Weekend update

Friday: aikido

Saturday:

Started straightening out finances. Filed some stock stuff into binders and installed this year's TurboTax.

Did some work on getting some more saltwater ready.

Did some work on the second box in the book "Box by Box" and on the wood for Uncle Leo's project.

aikido - after which I was completely worthless: sore and tired.

Dinner with the in-laws

Sunday

More work on the "Box by Box" book

Helped K. dig up a 30+ year old Sago Palm. One down, one to go.

Made Cinnamon Brownies with a Ganache. The brownies came out crumblier than they usually do.

Dinner with the in-laws.

"Bourne Identity" on TV.

Aikido Saturday Afternoon - 1/24/09

Aikidokas: Tim, Kim, Trey, Tom, and Keith.

Ukemi: Normal set of ukemi warmups.

The Walk: Not for me today

Releases: Not for me today

Techniques:

Ju Nana Hon Kata

Worked with Trey and Kim on Kote gaeshi. I probably attacked 150 or 200 times this afternoon. We made great progress on this and both folks were starting to really clue in on the technique.

Owaza Ju Pon

No work on this today

Koryu Dai San No Kata

I ran through the first four of these today. Tweaks were necessary on the first (Oshi taoshi), third (Kote gaeshi) and fourth. I did half decently, though

Aftermath: Sore, sore, sore. And I bet I'll have a bruise on my right hand where tori's thumbs go for Kote gaeshi.

A good afternoon. I was absolutely wrung out at the end.

Aikido Friday Night - 1/23/09

Aikidokas: Tim, Kim, Trey, and Tom.

Ukemi: Normal set.

The Walk: As usual. Twice.

Releases: Once the normal way, and boy was I rusty. Then we did another set taking uke to a corner on the releases. This made us to some thinking to figure out the right approach on some of them.

Techniques:

Ju Nana Hon Kata

Worked with Trey and Kim on Kote gaeshi. Over and over and over. And then over and over and over. We made some progress and got some throws.

Owaza Ju Pon

No work on this today

Koryu Dai San No Kata

No work on this today

Aftermath: Sore everywhere.

Weekend update

Friday: aikido

Saturday:

In to Alvin to pick up repaired generator and lawn mower. While in the area, do a little geocaching. I then called a guy who was supposed to buy some skimmers from me, he was too busy to meet up, unfortunately.

Then off to buy dog food and stop by the old dojo to watch a practice. Unfortunately, no one was there so back on home.

Aikido

Dinner at Durango's and the D&D at Robert's

Sunday:

Fry's for 2 new LCD monitors

Football

Water change in the aquarium. It's amazing how much that helped the corals.

Aikido Saturday Afternoon - 1/17/09

Aikidokas: Tim, Richard, Trey, Tom, David, and Keith.

Ukemi: I spent the ukemi time working with Tom, David and Keith. Making sure they fall safely.

The Walk: As usual. Once with everyone and once with just Richard and Trey.

Techniques:

Ju Nana Hon Kata

Worked with Trey on his techniques

Wakigatamae - Some tweaking on the initial off-balance that makes the technique.

Kote hineri - We did some tweaking on the armbar and gake

Kote gaeshi - We spent a long time on this. This is a version of the technique that we'd hoped would be easier to learn. Maybe it's easy to learn if you already know the old one?

Owaza Ju Pon

No work on this today

Koryu Dai San No Kata

No work on this today

Aftermath: None of note

Aikido Friday Night - 1/16/09

Aikidokas: Tim, Kim, Trey, Tom, and David (a new student).

Ukemi: The usual set. Worked with Kim and Trey to get them some practice throwing warm-up big falls

The Walk: As usual. Spent most of the session with David, helping him learn the walk. Actually spent a good portion of the time messing it up, but I eventually realized it and made corrections.

Techniques:

Ju Nana Hon Kata

No work on this today

Owaza Ju Pon

No work on this today

Koryu Dai San No Kata

Oshi Taoshi - must remember to open and not pivot. Also, get the proper initial off-balance

Gyakugamae Ate - this one's almost second nature

Kote Gaeshi - Get uke off-balance on the compression, allow him to get his knee up.

Aftermath: None of note

In the shop

A while back I purchased the book "Box by Box" by Jim Stack. I started working my way through it this weekend. There have already been some failures and successes, just on the first box.

My first attempt was with some 1/2" cherry I had around the shop. I failed to take into account the thickness of the wood before processing the cut list. I could have salvaged the attempt, but the box would have been smaller and it was going to be barely useful at its given size. So, I trashed it.

I started over with some cedar that was around the shop. I milled that down to 1/4". I modified the design to be much larger, about 5"x8". It'll still barely be useful, but someone might like it.

I made a mistake on this one as well. The piece for the bottom I cut about 1/4" too long. I need to go back to my cut list and see if I calculated the wrong length or cut the wrong length.

I have two more pieces to glue and then it will be time to sand and finish. I think I'm going to go with a simple wax finish.

Weekend update

Friday: aikido

Saturday:

Ran around looking for some new hiking boots that I use as work shoes. No Luck.

MARSH meeting with a presentation on sumps

aikido

dinner at Durango's

Sunday:

Football

Work on a box from the book: "Box by box"

Banana bread for K.

Aikido Saturday Afternoon - 1/10/09

Aikidokas: Tim, Richard, Trey, and Keith ( a new student ).

Ukemi: The usual set. We bought an additional set of mats to lay on top of the base mat. We'll bring these out for use with big falls and kneeling techniques. So, we pulled them out and I took some big falls from Tim.

The Walk: As usual.

Releases: not today.

Techniques:

Owaza Ju Pon

We ran through 1-10 with Trey. I served as uke for right sided and Richard served as uke for left-sided. We spent some time refreshing a couple of them.

Ushiro-ate: we played with a couple of variations on the entry.

Oshi-taoshi: spent some time with the initial off-balance. We played with the differences that Richard and Trey had in dealing with my size.

Waki-gatame: played with the entry and with the need to roll over uke's shoulder to get the lock nicely.

Owaza Ju Pon

No work on this today

Koryu Dai San No Kata

Oshi Taoshi: Must remember to "open up" and not "pivot" after the first off-balance. Must get the right amount of initial off-balance in the proper spot.

Gyakugamae Ate: I'm really starting to enjoy this one. It's just fun.

Kote Gaeshi: Move slowly to the armbar position so you don't rip off uke's arm.

Aftermath: Sore knees. Mainly the muscles around them, from the suwari waza work. A night for ibuprofen.

Aikido Friday Night - 1/9/09

Aikidokas: Tim, Trey, Brad, and Tom.

Ukemi: The usual set. Pulled out another mat and took some big falls from Tim

The Walk: As usual. Did some extra work with Tom on a couple of the moves.

Releases: with Tom. Showed him the final four. He'd seen the video of the releases that we have on our site and had been lost. I hope that actually doing the releases will help to make the video more useful.

Techniques:

Ju Nana Hon Kata

I did some work with Trey on kote-gaeshi. Working on the off-balances, the height of his hands and the positionings thereof to cause the throw. Trying to reduce the wrist crank. He did manage to throw me a couple of times.

Owaza Ju Pon

Ushiro ate: Get the initial off balance. Separate centers at the end.

Kote-gaeshi: Just need more work

Shihonage: Retreat with right foot: fade-away. Don't push too much. That will cause uke to spin into you.

Koryu Dai San No Kata

No work on this today

Aftermath: My back was not too bad, it didn't impact me, really. Considering that it was Wednesday before I could get out of a chair without needing to use my arms to help, that's great.

We had a couple of visitors today. Two guys studying kinesiology at the local junior college. Two new body types for us to deal with. Fun, if the come back and join us.

A trip back in time

My grandfather was a coin collector and a stamp collector. I have no idea what is in the coin collection that I've inherited so, last night, I started looking and organizing. I spent a number of hours going through one bag of loose coins: sorting, listening and smelling.

It brought back memories of Grandpa: being at his house and playing with some of the coins he had in a small, pink plastic piggy bank. I'd go through that piggy bank each time I was at my grandparents' house.

Why?

I don't know. Maybe I liked the smell of the copper pennies. Maybe I liked checking the dates on the various coin. I know I enjoyed it.

Last night's first baby step into the collection brought some of that back. It was interesting to see when the coins ended. The most recent coins were the Bicentennial issues of the quarters and half dollars. They were issued just shortly before he died.

The oldest coin might be an 1890 Indian head penny. I know there's an 1897 penny for certain.

The fun coins are the silver ones. They sound so different than today's clad coins.

The future holds more nights with the coin collection. I hope to find the 2 1909 "S" VDB pennies that it is rumored are in the collection and are pretty valuable. I know I'll find something more valuable: more memories of Grandpa.

Bad Retailer - U.S. Cavalry

I just received a snail mail catalog from a company with whom I've never done business: Natchez Shooters Supplies. My first reaction on receiving a new catalog that I've not requested is to contact the company and see if I can figure out who sold them my name and address.

I did that for this new catalog. They said that U. S. Cavalry was the source of their information. With no mention of that name by me. I actually thought Cabela's might be their source.

My next step was to call U. S. Cavalry and tell them I would no longer be doing business with them because of this incident. The CSR said that someone at NSS was lying as USCav does not sell names. The odds of someone at NSS pulling USCav's name out of a hat and it matching a company with whom I'd just recently started doing business approaches the odds of winning Powerball.

So, I will no longer be doing business with U. S. Cavalry and encourage any readers of this blog to stay away from them as well.

Movie summary for 2008

Here are the movies I saw that came out in 2008 and my ranking of them from best to worst.

Redbelt
Wall-E
The Dark Knight
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Flawless
Kung Fu Panda
Iron Man
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street : 3
Hancock
Wanted
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Jumper
Bedtime Stories
Death Race

At the movies: The Curious Case of Benjamin button

Benjamin Button: 3

Starring Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt in a story about a man who is born old and ages in reverse. Based on a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald that, I've heard, does not measure up to the film.

I enjoyed the film, but I think I got distracted by the Russian storyline. I never really made it back to the main storyline.

At the movies: Bedtime Stories

Bedtime Stories: 3

I don't really like the premise of most Adam Sandler movies, but this one looked fairly safe. And my nieces were in town and wanted to see it, so I went.

It turned out to be fairly innocuous. Nothing special, nothing horrible.

Aikido Friday Night - 1/02/09

Aikidokas: Tim, Greg, and Trey.

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

The Walk: Not tonight

Releases: not tonight.

Techniques:

We played with some knew approaches to learning randori. We don't do much work with randori because we don't have a well-developed way to teach it.

We play with various attacks and flowing with uke and seeing what techniques turned up.

I worked with Greg a bit and did something weird and tweaked my back.

Aftermath: Sore back. I'm out for a bit. Maybe until just next weekend.

Aikido Saturday Afternoon - 12/20/08

I got caught up in the holidays and did not reports this while it was still in my mind.

Aikido Friday Night - 12/19/08

I got caught up in the holidays and did not post in time for me to remember this workout.

Bummer.