Blog Feed: The Perpetual Beginner

Perfumery and other stuff

Published on 2012-01-31 00:35:00

Actually, let's start with the other stuff, because by golly, I'm proud of this: This is a piece of needlepoint I've been working on for over two years. I finished it this afternoon, and will be taking it to the framer tomorrow. I may even keep it. (I generally give my needlework away as gifts.) The kanji under the butterfly reads "Beautiful" - I will note that doing needlework of a kanji certainly ingrains it to your memory. I may have only a couple dozen kanji memorized, but "beautiful" is def [..] > read more

Welcome to 2012!

Published on 2012-01-19 00:42:00

Wow - has it really been Halloween since I last posted? I need to do better about updating here! It's really easy to get out of the habit, and the next thing you know it's months later and you haven'tput a thing on the blog. Oops!Life has actually been fairly busy over here. Karate continues apace. All three of our white belts have passed their yellow belt tests within the last month, so congratulations to all of them! It's very nice to look at the class and see all that color. Now I just want t [..] > read more

Per Request

Published on 2011-10-31 23:44:00

Robbie as Colonel Roy Mustang. I may be biased, but I think he is rather frighteningly good looking in a uniform.Good looks were obviously not relevant to Aaron's Xenomorph costume. He had literally not an inch of skin showing. Unfortunately, he also couldn't see all that well, since the eye holes are little vertical slits beside the internal mouth. The tail didn't last the evening either, it ripped off its mounting and had to be left home - which was probably just as well, because with the lack [..] > read more

Seminar

Published on 2011-10-30 21:08:00

Sensei and I spent most of Saturday at a pressure point seminar given by Will Higginbotham. This is the second time we've gone (he apparently does one in this area every year around Halloween), and as it was last year, it was really interesting. This year's seminar was a bit more focused than last year's, primarily because we had half-a-dozen police officers attending, and Sensei Higginbotham concentrated heavily on things they would find practical: control grips, come-alongs, ways to safely int [..] > read more

Dare

Published on 2011-10-23 20:27:00

> read more

Blog note

Published on 2011-10-17 09:24:00

Pictures from our home tournament, the Southern Indiana Open can be found here.There's quite a few of them. I think the photographer was on a personal mission to get at least half-a-dozen shots of every competitor there. > read more

New Kata!

Published on 2011-10-16 20:04:00

I'm not going to be able to say that too many more times. It's a little sad, but I'm getting close to the end of the Isshinryu set of kata. As a style we don't have all that many - eight empty hand kata (Seisan, Seiuchin, Naihanchi, Wansu, Chinto, Kusanku, Sunsu, and Sanchin), and six weapons kata (Tokemine no Kun, Urashi Bo, Shishi no Kun no Dai, Kusanku Sai, Chatanyara no Sai, Higa no Tuifa - aka Hamahiga). There are also two unofficial two person katas, bo-bo, and bo-sai. As of right now, I h [..] > read more

About that announcement...

Published on 2011-10-11 15:25:00

(Photo description: close up of my nidan certificate, newly arrived from Okinawa.)I'll also note that it's a nice validation of my growing Japanese skills that I can actually read about 30% of this certificate, including my name, rank, and date of issuance. I haven't been on-line a lot lately, because my computer is having issues. We managed to do a defrag last night, and have been trying to do a full virus check, which is giving us problems for unknown reasons, but we'll get there. At least it' [..] > read more

School's In!

Published on 2011-08-28 20:13:00

Summer's over and the boys are back in school, which means I can go back to having a regularly scheduled life. I'm hoping to get back to updating here regularly. This is Robbie's last year of middle school and Aaron's last of elementary, so next year is going to bring some big changes. This year though, is pretty standard. About the only really new thing is that Robbie has algebra, so is bringing home lots of math homework. Our dojo's annual tournament is upcoming next month. It's an open tour [..] > read more

World has been survived.

Published on 2011-07-01 19:25:00

The World Tournament is over for another two years. It was a wonderful time - I took five mini-seminars, three full seminars (oh my aching legs!), and competed in four divisions. I didn't place in anything (the closest was a 4th in kumite), but Ian, > read more

Judging a Test

Published on 2011-05-15 20:49:00

Saturday was a lot of fun. Sensei Johnson is my Sensei's first black belt, and who runs his own dojo about 90 minutes from here. Saturday he had his first green belt grading, and Sensei and I went down to act as judges and testers. This was my first > read more

Meet the new car, rather different from the old car.

Published on 2011-04-29 22:59:00

Meet the new car! Rob called me Wednesday and announced that he was in love. Since his new love has four wheels, I think I can live with it.For the curious who aren't sufficiently car buffs to ID this on sight, this is a 1989 Porsche 944. The body is > read more

Cars and Japanese

Published on 2011-04-26 08:48:00

Rob's bonus came in. For the first time in his working history, this does not mean "Woot! Let's take the family out for pizza and blow it all!", but actually involves a noticeable amount of money. He's hoping to replace his current car with a nicer, > read more

Various and Sundry

Published on 2011-04-13 22:31:00

No karate tomorrow, as the Jazzercise people are taping for TV - something they do every couple of months. The weather is pretty, so I'm going to try to break out the weaponry and do some kata practice in the front yard. Also, a morning run would be > read more

Gearing Up

Published on 2011-04-12 00:58:00

Wow. I can't believe it's been four months since I wrote in here. I have been doing some blogging, but it's all been over at sparkpeople.com. I need to get back to writing here.It's just barely over two months until the IWKA (Isshinryu World Karate A > read more

In Short

Published on 2010-12-08 17:03:00

From John Scalzi - accurate but misleading synopses of various Fantasy Movies. A surprising number of which can be summarized as "young girl meets older man with skin condition. Complications ensue." > read more

Creepy Crawlies!

Published on 2010-11-14 21:13:00

We have acquired a new pet.Meet Ao!She arrived about three weeks ago (so she's hardly news to some of you), but I thought I should bring it up here.Ao is a Northern blue-tongue skink. She's about 18" long, extremely omnivorous, and pretty friendly as > read more

Tournament Photos!

Published on 2010-10-10 16:35:00

I won't try to post them here - there are a lot! - but we have the photos from the Southern Indiana Open Tournament - they can be found here. Just click on the link to be taken to the whole set. > read more

I Like Taxes

Published on 2010-10-04 21:24:00

Why do I like taxes? Because with them I help buy civilization.So we don't have this. Or this. Or this.Does no one remember how London happened to burn down - while private fire companies fought in the street? > read more

That Went Well

Published on 2010-09-18 22:52:00

And out the other side of the first Southern Indiana Open Karate Tournament. It went really well, and people seemed to have a lot of fun. We had good participation - I counted 36 kyu ranks and more than 20 black belts at bow in. The rings all ran smo > read more

One Week and Counting

Published on 2010-09-11 14:33:00

Next Saturday is our dojo's first tournament. We have 19 competitors pre-registered (not counting our own students), and the estimate is for 30-40 total on the day. I probably won't be competing, but will be using the tournament for my first attempt > read more

Awesome. Axis of Awesome.

Published on 2010-09-04 18:01:00

Everything you ever needed to know about hit pop songs. > read more

Southern Indiana Open Karate Tournament

Published on 2010-08-24 22:06:00

My dojo is hosting its first ever karate tournament! As the name implies, it's open to any style, though the majority of competitors will likely be Isshinryu. We just started getting our very first pre-registrations, and it's beginning to feel real. > read more

On Breathing (#3)

Published on 2010-08-16 15:51:00

If you've read my first two posts on breathing, you've probably noticed something missing in the connection between martial arts and proper breathing. Relaxation gets mentioned repeatedly - yet total relaxation is not exactly helpful in the martial a > read more

Updatery

Published on 2010-08-08 20:30:00

Woof - that turned out to be a much longer hiatus than I intended! Since the last time I posted here we've finished redoing the family room, spent a couple of weeks in the vicinity of Boston, done a mad cleaning of the house top-to-bottom, for a visi > read more