Last month Brigid made a post on her blog about feminism that drew a lot of replies.

Last week, we were discussing Abby Sunderland at work, and the general consensus (all except me and one other guy) was that her parents shouldn't have let her try to sail around the world. I then made the comment "You know, if this was a boy doing this, no one ( Read more... )

I rarely talk about politics because it's one of those things that almost everyone thinks they are informed about, but very few are, and of those few it's rare that they completely agree. But I just have to get this off my chest, because I can't for the life me understand how anyone with a normal IQ and who's not Palestinian can get that worked up ( Read more... )

I've been told that when doing extensive long-term training, one should always schedule a cheat day (basically when you rest, indulge a bit in comfort foods, maybe have a beer, etc), because otherwise you'll eventually give up, go crazy, or your body will start falling apart. Memorial Day weekend turned out to be an entire Cheat Weekend, that ( Read more... )

I've been on a training spree lately (okay for about 3 weeks or so). I've started train more at the dojo (3+ days instead of 2), and with the warmer weather I've been able to train more at home, too. I'm going to work hard to keep it up, with the goal of getting in shape to compete in the Baltimore Leitai next year. Leitai is a full-contact kung ( Read more... )

The new job is working out well. The new commute isn't too bad, although I end up going though a tank and a half of gas per week now. Ouch! The people are pretty cool at least. It's nice to work with people that aren't complete bible-thumpers and don't mind cursing once in a while ( Read more... )

Wow, has it been almost 2 months since I've last updated? Commence dumpage:

For the last 2 months or so, I've been under major stress from my job. The company had been floating in the red since last year, and there was progressive rumblings about possible cuts. And sure enough, about 2 weeks ago, I was called into an office with the CEO and the ( Read more... )

I've been finding it hard to update my LJ as I've gotten more and more facebooked. It's far easier to spend 30 seconds writing a status update or a comment, than it is to sit down and write out and fully-fleshed out journal entry ( Read more... )

It's been a while since I've updated. Christmas was wash this year, as Donna, Sage, and I all took turns being violently ill. I got it first and seemed to take the brunt of it: up all night throwing up about every hour. As it was, Christmas didn't really feel like Christmas this year. Donna and Sage are off in North Carolina visiting her folks ( Read more... )

Malcolm Gladwell posits in his book "Outliers" that it takes about ten thousand (10000) hours of practice for you to master something and become great. While Gladwell was speaking mainly about professions and sports, I think it's insightful to think of it in terms of martial arts practice ( Read more... )

Christmas madness is upon me. I don't really understand this obsession you Americans have with hunting down perfectly fine trees, chopping them down, dragging them to your house, leaving them there for 3 weeks, and then tossing them out to be landfilled. But the wife wants one, so whatever. Our new cat has also taken to trying to climb said ( Read more... )