We do not remember days, we remember moments.

I read to day that Jack LaLanne died (not the picture above).

I remember my mother watching his TV show when we lived in Kansas City way back in the early 1960's. I used the elastic stretch things she bought because of the show as stirrups on my rocking horse. And I remember him as an large biceped chap who was always happy. So he landed in the area of people who don't bother me.

Then I read this bit...
LaLanne said his two simple rules of nutrition are:
"if man made it, don't eat it", and "if it tastes good, spit it out."

He may have been a wonderful man and a great father but this is pretty hard to take.

Sooooo...in defiance to it's prescription, after a good aikido class I came home and ate some pasta (man made) with tomato sauce(man made) and Parmesan(man made) and some cheap Red wine (man made).

There may be some context the quotes but supposedly he used those phrases repeatedly. Anyway why live to 96 if you can't enjoy a meal like I had tonight.

I am not exactly sure how this relates, but I remember reading something by Ceasare Pavese about “This Business of Living” so I goggled him and found this quote...

We do not remember days, we remember moments.
Cesare Pavese

And for now at least I remember this moment of pasta, tomato sauce and wine.

I don't plan to, but if I do...tonight I die a happy man!!!
(Notice the three exclamation points)

And I ask you my anonymous reader..what can you say of This Business of Living!....?

I Must Read! I Must Drink!

how strange. I was talking to somebody at work about old phones and said something about a phone like you saw used in the Maltese Falcon. And then I knew I HAD to read that book. I couldn't wait for amazon or for it to show up in used book store or for the library to open, I had to have it tonight. Off to Borders after work and then paid too much money but...well, I had to have it!

And how can you read Sam Spade without drinking? So I had a bit more than a bottle of wine and read away as I drank (I can't handle the hard stuff).

I found a cable music station with singers and swing and what a nice evening.

I missed Aikido class, but even though I didn't go to bed early I really was tired. That damn Sam Spade kept me up

Kagami Biraki

Another New Year, Another Aikido Seminar

The Kagami Biraki seminar at Dallas with Yamada Sensei is this weekend and it is a mess-O-people in what is normally a spacious dojo. But especially in the morning it was WAY crowded and there was often not room enough to take a fall and definitely not enough room to roll out of anything.

For me it is sometimes a drag to go to these seminars since they are so crowded and sometimes (rarely really, but still sometimes) the people you work with are super confident and seem to like telling you what you are doing wrong. However even though you work out about 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon it is usually not too taxing (at the time) since you can't go all out because you keep bumping into people.

Harvey Konigsberg taught the last session and I actually got a “Good” comment after he watched me try something he taught. Way cool, since I didn't know what I was doing and also because he talked so softly sometimes that I couldn't make out his explanations.

I did hear him refer to Ki or “your energy” a few times and it struck me that while the Aikido books are full of talk about ki. Most of the seminars and dojos I've gone to rarely mention it. I don't know what to make of if , but there you are.

The video above it much like what he taught today. It was really interesting because just watching it on You Tube doesn't convey how powerful the motions felt.