Aikido Saturday Afternoon - 12/13/08

Aikidokas: Tim, Kim, Trey, and Brad.

Ukemi: Normal set, I did take a couple of big falls with some extra padding out.

The Walk: As usual. Once at a moderate pace and once at my more preferred slower pace. And I spent some timer with Tom working on the last three stones.

Releases: with Brad.

Techniques:

Ju Nana Hon Kata

Brad and I did some work on his shomen-ate and his aigamae-ate.

Koryu Dai San No Kata

Trey and I worked on kote-gaeshi and Ryote-mochi-sukui-nage (Uke grabs both tore's wrists and stands. Tore lifts arms, off-balancing uke, then turns uke into roll-out). I must remember to push uke up, and not out. Then rock him back and make certain both of my legs rotate at the same time to send him sprawling.

Aftermath: None of note.

Geocaching 12/14/08

found MagCreek #1 - Welcome to Magnolia Creek
found MagCreek #2
found MagCreek #3 - Miscellaneous Military
found MagCreek #4
found MagCreek #5
found MagCreek #7 - What's Your Sign?
found MagCreek #8 - Deja Vu
found MagCreek #10 - Skirting the Next Leg
couldn't find MagCreek #11 - CHARGE!!!

K., the dogs and I went out for a pleasant afternoon of caching. This was nice series along a path through a new subdivision.

Don't know what's up with the one we did not manage to locate. I'll get back there to look again at some point.

Weekend update

Friday:

Corporate Holiday Party. I managed to win a $50 gift card to a local chain. K. joined me after leaving her party. We did a little dancing and some chatting before heading home

Saturday:

Finished some work on the main workbench in the shop. Did some work on some more clamp hangars.

Aikido

Dinner at Joe's

Watched "Curse of the Judas Chalice" on late-nite TV

Sunday:

Slept in

Geocaching

Some more work on the clamp hangars. Did some design work for the home entertainment center.

Snow

Snow!

Snow?

Snow.

A tie in the records books for earliest recorded snowfall in Houston. Tied with 1944.

We only got about an inch or so, and it melted away when the snow turned into rain (cue Dan Fogelberg), but it was pretty while it lasted.

I like snow.

In the shop

I spent a fair amount of time in the shop this past weekend and got some minor things accomplished.

My uncles spotlight platform has been cut, routed and sanded and is ready to hand over to him.

I've finished a stop block for the table saw. It took me a couple of tries to get this right. I had to properly drill for the elevator bolt and get the insert to seat properly.

I got the drill press up and running. It had not been set up since the end of the construction. Once I got it set up, the table would go up, but it wouldn't go back down. So, I had to take everything off again and oil/wax the pipe the table wraps around. After that it worked like a champ.

I also did some work on the plumbing for the skimmer I had modified. It's just about in final, ready-to-use shape.

Aquarium update

Current occupants:

3 Green Chromis - we've lost two recently. They were smaller ones and I believe they got picked on by the bigger ones

1 Coral Beauty Angel - doing well

1 Clarkii Clown - giving the tank a couple of more weeks to relax before getting a second clarkii

1 sandsifter goby - doing well

4 Pajama Cardinals - for about 3 days one of these guys was missing. Where he'd been hiding, I have no clue

Xenia, Blue snowflake and a toadstool

Weekend update

Friday: Aikido

Saturday:

Geocaching on the way to Harmony stained Glass. I wanted to see if they knew anyone who was looking for an 8' light table. I've got one I'm trying to get rid of.

Aikido

Some shop time

OU/Missouri football game

Sunday:

Shop time
Install two new lights in the house
Get and put up new sets of Christmas lights
Dinner with the in-laws
Dallas/Pittsburgh football

Aikido Saturday Afternoon - 12/06/08

Aikidokas: Tim, Trey, Brad and Tom.

Ukemi: I helped Tom wokr on his ukemi for a while. He's getting better.

The Walk: As usual. Once at a moderate pace and once at my more preferred slower pace. And I spent some timer with Tom working on the last three stones.

Releases: with Tom, teaching him the first 4 releases.

Techniques:

Ju Nana Hon Kata

Trey and I did some work on his kote-gaeshi.

Koryu Dai San No Kata

Trey and I worked on kote-gaeshi.

Aftermath: Sore leg muscles just above the knees as a result of the knee walking.

Aikido Friday Night - 12/05/08

Aikidokas: Tim, Greg, and Trey.

Ukemi: The usual set. Pulled out another mat and took a big fall from Tim

The Walk: As usual

Releases: with Greg

Techniques:

Owaza Ju Pon

We did some work on kote-hineri and tenkai kote-hineri. I'd jump in as uke from time to time as a break from practicing my knee walking.

Trey did some work with me on kote-gaeshi at the end.

Koryu Dai San No Kata

Trey and I worked on oshi-taoshi and gyakugameate. Actually, Tim is changing the gyakugameate into a gedan ate. These went ok.

Aftermath: None of note.

Geocaching 12/6/08

5 attempted caches this weekend. 4 smilies.

GC1HCCG - Found it with no real issues

GC1J09P - Took me a while to find it. The sun bouncing of the drab green turned grey caught my attention

GC1J09W - Nestled under some concrete

GC1J09F - I entered in the coordinate by hand. I entered them in incorrectly. As a result, I spent about 20 minutes wandering around in briar thickets with the GPS alternately telling me I was 4 feet from it to 150 feet from it.

GC1HCD4 - I wasn't prepared for this one as it turns out it's a micro. I did not find it

Aikido Saturday Afternoon - 11/29/08

Aikidokas: Tim, Kim, Trey and Brad.

Ukemi: The usual set.

The Walk: As usual

Releases: not today

Techniques:

Trey and I went through 6-13 of Ju Nana Hon Kata. We spent a lot of time on kote-gaeshi without much success. Trey's still having some issues.

We did a little suwari waza work for meal.

Kim and I went through 6-13 of Ju Nana Hon Kata. We spent a lot of time on kote-gaeshi without much success.


Aftermath: Sore. Once again.

Aquarium update

I went and picked up some fish over the weekend: 2 Clarkii clowns and a Coral Beauty angel fish.

Every looked good for a day or so. Then we could not find one of the clarkiis. 3 hours later it showed up, barely swimming. It later died. I'm really upset about this, they were supposedly a pair.

Now to get a smaller clarkii as a replacement.

In the shop

I've got most of the cabinet tops done. I blew out the bearings on two flush trim router bits by doing something stupid. So, now I have to get another bit.

The light table is functional and ready to roll.

When I get a chance: doors and drawers.

Thanksgiving weekend

Thursday:

Up early to bake pies: standard pumpkin and a "Bon Appetit" pumpkin. Off to mom's for the meal. TAMU vs tu football game, We did better than I expected.

Friday:

Off to some fish stores around town. I planned the day so I could hit some geocaches before the stores opened. Hit Fish Gallery and TnT Fish and Reptile. Also hit "The Cutting Edge". They're going out of business :(. we also saw "The Music Man" downtown. It was a nice local production.

Saturday:

Shop time. Aikido and Durango's. We have a tradition of going into the Half-Price Bookstore after we've had our margaritas. It turns out that while we were in the book store, the owner of the neighboring liquor store was being gunned down. We never heard a thing.

Sunday: Shop time. Football