| Friday, April 6th, 2007 |
| 2:37 am |
DC Trip 2007
I'm out in the DC office helping train the new help desk. Lucky me, I get the night shift. It has it's ups and downs. One of the downsides is that it's very quiet but that's also an upside because it means, if I apply myself, that I can catch up on a few things. I've managed to take care of several things I'd gotten behind on. I've also managed to make a bit of extra work for myself with my prolific picture taking. I'll take pictures of about anything that catches my fancy. So far I've taken about 700 photographs; not all of them good. I'm working my way through posting them either to my Flickr site or to Osgood's site. I have to (or at least felt I have to) rename them, rotate most of them and crop a few of them. Working the night shift (9p-6a) has taken some getting used to (I won't be fully used to it even when I'm done) but has been rather useful for being able to visit the museums and monuments since I'm not working when their open. I just have to fit sleeping and eating around all that. The weather the first few days was incredible. Moderately warm without being hot. Not too cloudy or too sunny. These last two days have been downright cold and I'm starting to wish I'd brought a heavier jacket or a sweater. |
| Wednesday, December 27th, 2006 |
| 9:26 am |
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| Saturday, November 18th, 2006 |
| 7:11 pm |
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| Friday, November 3rd, 2006 |
| 10:45 pm |
TKD Updates and Such
I've been a busy little bee it seems. Finalized the divorce a couple weeks ago but I'm still dealing with all the paperwork to change things over. We have a lot of stuff going on at work with a new floor. I was preparing for my black belt test in Taekwondo and our school was putting on a statewide CKA tournament. So I've been busy. ( TKD stuff and pics behind the cut. ) |
| Tuesday, October 31st, 2006 |
| 8:15 am |
Bodies by Balrog
Bodies by Balrog is here to help you get fit for the holiday season. With our program you will lose the weight. The pounds are literally flayed from your body. Special breathing classes are also available to assist in maintaining that extended scream.  Meeting our demonic personal training needs since before recorded history. |
| Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006 |
| 4:30 pm |
Taekwondo - Testing and Broken Students
My testing date seems to be a moving target. It's been moved many times now. I think it's finalized. I hope it's finalized. I have people that have been trying to rearrange their schedules so they can attend. It's getting frustrating. Possibly even to the point that I may just say no if it moves again and tell her I need to choose a different date further out that maybe we can stick to. Now just need to get the rest of the crud out of my lungs. Last night I was sparring with the eldest of the Mr. N's. He had somewhat recently hurt his back and apparently had some bulging disks. He had felt like he was better--and as his mom said (he's early to mid-20's) if he can ride a mechanical bull he can practice--so he was in there. Turns out he maybe over did it a touch. While we were sparring he kicked rather high--and not being one to get kicked I blocked--and down he went. He was a hurtin' puppy. I felt bad since I was the one sparring with him when he reinjured himself. Like maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't blocked or hadn't blocked the way I did or something. ( White and Nerdy Quiz )( Star Trek Character Quiz )( Tarot Card Quiz ) |
| Wednesday, September 27th, 2006 |
| 12:18 pm |
Turkey vs. Bald Eagle
This is cool. Kind of like something out of science fiction. Infrared light reveals easier path for doctorsThis came up in conversation with shadowbat. If Ben Franklin had had his way for choosing the national bird would we now be having microwavable eagle dinners? And what would Thanksgiving be like? Can you eat the national bird even if it's considered plentiful or farmed? Just a thought. |
| Sunday, September 24th, 2006 |
| 10:56 am |
Aunt Spam and Gambling Wood
I finally asked my aunt to stop sending me all the junk email she keeps sending. Sometimes it's religious, sometimes it's racially intolerant articles, sometimes it's handy tips for around the house. I just stopped reading them months ago (maybe even a year) and decided to ask her to stop sending them. I tried to be polite and let her know I like personal emails from her but that I just don't want everything else. It felt very weird because I'm very non-confrontational and I didn't want to hurt her feelings. EDIT: As I was typing this she replied back to me that she's sorry and that she doesn't know someone doesn't want the stuff unless they tell her. Personally I think it might have been better to take the opposite approach and only send on what someone has expressed an interest in but that's just my opinion (and how would you know you wanted it and the other person had it if they didn't send it in the first place?) :-) Yesterday I helped my dad and step-mother go collect wood in the Manitou Springs area. Forest service had been doing some clearing and had several trees they had cut down and they were allowing people to come in and take what they can for free. As we were heading up there everything was covered with snow. On the way back it had almost all melted, which made for muddy work while we collecting the wood. My dad's getting old and is in pretty bad shape from too many years of smoking so he kept having to take breaks. There were times I wish he would just sit down and relax but he just can't stand to not help. (I know where I got it from.) And he doesn't want to admit that he's that badly off. Since we were getting up at o'my-gosh-it's-early we decided it would be easier if I just stayed over Friday night. Because of this and their long standing tradition we went up to Blackhawk for dinner (or so I thought). Turned out to be gambling and then dinner. They really like the video slots. I just can't quite get into them because they just aren't very interactive in my opinion but my folks find the graphics entertaining. Apparently I was a good luck charm for them this time as they did better than they ever had. It was really neat for me to see that they were enthusiastically greeted by the staff there. They have a great relationship with the staff and it makes it like visiting friends when they go. I did rediscover that I don't like to spend too much time around my father because he really is a bit of a bigot. He just goes off so much on different racial groups or even going off about sexual orientation and he does it so often it's disturbing. He tries to throw in disclaimers about how he knows good people in these groups that he disparages but it seems very insincere. I know he does okay with judging people in person on a one-on-one basis but he seems too free when he's abstractly talking about a group. |
| Tuesday, September 19th, 2006 |
| 11:37 am |
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| Sunday, September 17th, 2006 |
| 10:54 am |
Knowledge vs. Intellect
Found myself just guessing on much of the knowledge bits and I honestly didn't care all that much. So much of the details of history and geography mean little to me. I feel like I have a reasonable overall picture. If there's an area I need to know about I research it. As for the intellect, dunno. :-) Seems like I do okay with much of it but there are some of them that when I can't use paper I just look at it and go, eh, sounds right. Whatever I guess. Maybe if I wasn't sick I'd get different results but I doubt it. So without much more preamble... ( ...the Quiz ) |
| Friday, September 15th, 2006 |
| 2:54 pm |
Taekwondo Weekend
Last weekend we had a seminar and tournament weekend with my Taekwondo school. On Saturday we did the seminars. We focused a lot on speed drills, footwork and handwork. We got in some sparring to finish that aspect off. We also got to do some breaking. I still can't do the reverse knifehand suspended break but we might be closer to figuring out what I'm doing. (Possibly hooking my hand hand at the last minute.) I still hit it hard enough for the board to break when it hits the wall and the board's momentum is all in the right direction so I think I'm close. Probably not close enough to be able to do it for my testing though so I'll probably stick with what I know works for me. I was able to one board with a vertical kick as if it were nothing and I suspect that a proper five will give me no trouble for that break. The break I got to do for the first time that I was pleased with was on concrete ceiling tiles. I successfully did a downward punch through two stacked tiles. They broke and hit the ground with much force. My knuckles came away with very minor bruising and a minor scratch. I'm certain I can do more with little trouble.  After the seminars we went over to Moorehead and had a BBQ and celebrated JZ's 18th birthday. Learned a new game called wall ball where you throw the ball at the wall and the players try to catch it. If you touch it but don't catch it then you have to try to touch the wall before someone else can throw the ball at the wall. If you make it there first you're safe. If the ball makes it there first you have to stand at the wall while someone throws the ball at you (mostly they miss). On Sunday we did an intramural tournament. We tried the ITF version of forms competition where two competitors do the same form that the lead judge chooses. The judges then decide by pointing who did the better job between the pair and you go through in a bracket just like sparring. It was kind of interesting but we all seemed to like it. I ended up performing my pattern three times and managed to win my division which included 1st dan black belts. We had a sparring competition which I won 2nd place in a division that included 2nd dan black belts. Had a good weekend. |
| Tuesday, September 12th, 2006 |
| 12:42 pm |
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| 10:56 am |
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| Wednesday, September 6th, 2006 |
| 10:38 am |
My Personality found on dragon212k My Personality | | Neuroticism | | Extraversion | | Openness To Experience | | Agreeableness | | Conscientiousness | | |
| Tuesday, September 5th, 2006 |
| 11:16 am |
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| Thursday, August 17th, 2006 |
| 3:13 pm |
CPR/AED Class
Had a good CPR/AED class today. Taught by Harrison Miller who is the son of the guy who taught it last time, Harrison Davis. Good guys both. As usual, there have been some changes in the process. Now we're at 30 compressions and 2 breaths. I think it's been different everytime I've ever taken one of these classes and I've been certified almost continuously for the last 20 years. During class many of our dummies became named after our classmates along with comments about our bosses having done us in. Here are a couple other amusing things that were said: "Quick call 911 and bring the IUD!" 1: "I'll come to your funeral." 2: "Will there be mints?" |
| 3:07 pm |
Book Thing
This is going around. 1. Grab the nearest book. 2. Open the book to page 123 3. Find the fifth sentence 4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions: Don't you dare dig for that “cool” or “intellectual” book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest, then tag three people. I'm not going to tag anyone specifically. Do it if you want to. from Necroscope II: Vamphyri! by Brian Lumley: It was Helen who ran to retrieve the ball, then skipped away with it up the garden, but Yulian had eyes only for the frog. At that point George had called out from inside the house: something about the kebabs burning. They were to be the main course in a farewell meal for Georgina. |
| Tuesday, August 15th, 2006 |
| 11:35 pm |
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| 9:20 pm |
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| Thursday, August 3rd, 2006 |
| 5:33 pm |
Living on the Edge
Last night I got caught in the construction on I-70 and was going a grand old 5 MPH. I had just stopped at the store so I had a pint of ice cream with me and decided to break it out. Not having a spoon with me I go creative and cut chunks of the ice cream loose in the cup and then tipped the chunks from my cup straight into my mouth. This morning I tried some new shaving cream. I decided to try some of the more expensive shaving cream ($2 instead of $1, Oooh, big spender!). I think I may continue with that kind because the shaving experience really was more comfortable. |