Spanning the globe...

Greetings, carbon units, A.I. here with a scatter-gun update to fill in the sizeable gaps in my blogging career (aka life.)

Left guard stance, with a kia. Move!
When we last spoke, I was a mere yellow belt in Combative Freestyle Martial Arts, the form of self-defense I practice. That was a long time ago... and now I am a 4th degree Green Belt and probably another year and a half to two years from attaining my black belt. In fact, I just got the 4th stripe on my green belt tonight! So I'm very excited about that. I have ample opportunity to help train the other students and I can really feel the progression in my skills. This is a story we'll continue to track!

Is it supposed to be scalding hot?
Without going into the supremely gory details, I spent a fair bit of the first part of this year sick. In fact, I even got to spend about 6 days in the hospital between the end of January and the start of February with an ailment known as cellulitis. I developed a strep infection below the surface of my right shin which resulted in a baseball sized cyst that had to be surgically removed. It was a surreal looking thing and even though I felt basically fine, it was blistering hot to the touch. Guess it makes sense considering the microbial holocaust that was taking place in there. I got to take bags and bags of intravenous antibiotics while in the hospital! Oh what fun! Suffice it to say, I am much better now and have a cool scar. Chicks dig scars, right? Yeah....

On the political front:
I am officially announcing my opposition to the candidacy of Senator Hilary Clinton for President. I was never fond of the Clinton clan when they were in the White House the first time, but after seeing Sen. Clinton on Good Morning America earlier this week, I don't see how anyone could trust her to run to Starbucks to pick up coffee much less run the most powerful nation in the free world. I'm not 100% up to date on the specifics, but one of her campaign staff members made some accusatory remarks about Obama and past drug use. The ensuing furor resulted in this person's stepping down from the position they had. On GMA I sat in stupefied silence as a very simple question was asked and an utterly pointless, convoluted, and ultimately dishonest answer was given. But I'll let Hilary speak for herself. I long for the day, when some politician somewhere will just give a straight answer on something, no matter what the question is.

 

And now for something completely different...
I enjoy watching mixed martial arts fighting, or at least I did until I saw this next clip. Shades of Joe Theisman here but worse. Yikes.

***WARNING*** This is not pretty. Its not gory, but definitely not the feel-good YouTube clip of the week.

 

Adios for now!
So now that I've gotten all that out of my system, I can get back to blogging about regular pointless stuff in the near future. Stay tuned!

You better watch out...

A.I. is coming to town.

So stay glued to your RSS Readers and hold on to your butts. Its too late to get into the details right now, but I'll be back in two shakes.

No, really... I will...

Stuck in a moment you can't get out of...

That's the way it seems sometimes... to me, anyway. I know there's probably not as many of you out there as their used to be, keeping up with the fretful adventures of the artificially intelligent, but to the faithful, I humbly thank you. You inspire me.

Its been hard to find a muse lately. I guess I've gotten sucked into the workaday world without a lot of consideration of the deeper significance of what goes on around me. Time is marching on, more and more quickly I find and I wonder if, when its all said and done, anyone will be able to look back on the collective memory of my existence and find the crowning achievement; the moment of fulfilled destiny when the stars aligned and I was the right man, in the right place, at the right time. I guess I have a hero complex, but whether its to my benefit or detriment is yet to be seen. I've always wanted to save someone. I've always wanted to be the guy that helps his friends more than anyone else. But is that what it takes to achieve your destiny?

Must you have a Hollywood moment, when you stand on the hill, and stare into the sunset and know that its up to you to save the world? Or is one tiny bit of positive influence on even just one other person enough to make it all worth while? I guess that's up to each of us to decide, and for history to judge.

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Now before you all start forming intervention groups to keep me from doing myself in, let me reassure you that I've not gone off the deep end! I think I just needed to think introspectively for a moment and I wanted to share it with you. I hope it stimulates a thought or two in your own mind.

Funny though it may seem, I'd have to say this deep thought was brought on by a relatively simple thing: a true feeling of accomplishment. Its something that I haven't genuinely felt in quite some time, but with the events of yesterday, it all came back to me in a splendid rush.

I believe I mentioned in my last substantive post that for the past few months I've been taking karate. And, as I previously eluded to, last night, I earned my yellow belt. I cannot begin to stress to you how mundane of a thing this really is, but its been the impetus of major change in my attitude of late.

The karate school I attend usually does testing once a month, and it will usually only be every 3 months or so that anyone is due to actually rise a belt color in rank. So it was last night, and the style of testing was more rigorous than what I had seen before. A cursory glance at my profile pic will tell you everything you need to know about my physical fitness and stamina, so the fact that I'm even out there and kicking, throwing and falling is really quite something. I bet its a hell of a sight too. LOL :-)

I've never been very motivated when it came to getting up and working out and trying to stay in shape, but karate has been a very different experience for me in that regard. Going with friends, and having an excellent motivator for an instructor has put me down the path to doing things that I never thought I would be able to do in a million years.

But back to the testing. For last night's test, we had to demonstrate that we'd learned the new techniques taught to us that month, but more importantly, we had to spar (in full protective gear) with the instructor. I had the benefit of going first so that I could be done with it. In truth, I was merely the instructor's (who is a 4th degree black belt) warmup for the other people in class he was going to spar with. We did one, two-minute round of sparring, and may I just say that it was the longest two minutes I've been through in quite some time. Before we began he promised not to hurt me or throw me to the ground, and he was true to his word. Not surprisingly though, he still bested me in virtually every way. In the most dramatic display of our bout, he demonstrated amazing control while teaching me a valuable lesson.

At about 1m:30s into the match, I was really starting to get tired and I was letting my guard down. I tried to land a kick to his chest but he threw it off with ease and like lightning he recoiled and, though he is shorter than me, delivered a high kick to my head. He chambered and unloaded the kick at full speed and literally stopped within an inch of my unguarded face and held it there for a few seconds. Shocked, I sprang back and couldn't help but stop for a nervous laugh. He reminded me to keep my guard up at all times. Had this been any sort of real altercation, I would have, at that point, been well on my way to La-La land, and probably minus a few teeth.

Lesson learned.

In the end though, when he presented me with my new yellow belt and congratulated me on all the things that I've done these past few months, I couldn't help but swell inside just a bit. When one begins to explore new challenges (especially ones that would've repulsed me a mere few weeks ago) and you succeed... well, it certainly does embolden the spirit. Perhaps the leopard need not be spotted his whole life?

It will undoubtedly be several months before I'm ready to test for my next belt, orange. Until then, I'll try to keep coming back and filling you in on the latest from my adventures in the martial arts and everything in between

Until then, try to keep it intelligent.

And to my friends near and far, much love...

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas to everyone from me to you.

Best wishes for a safe and happy holiday!

The Ghost of Blogging Past

Season's greetings, everyone! I'm glad to see there's still a few people out there checking up on my well being. I must confess that I've been sadly devoid of a muse for the past few months. I need to rethink what I'm trying to do here so that I have a consistent stream of quality content to offer up. I guess I can make that one my New Year's resolutions. :-)

Oy!

I can't believe that its already Christmas! This year went by like a blur, but it did see a few interesting changes:

1. I got a new job. Score! I no longer work for the evil insurance company. I now work for the evil auto finance company. :-) I mean let's face it. Most companies are evil. Am I wrong? However, this place is a mere 10 minutes from my house. Oh Lord.... words cannot convey what a wonderful thing that is. For the past 5 years I've spent two hours in the car every day (round-trip) and to shave that down to less than 30 minutes a day is amazing. I've got this huge chunk of my day back to fill with... uh... well... whatever I want! *Mental note: Get a hobby. Oh and its more money too, so double score.
   
2. I started taking karate. Some friends of mine finally talked me into coming to karate class with them a few months ago. I have to say... it is so much more fun that I thought it was going to be. The classes are small, so there's a lot of personal attention. Also, there's no focus on form or procedure. Its really just self defense. We learn a technique and then have to defend against an attack. If we use the technique, that's fine, but what really matters is avoiding the attack. Use a defense that you're comfortable with. Its very liberating... much more so I think than have to stick to a specific form, and being expected to master every detail of it to advance. This time next month, I should have my yellow belt. Yeah that's right... I've got skills. Sweet!
   
3. Uh... ok I guess it was just two things.

Anyway, I hope everyone out there has their Christmas shopping done, or something close to it. Like every year, I did almost all of my shopping online at Amazon.com and I have to say... I think Amazon is getting too ambitious. For the first time, I may not get all of my gifts in time, even though they were ordered on December 12th. I'll have to put this rant into a separate post. Oh, and I'll also have to have a post about my first, only, and hopefully last foray into "Day-After Thanksgiving" shopping. Having tried it, it is now painfully obvious to me that we, as a society, are doomed.

:-)

So on that cheery note, I'll say adieu for now, but look for more to come!