In the shop

Well, almost. I spent some time looking for the designs for the cabinets in the shop. Once I found them, I spent some time fleshing them out some more, correcting possible problems.

Now I need to work on where to put doors, drawers, etc.

I also spent some time working on a design for a new entertainment center for the house. K. has asked that it be complete by Christmas, when we host 60+ people for my family gathering. The design is getting close to being ready. I based it on a design in ShopNotes a while back.

Weekend update

Friday: aikido

Saturday: Oil change for the pick up. Some design work for the new entertainment center and the cabinets in the shop. Aikido. Some sample painting in preparation for repainting the kitchen and living room. Joe's bar-b-cue for dinner. Hand and foot with the in-laws.

Sunday: Work on the deck area, incorporating some path work we did a few years ago and had to move when the construction was occurring. The Dark Knight at the theatre and then The Incredibles at home.

At the movies: The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight: 4

Heath Ledger does steal the show here. Christian Bale does a good job as well. The make-up for Two-Face was impressive.

I'd happily go see this one again. Heath does deserve an Oscar, the movie might as Best Picture.

Saturday Afternoon at the Dojo 7/26/08

Aikidokas: Tim, Greg, Kim (yay!), and Trey.

Ukemi: 1 air fall each side, I think. No issues.

The Walk: Went ok. I counted in Czech for one iteration.

Releases: With Kim. It's fun and a challenge working with her on almost anything. Our height differential, and weight differential, alter the approaches on everything.

Techniques:

We had a visitor for a while, so Sensei Tim went to chat with him. I was left in charge and had Greg and Trey work together while I worked with Kim.

We worked through 1-10 for her. 1-5 both sides and 6-10 right side only. I'd do one or two reps first and then let her go at me.

Gyakugamae-ate (#3) is tough for a short person to get on someone my height. You've got to break me down quite a bit.

At the end of the session, Greg and Trey were working on Kote-gaeshi. Sensei Tim brought me in to try to help them. Trey wanted me to throw him with it, as well, before the end of the session.

Aftermath: Tired and likely to be sore. Ibuprofen.

Friday Night at the Dojo 7/25/08

Aikidokas: Sensei Tim.

Ukemi: Normal warm-up

The Walk: None.

Releases: None.

Techniques:

We worked through 14-17. We actually went to gake on all techniques. Normally, Sensei Tim limits his falls, but tonight he expanded his limits. We also worked on Kubi-garuma and Aiki-nage of the Owaza Ju Pon.

He spent some time making Shihonage more difficult to achieve, countering if my off-balances were not there.

We spent a lot of time on the foot work for Aiki-nage. My timing's decent, usually, but I'm still concentrating on uke's feet. My most consistent issue is my distance from uke. This is a technique where uke is your best buddy. you've got to keep him in close. I don't do that so well at the moment.

Aftermath: A nice active evening. Sensei Tim got hassled a bit from Mrs. Sensei for all of the falls.

F4DZ-5461705-A

F4DZ-5461705-A? What the heck is that?

It's the part number for the seat track for a '93 Ford Taurus SHO. A part Ford no longer makes or stocks. A part my dealer could not find. Well, kinda.

They found a listing for the part at a dealer in Iowa. When they checked with that dealer directly, it turned out that they didn't have one.

They did a search of used parts places and turned one up in Oklahoma somewhere. It would have cost $300 in shipping to get it here and there was no way to know what sort of condition it was in. It was coming off of a vehicle with 300K miles on it, more than twice the mileage on my vehicle.

The lack of this part does not make the care unsafe. It can make the care impossible for me to drive, if I can't move the seat back far enough for me to get into it.

My car is rapidly approaching the point at which it can not be repaired if something goes wrong.

At the movies: Beyond the Sea

Beyond the Sea (DVD): 3

Kevin Spacey in a movie about Bobby Darin's life, mainly as an adult.

A pleasant vehicle to get some of Bobby's songs on film, sung competently by Spacey. Covers his rise to fame, his time in the 60's and the problems presented by a childhood bout with Rheumatic Fever.

At the movies: Crank

Crank (DVD): 3

Jason Statham in the role of a hit man who discovers he has been poisoned and will die if his heart rate drops to normal levels.

I don't know if this was meant to be a comedy, but it was one to me. Not a top-notch film for acting, but a lot of fun action.

Weekend update

Friday: Aikido

Saturday:

Started up the lawnmower, ready to mow the yard again. Put it into gear and it started going. Shifted into higher gear and it stopped moving. The exact same issue for which I put it into the shop 4 weeks ago. So, I needed to put it in the shop again. Went to the library and swapped vehicles, got the mower loaded into the truck and went off to Alvin.

Got there and waited about an hour for them to get to it. Since it was a re-repair they got to it that day. It took them about 15 minutes to fix it. I test drove it around their lot for about 5 minutes and brought it back home.

Mowed the yard. Got a nice sunburn.

Aikido

Joe's Bar-B-Cue for dinner. Mmmmmmmmm.

Sunday:

Goofed around. Went to the Dog Shows in town with a friend. K. was doing schoolwork.

Got back and grilled out steak, sausage and chicken. Bar-B-Cue all week for lunches. Sweet!

Saturday Afternoon at the Dojo 7/19/08

Aikidokas: Tim, Trey, and Tess.

Ukemi: Went ok. Didn't do any big falls today.

The Walk: None today.

Releases: None today.

Techniques:

We worked on the Nami no Waza. We managed to make it through 1, 2, 2b, 3, 4, 4b, 5 and 6.

On the chain starting with the 6th release (I think) we explored whether Tenkai Kotehineri is in the chain or whether it should be Kote kajiki (I have no idea if that is the correct spelling).

Aftermath: Tired. Sweaty. A good workout.

Friday Night at the Dojo 7/18/08

Aikidokas: Tim, Trey, and Mea.

Ukemi: 1 air fall each side. Left side was good, right side pinged the left calf a little.

The Walk: Went ok.

Releases: With Trey.

Techniques:

We worked through 6-10 for him and 11-16 for me, all from Ju Nana Han Kata.

Spent some time on Oshi-taoshi and Ude-gaeshi exploring pivots and such.

Spent some time on Shihonage for me and Sumi-otoshi.

Aftermath: None of note

Saturday Afternoon at the Dojo 7/12/08

Aikidokas: Tim, and Richard.

Ukemi: Went ok. Didn't do any big falls today

The Walk: Went ok. We're altering one of the stones, the footwork thereof, and that's requiring a little adjustment. Although I have done that footwork when Sensei Mike has suggested it.

Releases: None today.

Techniques:

We worked through 1-12 for both Richard and me, both sides. We worked far slower than I'm used to and it was a good learning tool.

Ushiro-ate: not enough off-balance. Rushing the rest of the technique.

Oshi-taoshi: I was not going up and over the mountain enough.

Ude-hineri: too far away during the initial off-balance

Waki-gatame: not letting uke into my house enough.

Aftermath: Tired. Sweaty. A good workout.

Friday Night at the Dojo 7/11/08

Aikidokas: Tim, and a new student whose name I did not catch

Ukemi: We went through basic slaps and started to work on forward rolls with the new student

The Walk: Went through this a few times

It's amazing how much time introducing a new student can take. I hope she sticks around.

Aftermath: None.

Weekend update

Friday: aikido

Saturday: Grocery shopping and then Weed-eating for two hours in the morning. Riding mower is still in the shop.

Aikido in the afternoon.

D&D in the evening. First time I've had room in my schedule for that in several months.

Sunday: not much. Grilled chicken, steak and sausage out on the grill for dinner. Made a Peach Pie, too.

Accomplishments during the days off

Here's the list of stuff I had hoped to get done over my days off, with the ones marked that got done.

Done - Wait for the AT&T guy to fix the DSL
Done - Mow the lawn (1 acre) with a push mower. The riding mower is in the shop.
Not ready - Pick up the Taurus from the shop
Nope - Go blueberry picking
Nope - Go up to the in-laws?
Done - See Wall*E
Done - See Wanted
Done - See Hancock
95% done - Finish assembling the extension to the deck
Not ready - Pick up the 1/4 cow, if it's ready
Done - Call Adobe for help with my Photoshop issue
In the shop:
Uncle Leo's base
Assembly/feed table
95% done - Dog barrier for the other door
Reset wing on table saw
Done - Aikido on Saturday
Not enough folks - Gaming Friday or Saturday night
Did not do - Try to take some HDR photos

Looking at the list, I got almost everything accomplished. I made a mistake on the deck, so I have to fix that. I need to go through and finalize the home network after the DSL fix. I had to get the router reset and that messes everything up.

Saturday Afternoon at the Dojo 7/5/08

Aikidokas: Tim, Greg, Trey, and Tessa.

Ukemi: I worked on extending my legs through the falls some more.

I took a Big Fall. Without Pain. Yahoo! Now to continue the tradition.

Nami No Waza:

We worked on the first 4 chains. They are based off of, respectively, releases number 1, 2, 2, and 3.

Kogueri Double Hand Grabs:

We did the first 4 of these as well:

Two-hands to the chest.
One hand to the chest.
Heaven and earth.
Two hands to the same side and then bump uke.

I tried to do these with my eyes closed to get a better feel for uke's balance.

Aftermath: I was an absolutely dripping mess by the end of 2+ hours. Lots of overall soreness. Not calf pain!

At the movies: Wall*E

Wall*E: 4

A Pixar movie. Really, what else needs to be said?

I enjoyed the heck out of this one. Got consistent laughs when Wall*E recharged and made the MacOS boot sound.

Only have one quibble. I think they messed up the scale of the two ships. The one that lands on Earth with Eve seems much smaller in space when compared with Axiom than when you compare their footprints on Earth. A minor quibble.

I'd happily see it again. It might be added to the library when the DVD comes out.

At the movies: Hancock

Hancock: 3

Will Smith, Charlize Theron, and Jason Bateman star in a film about a superhero who's not as much of a poster boy as you would hope for.

Fun special effects and a decent story line. I just don't think I'm terribly interested in seeing it again. I can't think of any specific reason why not.

At the movies: Wanted

Wanted: 3

Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman and others star in a movie about an everyman who discovers he has the genetics of the best assassin in the world. This everyman is then trained and welcomed into the brotherhood of assassins.

A fun movie with lots of bang of lots of chases. I did not spot the twist coming but I think my wife did.

The end scene pushed a bit of dialogue too far. I found myself thinking "they're more like guidelines".

At the movies: Ronin

Ronin: 2

Robert DeNiro, Jean Reno, Sean Bean, Jonathan Pryce

A suitcase is desired by Russian and Irish agents. Much mayhem arises from the quest for said suitcase.

You'd think that this high-powered cast would be able to pull off a decent movie, but I guess the script was sorely lacking, or the director was horrible. The movie was not that good. It felt very low budget.

This movie has an interesting tie-in with the film "Munich". There's a role in this movie that almost exactly matches a role in "Munich" and is played by the same actor.

At the movies: Munich

Munich: 3

A Spielberg movie about the Munich Olympics and the Israelis taken hostage during that time. It then follows the retribution taken against the planners of the hostage crisis.

A good movie. I suppose I need to see how much of the retribution is factual.

This movie has an interesting tie-in with the film "Ronin". There's a role in this movie, "Papa", that almost exactly matches a role in "Ronin" and is played by the same actor.