommate Nick sent me. Apparently, for some reason it reminded him of me. Go figure.

Busy like a bee

2005-11-09T20:24:00.000-06:00

Why are bees so busy? Do they have full time jobs? And too many extra activities after their urgent honey-procuring bounding about? Well, in that case they should just be happy they're not busy like ME. That should be my new saying. Busy as a ME. Man, that's busy! Yeah, I've had crazy activities the past week or so. Two friends got engaged (one of which is a particular person with the nomenclature of Fred - if you didn't know about his engagement already and you know who he is, you should pick your jaw up off the ground now), I had the big kung fu demo on Saturday, went to three big parties, had to go to work one day at four (in the MORNING), and saw a good friend move out of the country. That, and I was sick on top of all of it, which was sucky. I'm almost better now, though. Just a silly sinus infection, one of my usual two per year I get.

So yeah, Carlos moved away, which made a lot of us very sad. He's one of my better friends, and I'm going to miss him. But we'll still be in touch. Especially with some online DOA4! It'll be good stuff. Hopefully he'll be okay, though, getting used to the new stuff in the south. The South America, that is. It's not all new to him, though, I think he's got enough connections to be taken care of.

The demo was Saturday! Shame on you for not coming! Except for Amy and my parents, who did show up. And I am happy they did. I helped with the lion dance, which turned out pretty nicely, and then showed some self-defense manuevers, which were a bit vicious, but cool. Sifu and Sihing did a staff sparring set, too, which was cool. I think it went well.

Speaking of kung fu, I went back to full contact today for the first time in a few weeks (after being gone from sickness, work, and the open house). It was just me and Cory, so Sifu just had us work the bag and spar. It was a pretty good match! He popped me a few times very nicely in the jaw, and I nailed him in the nose a number of times. Well, not TOO hard. Just enough to make him notice. I found out during class that the guy I sparred with last time (who had a boxing background) had a bit of a reminder from our fight. Apparently I left him with a nice shiner - I was a little concerned, but Sifu told me it was cool, and I got the guy's respect. Hopefully he'll come back for more, I can use the practice myself.

And a fairly major piece of news is this: GUITAR HERO. I have yet to see it get a review less than a 9, although I think this one's the one I like the most. And yes, it's AWESOME. If you have a PS2, you really should get this game. The raw bit of it is this: it's one of the most FUN games I've played in a very long time. I find myself coming back to play it for the sheer enjoyment of being a rock star. And it has an excellent learning curve - anyone can start it on easy mode, but expert mode is something pretty much everyone (even a learned guitarist) has to work up to. And you don't really see yourself getting better, it just HAPPENS. Two player is quite excellent, too. Although you can only get the controller on its own from RedOctane. But I've seen two people play it once and then decide they had to own it. It really is that good.

And yeah, I had to go to work at FOUR in the MORNING last week. The day after I took a sick day. Which is sort of amusing. It was to help test the production implementation of our product, before it was actually used by everyone else, to try finding any last minute bugs. It made me tired, go figure.

Speaking of which, I'm STILL tired. I think I shall go chill a bit with some Lost on DVD, and then sleep early. Maybe. But you need a random link! I know you'll find this one interesting. It's kinda kooky. Check it out!

Time to BLOG

2005-10-30T00:42:00.000-05:00

Perhaps a bit overdue. Just for reference, my knuckles have healed completely, even after breaking them open a couple more times. But it's because I have been BUSY. Yes, indeed. Lots of kung fu, work as well, and no time to sleep. Partly because I've been doing coding on the side for fun. Yes, for FUN. I like to code. Strangely enough. But kung fu's been a bit busier because we're preparing for our open house. Yes! Open house one week from today (well, now, one week from yesterday). So - Saturday, November 5th, at 1 P.M. You should come! See what kung fu is all about! It's a full demo, there will be lion dancing, and forms, and sparring sets, and even self-defense moves. Plus a couple of other things. You should come, especially if you haven't seen any demos previously. It'll be around 27th and Memorial, on the east side of the street. We'll be setting up on the grass there, it'll be hard to miss. Hopefully the demos will go well.

In addition to that, I have picked up and completed a majesty of a game known as Shadow of the Colossus. Seriously, the game is a work of art. It's a lot of puzzle solving, which I love. I liked it quite a bit, and it's even got some replayability by things you can unlock after beating it the first time. So I may go back through to defeat all sixteen of the colossi. Good stuff!

For further games, there is something else arriving in a couple of weeks here - Guitar Hero! Now you KNOW I have to get a piece of this action. I'm looking into getting two controllers, and I want to have some mad rock and roll dueling going on over here soon after the release. I think it's going to be a ton of fun. And half the game is about hamming it up. As you can see, it can get pretty crazy.

So I started watching Lost, the first season. It's pretty good! I like it quite a bit. I'm through the first disc, but I think I'll like it more and more as it progresses. It's got just enough of looming mystery to keep you hooked. As well as a bit of instant gratification while watching each episode, in little surprises they pop in occasionally. I particularly liked the third episode (fourth, if you count the premiere as two episodes). I can't say why, but it was cool.

And kung fu keeps me going. We had a busy day today, in particular. Started nice and early with class (I should have eaten before, though). We had a new guy there, who's been training for about a month, just during day classes. So this was his first time to spar at our school. Naturally, Sifu puts me against him, and we spar for a solid twenty minutes or so. I started going a little light against him, as it was his first time. Although, as I found out quickly, it wasn't REALLY his first time. He had trained for three or so months at one of Sifu's old students who started his own school without Sifu's full blessing. So at the kwoon, we don't particularly LIKE that school. But his sparring there was apparently with 13, 14 and 15-year olds, and purely in the style of point sparring. So after one hit, you stop, reset. He found out that just because you trade a hit, if you put your hands down, it doesn't mean the other person will, too. And I guess he didn't hit to the head at all there, so he wasn't used to that. Or getting hit quite as hard, I think. But he had previous experience boxing, so he had plenty of skills to draw from. He was actually very good, and a pretty solid attacker. He found out that throwing hard round kicks isn't always a good idea, especially when your shins aren't as conditioned as your opponent's. He popped me a few good times, mostly in the stomach, but my main defeat was from an EMPTY STOMACH. Ugh. It started giving me a bit of a gag reflex from not having any food in me to draw energy from. That kind of sucked. But it was a lot of fun, and I think he's going to like it a lot.

So after that, it was time to get food in my belly, then a bit of lion dance practice. We practiced a few times, it turned out pretty well, I think. We had an observer come by, too, peeking through the window. Turned out to be a Mexican guy, looking to be probably a little younger than me. I was the only bilingual one there today, so I talked to him a bit, and I think he'll come by the demo, maybe join up. Which would be cool. Both our Buddha and the lion tail were rather exhausted after practice, which was funny to see. They both collapsed on the ground between our second and third practice. That, and Cory (our tail) managed to push a little too hard and lose a bit of his lunch right as the third practice ended. It's hard work being a lion! But it's a lot of fun, too.

I've also been spending a bit more time with guitar stuff. Probably because of Guitar Hero. But I'm back to practicing some on the electric, looking at Satriani and Vai for goals to shoot towards. They are some rather talented individuals, there. I still need to get a full hard drive to dedicate to space for recording music onto. We'll see, who knows.

This full paragraph is dedicated to getting an extra hour tonight for Daylight Saving. Yaaaaay!

Well, okay, that's enough blog for now. Hopefully I'll have enough free time to find time to pay attention to my blog in the near future. My blog gets lonely sometimes. I should probably feed it more often, too. Okay! Random linkage! Two for today, since it's been so long. First, one which is just cool and somewhat funny. The second is one which you may find interesting, as a tool to find FURTHER interesting things. It's still beta, but oh, it's so good. Oh! One more, for Liz, who apparently wanted something more for the ladies. It's not really something to ENJOY, but it is something you might find as a good resource. You know, just in case.

Bloody knuckles

2005-10-13T23:38:00.000-05:00

Did you ever play that? I never did. I probably thought I was too much of a wuss. Although nowadays I'd have no problem with it. My guess is most people who'd play me probably would. As it is, my knuckles are currently kinda bloody. We had a good full contact class yesterday - the other Eric showed up for the first time. Sifu broke him in nicely. We started with good stances, and he pushed his horse right away, which might have been a mistake. He started collapsing after the first minute, and kept falling after that for a while. Even through his other stances. While we held the horse, Sifu walked by each of us, throwing either punches into our stomachs or kicking us in the legs. It was good stuff. Maybe I'm just a masochist.

So yeah, we did all that, and then got to working the bag. Eric didn't have bag gloves, so I loaned him mine, which is why I now am missing some skin from a few of my knuckles. It's okay, though, it'll grow back. Wanna see? I know you do.

Ain't it pretty? Yeah - they've actually healed a lot in one day, it was worse yesterday. So even though I got bloody knuckles, it takes a decent amount of force to get there.

Oh, and we're doing an open house for kung fu on November 5th. Put it in your calendar! We talked about it today, to see what we'll be doing. There will be a lion dance (and I'll be in the lion). We'll be doing some forms, and some self-defense. Showing how the different animal styles look when using them for self-defense purposes. And normally we pick a different person to demonstrate each animal. But this year ONE person is doing all the self-defense demos, for all five animals. Guess who? No, not Sihing. That's right. It's ME. Hopefully I can think of some good moves to demo with and not kill Cory with them. So that ALONE should be reason enough for you to come check it out. Probably be at one in the afternoon, on that Saturday. And there will be other demos being done. Should be fun.

So that's kung fu. Work is still going. We got training this week! It was fun for a change. Normally they take two or three weeks to train. It was for me and one other new guy (Joe), so our boss talked to the trainer about doing an accelerated version of the training, in one week. Well, being that we're a little more experienced than average (and perhaps kind of smart, too), we did that week's worth of accelerated training in... a day and a half. Yes, that's right. So we moved on from there to two other training sessions he had, that he hadn't planned on using. And we finished those in... a day. Lunch on Wednesday we were done. That's how it was - three times the original amount of training done in about half the time originally planned. I hope our boss notices. Oh, that, and I actually taught the trainer a couple of things about the software he was training us in that he didn't know about. Which surprised him. We got projects today, though, which is good. I'm basically done with mine. Just don't have access enough to test it, which is weird. But okay. I'm happy to have work!

I got Unleashed on DVD yesterday. It's so good! Jet Li, in a movie that doesn't have rap OR DMX in it. Not even any real cocky "good" guys in it. There's a real movie there, and it's even a good one. And even with Morgan Freeman in it! I really liked the fight scenes, and I was happy Jet got a role that he could get room to ACT in. Unlike most of his other American stuff. I think we can all thank Luc Besson for this one. Check it out! I can actually recommend this one. It does have a bit of violence in it, but you can usually expect that in any movie with a major martial artist in it.

Okay, I have two random links. Both QUITE random. The first one is... well, I'm going to apologize now for it. It caused me much pain. You'll understand. The second one I find myself strangely addicted to. And I have no idea why. Perhaps because it's interactive. Maybe you'll get addicted, too. And accept it as an apology for the first one.

It's getting late

2005-10-05T23:07:00.000-05:00

But I must blog. I should get to sleep in the PM, so I'll see if I can blog with speed. That's speed as in FAST, not like I put a little blanket next to me for my next hit of speed to rest on whilst I blog. Don't worry, I prefer much more expensive things than just speed. Like... MORE speed. I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore. And speed as in fast isn't working, either.

Okay, so it was my birthday. It was lovely! I had a great day. A lot of little things that went right. Which is my favorite kind of day. I think I might like that better than having just one big thing go right, although that's pretty good stuff, too. I had my day at work, and got a free lunch from a couple of my co-workers. At Golden Gate, no less! Mmm, luscious. So that was cool. Then it was time to go out to eat with my family, at Osaka. It's a Japanese steakhouse! And it's luscious, too. I really like the food there. Mmm, it was good. And then we went back to the homestead, where I got a bit of cake (which was ever so scrumptious), and I got a set of mix CDs from my sister (a collection from the 90s, which, sadly, seems old now), plus some SPATULAS from my parents, which is sweet. It means I can make fried eggs over medium even EASIER than before! I need to try that out this weekend, I think. Maybe even go crazy and make an omelet.

After that it was time to go see Serenity. There were a TON of TU people there, mostly CS people, among whom I was an elder member. I saw a few people I haven't seen in a while, which was cool. And the movie was excellent! It helps that I saw the series before I watched the movie, but I think I still would have liked it a lot. I won't say anything else, it's one of those that I think is better to just watch without knowing much about it.

That was pretty much it. And a very lazy weekend, which I loved having. Mmm, lazy. Even full contact on Saturday was lazy. Sifu was gone, and it was just me, Sihing, and Jordan there, so we did just some basic stuff, nothing too heavy. The Wednesday before that was a little rougher - I was actually in charge. So I exhausted everyone with several aerobic style exercises before doing the heavier stuff (pushups, situps, bag work). And Jordan wanted to spar very badly, so we did a few rounds with him and Cory. I sparred Jordan first, two minute rounds, then Cory. Cory had an injured leg, and I guess I brushed it or something (I didn't even notice), because he had to bow out. So it was back to Jordan, and he wanted to do kicks, which I had decided not to do because of Cory's leg injury. So I said, okay, if you want. And we had been sparring for maybe thirty seconds when he left an opening I couldn't refuse. Yadda yadda yadda, Jordan was on the ground in a fetal position, holding himself. So Cory's back up to spar another round, and we go a bit, and I guess one of my blocks just hit perfectly against his elbow, because I apparently hyperextended his elbow while he was punching. So I had this image (it's still in my head) of Cory in front of me, bent in half, holding his elbow, and Jordan still on the floor clutching himself, and me just standing there with my arms still at the ready, wondering if we should even continue. The tai-chi instructor had come in and was watching the whole thing, and she was just cracking up at all of it. It was pretty funny - they both turned out perfectly okay, so it was good.

Today it was just me and Crystal, and we had a bit of sparring between us. I think I hurt her, too, although she's too tough to admit pain - I checked one of her kicks hard with my shin, so shin-to-shin. I felt it, which means she definitely did, and we looked to make sure it was okay - she already had a nice bruise rising up, so that'll be pretty tomorrow. She kept going, though, and Sifu gave us some nice combos to practice on each other.

Oh - I did get the video from that first fight Sihing was in, the full contact tournament. They're selling it on DVD, for not too bad of a price. So I got to see how he did, as well as how Crystal did. Crystal got rather annihilated by the other girl, but considering she's only 13 and the other girl was 17, I think she did well. Sihing did okay, but I really think he stayed too tense, which is what wore him out so fast. And there were a LOT of points where I saw openings on the other guy that I know Justin should have (and probably had) seen, but didn't take advantage. The guy really didn't look that tough, and I know Sihing could have taken him out a lot more if he had relaxed a bit. It was a decent fight, though.

Hey! Random blogthing - I thought it fitting for my birthday to take this one:

You Are 25 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe.

13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world.

20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences.

30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more!

40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

That fits me okay, so I'm happy with it.

Ooh! I've been getting back into vi at work. I love vi. It's so good. Even better when it's Vim! Yes, I'm a big nerd for using it, but I find I can work a ton faster with it. I just wish I had something to work faster ON... soon, soon. Hopefully. I do a training class all next week, and after that I think they'll start giving me projects. Which will be a good thing. If all goes well, perhaps we can get through the week's worth of class (condensed from a previous three-week long class) in a day or two. And have the rest of the week off! How cool would that be? Eh... I can dream.

So gaming's coming back into focus, as the XBox 360 gets closer to release. I found an article in particular that talked about what's wrong with gaming, and how Nintendo is the savior of us all. It's even intelligently written. It makes me excited to see what the Revolution is going to do.

Okay, that's a lot of blogging. I think it's bedtime! Which means it's time to random link. Dang! The one I was going to put up has been taken AWAY. Which means I'll have to leave you with this instead. It's definitely worth knowing about.

Birthday time!

2005-09-30T01:57:00.000-05:00

It's my birthday! And it's late, so just a quickie. It's already been a decent birthday, for the two hours I've had it, so I'm happy. I'm many years old. But to spread happiness and cheer, here you go, something a little different:

MICHELIN MAN DENIES PATERNITY SUIT... CLAIMS CHILD IS NOT HIS.

Have a great day! Hopefully I will... we'll see. Toodles!

Doh! Almost forgot!

2005-09-20T01:03:00.000-05:00

I didn't put it on my last entry, but that's when it was. My blog's birthday! Woo! Two years old! Isn't that crazy?

That's all I've got to say. Apart from this. Yes, Seanicus, we are, apparently, the SAME.

Which Naruto Character Are You?
Test by naruto - kun.com

It's late, but I can still blog

2005-09-18T23:30:00.000-05:00

Wow, it actually feels late. And I'm tired. That's good! I need a normal sleep schedule. But I have a little time to blog. So here! I'm blogging! What an odd word. I'm still not used to it.

Ah, so the trip to Springfield. A week ago, it was. Seems like... a week ago. It was a good trip! Took two and a half hours each way. Left early in the morning, but the road tripping was fun. Even IF gas was crazy priced that weekend. We got there, checked the place out. Nick's kwoon was very nice! It had high ceilings, large floor space. Even a couple of foundation poles, good for banging arms and shins on. I tested them out, they're quite nice. There's something weirdly satisfying about throwing your shins against a large metal pole and just having it ring loudly each time. Especially when you don't feel it. If you did it and it rang but your shins hurt a lot, it's not quite as good. It's a level you work up to, believe me. So we hung out, talked with Nick, so forth. One of the students from our school asked about a particular technique that Justin uses, a quick side heel kick, so I started showing him how Justin throws it. It's all about how he throws a backfist first to lure you into thinking your coming high, then shoves his whole body into the kick that goes right into your solar plexus. It's a great move, believe me, I know. I've been sent through the air by it plenty of times. So I'm showing how to throw it, and Justin comes up to give extra tips on how it works. Now by this time, some of Nick's students had arrived. As Justin is showing how the kick works, one of these students starts commenting on how it's too northern style, in a very "tsk tsk" sort of way. Justin kind of glances at him, then dismisses it. Until the student comes up to tell Justin what's wrong with his technique, and the "right" way to do it. As he's doing this, Justin just looks over his shoulder at me and gives me this look of incredulousness, with the implied "What the hell does he think he's doing" all over his face. And I couldn't help but start chuckling. The guy had no idea what he was in for. He showed us how you need to step INTO your kick, by planting your other foot about three/four feet behind you, towards your opponent, before throwing the kick. As he started doing it, Justin got into a subtle fighting position, and I knew exactly what he was getting ready to do. Unfortunately, it never happened, as the guy stopped right about then. I was on the verge of telling him, "Go ahead, show him the right way - how would you kick him?" But I thought that might be pushing it a little. Later, when he put on his uniform and his white belt, and Justin put on his full Chinese traditional regalia with his black belt, did the guy realize just what a mistake he had made. He apologized later, and Nick apologized, too. After that, the whole day, the guy tried to get chummy with Justin, but Sihing really didn't talk to him too much. Except a few times to correct him on improper movements through his forms. Which was funny to watch. Even Sifu went to correct him on Lau (our first set), came back, sat down, and then turned away and said, "I can't watch." It was funny.

So we had our mischief there, but after everything was set up, we went and did the demo thing. Started with the lion dance, which we used Nick's new lion for. So we awakened the lion, which involves putting paint on various parts of the lion, as it "awakens". Then the full lion dance, with a stack, and the offering, and all of it. It went well, even though it was very windy, and HOT. And when it's hot, and you're under a lion "skin", it's VERY hot. At least we didn't have to worry about fireworks. I think the dance turned out okay. Then it was time for kung fu demos - Nick's students went through their warmup stuff, and we had a lot of our students do various demos. Including the first few forms, and some of the more advanced forms. I did a sparring set with the other Eric, which we hadn't practiced in a very long time (he hadn't been to class in a month), and it turned out okay. I also did a chunk of Gung Gee, which is one of our most advanced sets. It was rather last moment, since Nick thought it'd be good to show it. I think I did it okay, though, which was good. And Sihing did a few sets - one with the spear set (which is AWESOME to watch him do), one with a chunk of Fu Hok (the other very advanced, super long form we have), and a sparring set with Nick. Of course, he did excellently. In the Fu Hok demo, there's a point where you jump and then plant both feet straight down below you. When Sihing did it in the parking lot, we could feel it from the sidewalk next to it, about thirty feet away. Which is rather crazy.

We did the whole demo twice, with an hour break in between. The second time, the lion dance wasn't quite as long, and the stack went better - the first time, I jumped early and hit Cory in the face, since he hadn't positioned yet. And THEN when I landed on his leg, part of the lion skin had slipped in between my foot and his leg, so I kept sliding down towards his knee. I had to hop each time, and finally landed where I could hold it (barely) to push the lion head up high. We made it, though. The second time went a little better, and we even got applause. I think there's even video of it somewhere. Maybe I'll see about finding it. Even moreso if someone out there expresses INTEREST in it. One of YOU guys, that is. And Eric missed one move in our sparring set, but we still finished it okay. I think Sihing left a few nice welts on Nick's arms with their sparring set, which is funny. But not surprising, somehow.

And Nick was nice enough to give us all a good Chinese dinner, which was delicious. Take out, the only way, man. And even a gas tank refill for our ride home. A lot of us were worried Sifu wouldn't be pleased by his school and their skills/antics, and although they have a lot of work to do and a few things didn't sit quite right with Sifu, he did do a lot right, and made lots of effort to make Sifu happy, which worked out very well. I think it turned out great, to be honest.

So that was our crazy kung fu trip. This last week has been another week of work, which has been going pretty well. I got two projects, both of which I finished the same day I was given them. I want more work! But I'm sure I'll get it. I'm happiest when I have some good work to do. I hope my boss realizes that, and gives me something GOOD to work on. He's a fun guy, though.

So full week of work, all that, and then we had open kwoon on Friday, which I was in charge of. We had three other people show up, one of which was J.R. He really wanted to spar me, so I finally said okay. We sparred a bit, it went fairly well. Until I made the mistake of turning away from one of his punches, which put my head directly into his other fist. Landed right in the middle of my face, compressed my nose very nicely. Made my eyes water a lot, and sure enough, blood started pouring about fifteen seconds later. He hit hard enough that it left a slight bruise on the top of my nose, moved my upper teeth a bit, and got enough blood through my nasal passage to plug it up (with blood) for the rest of the weekend. Kinda sucked. Although my nose didn't actually break (which I was surprised about), and I think my teeth will be okay. Still was a little upsetting. I think I'll reward him for it, though. He's earned my full attention for sparring, so he'll get a full contact match from me, and I won't handicap myself like I normally do against students newer than me. I don't want to bloody him or anything like that, and I'll still pull punches (no full power unless it's a serious situation), but he'll get plenty of my shins into him, which have a tendency to make people stop the fight. Hopefully I won't hurt him too bad, if at all. But he's got it coming, and I'm eager to let loose a little more than normal. AFTER I heal up fully.

So that was Friday. The rest has been a lazy weekend, blowing chunks of blood out of my nose (I know you wanted to hear that) here and there, falling asleep randomly a few times. Which was very nice. And paintball! Well, an effort to. Only all the places don't open until NOON on Sundays. So we got all dressed up with no place to go. So we went to the next obvious place, which was to the movies! To see Lord of War. A different movie, but pretty good. Definitely a "heavy" movie.

And church tonight! Normally it's me and Carlos on guitar. We have two other guys who play, but they never really show up to play in the choir. Well, last weekend, they BOTH did. So we had four guitars. Which was crazy. We managed it, somehow. I did hear that of all of us, three of us made it look easy, and Paul made it look hard. Apparently his "guitar face" is constrained with effort, and the rest of us look relaxed, just playing. I thought that was funny. So THIS weekend, apparently the guitarists didn't want to repeat the crazy guitar quartet fiasco, so NOBODY showed up. Except for me. So it was down from four to one. But it turned out pretty well, I think. Some good songs.

Ooh! Random news. This week, the Tokyo Game Show happened. And at it, Nintendo unveiled their plans for their new Revolution console. That is, they revealed the nature of the controller for the new system. And it is something revolutionary. If it works, it's going to change the way we think of video gaming completely. I think it's awesome, personally. Check it out for yourself!

Okay, it's late, I need some sleep. Got to be at work in the morning! So have a lovely day yourself, and here's some random linkage for you. Ever heard of people losing a job for a silly reason? Well, I think this one probably beats any reason you've heard yet.

First week

2005-09-09T21:14:00.000-05:00

So I've finished my first week of work. Ah, to be back to work, to have something to do for eight hours every weekday. It's quite nice. I'm tired, but it's a good tired. So work started kinda slowly, but it's been getting progressively cooler. I'll be programming, most of the code being HTML and JavaScript, which is okay. The tricky part is that you don't simply edit files - you have to use a program which monitors how the files fit together, as well as how it interfaces with the server(s). So there's a lot of work outside of just coding. It's very different. But I'm starting to pick it up, and once I get it, I'll be crazy good at it. I think I actually like it, because it's something only a few people know how to do, so I think I can catch up decently, and then learn all the quirks to it so I'll be EXPERT. Which I like doing.

The guys I'm working with are all massive nerds. My supervisor is hooked on WoW, and has several characters, although only one 60 among them. Those who know the game know what I'm talking about. A lot of the other guys in my group play, but I think my supervisor's the one who does it the most. Another guy's a big linux fanatic, and another one's into Brak and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Yeah, like I said, MASSIVE NERDS. I fit right in. Oh yeah, one of them is a second degree black belt in taekwondo, too, which is cool. Fun guys.

And kung fu has been back in session. Only three people at full contact training on Wednesday, though. So we did our normal warmups (with a five minute horse), then right into sparring. Since Sihing was gone, it was rotation - two minute rounds, two of us at a time, while the third conditioned. I did learn something new this time. I managed to land a hit on Cory, right on the chin. Now I have massive gloves, and he had a big set of headgear, so I actually didn't hit him directly. I hit into his pads, but the force went to the side of his chin. He made me stop and almost passed out. Apparently, according to him, he said it felt like he had been hit from inside his head, out the front through his eyeballs. I've never quite seen that before, so it was new - and I didn't even hit him that hard. That, and I also got him with a nice rack to counter a wide open high round kick, since he threw too many of those, and I was nice to him the first four times he did it. And Crystal's getting better, Sifu's giving her some good tips. Although she still doesn't cover her head enough, and got rattled a few times with some of my hooks. Don't worry, I don't hit hard.

And tomorrow we're going out of town! Off to Springfield, Missouri. Not St. Louis, like I was thinking before. We're going to help with an open house for a school that an old student of Sifu's (named Nick) opened. The funny thing is, I joined a couple of months before he did. So it makes me feel weird - I'm a Si-Bak, now. (It means Uncle in kung fu terms.) Yeah, we'll be going over to help him with two demos, to do some lion dancing, as well as a bit of form demonstration. I'm curious to see what his students think of our kung fu, since they've only seen his - and everyone's kung fu is different. And Sifu will be their Sigung! (Buck Sam Kong is our Sigung.) Apparently he has a lion already, so we'll be waking his lion with our lion dance. I'm guessing his students will see a live lion dance for the first time, so it should be fun. Only bad thing is we have to leave at 8 in the MORNING. Which is too early. Maybe I should be going to bed soon. Bleah.

Yeah, we'll be going early, coming back moderately early, too. So maybe have some time to play Saturday night. Speaking of which, I got a demo disc for Shadow of the Colossus. And it's glorious. The first disc I got had almost all the demos running fine EXCEPT for Shadow of the Colossus, which made me a bit upset. It just stopped running when I tried loading it. So I went back to QT (where I got it), and the guy there was nice enough to let me trade it. Yay! Apparently, they get credit back for any merchandise, even if it's opened. And the new one did work, although it made me nervous 'cause it took a long time to load. Oh, but it's beautiful. You start just walking around, seeing this luminous female lying prone on a stone tablet, in the middle of some kind of long room. You can go up to her, but it looks like she's not responding. There's also a black horse there, and you can get on it. Then ride around, wherever you want. The world outside is HUGE. The feeling of immersion is great - for most of it, there's no music, you just hear the rhythm of the hooves hitting the ground as you explore, and see the countryside move past you. There is a battle to be found, and it's something else. I still have yet to finish it, but I haven't had a lot of time yet.

Oh yeah - today was payday! It's a very nice feeling to get a paycheck again. So I think I'll feel a little more relaxed this weekend. Ahh, yes.

There IS one other thing I did a while back, and since I haven't gotten a response from it (I wasn't going to say anything about it originally), I thought I might as well share. One day about two weeks ago (maybe a little less), I gave my mom a ride to a doctor's appointment she had. Well, while we were there, I saw a brunette that was working behind the front desk (among a few ladies), who I found, to be honest, rather stunning. I sat and waited for my mom to finish her appointment, then took her back to work. While I was driving back home, I decided I had to do something, and not just let life move by. So I went back to the office, and walked up to the counter. I talked to her, told her that I didn't get a chance to really talk to her, but that I was interested in getting to know her a little better, so I had brought something for her. I handed her a piece of paper with my name and number on it. I told her I knew she was working, so I'd let her be, and then I left. I think I surprised her a little, because all she did was smile goofily and say a few "thank you"s. I couldn't stop grinning walking back to my car - I had nothing to lose, so why not? I think I should probably try to do things like that more often - not necessarily involving flirting with women every time, but you know - just grab life by the horns and say, "HEY! I want in on this!" Maybe you should do it to, if you see something you want to be a part of. Even if you initially think you deserve no part of it. I think it somehow fits with who I am, who I've become, to do it. Now I never heard back from her, but it's fine by me. I did something, instead of just sitting idly by, and I really didn't have anything to lose. And I'm glad I did.

Okay, so that's enough waxing philosophical for today. I need to get some rest! To be ready for crazy kung fu action tomorrow. Random link? Here you are! Don't know if you've seen this site, but if you're ever curious about the random bits of mischief people manage to get themselves into, this is a good place to look.

Labor day!

2005-09-05T17:39:00.000-05:00

It's labor day. Ironically, I'm not doing a lot of labor today. That's okay, though! I'm getting excited about doing labor TOMORROW. That's right, I start work tomorrow! Yay! I've finished all my paperwork, have everything ready. Just should probably do some laundry, then I'll be set. That, and get some SLEEP. But I'm excited.

So this weekend's been crazy. It turned into a bachelor pad party on Friday, and I didn't even mean for it to. That's right, the morning after, I felt kinda bleah, had a bunch of beer bottles strewn throughout the apartment, as well as a cooler still containing plenty more. It was a lot of fun, though. I think I may have had a little TOO much. One can only have so much Pepsi, you know. Oh well. Me and Justin (Sihing) got together, and some more kung fu boys ended up coming over. We stayed up, talked, played a variety of games (including some crazy DOA action with Carlos and Brandon), and had munchies early in the morning. We got one guy trashed nicely - he'd never had any Jager, so he tried a couple of shots. He'd never taken a shot before, either, and sadly, I could give him more instruction on how you're supposed to do it than what he already knew. Although we were going to drive him home, since he was in no condition to drive, and he snuck out the door (supposedly to smoke), and then drove home. Sihing was rather upset he didn't listen to us, so apparently he's going to give this particular student a lesson in listening to what Sihing has to say next time we spar in class. A lesson consisting of a nice right hook. I hope I can be there to see it, should be interesting.

And I saw the Transporter 2 this weekend. It's what I would call a popcorn flick, as was the first one. A mindless romp through action and adventure. Keep in mind, I said mindless. Yes, don't expect this to be realistic WHATSOEVER. If you can do that, it's a rather fun movie.

The main thing lately has been the recovery from Katrina. So I'm going to go ahead and put the major links here, for anyone who hasn't sent in something to help, so you can have another way or two to do it. There's the Red Cross, naturally, as well as the United Way. And being who I am, I will include Catholic Charities, as well. Anything else you might want to find out on how to help you can most likely find here. This is the widest hit of suffering our generation has seen in this country, so I think reaching out is a good thing to do. I've given some, but will probably do a bit more after I actually start getting paid.

In other news, we're getting ready for the open house in St. Louis this coming Saturday. A kung fu open house! For one of the old students of Sifu, named Nick, who opened his own school. We'll be doing a lion dance (and yes, I'll be the lion head again), as well as a few demos. Hopefully it will all go well. We have one other student who's opened his own school, in town, named Chris. Sihing and I are interested to go check them out. From what we hear, their sifu has been giving them... interesting methods on sparring. We may have to step up and show them why they may consider other techniques. And throwing strong leg kicks against knees may be a bad idea. Especially if you're expecting to hit a soft knee, but hit someone's not so soft shin. Anyone who knows me well knows my shins aren't TOO soft. And Sihing's are about the same.

And it's birthday time! Lots of birthdays! Brandon had his at the end of last month, Carlos had his yesterday. If you know them, say hey, tell them they're getting OLDer. Carlos finally caught up to me! Although, sadly, I'll be outpacing him again at the end of the month. Oh well.

Okay, I gots to go to a cookout. Free food! How can I pass that up? Well, hope everyone had a lovely Labor Day weekend. I'll leave you with a random link. Yes! Random! I play guitar, indeed. But some people play something just a LITTLE bit different.

Chaos

2005-08-29T18:48:00.000-05:00

Yes, chaos. But a good kind! A ton of stuff has happened in the past week or so. The main one, which is a good thing - I got a job! Woo! I finally got one, at a place called Metris. I'll be doing programming. Hopefully I can wow them with my skills, maybe get some good experience. Sadly, now that I have a job, I've been getting many more job opportunities. Today ALONE I've been contacted five times about job openings. Ugh. And some of them offered hefty wages, but I'm already committed. I just wish they could have decided to contact me earlier. Maybe if I hear of one that just sounds too lovely, I might take it. But for now, I'm happy to work at Metris.

So there's been that, and I've been doing side work, as well. Computer educating, as well as spyware removal. Man. I went to a friend of my mom's to work on fixing up her computer - she doesn't use it at all, but her cousin and daughter use it regularly. It had over 4000 pieces of spyware on it. I'm surprised it was still functioning at all. I tried fixing it as best I could, but to do a full job on a case like that would take a lot more time. It took me a good four hours to do what I did, as it is. It should be a lot better now, though.

Ooh! And I signed up for a couple of mystery shopper places. Although I haven't gotten any chances to try it out, yet. Might be a fun way to bring in extra income, who knows. Who wouldn't want to get paid to go out to eat, or to watch movies?

So I got into Google Talk, since it's Google, and Google is cool. I got a few people on my list, and I especially like the VOIP capabilities. It comes through very cleanly, and it's easy to use. It's like opening up some sort of portal to your friend, so you have a space in between that you can talk through. It's very, very clean, and it's almost like just having them there in the same room. A slight bit of lag, but that's expected. I did get to try it (VOIP) out with my friend Amy, and I think she liked it. You might try it out! Anyone with a gmail account can use it, free of charge. It's still beta, so they're going to add a ton of stuff, I'm sure. The actual IM part of it is pretty good, too.

Oh, I caved in and signed up for Blockbuster's DVD for delivery thingie. I canceled my other thing I had with them, where you actually have to GO to a location to pick up movies. Man! Who does that anymore, really? So much work. Anyway, I signed up, you get three movies at a time, unlimited rentals, under $20 a month. Not too shabby. The part I like the most is that you can actually find movies you WANT to see. Not like the crap they stock at their stores. And they'll recommend movies to you, based on what you "rate". Their choices they recommended me are consistent with the quality of movies they keep on their shelves, which means maybe one in twenty gets me thinking, "Hmm, maybe..." I'm finishing up Season 1 of CSI, which is cool, and I've got many more movies in my queue, just waiting to be delivered. Like the Karate Kid! Yeah! Wax on, wax off.

That was my advertising section. They're not paying me for THAT. Yet. Ooh! But another product I've been using is something called Guitar Pro. And for anyone who plays guitar and can read tablature, it's pretty freakin' sweet. I used it to learn a couple of songs already. I've had it for a while, but I never got into it - when I tried using it was when my other drive started going bad, so I guess I just made associations of negativity with it. But in reality, it's quite nice. You can put in your song by just typing in the tab with the correct notation for timing, and then you can play it back in MIDI, adjust the timing as necessary to practice, and just set it to repeat. Even a couple of measures at a time - just pick a number of beats per minute, a number of repetitions, and then how many BPMs you want to increase it by each time it repeats. It helped me a bit. And you can export MIDI files, too! So I've tabbed a few songs. Like this one. Yeah, midi isn't very good, and the voice could be a lot better, but with the limited resources I had, I think it turned out okay. Hopefully you do, too.

Ooh! I found a picture, and I liked it a lot, I had to share. I'm really tempted to make this into a t-shirt.

Maybe it's a little not right, but it made you smile, didn't it?

I did get to go on a float trip this last weekend with Newman - it was a lot of fun. Got some sun, got to meet people. We had a good mix of ages, so I wasn't the only alum there. I think getting out and getting into the sun is something everyone can use. Except make sure you use sunscreen if you're not used to it - a certain Jon somebody (I won't say who it is, except that his last name is Peyton) turned a nice rosy RED from the sun. I hope he's not losing multiple layers of skin.

And the hurricane has hit, which isn't such good chaos. I can't imagine having a home there, having to go through all of that. I just hope people are okay, even if their residences might not be so well. Several cities were hit hard, some more than others.

Okay, that's sad. So here's a joke to make things balanced! This one's an old story I've heard - I don't know if it's true or not, but it's still interesting:
------
Introductory Chemistry at Duke has been taught for about a zillion years by Professor Bonk (really), and his course is semi-affectionately known as "Bonkistry". He has been around forever, so I wouldn't put it past him to come up with something like this.

Anyway, one year there were these two guys who were taking Chemistry and who did pretty well on all of the quizzes and the mid-terms and labs, etc., such that going into the final they had a solid A. These friends were so confident going into the final that the weekend before finals week (even though the Chem final was on Monday), they decided to go up to the University of Virginia and party with some friends up there.

They did this and had a great time. However, with their hangovers and everything, they overslept all day Sunday and didn't make it back to Duke until early Monday morning.

Rather than taking the final then, they found Professor Bonk after the final and explained to him why they missed the final. They told him that they went up to UVA for the weekend, and had planned to come back in time to study, but that they had a flat tire on the way back and didn't have a spare and couldn't get help for a long time and so were late getting back to campus.

Bonk thought this over and then agreed that they could make up the final on the following day. The two guys were elated, relieved and very proud of their story. So, they studied that night and went in the next day at the time Bonk had told them. He placed them in separate rooms and handed each of them a test booklet and told them to begin.

They looked at the first problem, which was something simple about molarity and solutions and was worth 5 points. "Cool," they thought, "this is going to be easy." They did that problem and turned the page. They were unprepared, however, for what they saw on the next page...

WHICH TIRE? (95 points)
-----

Okay - I've got to go to kung fu! Time for class! I'll tell you more about kung fu stuff later. For now - a random link! It's a game I am TRULY excited about. The same company that did ICO is releasing this. Just look at it - it is beauty.

Ah, Beethoven

2005-08-17T23:37:00.000-05:00

Yes, I'm listening to Symphony No. 7. I like it quite a bit, although I especially like the second movement. I know, I know, EVERYONE likes the second movement, but hey. So work is still a distant memory/hope, but I AM making some progress. Had an interview today, which was good. And another tomorrow, which is also good. Yay! I have a part time side job, as well, being an educator. No, not kung fu. No, not guitar. But computers! Yes, someone who is rather computer illiterate wanted some instruction on understanding computers, so I am helping her out. For enough money to help put a dent in the bills. So that's good for me. AND for her. Hopefully. We had our first lesson today, and I think it went well. I taught her about MS Word, how to use it, and about the clipboard and copying and pasting. To give you an idea, she didn't even know what highlighting was, or how to do it, and what it's good for. Much less copy and pasting. So I think the progress was decent. We'll see how it goes.

So I've been noticing, as I use the TV occasionally (as I do), a SPIDER crosses the screen. Goodness! I get up to smush it fast! But no, it gets away and I can't find it. So it happened a couple of times, and finally I managed to get to it before it got away - SMUSH! Oh wait, there wasn't a smush. That's right, there was NO SMUSH. Did I miss? No! I pull the napkin away and it's still there! Plenty of life left in it! What happened, you might be wondering? As I was myself, for about .34 seconds. And then I realized, it's living IN MY TV. Yes, that's right. It was under the protective screen above the REAL TV screen, which is which screen the spider was actually on. I'm debating on cracking the TV open to hunt it down, or maybe removing my protective screen (which can be done, as I have before), but I'm paranoid about protecting my screen. Oh well. For the moment, Mr. Spider, you shall live. Enjoy! Roll up your victim bugs while you can! Because the day may come when I will roll up YOU. In a nice paper towel, perhaps. Or even a kleenex.

So yesterday I did something new. Brand new, yes! I FRIED an EGG. That's right, I had never done that before yesterday. Laugh, go ahead. But I did it, and I felt substantially proud of myself. I even fried it over medium. Now I have scrambled eggs before, and boiled them, naturally, but never fried one. It always made me nervous to. That, and I never buy eggs. But I did it! And I was so happy, I was going to get to eat a fried egg (over medium) that I had cooked. And I like fried eggs! I was so happy I had to do a little dance while I put it on a plate. And then I decided I was HUNGRY, so I had to fry a second egg! Yes! And I did it, too! How'd that one turn out? Great. And both of them? They were DELICIOUS. It's making me hungry, talking about all these fried eggs. I might just have to go fry another one here in a moment. Mmmm, mmmm.

Lately my friends have been putting together Halo nights, which we haven't done in a while. So I've been part of the cacophony of gunfire and shouting. It's fun stuff. And a bit of DOA3, which is always great. Me and Justin (not Sihing, a different one) like to pair up with Leon and Bass, for our Patty Cake pair of PAIN. See, when that particular team wins a match, they turn to each other and play a little bit of patty cake. "PATTY CAKE! PATTY CAKE! RAAAAAAR!" And they unleash the pain in team tags of GREAT JUSTICE. One of them involves Bass grabbing the hands of the opponent, swinging them up as the other team member (Leon) rushes in and grabs the feet. Then they swing them up, then down, then up, and down into the ground. BOOM! It's the hammock move. Another team tag is where Leon sets up the opponent as Bass slams into them, and then they both run madly OVER the poor opponent, stomping merrily. Mad merriment, I tell you. It's a lot of fun.

Anyway, I traded some movies with Justin (DOA Justin). I gave him Payback, an EXCELLENT film. With Mel Gibson. Well, it's a very fun film. So what'd he give me? Zardoz. Oh God. I hadn't even heard of it before (as is probably true with most of you now), and I decided NOT to look it up to see what kind of movie I might want to expect. And now that I've seen it, I think looking it up still would not have prepared me. It's got Sean Connery in it. How? I wonder the same thing. It's both a horrible movie, and horribly FASCINATING. It has so many elements that are completely gone from any sort of normality, that searching for meaning in various possible interpretations of the human "reality" becomes necessary. That's all I have to say about it. Trying to think of other things to say about it hurts my head.

The XBox 360 is coming out this year. I have mine pre-ordered. But silly Microsoft, they had to go and pull some shenanigans. Oh man. Oh well, I can't even think about that until after I land my next fabulous job.

Kung fu? I haven't even talked about it! And I think for today, I'll take a kung fu break. I did manage to scrape the skin off of a couple of my knuckles today in full contact training, but it wasn't bad.

So choir's coming back in full force at Newman, and it's great. I've missed having the full choir there, and it's been going pretty good. Except for this last Sunday, when I was playing and all of a sudden my G string snapped! Yes, think all your naughty thoughts and go ahead and get them out of the way. Since it's a 12-string, I still had another string there, but it meant that the pressure was off, so it went way out of tune, which was sucky. I had to figure out a way to retune it quickly when I could. The funny thing was that hardly anyone noticed I even broke a string. Because I KEPT PLAYING. Yeah, that's right, I can manage under pressure. Even when my G string comes RIGHT OFF.

Okay, enough shenanigans from ME. I don't know why I'm in such a good mood... I think it might have something to do with landing two interviews in a row, PLUS some part time work for a bit o' income. Yeah, that's all good news bears. How come we never seen them? Huh? How come the BAD news bears always have to show their faces? I like the good news bears better. Anyway! Time for a random link. I like new toys! All sorts of new technology is fun. And this definitely fits in that category. Oh, and here's a recipe for an omelet, too.

S - A - T - U - R, D - A - Y... night!

2005-08-06T22:06:00.000-05:00

Yeah, it's Saturday night, and sadly, I'm at my computer. I had a few things to do, but when gas is EXPENSIVE and money is scarce, it's not so much an option. So I'm sitting on my butt, talking to people and watching a bit o' DVD. Bleah, I have a mild headache, so it's probably not a bad idea.

Why do I have a headache, you may be asking? (Or you may be NOT.) Well, today was full contact practice. And Sifu's getting a little less rough on us, which is nice for a change. It's more fighing now than anything, and I'm still the only one sparring Justin. Although Sifu did start making us do situps instead of crunches, and a lot of people don't do GOOD crunches, so full situps hurts a bit more. So it's been a hundred situps each time. I think I need to bump mine up another fifty, because I feel it's cheating for me. I don't have a LOT of weight to sit up. More of my weight is in my legs. You know, after so many horse stances, all that.

ANYway, my headache. Yeah, we sparred, and Justin and I went quite hard against each other. I wore full gear so he could practice hitting harder. We went for a while, trading some good hits, both ways. And at the end of it all, we closed up, he circled behind me and did a perfect sweep, taking both of my legs out from under me. Yeah, I hit the ground with my feet in the air, top of the back and head hitting first. Everyone that was there gave a big "Oh!" when I hit, but I was laughing. It was a great sweep. Yeah, my head's a little sore, but it was a good fight.

Ooh! That reminds me - I don't think I talked about it, but one of our practices (I think two weeks ago) I actually nailed Justin for the first time in a while. Feint the right, then follow through, perfect shot to the nose. Actually bloodied his nose. I think I bloody someone's nose every time we have practice. Today it was Cory. Last time I think it was Jordan, although I've been nailing Cory in the face on a regular basis. He has a bad habit of turning his head INTO punches. Dislocated his nose slightly once. But it recovers nicely. Unlike his fractured shin, which he hasn't seen a doctor about. I'm pretty sure it's fractured, but we don't know for sure.

So last weekend. Two things happened. Where I was was TEC, so there was that. I was in charge of music stuff, and it turned out not too bad. I have to say, it was a great weekend. I got to meet some cool new people, make some friends, see old friends. I gave a talk, and I think people liked it. Good times.

The other thing? The fight! Justin and Crystal both fought. I didn't get to watch, but I heard a lot about it. There's supposed to be a video of it, so when we get it I'll definitely be watching. Crystal was in the first fight, against what was apparently some sort of mutant female. Supposedly 17, but looked more like 26. Had thighs thicker than Justin's. Crystal charged her, and the girl landed a solid thrust kick into her stomach. She still moved in, started going hard, and the ref stopped it, pulled them apart. Then she went back towards the other girl, and BAM - another kick. Stopped Crystal cold (knocked her wind out), and the ref called the fight. Alas. At least it was a good first experience to break Crystal in. A few more fights, and then Justin was up. He fought a third degree black belt in taekwondo, who had some Muay Thai as well. The guy was 32 and 6' tall. So he had an age and reach advantage on Justin. That didn't stop Sihing. What I hear is that the guy threw a lot more attacks on Justin, but hardly landed anything. Justin threw fewer attacks, but they were harder, and he landed most of them. Sadly, the judges ended up in favor of the other guy, although a lot of people told Justin they thought he had won the match. Some of Justin's co-workers came to watch, they sat in the public seating, and they said the other guy's hits didn't look too hard... but when Justin hit him with his kicks, they could hear it, all the way in the far seats. Clearly. It sounds to me like the other guy was probably hurting a bit after the fighting was done. Justin got a black eyelid, and a few hip bruises, but that was about it. The black eye was from the other guy doing an illegal move - the grab on the back of the head followed by a knee to the face. Yeah, that's not legal in the ring. It was okay. Justin got him with a solid face shot that rolled his eyes. He kept clinching up, though, so Justin couldn't follow through. Which was too bad. Justin said he loved it, though, and he's definitely going to be back. And he asked the guy for a rematch. I'll definitely be there for that one.

Oh! Almost forgot. Here's a pic of almost all of our full contact fighters (Jordan's not there). From left to right: Kim, Cory, Crystal, Me, and Justin (Sihing!).

We're fierce!

So this week has been more job hunting. Ugh! I'm getting tired of the people hiring taking their time. One of my leads that sounds like it should come through soon I've been waiting on for something like a month. So if anyone out there has any contacts I might be good to be contacting, please, please let me know. IT stuff, development, security, web-related, even database stuff. I have a pretty wide base of knowledge.

Okay, time for a joke. I'm warning you, some of you may be offended my this, but it made me laugh.
---
On a transatlantic flight, a plane passes through a severe storm. The turbulence is awful, and things go from bad to worse when one wing is struck by lightning. One woman in particular loses it.

Screaming, she stands up in front of the plane. "I'm too young to die!" she wails. "Well, if I'm going to die, I want my last minutes on Earth to be memorable! I've had plenty of sex in my life, but no one has ever made me really feel like a woman! Well I've had it! Is there ANYONE on this plane who can make me feel like a WOMAN??"

For a moment, there is silence. Everyone has forgotten their own peril, and they all stare, riveted, at the desperate woman in the front of the plane.

Then, a man stands up in the rear of the plane. "I can make you feel like a woman," he says. He's gorgeous. Tall, built, with long, flowing black hair and jet black eyes, he starts to walk slowly up the aisle, unbuttoning his shirt one button at a time. No one moves.

The woman is breathing heavily in anticipation as the stranger approaches. He removes his shirt. Muscles ripple across his chest as he reaches her, and extends the arm holding his shirt to the trembling woman, and whispers:

"Iron this."
---
AHHH hahahaahahahahahaha! Yes, it is funny. Humor is good for the soul.

I think it's time for a bit of cereal and some CSI (rented, I still don't have cable). So I'll lay some random links on you! I have lots this time, to make up for lack of blogging. I bought some very nice headphones a few years back, and they're awesome for plane trips, just getting away. But they're pricey. Want decent headphones that aren't pricey? Seriously, good headphones make a difference. Check them out. I found a random site about travel info. Had some definitely interesting info about one city in particular. Are you female? Worried about crazy guys trying to attack you, but don't know kung fu? Your options have broadened. I've put these guys up before, but they're still cool. Especially if you like both rock music and video games. And finally, just a comic I liked.

The weekend approaches

2005-07-29T01:24:00.000-05:00

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.

Blogging is silly

2005-07-24T15:38:00.000-05:00

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.

Quick Friday night blog action

2005-07-16T01:32:00.000-05:00

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?

I am up TOO LATE

2005-07-11T02:43:00.000-05:00

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.

Quickie

2005-07-08T17:12:00.000-05:00

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.

Ah, my blog... it has been too long

2005-07-07T00:04:00.000-05:00

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?

And I'm back for this weekend

2005-06-25T23:04:00.000-05:00

Indeed. I was away! To another land, one in which people speak a different language. Fortunately, one which I understand. Yes, Mexico. I hadn't been in something like twelve years, which is sad. Because I have a lot of family there, and it's good to keep in touch. I got to see just about everyone, which was cool. A few people have changed a lot, some haven't changed so much. In twelve years, I think I've changed quite a bit. It was funny - my Tio Luis saw me and immediately thought of Edward Norton. Apparently he wasn't the only one who thought that - he thought of The Score, specifically. I don't know that I look THAT much like him, but maybe a little bit of similarity. What do you think? Anything at all?

Eh? Maybe?

So yeah, I got to see all my crazy relatives. It was a lot of fun. I took five hundred pictures. Seriously. Actually, something like 502 pictures, actually. But I have to go through them, copy them to the computer, organize them and all that. And I'll post a few. I have some good ones. Some of the good ones were from our visit to Teotihuacan. It was a very good excursion. I did get a little bit too much sun, though - especially on my neck, which some of you have already seen. But it was excellent. The altitude did weird things to my system - I slept a lot, but it was very good to get some extra sleep. We did get to go check out a movie theater with my cousin Alex that's called the VIP. We need one of them here! Incredible theater - tickets were about $9 American, as opposed to the standard ones which cost $5. They had recliners for the seats, imitation leather. Two chairs next to each other, and then a small table in between each pair. The chairs had a leg rest, plus they reclined fully. What's the table there for, you may be asking? Well, I'll tell you! They put a menu on there. That's right, a MENU. So you look through their selection of food and beverages, and place an order with the waiter, who comes and asks you what you'd like. The food had everything from standard movie food, such as hot dogs and popcorn, to sandwiches, to sushi. And the beverages included all sorts of crazy alcoholic things. I stuck to movie food, and got a hot dog. Best hot dog I've ever had in a theater. Came in a bun with sesame seeds! Delicious! And the ketchup came in a little cup, so you could pour it on ever so smoothly. I couldn't stop grinning through the whole experience.

So yeah, I did a few random things, but mostly visit family. A great trip. I recommend doing analogous things for you, wherever your family may reside.

This week I've just been getting back to things. The job hunt is still going on, although I put it on hold for a little bit to wait to hear back from the one position I'm waiting on. STILL no word. So I went ahead and decided to hit the rest of my possibilities, which are several. Sent the resume out to several places on Friday, and will continue on Monday. We'll see what happens. I just hope I get something I actually enjoy doing. I anticipate being back in the grind of things by mid-July.

And kung fu is still going strong. We got some good full contact fighting today. I fought mostly with Sihing today, and he popped me a few times very solidly. Once in the face, on my right cheekbone, and once in my left ear. It actually didn't bother me too much, although I'm thinking he could still hit quite a bit harder. And I did kind of have a ringing in my ear for a brief amount of time after he rattled me there. I did get a good recovery from a sweep he tried - he fully pulled my leg out from under me, and I collapsed onto the other leg, stumbled and almost fell, but managed to stay up. Everyone told me it looked like drunken style, and they were quite impressed I didn't actually fall. I did get to spar everyone else, too, and everyone's improving a lot. It was an excellent workout. The funny thing is that Crystal, the thirteen-year-old girl, kept putting down the two other guys in our class. She's rather tough. I think she'll be a handful to deal with as her training improves.

Lately I've been stuck on a new CD - a band called Muse. The lead vocalist sounds a bit like Thom Yorke, from Radiohead, but it's a lot more rock. I like it quite a bit. Makes me think about getting back into recording. The main reason I haven't been doing it as much as I'd like to is because it takes up hard drive space, and lots of it. So I'll need a new drive before I can get to recording as much as I'd like to.

Okay - it's Saturday night, and I should probably do more than just blog. So I will! But first - random link! This one I have to thank Sean for showing me. Well, two. The first is a truly random link. I'll just let you see it for yourself to understand. The second is a bit of news. About a very tough old man.

It IS raining

2005-06-16T02:26:00.000-05:00

Yeah, it's storming pretty nicely outside. I'm making a crazy late night blog post! Why, you might ask? Well, you see, I'll be leaving the country in a few hours. Yes, again. This time, I am, indeed, headed south. Mexico! I considered the fact I haven't seen my family in ten years, and that I've waited about two weeks to hear the results from my interview, so I figured getting a few days with the family probably wouldn't be a bad idea. I'll be getting a short nap here in a bit, get up, take a shower, pack my stuff into a bag or two, and then I'll be heading out. Should definitely be interesting.

We had our first real bit of sparring tonight for full-contact training. We still don't have full gloves - only one of the students has the full-sized gloves. I was using my standard sparring gloves, and Sihing used bag gloves he just got, which are pretty small and rather hard. I sparred with Sihing, then with Cory (who is moderately new, only about six or seven months), then with Sihing again, all back to back. I was quite tired by the end of it. Sihing managed to throw a few very nice punches and kicks, nailing me cleanly a few times. He had me wide open for one round punch - and I expected him to nail me so surely, I went ahead and rolled my head with the punch - although he never actually threw it. It was pretty funny, my head looked like he actually did hit me, I moved so far over. So it was back and forth a bit, here and there, and then I threw a round kick at his stomach. He blocked it, but didn't block it properly. Meaning he moved my kick. Into his groin. Yeah, he was on the ground for a decent amount of time, hands and knees. Apparently he could feel it in his throat. He took a break for a little while, so Cory and I had at it. I nailed Cory a few times, probably a little harder than I should have. I think I almost broke his nose - he said he had to readjust it, and he could feel it pop back into place. There was only a little bit of blood, though, it never actually started running. It seemed to knock the snot out of him, more than anything. We sparred for a bit, then Sihing came back, and we got back into it, pretty hard. His combinations are very nice, and he put me on the ground once, very cleanly. Not a sweep, mind you - he actually picked me up and slammed me into the ground. It was a good workout, I felt like I had actually pushed myself more than normal.

I went and saw Batman Begins last night, at the midnight showing. It was good! At least, I enjoyed it thoroughly. I must say I believe it's by far the best Batman movie. Some of the reviews seem to have been bored by the backstory they provide, but I liked it quite a bit. Gives his character more substance. And the new Batmobile is sweet. I wanted to applaud after the big car scene. It was a lot of fun. Luscious! The next one I'm looking forward to - War of the Worlds, a la Spielberg. Mmm, good.

Okay, I need to get a little sleep, at least. And this rain is making me sleepy. Hopefully the trip will turn out okay. I'll be back Tuesday sometime, and I'll let you guys know what kind of crazy sights I saw.

Link of the random variety! I found this bit of news about a guy who's working on a new invention. An invention COOL enough to merit random linkage. Behold!

It's been raining

2005-06-13T23:36:00.000-05:00

Yeah, it's been raining a lot. There were some crazy storms last night, took the power out over lots of the city, brought down several tree branches, all sorts of craziness like that. I was still over at Newman at the time, so I didn't have to be in the middle of it, thankfully. Not that I had a whole lot of choice. Apparently, when it rains, it pours. I did have a splendid Saturday, with a cool pool party with all the kung fu people. That was a lot of fun. After that, though, I was driving on my way home, and I almost made it when the car died. Yeah, in the middle of Memorial. So I had to put it in neutral and push it to the closest exit, which thankfully was close by. I had a couple of nice guys swing by and help me jump the car, but it didn't actually keep the charge. So I had to push it into a parking lot and leave it there for the weekend. I got it towed to the mechanic early this morning and fixed - my suspicions were that it was either the battery or the alternator. Maybe both. And yeah, I was right - it was both. Plus the belt. So all that, plus labor, ended up costing the pretty price of around $500. And it's always the most fun when you find unexpected expenses like that popping up right after losing a source of income. Ugh.

Truthfully, though, I can't complain too much. It's been pretty good. I hung out with Sihing last night, we just stayed up and talked and played a bit, the whole night. He normally works nights, so he's used to being up all night. I had nothing to be up for, except for getting the car towed, so I went ahead and just stayed up. It was good. And I tried getting sleep during the day, but I couldn't, as the phone kept ringing. Silly people all trying to call me with job offers. Seriously - I normally make it a point to get at least two employment possibilities looked into, or started somehow, every day. At least when I'm not waiting to hear back about one. Today, I actually got more than that, without even having to try. Monster.com works - make a note of it. So yeah - right now, I'm just waiting to hear back about one that I really hope I get, although the company takes time to reply, for some reason. Maybe it's a good reason, but it's still a little annoying. If I don't get this one, then I have a list of a few others to check on, which is good.

The sucky thing about all this is that my family's going to visit the family down south. And by down south, I mean Mexico City. Since finding a job is a priority, it looks like I might have to cancel my ticket, which particularly bothers me because I haven't been there in about ten years. I haven't gotten to see any of my uncles, aunts, or cousins, and I actually do miss them. And I have a lot of them. Bleah. Timing for things can sometimes work for you, and sometimes screw with you in major ways.

I've been thinking a lot lately about relationships, and what I've learned from the ones I've had, and about the future. The one thing I've realized is I have a good idea of what I'm looking for. There are some elements that are crucial to any successful relationship: trust, communication, patience, and of course, love. Take any of those away, and you've given the relationship an expiration date. The big one I've thought about lately is trust. It just seems that it can be hard for a lot of people to actually be trustworthy, as strange as it may sound. I know everyone's been stabbed in the back at least once, and it's not a good feeling. I think for me, right now, the one thing I'm craving is someone safe. Someone I could actually open up to, without worrying about having that pulled out from under me later. Someone I could talk to without worrying about making sure I say it exactly right, because they'd be quick to jump to conclusions about a different interpretation. And someone I could listen to, who would talk to me about their lives because they knew I actually did care. I don't know if I'm shooting too high, but I'm sticking to my guns and being picky about that.

Bleah. Stress sucks. Which is why I was grateful for kung fu today. I actually got to learn quite a bit more out of my new set, and it has some very cool moves in it. And I got to help others in the class with their sets, which always makes me very happy. It's rewarding to see the progress of the students, see how much they've grown with the help of kung fu, and know that I've been a part of it.

Anyway, so now I'm just waiting to hear back on one interview I had last week. It's for a job I'd really like to get, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I've had several other possibilities crop up, and I'm balancing them out to figure out which one will be best. At any rate, it's looking like it will be a step forward for me, which is good.

Oh, I did get my guitar fixed, which makes me happy! And they did it for free, which made me even happier. I got it fixed at the same place I bought it, so they went ahead and just made the adjustment without charging me. Since they're so cool, I have to plug them - it's the Music Store at 31st and Mingo. If you're considering an acoustic guitar, check out their stock of Seagulls. Good stuff. I got the guitar back and restrung it Sunday, just before heading off to church. New strings always inspire me to play better, and sometimes more creatively. Carlos and Embrey gave me a ride, so I have to say thanks to them. AND they sang in choir, too, which is awesome. Carlos broke in his new guitar that he got, that has an electronic pickup. It's quite a nice guitar. I got a few complements from people in the congregation after church, which made my day. It's good to know you're appreciated, when you put your heart into something.

Okay, that's enough for my blog today. Random link! I got this one from a guy at kung fu. He has it memorized, which is funny. It's full of all sorts of Chinese martial arts stuff, and even has a Hung Gar folder. Mostly movies. If you're curious, check it out! Oh, and a bonus thingie here. Random picture! I got this from CNN's weekend photos. I happen to think it's an awesome picture, so I'm going to share it. Enjoy!

And now it's time for me to go get ice cream. Ice cream always makes people feel better.

Time for reconstruction

2005-06-06T23:58:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the long delay. It's been a while since my blog has seen any action. Perhaps it's because my life has seen a few changes, I've been busy otherwise. I mentioned, a while back, a bit about how sometimes you need to take a step back, reevaluate your life. Well yeah - this would be that moment for me, in a major way.

Start with the beginning, I guess. I drove out to Kansas City for my friend Sean's wedding, stayed there about half a week. It was an excellent time, a lot of new experiences. I got to meet a few people, so that was cool. The drive was actually interesting, in that I got to break in my GPS, which turned out to be really useful. I used it a TON - I think it's already paid for itself. I just plugged in an address, or looked up the name of a location, and it'd pop up. I'd just hit "GO" and I was off, being directed by a woman with a British accent. British accents are sexy. Even on the way there, I was originally going to Sean's parents' place, and I ended up needing to go to one of the other groomsmen's house, so I just punched in the address while I was driving and it readjusted the route. I drove up, and all I had to call Sean for was so he could open the door for me. Very cool stuff.

Anyway, I got there, hung out with Sean and the other groomsmen, we got to play a bit, it was fun. Then meet with his family, hang out with the bridesmaids, and so forth. The wedding itself was incredible. It was a traditional Catholic wedding, in a very big church. Sean and Liz got a string quartet for the music, which was very nice. The whole thing went surprisingly smoothly, and I was impressed with the whole thing. It was an honor to be part of the celebration.

One weird thing during the weekend, the day before the wedding... I got a phone call from my old co-worker, Steve. He called to let me know that one of his friends (named Dan), a guy I had talked to a few times before, had been in a motorcycle accident. Apparently he died from the injuries. It was a really weird thing to hear, the day before a wedding. Reminded me of the balance of life - for every moment you have that's good, there's going to be one that's bad. But as an optimistic person, I prefer reminding myself on my bad days - even if today's a horrid, horrid day, there will come a day sometime later that will be just as awesome as this one was sucky. This goes for everyone. Even YOU, Faithful Reader.

But yeah. The trip to Kansas City was very good, overall. The wedding was awesome. It's still weird to think of Sean as a married man, though. I think it'll be weirder when he has kids. Just shove the whole concept of adulthood into my head further. Bleah - I'll always be a kid. Even when I have my grandkids. Perhaps ESPECIALLY when I have my grandkids. I'll be just a silly old man, cackling for dumb reasons, spoiling my grandkids rotten. Indeed!

I got back later on Sunday, started the week. Still had the whole thing with kung fu in the air, but I was a little better about how I felt about it. I really think I just had suffered a bit of burnout from everything. Pushed myself beyond my limits - even IF I don't like to admit I have limits. I was still going to take a few more days off, before returning.

I found out Sunday that my other friend Steve's brother had passed away, which he found out about after he returned from Ireland. I had never met his brother, but Steve's been a friend of mine for years, so Tuesday I went to a prayer service for his brother. It was good to see how many people showed up to support his family.

Ah, and Wednesday. Started normally, I suppose. Got to work, got a few things done. Then I get called into the office, and my suspicions as to why I was getting called were accurate. Sometimes you just get a hunch about things, you know? Well, it was right - they pulled me in to let me know they were laying me off. I got no advance notice, it was just sort of a sudden thing. I asked why, and they simply told me I wasn't a good fit for the position (in so many words). No other details, really. Since I was still on the probationary period (it's a year long with the City, apparently), that was about it. I just packed my stuff with my boss watching me to make sure I didn't try anything suspicious, and then he walked me out. I hope you guys never have to go through that; there's something quite humiliating about being escorted out of your employment. I'd like to think I took it well - at that particular moment, I think my boss looked more upset than I did. I think he actually liked me.

So that cemented the need for my whole life re-organization. As far as why they actually let me go - I think it was partially because of the reconstruction of the city's IT department. They're planning on consolidating all the IT departments from each section, including Public Works, Police, Fire, etc. Since I didn't really fit into a specific role (I did anything they threw at me - maybe a little TOO quickly), I was easy to release. Sadly, I think it was my co-workers that appreciated me, since I ended up helping them with a lot of other things, when they didn't have anyone else to go to. I think my bosses will realize how much I helped everyone else a little too late.

Well, I started looking for re-employment before I had even left the parking lot, and managed to get two interviews set up within 24 hours of my departure from the city. It's looking MUCH better than it did a year ago, when it was a huge pain in the butt to get even one interview. And it looks like my changing jobs might actually be a decent step upwards. A lot of the stuff I was working on before was on proprietary software, so it had no real use as job experience. Just FYI, that SUCKS. I'd like to get some real experience I can build on, try to find something to work with that's FUN. We'll see how it goes. In fact, I've got another meeting tomorrow morning to see about setting up a potential interview, which is good stuff.

I went to kung fu on Saturday for sparring and full-contact training, for the first time in about a week and a half. It was good to be back. I got to actually spar with a few people, and it felt good to get smacked around a bit. Although not TOO much. Sihing wasn't there on Saturday, so I think I did more hitting than getting hit. And full-contact training broke me down nicely, so I felt like a nap was in order after I finished. Even if I didn't really get one.

I did get to go by and say hey to the family over the weekend, which was good. And play in the choir at Newman for the first time in a few weeks, which I was happy to do. Although my guitar is currently INJURED. Yes. Somehow I managed to get a washer loose inside the bottom of it, so the screw where the electronics connect (and where I plug in my tuner, or an amp) is loose. I need to get it fixed, somehow. Probably soon. But seeing as how I don't have any steady income yet, I may have to wait.

I think that catches me up to today. Where I went in to talk to Sifu about instructing again, and I think everything's cool again. A little bit of rescheduling which classes I'll attend, help instruct during, and so forth. And I went to class, to help teach! Which felt very good to do again. I even started learning my new form! Ng Cho Kuen. It looks like it might be cool.

Okay. So all that being said and caught up, I think it's time for pictures! No, not China. I'm lazy with my China pictures. I'll put them up eventually, but for today, it's Kansas City! And the wedding. Here you go.

The church! Yes, it was very pretty.

Ah, the bride and groom. This is the before picture. The dress looked quite amazing. And I'm a GUY saying that.

The bride and groom... in the AFTER picture. I really like this picture. Spontaneous one - Sean had just turned around.

And they're off! In their lovely limo.

The groomsmen. Looking quite dapper.

Two of the bridesmaids. Looking... erm, dangerous.

And sure, why not. One of ME. In the tux. Make your own comment.

So that's been the craziness that's filled my life lately. Kept me away from my blog, it has. But sometimes you need to just step AWAY from things to get things in order. I think it's all helped me a lot, though. I feel a lot more at ease, somehow. Which is good.

Okay - random blogthing!

Your Seduction Style: The Natural

You don't really try to seduce people... it just seems to happen.
Fun loving and free spirited, you bring out the inner child in people.
You are spontaneous, sincere, and unpretentious - a hard combo to find!
People drop their guard around you, and find themselves falling fast.

What Is Your Seduction Style?

Hmm. Is that accurate? I wonder...

And of course, I must put a random link. Since I haven't put ANYTHING about gaming, it will be a gaming random link. For some reason, I think I'll be buying this game. Why? You know me... I mean, just look at it!

A new week begins

2005-05-23T15:44:00.000-05:00

I had neglected to post my blog's address in my AIM profile, where it had resided previously for a duration of time. Well, I put it back, and it seems a substantial number of people have discovered (or re-discovered) my blog. A number have expressed concern over my recent tribulations with certain elements of my life, and I appreciate that. Thank you.

As I said before, it's a bit of a period of rediscovery, finding myself all over again. I feel oddly like I've gone semi-evil for a few days. I'm not sure how or why. I think it's just a bit of the darkness that's crept into my soul, based on recent events. Eh - everyone has their bad days. I'm certain mine will pass. Thankfully, it hasn't been ALL bad. I did go to a splendid wedding this weekend, with an excellent reception afterwards. There was much dancing. It was a full Catholic wedding, done at Christ the King (large church, downtown). Very traditional, quite nice. A large group of the young Catholics clustered over in the bride's side, making her (mostly non-Catholic) family moderately uncomfortable, I'm sure. It was okay, though - she was happy. Congrats, Adam and Lerin! They're both awesome people, and it's things like that that bring my spirit up.

In lighter news, I had Justin (Sihing) over this weekend, we watched a number of full-contact fighting matches on DVD. Entertaining, and educational. Regardless of what happens with my teaching position, I still plan on continuing my search for knowledge in martial arts. I may modify my level of commitment of time to it, to make room for other things in my life, although my devotion to the art will stay unchanged. So Justin had his prom this weekend, and took his girlfriend to Flavors (under my recommendation). I need to call him and find out what he thought, and how his evening went. Hopefully it was ALL rather tasty.

And I finished Jade Empire yesterday! It took a total of about 26 hours, so that means it actually took quite a while. I finished with my super-good monk, who did all things right and well through his path. And I've begun with my super-evil female character. Ooh, she's so bad. That somehow fits with how I've been feeling lately. But she really is evil. For example, with my monk, I discovered a situation of misunderstanding. A man was being accosted by a woman's minions (even being attacked by them), and all apparently because he was engaged to a different woman. The first woman (the jealous one) had the impression SHE was the one to marry the man, because he had promised marriage. When they were six. I took my character to talk to this jealous woman, and she brought the fiancee in to make things more interesting. The setup was the same with both of my characters, the monk and the evil woman. With my monk, I talked sense into the jealous woman, made her realize that promises made as children are not always carried into adulthood, and she apologized. Everything was good, and my character even made friends with all of them. That, and the engaged couple said they would name their first son after me. Well, okay. My EVIL character did things slightly differently. Once they were all brought together, the same story was revealed, and I encouraged the promise to be kept. And when the realism of keeping such a promise was questioned, I suggested the women fight, to have the victor win the man's hand in marriage. Well, both the man and the fiancee were perturbed at the idea, but I convinced the jealous woman to go ahead, and she killed the fiancee before she could even react. The man was horribly distraught, and in his grief vocally attacked the jealous woman. Well, being the type of woman she is, she reacted by attacking him, in a more physical sense, and in a few moments, he, too, was dead. Only then did she realize what she had done, and blamed it all on me, and attacked me, along with her minions. Eh, I had to kill them all. And then rob their establishment.

So yeah, my female character is a bit evil. Hopefully it will be good for me to relieve my dark emotions in a vicarious manner, and not influence more.

Ah - one of the other positive things this weekend was another mass I was at - this time to play guitar for. It was at Sts. Peter and Paul, where they have a moderately large Hispanic community. So they were going to do Pan De Vida, and apparently the choir director had issues finding the rhythm to the song, or something along those lines. So a friend of mine from the choir asked me to come help them out, which I did. It turned out pretty nicely, although I discovered my guitar has been damaged. I am not pleased by this. I need to look into it a bit more, but apparently the area where the strap attaches at the base of the body has detached itself. There's a screw there, I guess where it screws into the body (I need to look at it more closely), and the threads appear to have been stripped. Or something. At any rate, if I pull on it, it slides out easily, which it is NOT supposed to do. I'm rather unhappy about this, as it's my 12-string, which I happen to like quite a bit. It means I have to be careful about using my strap, now, as it could theoretically come out at anytime. I'm considering taking it in to a shop to get it fixed. It may just need some superglue, but I'd prefer to have it done properly fixed, if that's not the best solution. We'll see.

And I'm off to Kansas City this week, to go to Sean's wedding! I think it will do me good to get out of town for a few days. I'm going to take a guitar with me, but I'm not quite sure which one I'll take. Probably the 12-string. Maybe I'll get it fixed before I leave, if it's not too expensive. And restring it. Although I may wait to do that until after I get there, so I don't have to worry about the temperature in the car re-adjusting my string tension for me.

I'm thinking I'll probably take the week off from kung fu to prepare for my trip, as well as to just take a break, which I haven't really done in a long time. Hopefully when I return, I'll be reborn, have renewed vigor to pursue my many lifetime achievements I have lined up to accomplish. Any suggestions on how to catalyze that would be welcome.

And now it's time for random linking! I found a cool one. For everyone who has their doubts about Star Wars and the storyline, who thinks the characters there are missing something... check this out. Some of the best writing I've seen in a long time. Keep in mind, it's written in reverse order, and it was only started earlier this year, so there isn't TOO much there. I believe the final entry was posted last Wednesday, though. Make sure you have a little bit of time before you check it out - you may get sucked in.

Weird week

2005-05-20T16:13:00.000-05:00

Man, I've been going through a weird roller coaster of moods lately. I'm not sure what to make of it. Maybe it's time for one of those life-shifts. You know what I'm talking about, I'm sure, even if you never identified it as an independent "event". Where you take a look at your life, the recent events, and do sort of a recalibration. Figure out if you want to keep going in the same direction, or maybe change things up. So today's blog will be one of introspection. In an extroverted fashion. It's the way of the future! Share your innermost revelations with the world! Or at least with the people who have the right web address.

So the past few days were some that rocked my foundation a bit. It was kung fu related. And pretty much all of you know how much of my life is connected to kung fu - it's a very big part. I've been doing it for five and a half years, and I've been teaching for four of those years. Right now there are two major instructors (Sihing and me), plus the other Eric helping with other classes, where he can. Well, I had a talk with Sifu about things, although I won't get into specifics. Apparently he wasn't happy with some of my questions, and he suspended me from being an instructor for at least two weeks. It rather upset me - I didn't know I had offended him so much.

That happened on Tuesday. Yesterday I went in and talked to him, after going through the first class I've been in in years, purely as a student. It was weird, not being able to help students. I got to review all my solo sets, which was good. And helped condition a few of the other students, which was good. Anyway, we talked afterwards, and I think I sorted things out. But Sifu told me I need to figure out what I really want to do, and I do think he's right. I'm always squeezing myself tight with my schedule. I need to figure out over the weekend how much I can really help. Right now I go straight from work to help out with the kids' class, and also help on Wednesday nights, plus come in on Saturdays, and occasionally teach on Fridays. I don't know if I should take a little more time off, get some time to do stuff on my own time. Like play games, or watch movies, or play guitar, or even write music. Or read, or draw, or program. Bleah. TOO MUCH stuff I could do. The reason I went ahead and do kung fu hard core is because I want to get to a certain point, and then I can let go a little bit, focus on other things in my life, such as music. One thing at a time. Eh, I still need to figure it out, though. I think I like stressing myself out by pushing my time constraints as tight as possible.

E3 is going on right now - I have some friends who are there, in LA, right now. I pulled a few of the videos of the conferences from the major companies, and I'll tell you now - the PS3 looks pretty freakin' cool. I'm still trying to figure out if the demos were actually created from a game engine, or purely pre-rendered. One that's a big IF is Killzone 2. Regardless, it looks pretty. Pretty AWESOME. So the PS3 will be uber-powerful, leaving the other new consoles in the dust. Plus wireless capability (you can use the PSP as a controller), 7 controllers with Bluetooth, and 1080P dual output, standard. Kind of insane. The XBox 360 seems like it'll be decent enough, just have to see what they'll have for it, aside from Halo 2.5. I reserved mine already. Hee hee! And Nintendo's Revolution is SMALL. Three DVD cases stacked on top of each other. That's about it. Wireless, also. Not too powerful, but one of the cool things they've said is that it will be able to play any game, from any previous Nintendo system. Which means Punch-Out, Super Metroid, Starfox - all of them playable on the new system. Nifty idea, if they do it well.

Oh, and yes, Star Wars III came out yesterday. And yes, I saw it. At the one o'clock showing. One AM. I saw way too many people I know. And I have to thank Courtney for hooking me up with a spare ticket she and her brother had. Thank you, Courtney! We all took our respective PSPs and played a bit of Lumines, which was cool. A few other people took cards, and some took either portable DVD players or laptops to play the previous movies while they waited. And yes, there were plenty of costumed people there. Even a bit of "re-enactment" in the front section, with lightsabers and everything. The benefits of going to the first showings. According to the news it already shattered records for sales. So how is it? Aside from the fact that EVERYONE DIES, it's okay. No, but seriously, I won't put spoilers here. I personally think it's better than the first two movies by far. It still is much in need of a Han Solo to bring it up to par with the last three in the series. I mean really, Harrison Ford gets credit for half of the greatness of the last three episodes. And from what I hear, a lot of his lines were ad-libbed. Maybe that's what the new movies needed. Since the written lines often SUCK. But that might just be my opinion.

And I'm going out of town a few times during the next few months. This month, to Kansas City for my friend Sean's (Seanicus!) wedding. I'll be driving up there next week, take a few days off, hang out with him. Should be a lot of fun. A bit of good vacation, too. Without worrying about schedules and stuff. And I'll be wearing a tux. Hmm. Then next month, I'm leaving the country again. To where? To Mexico! Yeah, I haven't seen the family in a very long time. Way too long. I'll probably have to take a few days off without pay, but I think it's probably worth it. And yes, for the few of you who DON'T know, I'm half Mexican. Which means I have quite a bit of family in Mexico. It'll be very good to see them again. Might be scary to see how much they've all changed, though. Guess I'll see.

And music - nobody's said anything about my songs! Did you guys listen? Were they atrocious? Were they luscious? Somewhere in between? Should I stop now, or keep trying? I get my inspiration from others, so anything you have to say would be good, even if it's constructive criticism. I'd prefer you keep any destructive criticism to yourself, but thanks, anyway.

Okay, it's time for me to take care of a few things now. I have an extra bonus random link LATER, but for now, I'll do a standard one. It fits with my talking of the new item I ended up getting, which I'll stop talking about because no one wants to hear, even though I think it's quite cool. Doesn't mean you shouldn't be educated about the technology behind it.

EXTRA BONUS RANDOM LINK: Here it is. I don't normally get into Christian music, but a co-worker turned me onto this guy, and he's actually quite good. If you have doubts, check this out, then have your doubts.

Adventure - night blog!

2005-05-12T23:34:00.000-05:00

Yes, I'm blogging at night. It's a change. How strange. But I have much to say. Still no time to format photos, ugh. I have so many. But I have... other things. Read on, if you're curious. Well, if you're here, you'll probably read on, even if you're bored out of your skull.

Okay - so to start - the weekend! Woo! It was CRAZY. Let me tell you. See, it all started on Saturday, very early. The tournament! Yes, indeed. I had to get there before 8:30, which sucks, let me tell YOU. Especially since I'd been hanging out with some friends the night before until some rather late hour. But yeah, I got up and went over. Apparently there was a typo, too, because Sifu had put on the program that registration started at 8, instead of 9. So a rather large number of people were already showing up early. Which was both good and bad. But things got under control, and we started getting everyone signed up and seated. We had a record number of people show, which was awesome. Except for YOU - you missed out. Should have been there, I'm telling you. (Except for Courtney - she did make it. You can ask her how cool it was.) Yeah, our demos to open turned out very well. Started with our lion dance. Three lions, yet again. And I got to be the gold lion, woo! Which is the "head" lion. And I was the head. To confuse you further. Yeah, our stunts turned out well, and we nailed the stack without any issue, which surprised me, but pleased the crowd, I think. I even extended my raised leg, to show more clearly how we were positioned to the crowd. We got a very good round of applause for that, and I was happy it turned out well for everyone.

So after that it was more demos from other schools. Some were cool, some were weird. We did have one from Sifu's original Sifu, a guy named Don Morrison. He did the first two thirds or so of Gung Gee, with iron rings on his arms. He did the stances quite low, and went through the form very strongly. It would have been impressive, even IF he wasn't freakin' 63 years old. Yeah, it was cool. And then it was our turn to do all our demos. It started with the kids. They all did Lau Gar Kuen (our first form), by the numbers. They did well! And then a few did Sam Yin Kuen (the second form), also by the numbers. After that, we had a couple of kids do individual sets, but Robbie won a lot of the crowd over, simply by the fact that he's about 6 and around four feet tall, but shows more ferocity than most of the adults. And he's quite good, too. After that, the kids all did some board breaking, which is always good. And then it was time for adults. So we start by doing Lau by the numbers, only the full set, where the kids only do the first fourth or so. And then the other Eric and I did the first sparring set, which turned out well. And after that, the bending of the rebar, between Justin and Eric. They did very well, and we awed some members of the crowd. I was quite proud of them.

From there the tournament really started, beginning with the kids' horse stance competition. They all did well, and the winner was actually from another school, with a very impressive two minute horse. Well, just under two minutes. And then the adults did their horse stance competition (which I did not enter, I save my pain for full-contact training). We did quite well, and the top two winners were from our school. Ron was the winner, with a 2:55 horse. The third place winner was from another school, and it was funny to see him after he fell, because he got up after he fell and promptly collapsed. I guess he didn't realize his legs were kind of dead. But he was okay. And the rest of the day was standard tournament stuff. It went well, though. Eric and I entered the group competition with the sparring set, and won our category, and then won grand champion, which was cool. We had a lot of complements on it, so that was good.

After that I just helped here and there, watched our students compete, and even helped judge one of the rings for sparring. It was only at the end I got to do my competitions, which were in weapons sparring (I won second and third, one in each weapon) and continuous sparring. Weapons sparring was a ton of fun. It was more amusing than any of the others. Eric kept playing when we'd practice by throwing the sword from a distance, and landing it. He and J.R. were competing, and Eric did hit him once like that. It was tied, 4-4, one point for the win, and J.R. threw the sword at Eric and nailed him. The look on Eric's face was priceless, but Sifu didn't count the point. Shannon won the staff competition, and ended up winning grand champion, by beating J.R., who had the sword. That grand champion competition isn't really fair, but it's funny to watch.

Black belt sparring! Yes, that was my category. Alas, only three black belts braved the category - one was a heavyweight karate master (big black guy), one was me, and the other was Shannon. Yeah, so I sparred Shannon. And he took me out pretty easily, but not as badly as last year. He nailed me with two very nice sweeps. One of them threw me on my face, but I caught myself just in time. The other swept my feet completely out from under me, and my back hit the (gym) floor. Hard. I couldn't help but smile when it happened. I did nail him with one of our combos we've been practicing, which meant about three continuous shots in the face. Hee hee! I'm catching up to him. Oh, and FYI, for those who don't know - Shannon is slightly senior to Justin. He's the old senior student. He's rather good. Since he has more than twice my experience, I don't think I did too badly.

It was a long day, and after that, it was time for relaxing. To prepare for the next day, which was the day of the workshops! I didn't get up too early, so it wasn't too bad, but I did manage to get up a decent amount of time before I had to be there. Well, before the workshop, actually, there was a storm. That's news. Because (and if you live in town this probably is no surprise) there was a very mighty crack of thunder. And most likely a very mighty strike of lightning that preceded it. Yes. I was on my way downstairs to my car, and then it hit. POW! So I jumped. Seriously. And then stepped into the garage and... nothing. It wouldn't open. Because the power was OUT. Argh. And I was going to be early, for once, too. So I called Sihing and he came by to pick me up. While I waited, I watched some TV. Yes, with the power out. My new UPS battery came in handy! I'm thinking it may have saved several of my system components too, so I got it just in time.

Sihing picks me up and we get to the workshop, where Sigung is. Buck Sam Kong! He's the man. And several students where there, all standing, listening to him very attentively as he told them bits of very good info. It was awesome to see how much respect they each had for him. The first workshop was over the 12 Hands of Hung Gar, which has some very good techniques. I need to remember to practice them more in sparring, though. I think a lot of people learned quite a bit. After that, time for some lunch at Subway, where I got some story time from Sihing. So here's the story! This is about something that happened over at Eastland Mall around the beginning of April. Why I never heard about it until now, I don't know. But it was Sihing and his girlfriend, walking back to the car after their mall excursion. And as they're walking, three Mexican guys start following them. Justin's girlfriend speaks Spanish and knew they had malicious intent, so she started getting a bit nervous. Sihing told her to just get in the car, that he'd take care of it. So they approached him, and apparently put their hands up in preparation for a confrontation. Well, Sihing was prepared. As they closed on him, he threw a round kick, striking the front guy's thigh with his shin. The guy immediately collapsed to the ground, screaming, and the other two guys, paused, and then thought better of their intentions. The cops showed up later and asked Sihing if he wanted to press charges. He simply said, "No, that's okay - I think they learned their lesson well enough." Apparently he broke the guy's leg.

So YES. Be cautious if you pick on guys that look like potential prey, even if you outnumber them, because you never know what can you may have opened. It may be a big can of worms, or if you're REALLY unlucky, a big can of whupass. I think that's what these guys managed to crack open this time.

Anyway, that was our lunch, then back to the kwoon for our full contact workshop. And I loved every minute of it. It started with Sigung telling us about what full contact is all about, and stories of how his students have entered into various competitions. How in China, where they entered against very strongly trained fighters, they learned how thoroughly some people train. And what works in a fight. I guess there were some taekwondo guys who entered, and Sigung said that there were Mongolian fighters who would rush them every time they tried a fancy kick and simply pick them up, slam them down. Sometimes in the ring, sometimes NOT in the ring. Even Sigung's students got their clocks cleaned a bit, but they did get in and fight, and didn't do too badly. The main thing Sigung said was that any time you get into full contact fighting, you WILL get hurt. The amount of training you have only determines how much you'll get hurt. And the training he put us through was great - mainly repetition of some basic combinations, some of which I'd seen before, but they're all quite effective. I'll say this - my whole back was sore the following day, from learning how to put the body behind each attack. The extra bonus was that Sigung picked me to be the demo guy. He'd look at me, smile, and then just say, "Eric!" and motion me over, so he could show how you're supposed to most effectively smack someone with a particular technique. I was honored; I think he likes me.

Sifu did get all of it on tape, so I have footage of it, and stuff to study, which is good. Yay! Maybe if you're curious, I'll show you someday. There may even be good shots of Sigung slapping me around.

After all that, it was Mother's Day, so it was time to take care of my mom. I had the family over and made everyone lasagna, which turned out moderately nicely. And baked bread, plus some wine (and Pepsi, of course), and cheesecake that my sister made. I plunked it all down for them while they watched Lethal Weapon 4, which is a great movie. I think everyone had a good time, and it was a lot of fun.

So yeah, BUSY weekend. This week's been very busy at work, especially with the consolidation of all the IT groups that has been announced. It's not a bad thing, just changes everywhere. I've been productive, though, which is good.

Something I found this week online I have to share. Not really a random link - this should be something you use, so I'll link it directly: maps.google.com. I think Google has a ton of doctors working for them, or something, because they make freakin' good stuff. Maybe someday I'll be over there. It'd be cool. Anyway, check out their map stuff. You can click and drag on the maps, they scroll very nicely. Zoom works well. Put in any intersection you want, any address, you can even get directions. And for a kicker, try clicking that link over there that says "satellite". I was wowed.

And I'm heading off to Kansas City later this month for a wedding. My friend Seanicus is getting married! It should be exciting. This has inspired me to consider purchase of a new toy. Something I'd use, especially since I'm going road tripping later this year. My consideration? A GPS receiver. A rather cool one. Yes, it's expensive, but I've been stressed enough about being lost in the past, that I think this will be worth it. I'm still in the consideration stages, but the more research I do, the more I lean towards picking one up. I'm all about having new technology toys. I can only get them every now and then, and in this case, I think it'd actually be USEFUL. We'll see.

Okay, super long nighttime blog is now over. Time for random links. And to cap off my super blog, two links. Two very special links. I know I haven't talked about recording music in a while, and mainly it's because I don't have the time. But lately I've been thinking a little more about it, and I went ahead and semi-finished one of my songs. So I have two. With lyrics. Yes, I wrote all of them. And sang them, too. Make fun, if you will - the second one I intend on redoing, but for now, I'll share it. So I'm opening my SOUL to you, be nice. Yes, the songs are rather bitter, but it's stuff that most people write songs about, so it was easy to use for lyric writing. I still don't like my voice, but maybe you'll be able to deal with it. The first song is about being a little Too Late, and the second about things that are No Longer there. Tell me what you think!

Oh - and BONUS random link... just found this. It's brand spanking new. For gamers everywhere - this is the future.

Eh, little addendum

2005-05-05T21:37:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I don't take them TOO often, but occasionally they come out interestingly. So here's a couple.

The Race Car Driver

You're 55% career-driven and 90% ambitious. In addition, you play 70% well with others, and you need a job that keeps you in the limelight 62% of the time!

You like the thought crossing the finish line alone, in front of the
rest of the pack, but you also like the thought of other people
watching. Sure, there's a pit crew, and sponsors, and a whole support
team under you, but you're the one who gets all the glory.

It's lonely at the top, and it takes a lot of work to get there.
You don't want a job with normal working hours... no, you'd devote your
life to this if it pays off in the end.

Good luck with your future endeavors. Once you go forward, I suspect you're not the type to look back.

Prefer to observe the speed limits when you drive? Try one of these (slightly) more realistic options:

As of yet, I have nothing that would look normal on a tax form. Does this sound like it might descibe a job you have in mind? E-mail me with suggestions.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 58% on personability
You scored higher than 59% on limelight
You scored higher than 26% on career-driven
You scored higher than 93% on ambition

Link: The Dream Job Test written by remymurphy on Ok Cupid

------------------------------------

Advanced Global Personality Test Results

Extraversion	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	66%
Stability	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Orderliness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	53%
Empathy	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Interdependence	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Intellectual	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	90%
Mystical	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Artistic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Religious	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Hedonism	\|\|\|\|	16%
Materialism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Narcissism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Adventurousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Work ethic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Self absorbed	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Conflict seeking	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Need to dominate	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%

Romantic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Avoidant	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Anti-authority	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Wealth	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Dependency	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Change averse	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Cautiousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Individuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Sexuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Peter pan complex	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Physical security	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	90%
Food indulgent	\|\|	10%
Histrionic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Paranoia	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Vanity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Hypersensitivity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Female cliche	\|\|	10%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com
Stability results were high which suggests you are very relaxed, calm, secure, and optimistic..

Orderliness results were medium which suggests you are moderately organized, hard working, and reliable while still remaining flexible, efficient, and fun.

Extraversion results were moderately high which suggests you are, at times, overly talkative, outgoing, sociable and interacting at the expense of developing your own individual interests and internally based identity.

trait snapshot:
social, outgoing, worry free, optimistic, upbeat, tough, likes large parties, makes friends easily, rarely irritated, open, enjoys leadership, trusting, dominant, thrill seeker, strong, does not like to be alone, assertive, mind over heart, confident, controlling, feels desirable, likes the spotlight, loves food, social chameleon, hard working, concerned about others

Cinco de Mayo

2005-05-05T17:09:00.000-05:00

That's right, it's Cinco De Mayo today! Not that we really do anything fancy to celebrate it, in most places, but hey. Other major events are coming up - TU graduation! On Saturday. A rather important day for many people. That, and it's (coincidentally) Sifu's tournament! Yes, that's right. If you can make it - I think it's something like a $10 door charge, maybe less. If you're not competing. Competitors pay a bit more. But it'll be splendid! Hicks Park (between 21st and 31st, east off of Mingo), official start time around 10:30. So you should either go to graduation or the tournament. We'll have some splendid demos to see at the start, and Buck Sam Kong will be there! So it should be cool. I'll be sparring, which won't happen until later, but it'll be interesting to watch. Plus I'll be helping one student enter into the sparring set competition. Busy day, all around.

Oh, and this Sunday, lest you forget - it's Mother's Day! Yes, for mothers everywhere. It also happens to be the day Buck is giving two workshops, which will be excellent. So I'll have a full day.

It's been a crazy week. I've been hanging out with friends I either haven't seen in a while, or ones I just made. So it's been fun. Playing plenty of Jade Empire, with my very GOOD monk. I'm saving evil acts for the female character. She's both sexy and evil. Which somehow fits. Think what you will. If you're female, go ahead and be offended. And if you're male, go ahead and laugh, because it's true. And you ALL KNOW IT.

I've been getting back into Katamari Damacy! It's so cool. I love it. That's all I have to say about that.

Kung fu is crazy, with the full contact training. I found out something interesting on Saturday. Sifu told us he bumped our time from two to three minutes. We found out after class from sihing's grandfather Rudy that Sifu hasn't been completely straight with us. Apparently Rudy was watching the clock. So no, not three minutes. More like four and a half. Or more. Which is INSANE. And on that note, I actually held all my stances without falling once yesterday. Which is progress! Woo! Sifu even made a comment himself, that we're all improving, and he can tell. Oh, and earlier this week, I made a discovery. Normally the metal pole is reserved for people to poke a bit to see how soft they really are, and for Justin and I to condition our arms on, and a little with shins. Well, this week I went ahead and checked how my shins are doing, and I wasn't just bumping the pole with my shins, but actually KICKING it. The loud ringing coming through the classroom made everyone turn and look, and I just had to smile. Conditioning works! And I pity the next person who doesn't believe it and tries kicking me.

Anyway, I have to run to kung fu now, to help with the kids' class, and their sparring practice for the tournament. So it's a short blog today. But hey! I still have my random link for you! And today it's a GOOD one. Anyone with a cell phone will appreciate this. It helped me perpetuate my current Katamari Damacy fixation. Na naaaaa, na na na na na naaa naaa, na Katamari Damacy!

Some interesting bits

2005-04-27T17:08:00.000-05:00

I've lost too much sleep lately. Perhaps it's because of a little thing called Jade Empire. Yes, it's good. And alluring. And since I play as a noble monk (looking as the Shaolin-style), it's easy to put time into. That, and I also started up a super-strong female, who's evil. For some reason it's a lot easier to make the character behave in an utterly evil way when they're female.

Yeah, so, the interesting bits. I found a rather large mark on the back of my thigh. And NO, not a good mark. Turns out it was a spider bite. So I went to the doctor to make sure it was all cool, and it was, thankfully. It's starting to go away. But it was one of those things that I didn't even realize I had it, since it was out of sight, until I starting feeling it itch. I should have taken a picture of it when it was really bad, but I forgot to. Sorry! I did find out from the doctor, though, that brown recluse (AKA fiddleback) bites aren't ALWAYS bad, only on occasion. But when they're bad, they're really bad. I don't know what kind of spider bit me, but thankfully it turned out okay.

And yesterday was an interesting day at kung fu. We have an eight grader who's rather large (as in tall and heavy), and he pushes at learning how to spar. So he asked me to spar him last night, and spar him hard. A few people stuck around to watch, since it's very rare any of the senior students don't go easy on the beginners. I left at least a few footprints on him, and put him to the ground a couple of times, but he seemed happy I did. I still haven't completely unloaded on him, but I think pushing him that hard is helping him learn faster. Hopefully he'll learn control with it, though. I'm still looking forward to rumbling with sihing when we get past the exhaustion drills in full-contact training. He's anxious to get in the ring to see what it's like to actually hit someone full force. I'm a little interested to see that, too. Hopefully the hospital won't need to be involved.

And this weekend was two people's birthdays. First, and most important (naturally) - my mom's! It was her birthday. So we went out to eat at Flavors. It's a bit pricey, but it was very, very good. I had the Atlantic Salmon. Mmm, tasty.

The other birthday was actually sihing's! On the same day. He's a big 19. He spent most of the day with his woman (pssh, go figure), but I'm taking him out to eat when he has a chance. Somewhere cool. On his birthday we had full-contact training, and since Sifu was out of town (he was looking into getting a movie script for his book - yes, Sifu wrote a book), sihing was in charge. And since it was his birthday, he took it easy while pushing us around. I think he enjoyed it quite a bit.

I'm thinking for my birthday, I'm going to go somewhere nice. Somewhere like Incredible Pizza! I've never been, and I hear it's... incredible. Maybe take some friends, and have a jolly old time. But that's still a ways away.

Oh, and there was a storm over the weekend, which sadly interrupted my nocturnal enjoyment of Jade Empire when the power blinked. Which finally convinced me to get a new battery for my UPS. Which is quite expensive. As my UPS is one I snagged from Williams when they were liquidating. Yes, it's sweet - if the power goes out while I'm watching a movie, I can keep watching the movie on battery. For an HOUR AND A HALF. Everything in my system plugs into it, and it makes things happy. Only bad thing is the battery costs more than what I paid for the UPS. But it saves possible other costs, which is good.

Well, it's almost time to get back to more full-contact training, so hopefully I'll survive. My legs are getting a bit stronger. And more muscular. Which is cool. As well as the arms and shins, with the conditioning and all. I'm finally able to kick the metal pole hard, and rattle it a bit. Someday I'll bend it. But probably not for a little while. Anyway, since it's time to go, it's time for random linking! This is one I liked, in the news. Some people know I like when I find TREASURE. Well these guys found it. Yeah, found it big time.

Friday blogging

2005-04-22T17:06:00.000-05:00

It's Friday! Yaaay! I'm about to leave for the weekend (from work), but I thought I'd go ahead and put a quick blog down. I have been into multimedia lately. So that's the topic for the day!

To start, 24. Season 3. It's so good, oh man. I'm on the last disc, so I'll be done with it this weekend. Just maybe by the end of the day. It's difficult to stop when you start. And a lot of people say they don't like it - generally these are people who see one episode in the middle of a season, and stop there. If you're going to do it, do it RIGHT, and start at the beginning. They rent the series at Blockbuster now. If you have any curiousity, I recommend renting Season 1, the FIRST disc. But be cautious - it may pull you in. I actually talked to a friend of mine's girlfriend at Blockbuster (I ran into the two of them on my lunch break), and although she hated the movie Hero (it's not for everyone, I admit), she did say she loved 24. My friend (Jerry) picked up the first two discs of Season 3 for a weekend they had nothing planned for, and although she was skeptical at first ("What, a TV show?"), she ended up hooked. And that's how it happens.

And as far as movies goes - this weekend Kung Fu Hustle gets released. I purchased it while I was overseas, so I've seen it. I'll say this - it's crazy. If you go in not expecting too much, you'll probably enjoy it. It's mean to be a ride, and I've heard a lot of people saying they enjoyed it, so I'll say it's probably worth checking out. It's by no means a traditional kung fu movie. It's closer to being a live action cartoon. Fairly wild stuff.

And games! God of War continues to be awesome. Even though I finished it this week. The story is very well laid out, and it was quite cool to get to the end. I may even play through it a second time, just for the enjoyment of it. So now that it is finished, a bigger (and possibly better) quest is now here! Jade Empire. I didn't really look up anything about it, because I mixed it in with a few other games (in my head) that really weren't TOO great. And then I read the review. It's a role-playing game. Set in China. About martial arts. It's like it was MADE for ME. So yeah, I have to get it. Hopefully it'll be just like my dreams.

Okay, that's all for the quick blog today. Hope you're having a lovely evening. Random link! For gamers everywhere, especially those who have played Final Fantasy 1, 2, or 3 (American numbering). It's rather amusing.

Hong Kong part 2

2005-04-18T00:23:00.000-05:00

Yes, finally. I have other stuff, but since I'm sort of behind on my tales of the East, I'll do that first.

It's the second day of my trip to Hong Kong! The first full day, really. Getting up bright and early, jumping on a bus that's for a tour we have planned out, with a tour guide and everything! We got on the bus, and it was headed straight for downtown Hong Kong. We started in Kowloon, the south part of Hong Kong, but the real city's on the north side. Woo!

Hong Kong, here we come!

There were a lot of things to see when getting into the real city, so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

The buildings are kind of tall.

They have walkways across the streets.

So we got to where we were headed (the first place), which was to a train station. From there, it was uphill on the train, to get HIGH.

It goes UP.

We're happy to be on the train!

It did make for some nice shots, from the train.

Look! It's me! In Hong Kong!

It's ALL of us, here.

I did get a decent number of shots from the area we were, which was above the city. So here, let me share a nice one or two!

The massive picture. So lovely. Luscious, even.

Everyone's taking pictures!

Back on the road. But it didn't mean we still couldn't take great pictures! And really, there's too many to put here, but I'll put some good ones.

It's pretty. Pretty big.

Some people's houses are nicer than other.

It seriously was the cleanest city I've ever seen. But I guess there were reasons for that.

If only we had this HERE.

Jason and I went off wandering when we stopped again, and we managed to find a temple, which was quite cool.

Framed nicely.

Next on the trip was lunch. Lunch! At a large floating restaurant. Actually the Jumbo Floating Restaurant.

We had to take a boat there. A COOL boat.

The restaurant was, indeed, jumbo.

Random artsy shot.

There were friendly people there to greet us!

Our tour guide, telling us more about the restaurant.

They had a very nice throne thingy set up.

Being guys, we abused it.

Okay. Whew! That's enough for now. Looks like day two will have to be separated into two days. It's hard work getting all these pictures picked out and sorted, you know. And the second day WAS full of a stuff to look at. So more later!

Ah, the weekend is over. Sadly. I could use more of one. It was a busy weekend. Friday was fun, though. Interesting, indeed. I helped by playing guitar with the Newman choir for a Charismatic mass, which was a totally different experience. A lot more of people definitely getting into the vibe of things. Freaked out a few of the choir members, I think. Most of us had never experienced any of it. The whole speaking in tongues, just vocalizing what you feel sort of thing. But the priest was cool. He liked to sing. Which he did quite a bit of.

So I passed up on kung fu to go play guitar at mass. It's interesting when my choices are to either learn how to be violent in a more efficient manner or else to help people practice their faith in a very peaceful way. Was kind of like that all weekend. I was late to a TEC (a type of Catholic retreat) reunion, because I had to finish my full-contact training on Saturday. So it was lots of pain, followed by lots of fun. Just hanging out, doing a barbeque thing, some ultimate frisbee. Very good stuff. A good day!

And today's been about the same thing. Started with lion dance practice (for our tournament coming up), then went to church. Church was good, three guitarists with guitars that managed to stay in tune. But it's been a long night, and I think I need to get my 24 fix and get some sleep. Hopefully all of you had a lovely weekend. The weather was incredible this weekend - makes me glad it was on the weekend, when I could actually get outside and enjoy it.

Okay. Long blog, ending commencing now! Random link insertion here! This one's from Wired magazine. It's a story about some kids. Rather smart kids. Makes me think of opportunities, and how we should be grateful for the ones we have.

Man, I have been BUSY

2005-04-14T16:37:00.000-05:00

Yes, BUSY. The whole weekend was chock full of things I had to do. Most of it was involved in helping a Catholic middle school retreat called ERIS, that a friend of mine started several years ago to raise money for a friend of his for medical expenses. It's kept up every year since, and each year we find a new cause to donate the money to. I won't say too much about it, other than the fact that we did a few skits, and apparently I make a good Satan. I guess throwing a little kung fu into the mix might enhance the evil. Or something like that. But yes, the kids seemed to like the whole retreat (it was for a day), since some of them admitted it was the best day they'd ever had in their LIFE. Which I think means they liked it. But it's all run by young 'uns, college kids, and the occasional old fart like me. But it was fun.

So Sunday was a little bit of relaxing, sleeping to recover from Saturday, mostly. And lion dance practice, which we're starting again, to get ready for the tournament in May. Which, sadly, coincides with TU's graduation. I should talk to Sifu about planning his tournament a little better in the future. I've already been lined up to help with his tournament, though, so I think that's the plan.

Lately it's been mostly kung fu, and I went ahead and got Season 3 of 24. Man, I had forgotten how much I love that show. It's not for everyone, and a lot of people think it's unrealistic, but I happen to think the opposite. I think it's believable, it's just coincidental that a guy has so much bad happen to him in one day. Or, by now, three days. Not all in a row, naturally. Some people do have rather bad luck. But the way the unroll the plot line is exquisite, and it's easy to get sucked in, if you don't resist. Kind of like Naruto... But yes. I like the characters a lot. That, and Elisha Cuthbert is one of the most attractive actresses on the planet. I guess you could say I'm a fan. I do think one reason I like the show so much is because even if you're having a bad day, they're having a worse one, and it makes everything seem so much nicer by the time the credits roll.

And yesterday was the second day of our schedule of pain at kung fu. Sifu's training us rather hard. And by hard, I mean pain raised to the power of insane. So far it's only four people each class, and not always the same four, although Justin and I seem to be regulars. Sadly, I had to miss Saturday, but Sifu wasn't there, so I don't think it was as bad. Because he was definitely there yesterday, and I'm STILL sore from it. I learned a few things. One of these things was that after three hundred crunches in a row, it's not your abs you feel so much. It's your neck. Since it takes a decent amount of time to do three hundred crunches and you're always pulling your head up with each one (not with the hands), it's more exposure to exercise to pull your head forward than you normally ever get. So yeah, there was that, the fifty pushups was kind of a relief from the rest of it. Sifu's bumped our horse stances (before and after all the other stances) to two minutes. The first one is doable. After doing a minute of each other stance, the final horse isn't quite so easy. It's thirteen minutes of continuous stances, and even Sihing admits that's probably the hardest part. I'm still quite sore, which means my muscles are worked, which means they will probably get stronger (and perhaps more developed), which is COOL. I'm thinking I may start feeling sorry for any of the other students who spar with any of us, the ones going through this training. Especially anyone going against Sihing.

As an aside, God of War continues getting better, as it progresses. If you like gaming at ALL and have a PS2, you need to check it out. But it's not for kids. 'Nuff said.

Lately I've realized how much I've missed playing guitar, which has inspired me to play more. I do have a lot of stuff I've recorded, but I'm too shy to post any of it. Nothing with words (yet), but just stuff I start messing with and say, "Hey, not too shabby, maybe this could turn into something." I think perhaps I need to invent a time generator, put that on the top of my list of things to do. Then I'll actually have TIME to do all the things I want to do. You know, rock star, kung fu master, brilliant computer geek, etc. As it is, I have to focus on one thing at a time. Although I've started putting a little bit more time into the brilliant computer geek thing. I'm working on coding up the Karatsuba algorithm to use for my thesis, to try advancing it beyond where it was. It's been almost a year, and I sorta miss it. So back to the drawing board! Err, coding board. Screen. Whatever.

And taxes are due TOMORROW. So if this is news to you, it might be time to file an extension. I've got mine out of the way, which is a pleasant thing to reflect upon. Ahhh... yes. Random link! Okay, here we go. Some things scare people. And for some reason, if it's really scary, it tends to be believed more. Why is that? Here, an example. Do you believe it? Careful with how easily YOU believe things.

P.S.: The weekend was TOO FULL. More pictures this weekend.