Stupid cold

It is starting to get cold up here. I'm not a fan of the cold. Not looking forward to another winter up here. They are quite long, quite bitter, and don't allow me to ride my bike. Which completely sucks. But so it goes.. life continues.. and these soon to be frigid days will pass.

There is something about the cold up here, I'm not sure exactly what it is. It just cuts quite deep. Perhaps it is the wind. I know that I lived in the desert where it got quite cold on occasion.. but I think it is something to do with the combination of humidity and temperature. Bah, I really don't know... but it is quite terrible at times.

In other news... aikido is going well. Despite the differences I'm really enjoying getting out there. I miss the aggressiveness of Mr. Hollender's style... but it is also sort of nice to not need to rely on ibuprofen to be able to move the next day. Also, I miss taking breakfalls.. but perhaps I need to work my way up to it.

One sort of annoying thing... after getting to know that deer very well a few years back... my ankles still have some pretty significant scarring. Well, I found out on Monday, that apparenetly rolling around on tatami mats and scar tissue don't get along so well. Excusing one's self off the mat on your second practice due to massive bleeding is quite embarassing. I hate to say, but I think I'll be wearing ankle guards for the rest of my aikido career. If after nearly 3 years my ankles still aren't healed.. I can't imagine that they'll ever be up to the rigors mat work. Oh wells.

Ok, that is all.

-Later

Aikido

So I've been planning on doing it for awhile now, but last night I finally went back to an Aikido class. I think this blog was started after I had already stopped doing Aikido.. so it has been quite some time since I've been tossed around like a rag doll.

It was fantastic. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it. Of course I'm horribly out of practice, and shape.. but those will return in time. I'm more worried about the state of my feet and ankles. They have traditional tatami mats which I'm not accustomed to training on. So I've got some blisters that even Lacy would be proud of. But it was entirely worth it.

The only issue I have is that it is a different style than I originally trained it. The differences are subtle but apparent. Their movements are slightly different on many of the moves we practiced last night.. so I obviously struggled trying to meld my previous teachings with these new movements. It is interesting and I'm curious to see how everything turns out. They don't kiai which was a big part of my original practice of Aikido. So that made me stand out just a bit. But I'm not going to stop... it was ingrained in me for far to long to try to do things silently now.

Ok, I'm going to get back to work now.

-Later

John Cleese

This is my first attempt to embed a video directly into my blog.

Please be patient.



I thought it was quite funny.

I hope this turned out how I had intended it.

-Later

Benefits

So I suppose living near Chicago isn't that bad of a thing. Achewood's artist is doing a book signing tour of his new book. And he just happens to be coming to Chicago in November. So I'm stoked about that.

Other news... let's see...

I need to do laundry..

The new season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is quite amazing. It is hard to really describe what this show is like but every episode tends to cause me to laugh so hard I cry. Check out this clip from one of the recent episodes. Yes, it is totally worth it to create a user name just to watch this one clip. 90 seconds of your time that I promise won't be wasted.

-Later

Politics

Politics. They really have been getting on my nerves lately. I don't understand why two men running for the highest position of authority in our country can continue to blatantly lie directly to the public. Are we really that stupid that we'll ignore their incorrect statements and just let them slide? It just is frustrating that we can't get one candidate who actually knows what he is talking about.

I suppose it might be too much to ask. I realize they have to have talking points prepared for any possible question they might be asked.. and that it is probably easier to memorize half-truths which sound better rather than the actual facts.

The way the economy is right now, I sort of feel bad for who ever gets elected. As my boss said, "they are walking into a shit storm". And really, he is right. I can't imagine our economic issues being fixed in the next.. 5 years, so that sort of puts the next president in a bad place. He won't be able to make changes to fix the economy overnight and that is what people want. They want the stock markets back at record highs, the housing market to be strong again, and free money. It isn't going to happen. But oh well, the public is a fickle thing. Perhaps who ever gets elected will be able to at least make it through their term without being considered a terrible president. We'll see.

And no, I didn't watch the debates.. I just couldn't bring myself too. Also, I forgot it was on... I was swimming. But I have a feeling half-truths and misleading statements were made. It is politics after all.

-Later