Aikidoka: Tim, Trey, Troy
The Walk: Twice
Releases: Troy did the left side with me and right side with Trey. It's good practice to work with varying sizes, especially with a constant change.
Techniques:
Troy got to work on 1-5 with both of us, figuring out the differences in initial off-balances and the various timings. Good work.
Aftermath: None of note.
Aikidokas: Tim, Trey
Trey and I worked on the kneeling portion of Koryu Dai San no Kata all evening. I made it through all of the techniques. Trey made it through the first four. That means I took my first Kote Gaeshi that started from a kneeling position. We'd all been a bit apprehensive about how that would work with my height, but it happened quickly and easily.
Aftermath:
Knees were sore on Saturday and are still a bit worn today
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I spent last weekend in Austin, running the art show for Armadillocon 32. I think this is the 6th or 7th year in a row that I've been in charge. If the sales are any indication of the state of the economy, we're coming out of the doldrums. We had 37 artists, one did not show up after requesting space.
It ended up being a nice layout, and a number of folks were heard to comment on the quality of the art. I think we did a good selection of art this year.
Thursday:
Up bright and early (5:30 a.m.) to do final packing and hit the road. I made it Granger around 9:30 a.m. and picked up my order of kolaches and 6 links of sausage from the store in town. Then it was on to Austin. I stopped at Central Market for my weekend supply of root beer and then made my way to the hotel to do a partial unload.
I then drove down Lamar to Aikido of Austin where I dressed out and joined them on the mat for a workout session. It's amazing. They had about 12 to 14 people on the mat for a lunch time session. (We struggle to get 3 folks for an evening session. Admittedly, it's a Friday evening session, so that probably has something to do with it.) I had a good time and it was interesting seeing how another branch of the aikido family works.
From aikido, it was back to the hotel to finishing unload the truck. After that, I had a couple of hours of free time until the pre-con dinner. So, I went down to the pool, caught some rays and did some swimming.
The pre-con dinner was at a nearby Mexican restaurant, more inner than Tex-Mex. Pretty good stuff.
After dinner, it was time to assemble the art show. It took us about 2 hours to build the show. I then hung around with Diesel LaForce while he hang a small portion of his collection of art from his days as a TSR artists. It was amazing! While he was hanging art, I was laying out the show yet again. I think I did that about 4 times before I was finally happy. I also distributed the boxes of mail-in art to be at the spots where they would get hung in the morning. I got to bed around midnight, I think.
Friday:
Up bright and early for breakfast in the hotel and then off to the art show to start hanging art. Tomi Welch provided a priceless amount of help in helping me hang the art. We were ready to go by about noon, and folks started coming in around then.
We were open until around 7 p.m., when the Dealer's room closed. Due to the layout of stuff this year, the Art Show had to close when the Dealer's room did. Not ideal, but it did mean I got some rest this weekend. Dinner was at North by Northwest, a brew pub nearby. It was pretty good.
Saturday:
Up bright and early for breakfast in the hotel and then off to the art show. The day pretty much flew by all the way through the auction. We had 13 pieces go to auction where Cat Conrad and Rhonda Eudaly did a fabulous job getting folks to bid. We did a total of $4900 sales in the art show for the weekend.
Dinner was in the hotel restaurant due to time constraints. I had a conversation with the waiter recommending changes in their Creme Brulee. The dish it was made in was large and flat which made the large of amount of caramelized sugar overpower the flavor of the custard. I recommended they change the dish to be taller.
Sunday
Up bright and early for breakfast in the hotel and then off to the art show. If Saturday flew by, Sunday was exceeding speed limits. the next thing I knew, the art show was torn down and all of the artists were checked out. We unloaded the art show supplies at the storage unit and headed off to the post-con dinner at County Ljne Bar-B-Q. It's ok stuff, not great.
Back at the hotel, I had to do final paperwork and packing of the mail-in art for mail-out on Monday. Laura Domitz and Jimmy Simpson did a fantastic job of packing up the art for me.
I hit the Dead Dog party for a bit, and then went to bed.
Monday:
Up early, without breakfast, to pack the truck and to try to hit UPS, USPS and FedEx when they opened so I could mail out all of the packages. I think I managed to get on the road by 9:30 a.m. I made it home by about 12:30 p.m.
Next year, I do it all over again.
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The next scheduled featured shop is Jewelry by Andrea. She says: "Selling jewelry isn't just a financial transaction for me as each piece I make has meaning and each sale is a compliment."
She's got some really nice, substantial jewelry.
Friday:
Aikido
Saturday
8 mile bike ride
Blueberry muffins
Aikido
Dinner with aikido folks at Golden Island Buffet
Sunday
Mowing
Afternoon and dinner with Val, et al at her place
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Aikidokas: Tim, Mike, Carla, Craig, Jeff, Gail, Larry, Trey, Thor, Troy, Brad
Ukemi: A light warm-up.
Today was a mini-seminar on the last half of the Weapons sections of Koryu Dai San no Kata. We covered offensive Jo and double-bokken. I learned a bunch. I was also taken to task quite a bit for what we call my "monster-face" and my stance when working with the weapons.
Mike, Larry, and Craig were the main instructors for the seminar.
My monster-face is a manifestation of tension. I, usually, occurs when I'm not extremely comfortable with something. Not to say that I'm tension-free when I am comfortable with something, however. I was often told to just let go and do. Don't worry or flinch. Hah! Well, it's something to strive for.
I just had an possible insight. I wonder if the flinching during the techniques has to do with my height? At 6'5" I have to duck under a lot of things. I wonder if seeing the bokken come toward me causes me to want to duck under it?
I think I enjoyed the last technique of the double-bokken the most. It was the most complex, but it really engaged my mind. Here's the sequence: Uke strikes at knee, jabs at right shoulder, jabs at left shoulder, overhead strike, overhead strike.
I have the most trouble with the counter to the left shoulder jab as tori. The tip of my bokken did not want to make a small circle and end up on the inside of uke's bokken. I always ended up in a block with the grip up high and the tip pointing down. I'm going to have to work on that.
Aftermath: Tired. Was standing, learning, and filming for 4 hours. My legs were beat.
Aikidokas: Tim, Trey, Troy, and Dan.
Ukemi: I got a partial warm-up set in, no big falls. I spent quite a bit of time watching Dan. I think he made a big leap in ability this evening. I'm not sure what caused it, but I hope he's able to keep it up so we can move from the crash pad to the regular mats soon.
The Walk: Twice.
Releases: Worked with Dan. We spent quite a bit of time on them.
Techniques:
I worked with Dan on Shomen-ate for about 30 minutes. I think he made some great progress.
He started out intercepting my attack and redirecting it upwards and ending up in my playground. I tried a number of things to eliminate that problem and finally found one that worked. I had him take me off-balance with just his fingertips. It took a few reps, but he was able to do it. I then had him take me off balance with just the fingertips of his pinky and the neighboring finger. He was able to do that. I then had him take my balance with just the outer edge of his pinky and hand. He was able to do that.
An interesting side effect of the attention paid to the off-balance was that his feet ended up in a really strong position. I'm not certain how it happened, and I'm not going to question it.
Aftermath: None of note.
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Yes, a Thursday night session. We're able to get some time on the mat from 8:30 - 9:30 on Thursdays, so we'll see how it goes. This is being used as an opportunity to get the higher belts some time to learn instead of instruct. So, Trey and I are going to be working on our next requirements.
Aikidoka: Tim, Trey, and Troy. Troy's there as an uke who can take a fall.
Techniques:
The first have of class was spent on Koryu Dai Yon no Kata. I worked on the first three techniques. They are the first three releases taken to technique status.
Then Trey got to work on some of Owaza Ju Pon: Aikinage, Ushiro Kube Gatame and Shihonage.
Aftermath: None. This will be a nice addition to the schedule if we can keep it up.
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Friday
Aikido
Had to do some work for the daytime job
Saturday
Blueberry pancakes
Had to do some work for the daytime job
Worjk on Armadillocon Art Show
Aikido (really tweaked a little toe)
Dinner with K and K at Durango's
1/2 price books
Sunday
Had to do some work for the daytime job
Down to Galveston for lunch with K at Star Drug Store
Wandered around the Strand
Started and finished Jack Campbell's "Lost Fleet: Victorious"
Grilled out steaks
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Aikidokas: Tim, Trey, Troy, and Dan.
Ukemi: No warm-up today. I was watching over Dan and did not get on the mat early enough to get the sweeping and my warm-up done.
The Walk: Twice.
Releases: Worked with Dan. Some tweaking on the releases with Dan.
Techniques:
Dan and I did some work on shomen-ate. We spent a lot of time on footwork and made some progress.
After that, I spent some time as uke for Troy on shomen-ate. We had some footwork issues there, as well. Once he got them straightened out, he started nailing me with the technique fairly consistently.
Aftermath: One of my little toes really hurts today. It curled under my foot as I was moving across the mat, so I may have sprained it. We may start working out for an hour on Thursday nights sometime soon.
Aikidokas: Tim, Trey, Sal, and Troy.
Ukemi: I got a full warm-up set in, no big falls.
The Walk: Twice.
Releases: Worked with Troy. I was a bit off on my releases tonight for some reason. Troy did well.
Techniques:
Trey and I did quite a bit of work Waki-gatame. Tim wanted us to play with the technique and see if we could work on the mawashi form of it. I think we managed to come up with something that incorporates the mawashi and the arm bar and will be used for kata demonstrations.
We then spent some time with Troy working on Ushiro-ate and the various entries and off-balances that you can play with for the technique.
Aftermath: None of note.
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ArtFire has just introduced collections. These allow a member to pick a group of itmes they like and publish them as a group. I just created my first one (and managed to not correct the typo in the title). All of the items in it are from my shop. I wanted to try it out with things I knew to begin with:
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I spent the weekend in Raleigh, N.C. attending NASFiC. The con was much smaller than I expected and there was a lot of room to rattle around in, so it may have felt smaller than it actually was.
Thursday
Up at o dark 30 to catch a flight. I arrived around 12:30 local time and caught the city bus into town. Cost $2 Cost of a Super Shuttle: about $20. Worth the savings.
Checked into the hotel, dropped the stuff in the room and went to registration for the con. Went to the Art Show to help hang art. They generally had more folks than they needed most of the weekend.
Dinner was at Patty Greene's: a restaurant and brew pub. I really enjoyed the beers I tried: a Dark Scottish Ale and a Hefe Weisen (sp?).
The walk back to the hotel was an adventure because it was pouring down rain. I walked about 2 miles in the rain, getting partially lost during the trip
Friday
Up at a decent hour to get breakfast at Sam and Wally's nearby. Just ok grub.
Back to the hotel to do some work, and then to the convention center to sit at either the Texas in 2013 bid table, or at the Art Show. Also helped the London in 2014 bid set up their party for the evening.
Dinner was at the Mellow Mushroom, a pizza joint about 2 miles from the hotel. The place was hopping!! I think there were more people in the pizza joint than at the entire convention.
An uneventful walk back to the hotel. I then visited the Texas and London parties before retiring to read.
Saturday
Up and out to breakfast at "The Diner" Good stuff.
Back to the convention center to sit behind my usual two tables. We closed up around 5 pm to go to the "Fannish Inquisition" panel on upcoming Worldcon bids.
Dinner was at Napper Tandy's Irish pub. They had a pretty good shepherd's pie.
Back to the hotel to drop by the London party and the back to the room to read.
Sunday
Breakfast at "The Diner" again. Back to the convention center to sit behind my usual two tables. Then I helped tear down the Art Show. More reading, dinner and then the Dead Dog Party.
Monday
Lazy morning, as my flight wasn't until early afternoon. Caught the city bus into the airport and then flew home.
The next scheduled featured shop is Jewelry by Andrea. She says: "While making jewelry is a relatively new avenue of artistic expression for me, my passion is singing and gardening."
She's got some really nice, substantial jewelry.
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The next scheduled featured shop is Haunted Willow. she may get another week as featured very soon, as the schedule is in flux. She says : "I will craft until the day I die and before that, passing what I learned onto my children. "
She's got a variety of handcrafted decorations as well as soaps and lotions available.
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Aikidokas: Tim, Trey, Brad and Dan.
Ukemi: I got full warm-up set in, no big falls. I watched over Dan some. I think we may have had some light bulbs go off on his right side rolls. We'll have to see what the next time brings.
The Walk: Twice.
Releases: None.
Techniques:
I worked with Brad on Hiki-taoshi and Ude-hineri. He's doing really well on Hiki-taoshi. He's having trouble with the arm bar for the finish. That's not surprising. It's only the second one in the curriculum and it's not an easy one.
Ude-hineri was good for the first time looking at it. I tried to let him feel the motion of uke rocking back and forth, let him see what his happening with my feet and what he should be looking for.
Trey and I then worked on 1, 2, 3, and 4 of standing Koryu Dai San no Kata. He did pretty well. He had them 80-90% nailed by the end of the afternoon.
Aftermath: None of note. Just tired.
Aikidokas: Tim, Trey Brad, Sal and Dan.
Ukemi: I got full warm-up set in, no big falls. The bike bruise did quite a bit of healing over the past week.
The Walk: Twice.
Releases: Worked with Dan. We spent a bit of time on this. At one point we did some work on how to move in aikido: with the ball and big toe of the foot always in contact with the floor, the heel should not be a stake in the ground.
Techniques:
Trey and I did quite a bit of work on aikinage and ushiro kube gatame. These techniques have uke going around in circles. We did quite a bit of work on them, so I went in quite a number of circles. I was a bit dizzy at the end of the evening. Also, ushiro kube gatame is a choke technique, so the dizziness was exacerbated by a few well executed chokes.
Aftermath: A headache from the circling and chokes.
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This week's featured shop is Jewelz_Creatives. She's got a great selection of handmade catnip toys for your favorite addict.
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What I had:
Fried Combination platter (Shrimp and fish). Iced Tea.
What it cost:
$13
Reactions
The fried fish and shrimp were pretty good. A nice light batter on the fish, and a good crunchy one on the shrimp. The fries tasted frozen and weren't that great. The cole slaw was interesting. It had a bit of fruity flavor along with the cabbage. The bread, served as a whole round on the side, was just okay.
Overall, this is worth going back to.
Friday
Aikido
Saturday
Bike ride 5.7 mi with K. We encountered several groups of bike riders along our route. All of them going in the opposite direction.
Blueberry muffins
Aikido
Durango's
D&D
Sunday
Banana's Foster French Toast: failed at the recipe. Used a mixer instead of a fork to combine some ingredients and it came out as too much of a liquid. Discovered our rum no longer has any alcohol in it: it wouldn't flambe.
Mowed and edge my part of the lawn. My eyes have developed a reaction to the dust of grass, I think.
In the shop to turn some pens. Managed 3 successes out of 6 tries. 3 blowouts on attempts at El Grande styles of pens. One blowout each in : Figured Mesquite, Box Elder Burl and Amboyna Burl.
Pizza for dinner
Tried to rest my eyes. Went to sleep with a cool compress over them.
Aikidokas: Tim, Brad, Troy, Dan, and Brent.
Ukemi: I got a partial warm-up set in. The bike bruise is still making its presence felt. I mainly help Brent work on his rolls. He had some moments of discovery, but I'm still struggling with how to help him roll better.
The Walk: Twice.
Releases: Worked with Dan and Brent. I'd tori for both of them, then uke for both of them and then have them uke for each other. We got through the 4th release.
Techniques:
I had both Dan and Brent run through the punch the dummy drill for a little bit. Dan did ok. Brent still needs a little more intent.
The three of us did a little sideline learning as Troy was working on Ushiro-ate. He did fairly well. Then I jumped in and uked for him. On one repitition, he did not deflect me quite enough and my palm glanced off the top of his forehead. Thet's the first time, that I can recall, that I've hit someone with an attach on Ushiro. I'm glad he deflected my hand partially, or he would have had a bloody nose.
Aftermath: None of note.
Aikidokas: Tim, Troy and Dan.
Ukemi: I got full warm-up set in, no big falls. The bike bruise is still making its presence felt.
The Walk: Twice.
Releases: Worked with Dan.
Techniques:
Troy went through 1-5, right-sided. Working with someone my size threw him off a bit. He did manage to adjust for most of the techniques. We need to get him some work on left-sided in order to get ready for his belt demonstration.
Aftermath: None of note.
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Friday
Aikido
Saturday
Blueberry muffins
Bike ride with K.
Aborted aikido class - no students
Grilled out dinner with the in-laws
Took the aquarium, sand and light hood over to KF's
Stopped by Durango's for snacks and drinks
Saw Sorcerer's Apprentice in the theatre
Sunday
French Toast for breakfast
Long nap
Mowed the lawn
Did some pen turning
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A nice collection of jewelry: bracelets, earrings, and necklaces. She's also got bookmarks and keychains.
I've eaten lunch at Alpine twice over the past two weeks. They've been open about 10 days at this point.
This first week I had the weinerschnitzel, and it's just like I remember from the last time they were open, about 2 years ago.
This past Friday, K. joined me for lunch. She had the Hungarian Goulash and I had the Bratwurst. K said the Goulash was a little different from what it used to be, but enjoyed it. The Bratwurst was good, as were the red cabbage, sauerkraut and potato salad.
We got out of there for about $20 without tip.
We'll be going back.
I ate out at the Egg and I on Bay Area a couple of weeks ago for lunch. I had a French Toast platter with bacon, eggs and hash browns. The French toast seemed like it might have been actually prepared on site. Everything else was pretty good. I think I managed to get out of there for less than $10.
The decor was an attempt at country charm, but ended up being pretty sterile.
I think I'd end up going to Jimmy's Egg instead of here, just because of the distance to get to esach one. However, when our offices move, I'd probably end up going to the Egg and I as it will be closer.
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Aikidokas: Tim, Trey, Brad, Sal, and Troy. Tim was kind of on the sidelines watching, sometimes on the mat instructing.
Ukemi: I got full warm-up set in, no big falls. The bike bruise is noticeable if I'm just a little off.
The Walk: Twice.
Releases: Worked with Troy and Sal.
Techniques:
I worked with Brad. We spent the night on right-sided Hiki taoshi. Started out with just the first off-balance and ended with the complete technique including the arm bar. It went pretty well. Next up is the left side for this technique and then Ude hineri. I think that might be a bit of a challenge.
Trey wanted me to uke, at the end of class, for some Waki gatame variants.
Aftermath: The bike bruise got a little aggravated. And I had a splitting headache at the end of class.
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We've had a couple of sympathy inducing incidents with the boys over the past couple of days.
One
Tuesday night, Ella (our newest kitten) was lying on the floor of the family room, situated such that she was within threatening distance of any trying to leave the room to go elsewhere. Tank wanted to leave the room to go to the front of the house to wait for K. to come home from work. I spotted him, after a little bit, near Ella but out of reach. He didn't move, and he looked at me when I got up, so I went over and stood next to Ella so that she would have to go through me to swipe at Tank when he walked by. Tank quickly walked by me, out of the room, and into the front of the house.
Two
Yesterday, I got home from work and discovered Tank trapped in the closet of our bedroom. I, at first, thought that K. had accidentally left him in there. We discussed it later in the day and realized that we'd lost power in the house sometime during the day. Losing power sets off the beeper on the UPS on my computer.
Tank hates/is frightened by beepers.
We think the power went off, he scurried into the closet in order to get away from the horrible beeping noise, barely squeezing through the gap in the door (it's a pocket door so it doesn't swing open when pushed). Then, after the beeping had stopped, he was not panicked enough to attempt to squeeze his way out again.
Three
Jack is frightened by remote controls. When we're sitting down watching TV, he makes certain that there are no remotes nearby when he comes and sits next to you. He'll get up and walk to you, but he won't curl up until you've moved the remote.
Last night, he was sitting on the couch with the remote a reasonable distance away. Somehow the cover we have on the couch moved and disturbed the position of the remote. It slowly slid down the arm of the couch, getting far too close for Jack's comfort. He promptly stood up, did a 360 spin and did a giant leap to the back of the couch. He stood there, staring at the remote until we came and rescued him.
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Yes, it's a long way from December. However, it will be upon us before we know it. Artfire, the handmade craft site of which I am a member, is encouragin everyone to think about it now, so you won't be rushed later on.
There are a number of shop that are having sales, special deals, etc. for the next two weeks. My shop is having a 15% off sale when you use the coupon JICODT at checkout.
To see all of the items involved in this event, click here. Here are a couple of items featured during Twelve Days of Christmas in July:
This week's featured shop on Artfire is Spiral. She does some really nice wound jewelry.
Friday
Aikido
Saturday
Blueberry muffins
Worked on the bike: made a rail for the back on which to place 3 taillights for visibility
Took a bike ride with helmet, shoes, light rail, etc. I had my first wreck on the bike. I was coming to a stop sign and could not get my feet out of the pedals. With no momentum and no way to place my feet down, I fell over. I landed firmly on my butt. Luckily, nothing else was damaged. I think the handle bar got a little scratch, but that's it. It did take me a few minutes to get back up on the bike again.
Aikido
Dinner at Durango's
D&D Well, we were supposed to, but the quorum vanished, so we didn't play
Sunday
Up at 5:30 am to go blueberry picking. We managed 22 lbs in about 1.5 hours. Then up to Conroe to get peaches.
Nap
Worked on preparing blanks for turning them into pens.
Grilled out T-Bones for dinner.
Started reading Julie & Julia.
Aikidokas: Tim, Trey, Brad, and Troy. We also had a visitor watching for a bit of the session.
Ukemi: I got to do a full warm-up, as none of the folks needing constant supervision were on the mat this afternoon.
The Walk: Twice.
Releases: Worked with Brad
Techniques:
I worked with Brad on: Oshi-taoshi, Ude-gaeshi, and Hiki-taoshi. He did really well on #6 and #7. We spent some time working on the footwork on #7 to be able to keep up with me as I'm falling. We want to make certain that tori keeps up with the falling uke and maintains his balance in the process. A failure on either of those two aspects could mean an issue with uke's arm.
We worked on the entry for #8. It's the first outside butterfly in Ju Nana. Actually, the first *any* butterfly in Ju Nana. And it takes a bit of getting used to.
Aftermath: As a result of my fall off my bike earlier in the day, my butt was sore. It made taking back falls an experience in pain.
Aikidokas: Tim, Sal, Troy and Dan. Tim was kind of on the sidelines watching, sometimes on the mat instructing..
Ukemi: I spent a bunch of time with Dan on his rolls. I got a light bit of ukemi warm-up in.
The Walk: Twice.
Releases: Worked with Dan while Tim worked with Troy and Sal.
Techniques:
I worked with Dan. First with the Strike-the-Dummy drill and then exploring the entry for Shomen-ate.
Aftermath: None of note.
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A couple of weeks ago, I bit the bullet and paid for booth space for a craft fair this past weekend. The site of the fair was Friendswood's 4th of July celebration, but on the 5th of July, as the 4th was a Sunday. I chose this event because it was very close to home, reasonably priced, and I had decent hopes of a crowd that would have some spending cash.
It was supposed to be in the park, under trees and away from cement. However, massive rains flooded the park. They had to play it safe in the event that it did not dry in time and moved it to a nearby parking lot.
I borrowed a pop-up shelter from work to use to keep us out of the sun's rays and packed it in the truck for set-up.
We got up at 5:45 Monday morning, grabbed breakfast, and got the last few items packed into the truck. We made it to the site around 7:30 after a short 2 mile drive. We were early compared to most vendors, and I expected we would be, but it made for a leisurely set up. We were able to get our area set up and then help a number of other vendors get their shelters set up as well.
Crowds were sparse until after the parade ended, around 10:45. Actually, crowds were sparse all day. We had two sales, before noon, and that's it.
The heat really picked up around 1 pm and K and I partially dozed during parts of the afternoon because of it. We were under the shade of the shelter all day, but I still managed to pick up a decent sunburn. No pain, and it's pretty much faded into tan already, but it was still amazing.
The band shut down around 3 pm, and then vendors did not wait much longer. No one else was still around.
We got everything packed up in about 20 minutes, helped a couple of folks take down their shelters and then headed home. A quick, cool shower revived me a little.
We might do this again next year, since the fireworks and parade will be on the same day, and that will get more folks out to check out the vendors, I hope.
We did not make back the cost of the booth, but a number of folks took business cards. I hope they take a look at my artfire site and decide there's something without which they can not survive.
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Friday
No aikido due to rain
Dinner with K, K, and A at Moreno's
Watched "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang"
Saturday
Installed bags on bike
Drained water from sump
Gave away live rock from tank
No aikido because of 4th of July weekend
In the shop to turn for a bit
In-laws grilled out Played cards with the in-laws
Sunday
Drained water from tank
Lunch with family at T-Bone Tom's
Baked Peach Pies
In-laws grilled out
Monday
Up too early to see up the the Friendswood 4th of July craft fair
Hours and hours in the heat not selling much
In-laws grilled out
Re-watched "Wanted"
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