A Virtual Weltanschauung

An Electronic Huck Finn

2012-01-23T22:02:00.000-06:00

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My first book on the cheapest Kindle downloaded from the free books section of Amazon

Hey, what a nice book, but it really is kind of odd.

I wonder what the general feeling about Huckleberry Finn these days? You hear about it being banned in schools and I always assume it is because of the “N” word which you figure is because of political correctness or politeness. But I'd think it would really offend a more conservative or traditional mind since questioning authority seems to be the whole point.

And you know, that Tom Sawyer guy is kind of a jerk.

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Cat On Purple

2012-01-18T16:09:00.001-06:00

I promise I will not turn this into a blog about my cats. But I like this pic.

Two Cats In a Pod

2012-01-14T15:45:00.001-06:00

Rebel's Yell

2011-12-29T21:06:00.000-06:00

Mystic rebels; Apollonius Tyaneus, Jan van Leyden, Sabbatai Zevi, Cagliostro, by Harry C Schnur

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Mystic Rebels - copyright 1949.
The story of 4 “mystics” of which probably only one was close to a stable person.

Apollonius Tyaneus - (Greek: Ἀπολλώνιος ὁ Τυανεύς; ca. 15?–ca. 100? CE)

Jan Van Leyden - (1509? – January 22, 1536)

Sabbatai Zevi - (August 1, 1626 – c. September 17, 1676)

Cagliostro - (2 June 1743 – 26 August 1795)

I wonder why he put Apollonius in this study since everybody else seems to have pushed themselves to to their emotional edges. But Apollonius was steady, diligent and very structured and seemed to always look for some greater truth. The others discovered some insights and let their passions overwhelm them . That description is a little superficial but more or less addresses the point.

Jan Van Leyden and Sabbatai Zevi show us what can happen when people with religious faith of a conventional level allow the promise of divine fulfillment overcomes mundane acceptance of an imperfect world. In these two two cases it doesn't end well. Basically they become mad with power and disassoiate themselves from reality.

Cagliostro is anticlimactic in that he is presented as starting and ending as a con man with the notion that he felt he discovered something helpful to mankind in the journey. Unfortunately the still lingering inquisition of the day found him more threatening than charming and he died in a church prison surviving for years in the most retched conditions. In case you didn't' know, he was convicted of Freemasonry (much like our founding fathers)

I bought this used book almost 10 years ago, knowing nothing about the author or the subjects. (other than Greil Marcus's comparison of John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten to his namesake and leader of the mass Anabaptist in Leiden.

What do I take from the book? Well, history is really, rally strange and if you think people are crazy now...they were just as crazy in the past. I probably should have learned more, but that is all I can articulate now.

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Super 8: The Movie

2011-11-26T23:05:00.000-06:00

Super 8. I just watched it and this movie bothers me. ...Super 8...It means something...almost like saying 8mm.

JJ Abrams and Steven Spielberg, who both claim to love their roots in 8mm amateur film making decided to crap all over that tradition.

First off, the only reason you use Super 8 is because you are taking your Dad's camera and doing whatever you can to make something like the “real” movies you love. You have no money, no skills, only desire. What does “Super 8” do? It starts off presenting the energy of teenagers wanting to make movies* then takes all that enthusiasm and spends a bunch of money making a multi million dollar blockbuster.

They COULD have stayed true to the super 8 ethos while making a modern movie but no, they had to pull out the checkbook and buy a whole bunch of special effects.Of course the irritating part is that it starts off pretty good but then suddenly you are in Spielberg's “War or the Worlds”

With all humility and acknowledgment that my (our) Super 8 is crude, but THAT is what Super 8 is all about.

*I REALLY had trouble getting past the part about these kids having a sound Super 8 camera, and then after the one was broken another kid's dad had a sound camera. NOBODY had sound Super 8 cameras, that was something you dreamed about. Plus you would need a really expensive editor to make something with it. Realistically, any Super 8 meant silent. I was willing to let it go that one family might have one, but two families? Now Way!

An Econimic Weltanschauung

2011-11-23T18:56:00.001-06:00

Keynes Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics by Nicholas Wapshott
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Very readable introduction to Keynes and Hayek. I think it is actually more a book of the effects of the two than even an economics 101 view on their actual thoughts. so I m sure that economic geeks bemoan the simplifications of both economist. You get enough to get a feel of the economics and I'm cool with that especially since I think I end up with more knowledge of what is involved than most people who thow their names around.

My condensation of this condensed fare is that there is more to Keynes's economics than portrayed by conservatives and while Hayeks Road to Serfdom may fit in nicely with Glenn Beck's paranoid world view, Hayek was not really at ease with what grew into the conservative movement, although he definitely wanted to privatize most every public service. Strangely the only exception was public health care which is the one area I wish the author would have explained a bit more.

The last few chapters seem a little episodic with tidbits about Kennedy acting as a supply sider and aside from his conservative talk Reagen is revealed to be quite a Keynesian when you factor in the huge unfunded defense spending spree.

All in all Keynes comes across as more complex and apparently he was often drasticly refining and redefining his ideas, while Hayek was pretty well set in his views from the start. Of course as he aged he became more intense with things like when he laments the tyranny of the majority and states the the free market is the only true participatory democracy. Also I think the modern libertarian/conservative movement has adopted Hayeks suggestion below.

“The main lesson which the true liberal (libertarian) must learn from the success of the socialist is that it was their courage to be Utopian which gained them the support of the intellectuals and thereby an influence on public opinion” --- “...(of his views) you can say it almost a religious belief ...that the market is almost God ordained”.

This explains why it is so hard to discuss economics with some conservatives, if you ask them to question some of their premises they feel you are attacking their religion. View all my reviews

manifest one true nature when you see a stone; or 無

2011-11-17T21:19:00.001-06:00

On my way to Aikido class last night I happened to be listening to a podcast from Living Zen where the teacher was talking about Case 1 form the Mumonkon. The Koan MU.

Here are a few excerpts from Living Zen-podcast Zen talks but Eshu Martin, abbot of the Victoria Zen Center in Victoria, BC Canada

Whenever we throw up a barrier that makes it "me" and "that", "inside" and "outside", "me" and "them", whenever we have solidified something and said this is what I like, what I am, the practice of mu is to burn it. Open your hand and just let that solid object flow.

Maintaining the presence of this case (mu) is a really difficult thing. But it requires we take this practice out of the Zendo into our day to day lives. Into the way we are eating breakfast the way we are doing our work. Really developing the awareness of when we grab on , when we throw up the barrier whenever we polarize, objectify, make solid anything. This is where we have to do this practice of “mu”, where we pull down the wall, open our hand, allow that solid object to flow. We step forward into the difficult situation we want to be a part of

What struck me was the part where we “step forward into the difficult situation we want to be part of” which so reminded me of Irimi Nage or Entering Throw. All the Aikido techniques are hard for me but Irimi seems particularly elusive. I heard one explanation that said something like you enter uke's attack and turn an blend into it, almost in a loving embrace

The podcast also re framed the famous koan MU to say

how do you manifest one true nature when you see a stone?

How do we acknowledge on an experiential level how do we affirm oneness?

We are (incorrectly) making mu into an object. It is a simple practice and it actually helps to be soft as we practice it.The practice of dissolution it is not a practice of punching It is not a plus activity it is actually a minus activity. We do the plus activity with ourselves, we fixate and oppose what we come up against. The practice of Mu is to catch it when we put something into a box and let it go. This is a practice of Melting

It reminded of Sensei talking about how Aikido is a reactive art, we shouldn't meet force with force, although ironically last night he told us to be the dominant part of the technique, not forceful but somehow dominant. Oh well, go figure.

The character 無 in seal script

2011-11-06T06:34:00.000-06:00

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Emil Frankl
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I first read this almost 30 years ago and I remember being impressed at the time. This time it was still engaging and the camp stories are amazing and the second half with the description of logotheraphy was interesting and bears consideration, but after all that I am not sure how he expects everybody to realize their self transcendence.

He does give an outline to find meaning in 3 possible ways

1.creating a work or doing a deed
2.by experiencing something or encountering someone
3.by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering

And from that, meaning naturally comes, not as the goal but as a byproduct. OK, sure, but there still seems to be something missing. Of course this was just an introduction but some of the examples seemed to just be finding clever mind tricks to accept the current situation as meaningful.

Maybe this quote hos the key, but I can't seems to figure out what it means.

"What is demanded of man is not to endure the meaninglessness of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms, logos is deeper than logic".

Still, well worth reading

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A Night at the Symphony

2011-10-06T23:04:00.005-05:00

I didn't know I liked DVOŘÁK so much! Plus it was a treat to watch the organist dance around the pedals

The picture was taken BEFORE they told us we couldn't take pictures so I just got in under the wire.

Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center
Marin Alsop, conductor
Mary Preston, organ
BARBER Toccata Festiva
ROUSE Concerto for String Orchestra
DVOŘÁK Symphony No. 9, From the New World

Finding A New Path

2011-10-06T08:20:00.002-05:00

Last night Sensei wanted us to realize that Aikido should be approached from different angles. Meaning we shouldn't try to force our idea of a technique on an attack, rather when we sense resistance the idea is to change your approach. So much of the night we worked on feeling the force of the attack. Then he went on about changing out responses to attacks and how it was like Neuroplasticity. Or something like that.

The start of the process is to recognize what is happening in the attack and NOT respond in kind but find a different path (like the brain making new response paths in the brain). Here he used the example of how people shake your hand when meeting you. You can learn a lot from the energy in the handshake about how you will need to interact with them. Will they be aggressive or overly sensitive, and stuff like that.

The thing is we are wired to fight force with force, it is the most obvious way to respond. If somebody pushes you we thing the most logical thing is to push back. He wanted us to realize that part of the essence of Aikdo is that like Neuroplasticity, it means changing ways of thinking and doing (my paraphrase).

Along those lines in Sensei's closing remarks, the gem he gave us was that the very notion of an attack should be dealt with by changing your perspective.(letting your brain find a new path), meaning if you accept an attack as an “attack” we are wired to respond in kind. But if you accept the attack as a gift. The more force it has, the more you are given to work with, and in a kinder world you lovingly redirect him to neutrality. Then went on to say this is a way to view social conflict away from the dojo.

I really like the notion, but of course I think there some Aikido-ists that accept the “gift” but then use their new found weakness and apply their own violent attack.

End of the World!! Averted!!

2011-10-04T13:06:00.002-05:00

The Last Days of Madame Rey: A Stephan Raszer Investigation by A.W. Hill

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I found a blog with this quote from the book and it grabbed me enough that I checked it out of the library on the way home that night.

"And what had the books taught him? There was this: something had gone wrong. Eons ago-not just in “real time” but in the clockwork of the human soul. Something violent and sacred. It could rightly be thought of as a crime, and though it was recounted in all the myths of our species, it was yet the best-kept secret in the Universe."

I enjoyed it. It was a pleasant read with enough at each step to make be want to find out what happen next. But the secret of the Universe was kind of a let down. There is also a thread about ancient people having tails and the genetic descendants of these more perfect predecessors can be identified by examining their tailbone. Odd, and I am a little unclear where us normal people fit into the cosmic battle Raszer get involved with.

And who are the bad guys in this book?

"I think what we’re looking at is a private international strike force... an Armageddon scenario bankrolled by the world’s most lethal venture capitalists."

Now THAT is bad.

Throw in a sex scene and some light but happy drug use and you’ve got yourself a story.

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An Examined Life

2011-09-11T16:08:00.016-05:00

A few years ago (may 7 or 8 or even 10 years) I read some wacky collection of liberal Catholic sermons where one homily quoted a Life Magazine article about a small town in Ohio that swarmed to the countryside to flush out foxes and then they beat them to death.

Anyway it sounded so outrageous that I tried to track down the article. Way back then the Internet didn't help at all. Yahoo failed me! So I found the nearest library with Life Magazine on microfiche since the only clue I had from the sermon was that it was Life magazine in the 1940's.

I went to the Richardson, TX Public library and opened the appropriate Readers Guide an tracked it down. I paid my dollar or so to print it out and the afternoon was complete.

BUT, I neglected to print or write down the date of that issue and I've always wondered if I should go back to the library and find it again. But I never did.

Then, this morning I was looking for something that I don't remember and landed on Google Books and saw a link for Life Magazines. It turns out Google Books has most of Life magazine digitized and within a few minutes I found the issue I spent an afternoon investigating years earlier.

Of course I had to spend the next hour or more tracking down ways to hack Google Books so that I could download my find. It is harder than I would have thought, and Google won't let you print all the great stuff.

My point is that, Wow, all I had in school all I had for reports was the World Book Encyclopedia. But now that I think about it I could have gone to the library if I had put out some effort. As with most things, I had better student study habits AFTER I was out of school.

And for today's bonus here is an ad from 1944, and I have no idea what it means.

FYI, the issue in question was 13 MAR 1944

An Attack on the unthinking beliefs of thinking people

2011-09-09T19:46:00.004-05:00

Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals by John Gray

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is "an attack on the unthinking beliefs of thinking people".

I gather he intends it not to be a well laid out logical presentation of how Humanists, liberal humanism and the idea of progress,have it all wrong. But instead is a collection of witty observations from a philosophical Oscar Wilde. And many of them really are clever and disarming and probably a few are even true.

My only problem is that he has no problem painting the subject he is skewering in it's most unreasonable light. That and the fact that he has quotes but no attribution. (there is an full “recommended reading” section at the which we can only assume references all the quotes he had). Plus he never really says who these humanists are. Maybe if I was around upper crust academia I would know who these humanists are that have some an idealize view of the perfectibility of man. But I'm not so I don't know anybody who things humans are on the road to perfection by virtue of their positivistic approach to life. And from my casual fascination with protestant super religious types I really think he misses the point on their world view. He implies they are somehow at war with science, but actually they claim it as their own and accept all the technology with joy but deny anything that might intrude on their personal bibilcal stores. In fact they believe science proves the literal bible rather than challenges it. They may be crazy but that is what they believe.

It was refreshing to see him discount Kant an Heidegger with only a few paragraphs on each. I guess I don't have to worry about feeling bad that I never read that stuff. But he also dispatched any mystical religious figures with only a few sentences which saddened me a bit.

I guess my takeaway form the book is that any idea of progress is bunk and the more we accept that we really are machines, the less stressed out we will be. All in all I'm glad I read it and I may even read it again sometime soon .

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Paying For It

2011-09-04T16:59:00.006-05:00

Paying for It by Chester Brown
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Interesting but passionless graphic memoir about being a “John”. Given his declaration of the failure of romantic love (at lease for him) I suppose it is natural that this who story is passionless. Chester Brown is a very analytical kind of guy, even when dealing with his...well, with his penis. Even at the end where he admits having feelings for and being (at least on his part) monogamous with a prostitute it is very thought out and clearly decided upon. I suspect, but don't know, that he is a libertarian of the Randian ilk since his thinking is what I think an “Objectivist” is like.

But there is really only one part that directly points to a libertarian world view , where he is discussing with Seth the morality of prostitution and mad thought balloons erupt over Chester's head as Seth presents some straw man argument against prostitution. Up to that time the graphically presented conversations for and against paying for sex were at a personal level and seemed more honest. I get it, you have to put up with your “liberal” friends and their faulty thinking.

So, I liked it. But 200 and some pages of very controlled drawings about how you came to know and use hookers is a strain. He is a different type of cartoonist (I hope he doesn't mind the term). I think of comic books, graphic novels and such as a medium of some exaggeration but with Brown it is the reverse. So maybe it is just me rebelling against what I see as going against the whole reason for telling stories in a ”comic book” format. I think all the frames are the same and the margins are so big it makes the graphic flow seem all the more distant. And the type is so small I feel like reading with a magnifying glass, although that might be because my eyesight is growing worse.

Thinking about the book I feel the visual story telling is better than I first thought, probably since the feel of the book is so analytical that you might miss that it is graphically told.

The thing is, I heard him interviewed and he told of as a teenager wanting to drawing superhero comics which I see as very expressive and often over top or even “cartoon-ish” in their expression. But this book has the feel of a an emotional star collapsing in on itself with all emotion and passion becoming more and more compressed and restrained. Then there are all the hand lettered footnotes about prostitution which I skipped. The felt like it was just him trying to justify his views and actions, but why bundle that with a bunch of drawings. But, that is just me.

Just after this I read Stitches by David Smalls, which is a wildly different book (review to follow) but I felt like he really used drawings as an integral part of the story telling. But, still..read this book.

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A Graphic Contract

2011-08-26T20:21:00.002-05:00

The Contract with God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue by Will Eisner

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I finally got around to reading Contract With God and the rest of the trilogy. Often named as a milestone in the development of the graphic novel, I found the title book to be the weakest. Contract With God seems to me a little forced. Would anybody really think a contract you write yourself would get a binding result from God. Eisner full all of the books with Jewish flavor which I probably shouldn't comment on. BUT, I kind of thought Jewish history was filled with God's people having unfair experiences in their lives. Why should this one guy feel he is different? And the other stories in the first book also seemed a little too simplistic.

The other two books A Life Force and Dropsie Avenue are less stilted and overall they are more complex. The stories and the characters have much more depth.

The graphic part of the book is...well, maybe it is perfect. Not that the drawings are anatomically perfect (although I can't say) but the cinematography, or whatever you call it in graphic novels, is conventional where it needs to be, and inventive is the same sense. But it never takes away from the story, which the the “perfect” part I was talking about.

I've always had a “problem” with Eisner's drawing. It looks so relaxed, as if he just dashed it off, much like the scene in Amadeus where Salieri realizes Mozart never has to rewrite the music he puts to paper. Perhaps Eisner slaved meticulously over each frame, but it always looks so fluid it burns me up that anybody can pull it off.

The only thing that distracted me in Neighborhood, The: Dropsie Avenue is that in the entire history of the neighborhood there is no example of gentrification as we think of it now. But still a very nice work.

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I Jump Into 2nd Kyu

2011-08-20T18:23:00.008-05:00

I took the 2nd Kyu test today, and I have the video from my trusty “bloggie” to prove it. Sensei said I and the 3rd Kyu first act passed. I think Sensei didn't drag the test out too long since he has seen me practicing before class for the past few weeks and I was doing all the techniques listed. So he must have cut me some slack.

But, when you do something like this you want to have it all down rock solid. If I really wanted that, I suppose I could have waited until some later date. But I kind of like the feeling of diving in whether you are ready or not and hope you rise to the occasion. Using an old photo developing analogy...After watching as much of my test as I could (who was the fat old guy wearing my gi?) I can say although I didn't shine, I managed a fine no gloss finish with only a few scratches on the final product. Then again I have never been a perfectionist and others were quite harsh on the quality of those old one hour photo developing places. But enough about developing film, that is so 20th century.

One aspect of the practice that I find fascinating is just the psychology of taking a test. Yes, I want to be good at Aikido and do well on these tests, but actually I think I savor this feeling of being in over my head. Where is the glory in taking a test if you are kick-ass already? And I am almost always in over my head. It is not self modesty when I say I am really not very good at Aikido. I see and feel my clunky clumsiness and after 5 years I kind of doubt I will smooth out a many of these rough edges. But it kind of doesn't matter.

For me the Aikido practice is about something other than being a Aikdo master. I will genuinely try to always improve but I am not in it to show all the cool stuff I can do. I am there to participate. Participate in the experience, in the techniques as Uke and Nage and feeling the “magic” of those times you say “What the hell just happened? That was cool!”. And test taking is just another experience you get to take part in.
The sensation of sitting there just before the test starts...it is like jumping out of an airplane, which I have only done once but I think it is somewhat appropriate to compare these things. BUT the dojo is a pretty safe environment where the worst that can happen is you fail the test and try again some other time.

That said, I have to admit that if I want to take the next test and certainly the shodan test (black belt), I really do need to nail down the specifics on all these techniques. To the point it won't matter if my mind goes blank when Sensei calls the technique, like what happened this morning. And I automatically remember those basic details like going lower for koshi nage on somebody my height or shorter. Sooooo....there is tons more work to do and I'll keep at it, but if it takes me another 5 years to feel ready for shodan test I'll almost be 60 years old. And even if 60 is the new 50, it sounds old to me.

The video is somewhat similar to my one skydive jump way back in 1980, except I had a static line and no jump-suit and helmet. I wore my standard gear of the time, jeans, red wing boots, t-shirt and a jeans jacket.

As I remember it, all the thrill was the anticipation and stepping out and holding onto the wing strut. The descent itself was a little anti-climatic, well except for the last 5 seconds before I hit the ground.

What Was My Point??

2011-08-13T22:45:00.001-05:00

I ran through most of the standing techniques for the 2nd kyu test this morning before class. I most had the mechanics of down but getting them to actually work work is still out of reach, At this point I kinda want to take the test as an example that you don't always pass the test. Or if I pass I will be an inspiration to chubby middle aged men.

Perhaps intending to help me out Sensei had us work on on t of the techniques for my test , shomenuchi shiho-nage and later shomenuchi nikkyo.

Ok, I can't seem to find the point of this post,,,so the above is just another Christian Tissier video,

Subliminal Message Not Needed

2011-08-08T23:20:00.004-05:00

As we prepared to leave Aikido tonight (great class, Shawn did wonderfully) I couldn't help but notice that Bibliosk8 was even more slim and trim. He talked about his no or low carb diet and how well it worked. And the moment he said he cut out pasta and bread my mind imagined it and it tasted soooo... great in my mind's mouth.

I must be a marketers dream. No need for clever advertising, just say the thing I like in any context and I want it.

And driving home I kept thinking some Pinot Grigio would be really nice with the bread and pasta. I threw in some quickly roasted Asparagus as a nod to my healthy fellow Aikidoka.

OK, tomorrow, or next week, THEN I will get on my custom diet I developed last year which is basically a no carb, no beer or wine, week long diet and do whatever you want on the weekend. which actually matches Bibliosk8's version except I leave out the meat.

But then again, there is some stressful stuff going on and I seem to seek solace food an drink. We will see.

Newton Goes to the Big City

2011-08-01T22:52:00.005-05:00

Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist by Thomas Levenson

Who knew that Newton spent the last 25 years away from Cambridge and a good portion of that time he was “Master of the Mint” and in charge of overseeing the production and security of England’s money supply.

The author does a nice job making reasonable speculations on why Newton's previous pursuits prepared him to be an ideal candidate for fixing England’s coinage problems. I particularly liked the notion that Newton was not unaware that his discoveries about the nature of the universe might lead some away for belief in God, and that was why he spent decades secretly investigating Alchemy. Somehow he got the notion that Alchemy would prove the existence of God and that fueled his determination to crack the alchemy puzzle. As we all know now that whole turning base metal in to Gold didn't take off so well.

In any case he was as rigorous an alchemist as he was in his other more traditional scientific pursuits. And since he was forced to hide his alchemy studies he had to do most of the mundane tasks like melting different metals for himself. This was just the sort of knowledge that would come in handy when he is in charge of re-minting ALL of England’s coins.

It tuns out the coin minting standards of the day enabled industrious counterfeiters to have a pretty good time. The job of overseeing coining was determined by contacts and not competence and it seems if a crook was smart enough to figure out how to copy coins they often managed to talk their way out of the gallows (counterfeiting was a capital offense)

After Newton got the job I it must have been a sight to see a con man trying to bamboozle with faux complexity the man who created Calculus. And the idea of one of the smartest men in history turned into detective on the scent of villains is inherently fascinating

Anyway, an interesting story with believable insights about a brilliant man who died almost 300 years ago.

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With Aikido you get more Bubbles!

2011-07-20T23:39:00.013-05:00

One thing we worked on tonight was two responses to shomen-uchi (overhead strike to the head). The first was just getting off line and the obvious next step is kote gaishi which is what we went on to do. BUT after that Sensei had us work on if uke had some more force and you couldn't apply the technique. Then Nage was supposed to go with it and turn it into Kaiten Nage.

In the “teisho” after class he used the example of an apple to say that the same thing means something different depending on your view. To a hungry man the apple is food but to an artist (I guess the artist had already eaten) it was shape, shades and colors. And Aikido really means you look at any situation as something with many different alternatives so you are not locked into any technique. Aikido is about "Options"

He went on to say something like with aikido two different people can look at the same thing and think completely different things and what he saw might not be what you saw. And at some point he declared something like “Aikido gives you more bubbles”.

He talked about a cartoon where two people are seeing the same thing but you can tell visually that they are thinking in completely different ways. In the business they call them thought balloons, but there is something so charming about calling them Bubbles. Like a refreshing sparking glass of champagne

A teisho is a formal presentation of dharma by a Zen master, usually during a sesshin. A teisho may appear to be a lecture, but the master is not trying to convey concepts or knowledge. Instead, through the teisho the master presents his or her realization.

Koshi Nage Tech

2011-07-16T21:35:00.009-05:00

I missed almost a week of practice for various reasons so I had some trepidation about today's class. But all was well. A small but good class and Sensei was teaching. He asked again about me taking my 2nd kyu test and while I confessed that I had missed some classes lately he didn't seem too concerned. I told him I was struggling with Koshi nage from Kubishime and he offered some suggestions.

Interestingly what he suggested, while not contradictory, to what Shawn showed me, was still completely different. Shawn was full of details about hand movement and foot and hip placement. But Sensei focused on general approach and feeling the point of contact. Later he had some more specific points but overall he emphasized “feeling” that point where uke rests on the right part of your hip.

After class Pawel help me practice and and at some point I seemed ot combine Shawn's obvious point of lowering my body to get under uke's center with Sensei's adjuration to “feel” where uke should be. Strangely as soon as I felt I was getting it right, Sensei saw me and said I should not worry about being low. I think he meant that after I “loaded up” uke I need to straighten one leg to prepare for the throw. I think.

But it is things like that, that make Aikido interesting. There are a thousand variables in most any technique and you have to take the wisdom from whatever source you find and try to fit it to your abilities, body type and personality. You have to find the correct form for you, that somehow stays true to the essence. I think for some gifted individuals it is not that big of a deal. They see what the teacher is saying. Do it, feel it and work on it. But for klutzes like me you have to work against yourself. Undo decades of non aikido movements and relax the mind so you can then “get it”. But “getting it” for me is really hard.

Thinking about it after class, I was again reminded about this video I saw when I prepared to change the tires on my motorcycle. If you search the forums you will find many seasoned cyclists complaining about how hard it is to change the tire of an off road or dual sport motorcycle.

The video was from a professional support person that had to regularly change tires. In his video he said...

If it's difficult you are doing something wrong....If you're struggling with it , it's all technique...there's no trick to it. ….If you are struggling, possibly you need to find a different technique.

An that was today. I felt it when I manged to recognize my technique was off. Changed something and it was better..for me it is always the small victories I savor, as those are the only I can find.

And just to remind myself, here are some links to 2nd Kyu tests on You Tube

http://youtu.be/gGK7AjJSyVk

http://youtu.be/m_xP0-uvziA

http://youtu.be/WVDMCQ-yUtQ

http://youtu.be/V7y1f4iW9I4

Sculpture In Motion

2011-07-13T01:22:00.001-05:00

My niece was in town today and we went to the SMU Meadows Art Museum. Here is was was outside the building.

How to Get Too Many Books For Your Bookshelf

2011-07-02T22:42:00.004-05:00

Last night I watched HOWL with James Franco as Allen Ginsberg. It may have been the mood I was in or maybe the wine, but I though it was great. While I know a little about that era (OK, I've really only read On The Road by Jack Kerouac) I have never paid much attention to Ginsberg or his famous poem other than recognizing it when parodied by Lisa Simpson.

But after Aikido I stopped by Half Price Books in Richardson (TX) and found a book with a facimile of the original poem that was depicted in the movie I saw. It is really cool and has tons of notes. AND I found what looks to be a good (and long) biography of Ginsberg.

My point is that it the movie gave the feel of what they might have been striving for at at that time. An earnestness, a truthfulness that is usually avoided or denied. Or maybe they were trying so hard to articulate this "truth" because there were not really sure that it was really there at all. Or not, or something completely different. Different but still....

Howl
For Carl Solomon

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,

who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,

who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,

who passed through universities with radiant eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war,

who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,

who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall,

who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,

who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night......

How Low Can I Go?

2011-07-02T22:26:00.002-05:00

Today was a small class (too many people away for the July 4th holiday I guess) and fortunately for me there was nobody else asking Shaun's advice before class so I got detailed instruction on applying Koshi nage. Plus Bibliosk8 brought his camera and tripod and recorded the session. Which I am eagerly waiting to be posted so I can download it and really see what I need to work on.

I remember blogging about koshi nage 4 or 5 years ago and I still don't have it figured out. I seem to manage one type but any variation and it is hit or miss whether I am really doing it right. I THINK I made real progress today when I finally felt how low I needed to go but still for one technique there are a million things that can go wrong.

I bet for somebody who “feels it”, they wouldn't understand what the problem is. But that is one of the things about Aikido. When you feel a technique it is obvious, and why would anybody do it differently since it wouldn't work? BUT, until you internalize it all those instructions are just a thousand little details you try to juggle in your head while you move your body. The thing is, usually you can fake it, especially with an agreeable uke that knows what the outcome is supposed to be. But with Koshi nage you can seriously hurt your back if you try to force it when you really aren't in quite the right position.

Anyway. There are a few koshi nage techniques on the 2nd kyu test so it was great to get some specialize attention. And Shaun is great at trying to figure out what you are don't wrong rather than just saying how to do it right.

Also, props to Biblisosk8 (Bob) for stepping up to the plate and teaching the kid's class. Once I knew Mark was there for support I bolted.

Yet Another New Day

2011-07-01T22:07:00.005-05:00

I missed the last two mornings but here is today's White Rock Lake Morning picture

And the below is just a picture I found on the camera

Another Morning and Another Bike Ride

2011-06-28T08:25:00.010-05:00

Day 2 of my impromptu exercise regimen and here are some of the sights from today's ride

And now a short Video

Morning Glory

2011-06-27T18:21:00.003-05:00

In my attempt to be less of a a plump middle aged man who is easily winded, I got out of bed and rode a leisurely ride around the lake.

What I Learned This Week

2011-06-24T21:07:00.006-05:00

Not Much

I did learn how to play around with my home network. I bought a fairly cheap wireless IP camera and figured out how to get it on my home network, configure my router with the appropriate port forwarding settings to allow access from the Internet. And how to use a free Dynamic DNS company that works with my router to allow me to buy a domain name for $6 a year (two year contract) so that as long as I have the camera on I can spy on my cats.

But the thing I really learned was that my cats don't do much of anything when I am gone.

Using the above pic as the reference this is what I learned

9:00 AM laying down looking out the window
11:00 AM laying down sleeping
Noon laying down sleeping(?) on a cardboard scratching toy
2:30 PM laying down in a box looking out the window
5:30 PM Still in the box

There's No Times Like the End Times!!

2011-06-24T20:53:00.003-05:00

The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount by Gershom Gorenberg

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For a modest book it packed such an army of characters in the 250 pages that I have trouble remembering who was who. The book mostly talks about the Temple Mount / Dome of the Rock as the focal point for extreme religious energy.

In the U.S. You can get an earful of millennialism (pre-mil usually) just by scanning “Christian” tv, but I gather there is a strong current of Messianic thought in Israel which is just as intense if not more so than the Christian version. AND it turns out a there is a growing branch of this kind of stuff in Islam, which strangely has gained popularity only recently and seems to unknowingly pick up the same structure as Christian End Times enthusiasts.

Interestingly (but obviously if you think about it) each side sees the others as being the crazy ones. And it is a given for every evangelical view that the Mosque on top of the Temple Mount is a sacrilege, the Muslims feel the same about any encroachment on their holy site. But all three believe a final battle will come and God will clear away the other guys.

It is a triangle of zealotry with each side thinking in the end only they will be left standing.

My one sentence synopsis is...
“This book shows there is not shortage of crazies, be they Jewish, Muslim or Christian and if any of them get worked up enough they have no problem with all the other “non-believers” being blown away, either with guns or by God.”

Here are just a few quotes from a few of the pages I dog-eared.

By the time we get to Hal Lindsey deciphering those names in 1970 as referring ot Russia and the "Iron Curtain countries," who will invade Israel and might be destroyed by nuclear weapons, we have reason to wonder what is literal about the reading. The man who says, "I had those who read their ideas into the scripture by using allegory," seems as capable as any allegorist of reading what he wants into scripture. 245

A parable from the Jewish mystical tradition known as hasidism: A man was once walking through a forest at niht and came to a house . Looking through the window, he saw people flinging their arms and legs about in grotesque motions. How awful, he thought, they're having seizures, they must ball have a terrible illness, or perhaps they're mad. But the man outside the window didn't hear the singing inside, and didn't know they were dancing. If you don't hear the the music of faith, says the story, you'll see the dance as disease. To take the point further, if you don't pay attention to the particular song being sung, you may notice only "seizures"_ and not which dance you're see out of the many possible. 236

Beneath the sci-fi veneer, for instance, the Heavan's Gate dream of ascent to heaven looked a lot like the Rapture...

..(they) had been making apocalyptic predictions for years. They couldn't sustain expectation forever, so they had to take irrevocable action.”This is the ultimate dogmatism: Any price is worth paying save the price of admitting that the Idea was wrong. 227

View all my reviews

Update From Goodreads

2011-06-12T15:28:00.005-05:00

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

First off, I'm sure loads of people have read and reread this book or just know all about it from other references. But it was all new to me so it really took me by surprise.

This was recommend by a friend who was reading it for a church book club. I knew nothing about the book and very little about Salinger, but I checked it out of the Library just to take a look. I was warned the way of the pilgrim and the Jesus Prayer figured in but that was all of my preview.

I found the 40 page Franny section shockingly readable. It conveyed complex notions and subtle ideas in a very engaging narrative. Big ideas, deep emotions all in a weekend outing to see a college football game. I rate it wonderful!

The rest of the book, the Zooey section, was best when it referenced the first part and the other bits seemed to pack in a bunch of exposition or explanation or eduction or some other thing that I don't know the word for it. Don't get the wrong impression that I didn't care for it, I really liked it but I REALLY, REALLY liked the way the Franny part told the story.

I'm sure this is a goldmine of literary nuggets for students to write papers about, and I'm sure glad I can just relax and not worry about such things. I found a lecture online about this book and listening to it makes me a bit queasy.

View all my reviews

A Quiet New Beginning or Did Johnny Cash Have A Bucket List?

2011-06-03T22:46:00.011-05:00

A quiet birthday and noting I am at 4 years of blogging. No bucket list this time, although I can think of things I'd like to do, but no lists.

Alone after work just some bread, goat cheese, tomatoes and olive oil, all with some Sicilian wine. Then I watched The Man Who Wasn't There . After that, surf the net while listening to Beethoven piano sonatas (prompted by a plot point in the movie)

In once sense the movie is cliched, like Stewie on Family talkng to Brian about writing his novel

How you uh, how you comin' on that novel you're working on? Huh?
Gotta a big, uh, big stack of papers there? Gotta, gotta nice litte story you're working on there? Your big novel you've been working on for 3 years? Huh?
Gotta, gotta compelling protaganist? Yeah?
Gotta obstacle for him to overcome? Huh?
Gotta story brewing there? Working on, working on that for quite some time? Huh?...
Been working on that the whole time? Nice little narrative?
Beginning, middle, and end?
Some friends become enemies, some enemies become friends?
At the end your main character is richer from the experience?
Yeah? Yeah?

OK not that cliched...but still after the early character setup you could kinda see how it would end, at least emotionally...however it all works,

The thing is...is it a sad ending? Or is the peace he feels at the end a validation of his life? Maybe that is the way we will all be at the end, an uncertain matter of debate.

I've been listening to A Bridge Over Troubled Waters, this past week and I just found this Johnny Cash version of the Title song which I think was recorded with Fiona Apple the year before he died. And he sounds like its near the end. Powerful, but near the end.

Did Johnny Cash Have A Bucket List?

Force

2011-06-02T08:03:00.001-05:00

I don't know if Sensei has a structured lesson plan but in last night's closing talk he followed up on last Wednesday's session. Except this time instead of talking about deception he emphasized taking away the attacker's strength. Maybe better to say something like “diffusing” the attacker's power (my paraphrasing).

As an example he talked about a TV show that measured the strength of various martial arts kicks to see which was the most powerful. Apparently it is the kick where both legs are off the ground that is the weakest because usually power from the ground up through the body when the attacker has a good position.

Our goal in Aikido is to disrupt that connection. If somebody is pushing against you, don't meet force with force, but absorb just a little and then move out of that power center.

Sensei will try any analogy he can to get the message across, and last night he used the example of a herd of some type of wild cattle surrounded by lions. The lions know they can't charge in because they would be gored by all the deadly horns pointed at them. The lions must somehow tease out the weakest victim and he said we must do the same thing but taking the weakest part of the attack and guiding it away from the power center.

Usually the analogies involve softness and grace and not an attacking pride of lions, but I got his point.

I actually found a video of lions doing just what he described, but it is two hard to watch. Plus after the lions get the calf a crocodile almost takes it away from them by force. And then amazingly the crowd of buffalo get the calf back (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM)

On another note, sensei told me to start preparing for my 2nd Kyu test. I guess I will plunge ahead but I still feel like such be a beginner

Shomenuchi shihonage
Shomenuchi kaitennage
Yokomenuchi gokyo
Ushiro tekubitori shihonage
Ushiro tekubitori jujinage
Ushiro kubishime koshinage
*Ushiro Kubishime Shihonage (Omote & Ura)
*Ushiro Kubishime Sankyo (O & U - both hands)
*Ushiro Kubishime Jujinage
*Ushiro Ryokatatori Iriminage
*Ushiro Ryokatatori Kokyunage (3 ways)
1. ____________
2. ____________
3. ____________
*Ushiro Ryotetori Kokyunage (3 ways)
1. ____________
2. ____________
3. ____________
Morotetori nikkyo
*Morotetori Kokyunage (3 ways)
1. ____________
2. ____________
3. ____________

*Morotetori Shihonage (O & U; both hands)
*Morotetori Koshinage (2 ways)
1. ____________
2. ____________
*Jujinage (3 ways)
1. ____________
2. ____________
3. ____________

Hanmi-handachi:
·    Shomenuchi iriminage
·    *Shomenuchi Kotegaeshi
·    *Shomenuchi Sankyo (Omote & Ura)
·    Katatetori nikkyo
·    Yokomenuchi kotegaeshi
·    *Yokomenuchi Shihonage (Omote & Ura)
·    *Yokomenuchi Kaitenage (Omote & Ura)
·    *Katatetori Sumiotoshi (Omote & Ura)
·    *Katatetori Kokyunage (2 ways)

Run Rabbit Run

2011-05-31T20:14:00.005-05:00

I am testing my old Video Camera (Sony DCR-HC40) that is around 6 years old, so I took it with me on my ride around the lake after work today. Previously I had problem with the automatic exposure but today it worked out OK. It is just that any less than 1080p seems so 20th Century.

But this camera has a much better lens I think and the stabilization if good compared to my Sony "bloggie"

Aikido: The Art of Deception

2011-05-25T23:16:00.002-05:00

After almost 2 months away I made it back to Aikido tonight, and boy am I tired. There are other dojos that keep a more vigorous pace during practice, but in any case for a plump middle aged man like me tonight was a whipping. A good time but still I am pooped.

Anyway I don't know if it was because I was away for 2 months or one of my recurring confusions. We were working on shiho nage from yokomenuchi (strike to the head from the side) and it was like I had never done it before.

But in an effort to explain things Sensei tried to explain how you can use a little trick to get the attacker (uke) off balance. As soon as Uke starts to raise his arm to strike, you extend your leading arm toward him. But not to block or atemi, rather as distraction that tuns into a “hook”. Just by dangling your hand in front of the attack you throw off the attack calculation of the attacker. Then you use you arm as a buffer to the coming force to retract a bit as your body moves back a bit to absorb the attack.

Then once you have his balance you apply shihonage (see above), BUT you do the technique with little to no force as you move uke's arm up high enough to step through. So that he doesn't know what you are doing until you are on the other side of his arm and can finish with some extension and bingo he is on the ground.

These two component demand that you feel what you are doing and what uke is doing, so that there is no resistance at any point.

In sensei's closing remarks he opened with something like “Aikido is the art of deception!”

He speculated that it is natural in any conflict for a forceful attack to expect forceful resistance. You as nage must present the target but at the right moment you move the target and actually Uke is deceived because all the stuff he was expecting was not there. And when he demonstrated it on us it was like magic. One of those times you say “What just happened” as you are laying on the floor.

Coffee Shop People Sketch

2011-05-21T11:11:00.003-05:00

I tried to secretly sketch a few people at the coffee shop. It is dang hard when you are just a few feet from them. The big guy was buying coffee and was wearing green / gray camouflage and so I just put down a bunch of squiggly lines to indicate that.

I could have got to Aikido but I think I was actually a bit scared since it has been almost 2 months since I was last there.

Tuesday at White Rock Lake

2011-05-17T23:07:00.004-05:00

My first exercise in a month and a half.

It felt Ok. I am may go to Aikido tomorrow.

A New Look at TV

2011-05-10T21:35:00.002-05:00

For some reason the view of the far wall looked interesting to me so I grabbed the pens and drawing pad.

Not much to say, just here is the TV

Tonight

2011-05-06T20:46:00.003-05:00

Maybe back to Aikido next week!!

The greatest thing....you'll ever learn...

2011-05-03T20:39:00.003-05:00

The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
and be loved
In return

Fixing Windows - More things to do when not at Aikido

2011-04-27T23:43:00.002-05:00

Note to self: Because I keep playing around with different Linux partitions I need to remember that getting back to a Windows7 only boot up, use the Windows7 DVD and boot to DVD choose Repair Computer and then use

bootrec /fixmbr

All the stuff on the web about bootsect and all its choices, do me no good.

Look But Don't Draw

2011-04-23T11:40:00.006-05:00

I was off work yesterday and with a little free time I thought I would play an artist and take my sketch book to a scenic spot and get my drawing on. But for no good reason I was in a foul mood and went out with an emotional cloud hanging over me.

I discovered something about myself and maybe the act of drawing itself. If what I am looking at doesn't call to me to be drawn I can barely get up enough energy to lift the pen. I am sure there are professional and amateur illustrators that can simply look or imagine something and dutifully and competently and maybe even beautifully put it on paper. I am not of that sort.

I suppose it is like anything else that requires your own participation, music, working in the yard, reading a book and even sometimes watching TV, if I don't feel compelled to eagerly make the effort I just won't. For me at least the trick is to find a point of view for the task at hand that makes me really want to do it.

For instance, while in High School I was a pretty lackluster student, but 20 30 years later when I took some classes those previous boring subjects grabbed my attention. I certainly wasn't any smarter and was just a few classes but I was taking them because something intrigued me about the subjects.

Anyway, even though I might look at something and know it was the kind of thing I should want to draw, if I an not “in the mood” I end up packing it in and heading home. I also suspect it comes from my belief that for me, drawing is really “looking” and if I am not truly motivated to “look” the following parts of the process fall apart.

Sooooo...I went home, got some lunch with some wine, put some music on (Pomplamoose, thank you very much!) and quietly alternated between reading and looking out the window.

You can see what I saw and hear what I heard by looking at the video above.

Somebody once told me there was some tribal language that had a separate word for looking at a fire, as one does when sitting around a campfire. Well, I think somewhere there must be a special word for simply watching bamboo being rocked to and fro by the wind.

The bamboo was compelling but the complexity of all that was happening put me off trying to draw the view. If I can't earnestly draw I can try to earnestly look.

Things To Watch When Not At Aikido

2011-04-20T20:47:00.003-05:00

I gather many people know all about Pomplamoose, I just recognized them from the Christmas car commercial.

This really makes we wish I was a musician.

Check out to cool lyrical substitution they made

Don't make me sing this part of the song
The lyrics are so bad
So we're going to skip ahead
To the single ladies part instead

---
My foot still hurts. This may take longer than I thought

Yin and Yang Cats

2011-04-17T17:19:00.002-05:00

I need to get out the house and find something other to draw than cats.

Good-Bye to Sammy

2011-04-11T05:59:00.007-05:00

Sammy is now gone. It was a sad Sunday

Sammy, 2002 -2011

Sunday Sketch

2011-04-10T10:36:00.005-05:00

Cats can sit still for hours and hours but the moment you start to draw them they get fidgety and jump away.

Doodles

2011-04-09T20:32:00.004-05:00

Inspired by Bibliosk8.net I stopped by Asel Art Supply and bought some pens and and new drawing pad (the pens were pricey but the pad was on sale for $4)

There was some young girl, maybe high school or early college age, asking whom I assume was the manager what to buy. It was great to overhear somebody who obviously loved working in an art supply store and had opinions that somehow manage to never seemed to put anybody down. He was all about finding the right materials "for you!"

I hope to make myself just draw a few "doodles" each day. Nothing serious, just taking the time to look at something. Not so much the result but getting into the act of looking.

from within, myself unseen

2011-04-06T23:39:00.015-05:00

Over 10 years ago I stumbled across A Country Calendar by Flora Thompson. It was the kind of thing I used to do...go to the downtown public library and just wander the shelves randomly picking at books. Anyway I read some (maybe all, but I doubt it) of this book and thought it had the most beautiful sentences I had ever read. But this was age before amazon and even after many years of searching I never found it. I did see many copies of her fiction trilogy Lark Rise to Candleford, but for some reason I could never get into it.

Anyway I was reminded of it recently and keeping with this modern age I ordered it online (not amazon, so they didn't win this round). I got it today and know why it stuck in my mind. You can open the book at random and read wonderful phrases, sentences and paragraphs...

This morning, a forgotten milk-can brought me out of bed early. Afterwords, in spite of the rimey tang in the air, I stood at my cottage gate, and was glad of it.

---

A pair of blue-tits have built between the double wooden walls of the tool-shed here, and I am able to watch them through a knot-hole in the wood from within, myself unseen.

---

August- It is strange how the counties personify themselves to mind's eye.

Dorset is a dairy maid, all curds and cream and roses. Wiltshire, a princess of the Stone Age, fugitive, aloof. You may tread on her vast spaces and breathe pollen-scented air for a month, and never once catch a glimpse of her; although most ancient of counties she still awaits her poet to interpret her....

---

November
upon the fourth of November, three swallows appeared in a sky deserted for the more than a fortnight by the last of their kind. It was a dull morning of east wind and cutting showers, and the shrill cries of the three birds may have been due to cold. Just as probably, they were hunger cries , for a keen wind clears the air of insects even more completely that frost....

It reminded me of another book I half read, The Long Loneliness by Dorthy Day. I never got past the first chapter but this line always stuck with me.

“Children all love to hear stories of when their parents were young, and their parents before them. It gives the child a sense of continuity.”

Both books carry such weight of a lost time. They speak to the best of a different world view, not the provincial or petty or prejudiced past, by where things were close and you were aware. Where the past is part of the present, not an object of study but..I don't know what, but whatever it is...it is gone. Yet you can almost remember them, these thing ring true.

But what child really hungers for stories of their parents and grandparent? That is for a grown child searching Ancestry.com. Maybe I simply want to remember the world that BBC and Masterpiece Theater have always assumed I knew.

A Fractured Tale, not a Funny Fractured Fairy Tale

2011-04-06T23:17:00.006-05:00

So...It is not a sprain. I have a fracture and I have to wear a boot for at least 3 weeks. No Aikdo, No bicycle rides, no exercise...just me and couch and the TV.

I hobbled Saturday, Sunday and by Monday I was pretty pathetic sight so I broke down and made a doctor's appointment.

Not much to do really...just wear a boot for few weeks because as ridiculous as I looked with a “boot” clomping around, I looked extremely sad dragging a lame foot about.

Oh yes, one other thing to do, buy some sushi take it home and drink some wine while you eat. And from the way I feel tonight that may be the game plan for the immediate future

It's Always Something!

2011-04-02T22:37:00.007-05:00

A few weeks ago I had a problem with an inflammation on my heel which at one point was bad enough I was limping about my business at work. But a week or so later with the help of some pills I was back to normal.

THEN...today while working with somebody before class I was an uke who grabs one wrist and then by running behind the person grabs the other wrist. I felt particularly clumsy this morning but I tried to loosen up and not be such a sack of potatoes. Anyway in one instance I stepped with full force and slammed my toes into the guy's heel. At the time it It hurt a little but we move on.

Well, to get to the point....in the next few minutes I notice it is hurting more and more so that by the time class actually starts I realize I can't do a forward roll on my left side because when I go forward on my left foot I have drop to my knee because it is so painful.

Then after 15 or 20 minutes I actually excused myself and left class early.

With each hour it hurt more and more, but only when I tried to walk. So now at the end of the day I have trouble putting any weight on the foot. I guess it will be OK since only one toes is swollen much and it is the only one that is purple.

Lately it feels like there is always something interfering with my practice. Of course sometimes it is my own laziness but when I finally get the gumption up an make some effort...fate steps in.

I am showing my age but it makes me thing of the quote from Roseanne Roseannadanna back from the early days of Saturday Night Live. Have I turned into the person she was making fun of?

Well, Jane. It just goes to show ya! It's always somethin'! If it's not one thing, it's another! Either you smoke or you have a sweat ball hangin' off your nose! ... or you have a hurt heel or maybe a broken toe!

Weakness Overcame Me

2011-03-30T22:15:00.005-05:00

(from Darker Than Black Anime)

I was tired. I was weak....so I just went home after work and missed Aikido Class, i.e. I was a wimp.

But at least I paid homage to Aikido's country of origin...Japan.

I stopped by the local kroger for some freshly prepared sushi and took it home and ate it as I watched Japanese Anime.

Again I am intrigued by the cool way most Anime draws cats

A Sunday Morning Bicycle Ride

2011-03-20T23:02:00.006-05:00

I managed a ride on the Dallas Santa Fe Trail this morning. It takes you from White Rock Lake to just outside of Downtown Dallas. A nice and easy ride of maybe 5 miles from the White Rock Spillway to to Downtown. You end up in in an odd part of town for a cyclist and I suppose if I knew downtown or Deep Ellum better I would have know what to do it looks like the trail definitely ends with no expectation of further development, even though the trail itself is very well constructed.

As an aside it is cool to see the remains of the original Dallas Santa Fe Rail Line at the end of the bike trail pavement.

After Work Bike Ride

2011-03-14T21:41:00.006-05:00

Unfortunately I couldn't make Aikido class tonight and it was very pleasant cool evening in Dallas and with the time change I took advantage of the daylight after work and I managed to get in a bicycle ride in at White Rock lake. It has been a few months since I've ridden and it was nice to get out.

All in all a nice ride

Blind Faith - Can You find Your Way?

2011-03-01T00:18:00.004-06:00

Tonight Mark taught and with every technique we closed our eye as we did them, The instructions were for nage (the one being attacked) but I think we automatically closed our eyes when acting as uke (the attacker)

It was really a nice way to learn, in that I think it made us use a different part of our brain. I may be a cliché but I think we become locked into certain ways of looking at the world (a weltanschauung if you will) and we are subject to those looking at problems and situations from only one perspective. But when you close your eyes, suddenly you information input is radically changed. From that point the story of the moment is told not by what you see but by what you feel.

I think the very act of seeing and reading trigger conditioned ways of thinking and while often they are the most effective, sometimes they might miss the point.. It reminded me of a difference in Protestant “Bible” church service and a Catholic Mass. In the first you bring your Bible and read as the preacher also reads the scripture. But in a Catholic Mass you specifically DONT read as the gospel which is proclaimed. And I really buy the argument that by “listening” to the good word it is a more direct route than reading. Reading might get through to your soul, but listening is like “chugging” the word of GOD but reading is digesting. You need both in different situations but sometimes you need the injection to the heart to seal the deal.

And is that context I propose that by closing your eyes while doing an Aikido technique you might actually figure more out than objectively sorting things out.

Last Saturday we had testing and I helped on a 5th kyu test. Last time I worked with somebody on their 4th kyu and now a 5th. The thing is, I think when you help somebody on their test you really understand that you don't don't “understand” anything. But I guess the takeaway is that it is only by trying to teach aikido (in a small way) that you actually learn it.

On a different topic, don't start a diet or abstain from wine when you are on a Sopranos watching kick. They are always eating pasta an drinking wine. I can't resist, so after Aikido there was a big bowl of pasta and store bought, but good marinara sauce and and nice but cheap bottle of Shiraz. FYI, the shraza was paid for by an old Texas lotto ticket I had in my wallet

Congrats to Biliosk8 on passing his 3rd kyu. His test was way better than mine and maybe we can all work with Mike (who took 3rd kyu in the last test) and figure out 2nd kyu.

I am not really a fan of Blind Faith, but it is always nice to open a blog post with music.

Tongue Tied Dream

2011-02-21T23:08:00.009-06:00

I had a dream the other night that I walked out of the house I grew up in and just outside the door was the Zen teacher I saw for 6 or 7 years. He brought a crowd of people with him from Latin America and they smiled at me because they thought I could speak Spanish (and understand them I guess).

But I frantically tried to warn them that I only understood a little. I said

Lo siento, pero hablamos solamente palabras simplice

I was trying to say I only spoke in simple words, except I was horribly tongue tied and struggled to say palabras and it was like my tongue wouldn't work right. And of course in my dream I know simiplice is Italian for simple (or should it have been simplici?) and I was frustrated because I couldn't remember the Spanish word for “simple” but kept saying the Italian word. Which is all more strange since the English and Spanish words are basically the same thing...simple = simple

AND I don't know why I used hablamos (we speak) rather than hablo (I speak)

But the crowd of people with the Zen teacher in the foreground just smiled at me pleasantly and didn't say anything.

So I couldn't say words and could not remember anything simple

The Only Way it Clicks!

2011-02-06T23:56:00.007-06:00

The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett

I always enjoyed the early Thin Man Movies and coming off reading The Maltese Falcon I went straight into Hammett's The Thin Man. I quite like it but in print the constant drinking is a little less charming than in the movie.

A pleasant read and for good and bad it shows it came from a different era. Even if it almost seems Hammett is making a parody of himself.

Prize lines:

Studsy returned alone. “Maybe I'm wrong,” he said as he sat down, “ but I think somebody could do something with that cluck if they took hold of her right.”

.....

After a while she asked: “Is Mamma in love with you?”

“Good God , No! She hates men more than any woman I've ever known who wasn't a Lesbian.”

......

“Then you're not sure he-”

“Stop saying that. Of course we're sure. That's the only way it clicks.”

.....

“But it seems so loose”

“When murders are committed by mathematicians, “ I said. “you can solve them by mathematics”

View all my reviews

We do not remember days, we remember moments.

2011-01-24T23:34:00.012-06:00

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!

2011-01-17T23:04:00.004-06:00

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

2011-01-15T21:47:00.005-06:00

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.

Are You Hitting Or Are You Loving; or is there difference? And what is the way of harmony anyway?

2010-12-31T22:11:00.010-06:00

Comment from a previous post about the nature of an atemi (strike to the attacker)

"Yeah, it is hard to reconcile. Do you think that it's a matter of reconciling the young Ueshiba with the old?"

My thinking today is that it is probably more complicated than that.

O'Sensei's “enlightenment” happened in 1925 and early enough to be considered "young Ueshiba". Where he says essentially that there was no enemy and that “budo” was actually Love, which to our sensibility is obviously paradoxical. How can you seek to harm someone and yet love them at the same time.

Part of it may be that he was starting from a “Martial” standpoint and today (at least on an individual level) we start from a a non-combative viewpoint. So an atemi or strike for him did not automatically have the connotation that it does from us. Think about it...there once once a time when arguments, insults and debates were sometimes settled with violence much like a European duel. So merely hitting someone in the face was nothing compared to cutting their neck...well, maybe.

Then again maybe we have traded in the dueling pistol for a legal action, but no matter, we "usually" don't hit, strike or shoot people over some disagreement.

For me the thing is Morihei Ueshiba said many things and we have to consider not only what he said but where WE come from as to what we think is most important. So that what we say O'Sensei says, shows more about where we are coming from than what he was actually trying to teach.

For some the key point is that the Founder ALWAYS thought of Aikido as a MARTIAL Art. For me the Founder saw Aikido as a way of reconciliation and Love.

From my perspective I see O'Sensei as acknowledging we live in a world with pain and anger that erupts in violence and the answer is Aikido. For some it is a hard hitting strike to the face and a firm put down. For me it is an embrace of the attack and a circular, safe but firm landing for the attacker.

Well...that is my goal.

Oh yes. Happy New Year to All!!

What Is Aikido?

2010-12-27T23:47:00.012-06:00

O'Sensei and Terry Dobson

True Budo is a work of love. It is a work of giving life to all beings and not killing or struggling with each other. Love is the guardian deity of everything. Nothing can exist with it. Aikido is the realization of love.
- Morihei Ueshiba O'sensei

Tonight Lawrence taught class. We have not seen much of him lately. He took a year off to study Hapkido and currently teaches the kids class. If you don't know, Hapkido has a lot of Aikido techniques but had a whole bunch of kicks and strikes as part of the repertoire. Lawrence is mild mannered and give off a soft vibe. But he is very keen on the effectiveness of any technique and how it would work in “the street”. For him the purpose of Aikido is how it will protect you and in a real fight and you strike at the attacker, and if the strike can't do it you use it as an atemi to distract the bad guy and then "clean his clock".

That is one aspect. Some people emphasize the martial aspect of Aikido and to that end are fond of point out that somewhere O'sensei said something like 80, 90 or 95% of Aikido is the atemi (strike to the attacker) which in a kinder view is merely used to to distract the attacker.

For all the explanations about how O'sensei and Aikido is really about subduing attackers and breaking some bones if necessary there are many more quotes like this from the founder...”you are responsible for protecting your attacker, for not hurting him”.

So, how does that view Jibe with the quote above?

Is Aikido Love?

or is it putting the bad guys in the hospital?

Or all of thee above

It doesn't Jibe. So another paradox, or contradiction or subtle ruse, or out right deception.

My Terry Dobson books came in so I may be more confused than ever.

Terry Dobson Again

2010-12-24T21:25:00.009-06:00

Here is Ram Dass recounting the often retold story from Terry Dobson about an experience on a Tokyo train in the middle of his intense Aikido training with the very founder of Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba.

It is a strange story and it makes you wonder. If you have no experience with Aikido you might not see how marvelous it is to experience its wonder. When you acting as the attacker feel utterly mystified as to how you ended on the floor or how you lost your balance and fell under the control of the “victim”.

SO, you know it can be amazing BUT you also know there is the question whether in “real life” it would actually work. Work for you personally or even work for somebody else in theory.

AND the story itself sounds almost too pure to be true. It smacks of the maudlin and sentimental, but is that because of a weakness in the story or a weakness in me?

While researching this post (i.e. Goggling) I found this amazing, and I mean amazing post...

http://andthispartistrue.blogspot.com/2010/12/kaddish-for-terry-dobson.html

Her notes from his last seminar where he collapsed and entered a coma shortly after. Again it almost sounds too "good" to be true. But if it is, it is pretty amazing. Then again must a story not being "true" be any less powerful?

Meet death with integrity.
Intensity.
Don't flinch.
Don't turn away.
Step slightly off line.
Use his imbalance.
Keep goddamn stupid ego out of it.
Be there.
Achieve stillness.

The story you find on the net is here http://www.heartinspired.com/TerryDobson.pdf

Christmas message:
Keep goddamn stupid ego out of it.
Be there.
Achieve stillness.

An Obese White Gentleman in No Apparent Distress

2010-12-22T23:53:00.016-06:00

I recently read Aikido in America which is really just an OK book about the people who brought Aikdio to America. Really just Americans who brought Aikido to American because there was no mention of Japanese who left Japan to bring Aikido to America.

Anyway, the first person profiled is Terry Dobson, and he turns up later in this book's story. He was probably the first serious American student of O'Sensei, and studied the founder closely for the last 8 years of O'Sensei's life. He may have been kind of a Jerk, but from what I can tell he comes across as a fascinating charismatic jerk. Basically somebody you wish you knew and had hung around with (he died in 1992). And his partner wrote a novel/biography about him.

I think I have may have been sold on him because I feel connected to the title of the book above (I am still waiting for delivery). But I have ordered 2 other books by or about him from amazon and I hope they are as good as I imagine.

Here is an excerpt from one of them...

O' Sensei used to make these shapes as he was demonstrating circle. Square. Triangle. I never understood what the meant by them. I was burning to know the meaning of these symbols. It was an unspoken rule that you didn't ask him questions. I thought about it for four, five even six years.
One day, everybody in the dojo got into spring cleaning. We were really going at it, tearing the place apart. It was a gorgeous day, and I found myself alone with O'Sensei on the veranda. We had just finished a job and it was obviously time for a break, so we sat down together.

I thought, what the hell, one question in six years ain't so bad. I asked him, “Sensei, I notice when you teach your frequently mention circle, square and triangle. I've thought about it for a while and I don't understand the meaning of these symbols. I wonder if you could help me solve this problem. Please explain.” He looked at me for a long time. He looked down, he looked up, and he looked around. And I'm waiting, right?

He said, “Terrusan, you know you should go find out for yourself” Then he got up and walked away. And I thought, “That's a piss-off, you know? All you have to do is say a couple of words, you don't have to be so Zen over the place”

For some reason I can't explain, that story makes me love O' Sensei AND Terry Dobson.

Sometimes You Just Want To Be Quiet For A While

2010-12-03T21:47:00.002-06:00

Long time no post.

Sometimes You Just Want To Be Quiet For A While

More Wines I Like

2010-11-18T00:40:00.003-06:00

My Secret Is Exposed!!

2010-11-03T23:52:00.007-05:00

Yes, my secret is out...I cannot dance.

That is what happened tonight. Shawn was desperately trying to show me how to simply shift my hips to throw him in a “Shomen Uchi Koshi Nage” and I just could not make my body perform this subtle shift. I could mange most of the technique but the final bit of finesse escaped me. And Shawn, who recently started dance lessons asked “You don't know how to dance, do you?” And it is true...So my secret is revealed.

Above is what I cannot do, and part of what Shawn recognized whey he asked me to shift my hips, and below is what I tried to do tonight.

Good Ol' Koshi Nage...

A Cat That Makes Me Mad!!

2010-11-03T23:37:00.007-05:00

"Rocket!!" He jumps in at me and lands in my glass of red wine and it spills all over our couch.

OK, it is really old and has many previous stains, but still...cats can be a pain!!

And this is the wine that I succumbed to and broke my weekday non wine practice.

I still need to consider if I like it. I drank it all when I should have had none.

Indian

2010-10-30T21:31:00.002-05:00

Here is a motorcycle I saw last month on my trip to Houston.

Wines I Like

2010-10-30T20:45:00.004-05:00

It may be crude for sophisticated drinkers but for me it tastes good and doesn't suck. So it gets my rating of "Wines I like".

Plus it is from Sicily!!

What An Odd Thing It Is We Do

2010-10-23T00:29:00.014-05:00

(forgive me but I broke my week long wine fast tonight so the post may have some grammatical and structural difficultiess)

Another Friday night randori and it makes me think about the specialized group we are. We have the occasional person under and just over 20 and probably most in 30s and 40s range and me in the 50s. I guess I am saying that, in general we are "seasoned" as opposed to being fresh.

Anyway I'm sure some dojos are kick ass, hardcore and mad about Aikido, But, while people come and go it seems there are a number of us that have other obligations, yet somehow we manage to hang on to the path. Maybe we are not as powerful and diligent in our practice as some of the more "martial" dojos...but we do what we can. Sooooo...again tonight we we had a bit of Randori where we attack not with the purpose of wining an attack but of attacking so we all learn.

Anyway, I have recorded both last week and this week (they will NOT be on You Tube) but it is instructive to watch, in that you see each of us trying to present an attack to give the nage (the one being attacked) the chance to respond appropriately. And it is not always obvious who is the best, of course one of our two newest black belts was it really good form. BUT, my point is where else can you experience such a situation where people are coming at you and you have to react. But you have to react using both your brain AND your body. It requires a whole different set of sensibilities and skills. Maybe we will never need to use these skills but it then again, maybe we are not only “thinking” out of the “box” but “act-ing” out of the box.

FYI, I had a bottle of one of my previously mentioned favorite wines, for under $9 I must say.

Freestyle Friday Night

2010-10-16T01:37:00.006-05:00

Randori (乱取り) is a term used in Japanese martial arts to describe free-style practice or sparring, sometimes with multiple attackers. The term literally means "chaos taking" or "grasping freedom," implying a freedom from the structured practice of kata.

With the lure of Randori I declined some previous obligations and went to class on Friday. We worked on a few definite attacks and the in the last 10 minutes or so Sensei asked if we wanted to a bit of randori. Of course we did, even though we are mostly beginners in the sense that real Aikido doesn't start until AFTER you get your black belt.

Anyway everybody did some of it with the restrictions of only grabbing the shoulders, strike to the head and punch to the stomach as the attacks. I was OK I guess but really my only redeeming point was that I usually managed to get off-line of the attack but unfortunately I had trouble actually applying the techniques. MAYBE I was slightly better at my good point than some others, but most everybody else besides me managed to deliver on performing on actual techniques better than me, regardless of rank.
I brought my Sony “bloggie” and recorded most of the last 30 minutes of class (the max time the camera will record) and caught all of us.

I am sad that when “push comes to shove” I have a real problem with doing any cool Aikido, but maybe I have learned a little bit about not meeting force with force, maybe.

The above is NOT what we I did tonight but is does show Steven Seagal in his younger, slimmer Aikido days. I am not a huge fan of Seagal, and this video is a bit melodramatic...but I still kinda wanta root for the guy.

Wines I Like

2010-10-14T22:43:00.003-05:00

New topic, pictures of wines I like.

Trip To Houston

2010-10-11T19:08:00.035-05:00

Here are some pictures from my motorcycle trip to and around Houston this past weekend. I had a wonderfully pleasant ride with the Skeptical Walrus on Sunday which is heavily representing. Plus a trip downtown to an art fair.

A Morning at White Rock Coffee

2010-09-25T11:31:00.009-05:00

Still a little sick and with an aching toe I spent this morning at the coffee shop catching up on my Internet reading. Over at The Skeptical Walrus he commented on an essay from Big Questions Online which is subtitled “How does religious ritual preserve humanity from chaos and entropy?” The author’s position is that ritual (e.g. religious liturgy) allows us to create a holy space in order to “oppose the onrush of chaos in the name of life”.

Interesting article but from my perspective and my own low cost searching it seems he is mixing terms and metaphors to make his point.

Applying “Laws” of Physics seems a questionable starting point for an explanation of religious ritual. Even the word chaos is loaded. We generally use Chaos as opposed to Order, but usually that is a man made order, so almost by definition anything that doesn't line up with our human expectations is Chaos.

Using Physics is such a way is akin to finding a mathematical proof that Normal Rockwell is better than Rembrandt or vice versa.

Then there no distinction of which ritual, is all ritual good, are all religions the same?

One of my tales I have in my mental library is from a Psychology Today article I read in the early 1980s where the writer claimed that for some people, by joining some Church of Satan they actually turned their lives around and became what we would call “productive citizens” because it brought structure and meaning to their troubled lives. I think that article implied their religion was just a social structure that brought order to their chaotic lives. And I think you could also bend this guy's argument to the same end, in that people find order where there was was dis-order. But that does not necessarily mean anything beyond a superficial psychological band aid.

“Human beings must strive to be more than animals, better than animals — must strive not just to be but to be good, just, kind, holy. ” The unstated assumptions in that line overwhelm me, what kind of striving, what does he mean by better, just, kind and holy?

As an aside this line made me chuckle “Anglicans and Lutherans (and some other Protestants) celebrate the Eucharist also.” I guess he felt he had to cover his bases in case some liturgy loving protestant read his essay.

“Ritual that creates sanctity and separation teaches the Second Law implicitly. ”

From my exposure to ritual it actually the reverse, ritual when deeply felt creates unity and a sacredness that goes beyond the actual sacrament. I'll propose that ritual is like poetry. There can be beautiful and horrible poetry and sometimes you find it hard to figure out why one is “true” and another not. But when a poem works it speaks to something deep in you, and the same with ritual. Ritual when poetic and “true” (for lack of a better word) actually enables you to let go of your “self”, free and connected with the ritual and the people around you. The you and beyond don't seem to be a problem

And to end with “But the rituals we perform teach more than the Second Law: they teach us to defy the Second Law. ”

Shall we line up more “Laws” and try and defy Gravity

And after all that I offer the Tea Ceremony at the top as a ritual that just is. Why ruin it with thoughts of thermodynamics and all my middle school metaphysics.

Sick From Head to Toe!

2010-09-24T21:14:00.006-05:00

Well... my cure for the common cold (see previous post) failed me horribly. Because I got a horrible head cold, (un raffreddore for all my Italian readers), plus I really hurt my toe on Monday night's class. The last time I did this was maybe 2 years ago and I went to the doctor and he told me I had sprained my toe. This time I skipped the doctor and just let it get black and blue (see above-it looks way better than it did Tuesday night).

Anyway Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were pretty horrible. But that is me just whining. However I will probably give my toe a break tomorrow and skip class even though I was coughing up a lung on Wednesday and missed that class.

What can I say...I am a wimp, after all who but a wimp would post a picture of their wounded toe?

By the way I think that is my second post of my toe, wow what a wimp!!

Summer Cold Treatment

2010-09-20T23:56:00.001-05:00

Just a quick note that at practice we ended with the ever popular but dreaded (by newer students) koshi nage, this time from morote tori (two hands grabing two hands)

Always a good way to end a class.

I felt a summer cold coming on all day so I wanted to sweat it out and then after class I broke my diet for my other patented cold treatment of 2 to 3 Guinness stout beers and an alka-seltzer cold plus and then off to bed.

A Crash Course in Falling

2010-09-15T22:39:00.006-05:00

It was a small class tonight and for a few minutes I thought it would be just Sean and me, but two more came so it was fine. A pretty good workout and I was tired by the end which is all the more fulfilling.

We focused mainly on ukemi tonight and the first technique laid the ground work for some really cool falls from irimi nage (entering throw).

The top video looks a lot lot like what we practiced although we are all pretty green we at least got in the vicinity of what the video shows

Sometimes we even got close to the fall demonstrated in the Christian Tissier video below although we never did really roll over nage's leg

And finally, one of my favorite Aikdio Youtube clips, which also just happens to be of Christian Tissier.

The thing is, if you don't know what is going on you might think it is all just some sort of choreographed routine. Especially the first half of the attacker's respnse to the irimi where they fly around nage, go to one knee and come back up again.

BUT once you have been the Uke to somebody who REALLY knows how to do irimi nage it is so powerful that if you didn't relax and go down you would lose all control and simply crash to the floor. Sidney has blessed me a few times with the power of the irimi force, and it is something to experience. I sometimes think on some techniques like that we should have a class where we all just line up feel the power of the throw.

Rivers Of Thought or Why Did Heraclitus Cross the River?

2010-08-29T00:15:00.006-05:00

Rough Draft 1: My friend at design matters blogged about how "generations" have different experiences depending on the technology they grew up with, and it got me thinking how those coming of age today experience the world differently than I or my parents did.

We, humanity, exist in a world where it is true that "there is nothing new under the sun" and "you never step into the same river twice". Maybe it all boils down to "the more things change, the more they stay the same". But from a design standpoint (and anthropological standpoint I guess) it is interesting consider what things are REALLY different whether it is objects or ideas and even world views.

Are we all really the same, or are there truly fundamental differences, now and in past times. One advantage of thinking we have always basically been the same it that it means we don't have to think. Are the actions of others bad because we know they are bad, or are they just different and with out a moral value? Thinking can be ( but is not necessarily) a difficult thing.

Long ago I read a few books by the cultural anthropologist Edward T Hall, if I remember it correctly (no guarantees), one of his points is that we like to think people are basically the same, but his study of different cultures found that we are all really different and saying it isn't so just papers over any problems we might come across. Can the same thing be said for our society that has grown out of our own technology?

I guess my take at this point is we may think in fundamentally different ways now than in other times and certain world ideas really do change the course of history. This is mirrored in my earlier post about the sacred circle and Cahill's book about the ancient Hebrews. But then again if you were a jerk in Ancient Rome you would probably be a jerk today. Hmmmm... can I expand on that?

apropos of nothing 1. Without reference to anything.

2010-08-24T00:10:00.009-05:00

Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.. . .
I cannot repeat how there I entered,
So full was I of slumber at the moment
In which I had abandoned the true way.
-Dante's Inferno, Canto I

"For the straightforward pathway had been lost.. . ."
Dante, you crafty ingenious old fool, how could you know me so well?

Break Fast in Honor of a Break Fall, or a Leap of Faith Takes the Cake

2010-08-19T01:55:00.005-05:00

My lame attempt at a “diet” is to not drink beer or wine from Monday through Thursday. Admittedly I was weighing the option of breaking this very simple “fast” earlier today after on small glass of red wine offered by our Italian teacher during the very informal Italian class at noon.

BUT, tonight at Aikido we practiced techniques requiring break falls and finished with a Koshi-nage (hip throw). So...all in all it was a glorious class where you were challenged and somehow managed to get through it.

It is a strange thing to simultaneously enjoy something so much yet be so bad at it. I've hit this topic before and it may be just because I am really a klutz and may possibly be the worst possible martial arts practitioner ever. I again felt like the more I practiced my breakfalls the worse I became, BUT, it was great. When we finished with a Koshi-nage from a wrist grab it was like breath of fresh air.

Tonight Mark was teaching and he mentioned doing a breakfall from a shiho-nage technique but said it was pretty tough and that was why we switched to koshi nage. After the demonstration I asked about it and he inocently asked if I wanted to do it and I also innocently said yes. ...I am fine now but with that throw you have to really commit to the leap, a physical and painful leap of faith,

You have to really throw yourself over or your wrist will break, but you can't get your head as low as you want for a normal breakfall and consequently the whole thing is potentially dangerous but usually not, as long as uke and nage are careful.

ANYWAY, for a minute of so it hurt like heck because I am a lumbering ox and getting an ox to suddenly flip it's legs over its head requires serious motivation, also known as “Pain”. But again, I took the fall and was glad I did.

From such a workout you feel great and given my intolerance for the intolerance of a diet, I celebrated with some wine and ate some mozzarella and tomatoes. That too was great.

And to top it off I came home and stayed up late watching too many episodes of The Wire. All in all a great evening of my own brand of paradoxical moderate excess.

The video shows a breakfall from shionage but on my try Nage (the thrower) did not go down to his knees, so I was a bit higher up.

Trying to Square a Circle

2010-08-14T17:20:00.006-05:00

Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles and everything tries to be round. In the old days when we were a strong and happy people all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation....Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood and so it is in everything where power moves.
- BLACK ELK

the quote opens to book The Gift of the Jews by Thomas Cahill, and while I only read a bit of the book I'm am pretty sure he us using that quote to show us a world view that was once ubiquitous and accepted but now, thanks to the Hebrew tradition is a view of straight lines.

I think it is true that “western culture” teaches us to view things linearly. In school you work and study so you can graduate. You get training to get a job. Thousands of self help books have in their basis goals and plans and while they may not say there is a start and then an end, the say (I think) basically that once one goal is reached you have to set another. Which is really just another straight line

I'm sure there is much more to it, but this is how I see that the notion relates to Aikido...we are products of our culture and by default want to have things move in a straight line. But in Aikido conflicts and force is greeted and redirected by often going in circles.

I think my thesis is that we are programmed to think linearly and that is why changing to a circular response is so difficult, even if it is actually takes less force.

I'll ponder this some more and maybe re-write it and re-post later.

GOODREADS = Good Times?

2010-08-13T22:18:00.003-05:00

GOODREADS
"how it works, Goodreads is a free website for book lovers. Imagine it as a large library that you can wander through and see everyone's bookshelves, their reviews, and their ratings. You can also post your own reviews and catalog what you have read, are currently reading, and plan to read in the future. "

So far I listed the one book I am reading. I hope to post some past favorites and keep track of what I have read.

Sun Faced Buddha, Moon Faced Buddha

2010-08-02T00:05:00.016-05:00

The Main Case
The great master Ma was unwell. The temple superintendent asked him, “Teacher, how has your venerable health been in recent days?” The great master said, “Sun-face buddha, moon-face buddha.”

First off, usually a commentary or teisho from a Zen Master follows a koan like this, that is supposed to provide insight. This is not That!

"The Sun-faced Buddha is supposed to live for one thousand eight hundred years. And the Moon-faced Buddha lives only one day and one night."

I've been listening to 10 to 15 year old tapes from my Zen teacher from the days when I was into that sort of thing and this is what I take from it.

A one day Buddha is just as complete as a 1,000 year Buddha. Not the same, just that both are as completely fulfulled. We are all destined to die, and dwelling on it has no relevance to the fullness or completeness of a life.

It is also a given that we are ALL already enlightened, or already Buddhas, but we just don't know it. So all of reality and experience is already here, already in us. Well or ill, sinful or virtuous, strong or weak, we are all already complete.

With each step each of us is complete, with each breath we are complete. "Striving" neither adds nor subtracts...we are all already complete.

Somehow that led me to think of the idea of non-attachment which you hear bandied about in buddhism/Zen books. An only now does it strike me that they were not talking about "non-attachment" as opposed to "attachment" to things or thoughts, but the the very idea of attachment. In one sense you work at not being attached to things and in another there are no things to be attached to.

What does it all mean?

I don't know.

Changes

2010-08-01T23:51:00.000-05:00

A new thought of more fluid blog posts.

I get an idea of a post..post the first thought, the second thought and hope to come to a final post..

That way I post more and it confuses anybody who happens to read it. A win – win!!

Pic From A Morning Bicycle Ride

2010-07-25T12:09:00.002-05:00

Harpo Speaks!

2010-07-20T22:56:00.003-05:00

I missed Aikido Class on Monday and may miss it tomorrow because of family obligations. So in lieu of something of substance....here is my crazy cat Harpo
...
for those of you not versed in Marx Brother's lore, Harpo Speaks! is the name of Harpo Marx's autobiography

Don't do the technique! Don't do the technique!

2010-07-01T00:29:00.025-05:00

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.

William Carlos Williams

Tonight's Aikido had a clear message. Unfortunately the receiver (me) was not so great.

How can so much be so obvious and simultaneously unclear?

The focal point for me came early when Sensei was trying to get us to respond to a failed defense by letting go of our original intention and falling but at the last “split of second” turning the “letting go” into advantage Nage.

For those interested, it was a shomenuchi strike to the head where you tried to used ikkyo (first technique) but uke (the attacker) regained control and stood up driving Nage (the victim) up and starts to continue the arc and drive nage down to the qround. At which point Nage "goes with it" but twists around and guides all this energy in motion to a different direction.

After class I asked for the name of what we did, and that may have been the clue to my mistaken question. There was not a clear cut name, or if there was it was simply a collection of Japanese phrases to describe it. I was wanting to clarify, classify, codify...and Sensei was wanting us to “feel” what was happening.

It refers a bit to my last post. I was looking for instruction on what I needed to do to recreate what we did, but sensei was trying to get us to “relax” and feel the moment (my interpretation not his). I was looking for ways to control the situation and Sensei was trying to teach us that control was the wrong approach. I guess your could say nage ( the “victim”) in the end “won” but winning was not the lesson.

Intellectually I can spot the inspiration or essence of he message. It happened when sensei, who is always calm, slightly raised his voice addressing each group and said

Don't do the technique!
Don't do the technique!

The point being we were all focusing was the mechanics of what we just observed but the demonstration was about letting the technique do itself.

How to get to that point was a whole 'nother thing.

I don't know why I thought of the William Carlos Williams poem except that I've always liked it because in most ways it makes no sense, but somehow it seems relevant to almost every part of life. And in this blog post it emotionally applies...but I just can't explain why.

Or maybe...so much depends on things that you can't control...or not.

Then again it may be the photo explains the whole post. After class I ate some food and drank a bottle of wine from a beer glass and and magically my world and experiences seemed like poetry.

Aikido; It's Not About You!

2010-06-10T08:24:00.004-05:00

Last Night we were working on an exercise with a Yokoman (side strike to the head). And as the swing came in you were supposed to not step back but step to the side along the direction of the strike but somehow shift back at the right time to avoid the actual head strike, and THEN be in position to apply any number of techniques. ...Or something like that.

ANYWAY, after class I was talking with Sensei and telling him something to the effect that I could not do all those things whenever just a practice slow strike is come to my head. Immediately he said..

“It's not about you, it's about him (uke).”

He went on to elaborate that in Aikido it is about seeing and feeling what the motion is and getting in sync with that and only then apply some technique. You see the invisible line of an attack and you match the speed and direction. Otherwise it is a conflict that ends in violent confrontation.

But the phrase “It's not about you!” is what stuck in my head. There is a famous story about the founder of Aikido, who after and intense workout had an overpowering revelation that in a battle there was no opponent

I found this quote

Opponents confront us continually, but actually there is no opponent there.

And this reminded of way back when I heard a Zen talk and the teacher kept emphasizing that while we all have different lives, experiences, likes, dislikes, etc...Actually we are all connected, so connected that even though there are all these differences we are all one, and one not just with each other but with birds, dogs, chairs,rocks, all of it.Although I sometimes got a sense of that I never broke through to really experience what he was talking about.

BUT, it does seem to apply to Aikido, in that it is NOT about me learning and applying some technique and being a martial arts bad-ass. It is really about giving up yourself and being part of whatever the event that is happening and simply doing the most natural thing. You have to let go of your ego and not be locked seeing things from your perspective, and maybe not even from the attacker. Simply see the lines and direction of the moment and respond naturally.

When was the last time you were choked?

2010-06-06T00:13:00.002-05:00

Today for part of the class we maybe turned Aikido on it's conventional head. One would strike to the head and the other would get out of the line of attack and then from behind grab across the throat and choke the attacker. (FYI Aikido means the Way of Harmony)

So....one time Sensei comes to show what we were doing wrong and he demonstrated on me. And I know he was only showing but even with that, when he gave a tug across my throat I felt/heard a pop. Anyway, I still feel my neck.

As an aside, on Wednesday Sensei was demonstrating Ikkyo ( #1 technique) , which by the way we worked on the entire class, and he again was using me to show something. I made a strike to Senseis head and the next thing I knew I was on the ground. I know what happened but I just didn't feel it. I didn't feel him redirect my strike, didn't feel him grab my arm, I didn't feel anything.

My point today is what a strange but special thing it is to practice Aikido. When was the last time somebody actually choked you and you REALLY felt it? And I remember reading about people being ukes for O'Sensei (the founder of Aikido) and commenting that they were shocked that they could not feel the technique he used.

These things are special.

Windows 7 Live Writer

2010-06-04T12:46:00.001-05:00

I installed Windows 7 Yesterday and there is an app in the Windows Live suite that connects to your blog.

Good Ol’ Pablo

A New New Beginning

2010-06-03T23:53:00.000-05:00

Another Blog Anniversary

I started in June of 2007, and three years later it is still here if a little more condensed and infrequent.

I thought of offering up my latests hair-brained scheme of a one year plan to learn Italian and a my strategy of contained gluttony. But the motivation cycle is in a downturn so I'll not mention either of those.

I had a blog post in mind from Aikido class last night, but the power seemed to short out of that grid.

Instead all I have now is an attraction to depressing quotes...

“Religious fundamentalists see themselves as having remedies for the maladies of the modern world. In reality they are symptoms of the disease they pretend to cure. They hope to recover the unreflective faith of traditional cultures, but this is a peculiarly modern fantasy. We cannot believe as we please; our beliefs are traces left by our unchosen lives. A view of the world is not something that can be conjured up as and when we please.”

“Darwinian theory tells us that an interest in truth is not needed for survival or reproduction. More often it is a disadvantage.”

“Science has been used to support the conceit that humans are unlike all other animals in their ability to understand th world. In fact, its supreme value maybe in showing that the world humans are programmed to perceive is a chimera.”

from Straw Dogs by John Gray (not the men are from mars John Gray)

Is the Examined Life the Same One You Lived?

2010-05-30T21:26:00.007-05:00

Daniel Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs. memory
I wanted to bookmark this so I don't forget where I saw it. The short version is that you would think that upon reflection (like if you "take stock" of your life) the overall feeling would be a culmination of what you experience moment to moment.

But it turns out that the two things are only slightly connected and in fact the reflective self rewrites what you actually experienced (or so the studies say). Which almost sounds like one of those wacky physics riddles where the observation changes the event merely by looking at it. I wonder what Socrates would say?

Is Three Months Enough?

2010-05-29T11:48:00.007-05:00

Nice looking girls with this online course!
I see this guy's website. And even though it feels a bit too much like upbeat self help, it still makes me think. I always thought of “Fluent” as being basically as good as a native speaker, but he seems to fudge that somewhat.
http://www.fluentin3months.com/

And I Google some more and found this guy http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/01/20/learning-language/
Hugo's
Italian in Three Months 1999 edition
10 Chapters
200 pages
100 Exercises

Other resources:

Mango online language course (free if you have the right library card)

One a week basic Italian group at work

In the background Italian Rosetta Stone that I'm only so,so keen on.

Assorted other Beginning Italian textss.

Remembering the Second semester Italian class I took 5 years ago

Can it be done?

I just ran out of time and missed Aikido class this morning. Arrrgggh!

A Good Wallow or A Bad Wallow?

2010-05-27T00:32:00.004-05:00

Tonight we worked from different attacks but with the intended response of ikkyo or nikkyo that fails and you modify what you do. But it is really hard to explain and after I got home late tonight I watched a bit of The Bourne Identity on HD fx. Sooooo.,, as I watched Jason B battle a hit man in his Paris apartment I wonderfully saw the thing we were trying to do. Admittedly it was just one second in a two minutes of Hollywood fight scene, but you take what you can get. (see clip above at time code of around :55)

The other part of the story is that I was tired and feeling sorry for myself. I wanted to just go home eat a frozen pizza (cooked) and drink a bottle of wine. BUT I managed to go to class and had a good workout. And instead of going home and wallowing in self pity and pizza and wine, I came home from class to wallow in self satisfaction and pizza and wine.

Siamo come il sole a mezzogiorno baby

2010-05-22T23:00:00.006-05:00

Siamo come il sole a mezzogiorno baby
We're like the sun at noon, baby

Senza più nessuna ombra intorno...baby
Without any more shadow around...baby

Here is another Lorezo Javantti video. I downloaded an album from amazon and interestingly it automatically imported the songs to iTunes. Anyway, I am now taken with the song Mezzogiorno (noon) and the lines above are what sealed the deal on my affection. With Bacciami Ancora I understood maybe 1/4 or so of the words right off, but with this I had to download the lyrics and translation before I got a feel for what it was about.

There are multiple videos for the song but for some reason the main one featuring Lorenzo himself the embedding was disabled so above is the one with for of them at the same time.

Below is the last singer I was infatuated with singing in a language I couldn't understand, but at the time I had no resources for translation so I enjoyed the song for years without knowing what it meant and tonight I finally know. Isn't the Internet a wonderful thing? In retrospect it may have been a more pure experience not being able to find a translation.

Un bellissimo spreco di tempo

2010-05-21T23:18:00.014-05:00

While looking at websites to help me learn Italian I found embedded in one site the video above by Lorenzo Jovanotti. It is the title song to an Italian movie I don't think has been released in the US. Anyway, knowing nothing about the singer, song or movie I fell upon it with a unreasonable affection. Visually it speaks to an American ideal of “Italian”, a villa with a big family and a red and white checkered table. I mean, really! and musically it echoes a bit of Leonard Cohan's "Hallelujah" so is it cool, pop, maudlin or what? But I keep clinking to that virtual bookmark.

About the Italian checkered tables...I wonder if Italy is trapped by it's own cliches and Americans are? In the video they even load the table with the wicker chianti bottles you get at any US Italian restaurant, and of course the women are beautiful and all the men are thin. They left out the plump mother bringing out the huge platter of spaghetti. In the Us the Texans are shown as loud and with Cowboy hats and Oklahoma is filled with “Indian” with plumed headgear.

But aside from any cultural study, I somehow end up like a sentimental old lady on the verge of tears while listening to lyric like these below. Maybe my favorite line is the first line since it might describe my sad attempt to learn Italian on my own...

Un bellissimo spreco di tempo
a beautiful waste of time

FYI, the translator has ancora as “again” but in my crude Italian I used “still” and even if the other is more accurate I'm sticking with “kiss me still” which for some reason sounds way more powerful

BACIAMI ANCORA
KISS ME still

Un bellissimo spreco di tempo
a beautiful waste of time
un’impresa impossibile
an impossible undertaking
l’invenzione di un sogno
the invention of a dream
una vita in un giorno
a whole life in one day
una tenda al di là della duna
a tent beyond the dune
Un pianeta in un sasso, l’infinito in un passo
a planet in a rock, eternity in a step
il riflesso di un sole sull’onda di un fiume
reflection of a sun on a river's wave
son tornate le lucciole a Roma
the glow-worms are back in Rome
nei parchi del centro l’estate profuma.
in the midtown's parks the summer perfumes
Una mamma, un amante, una figlia
a mother, a lover, a daughter
un impegno, una volta una nuvola scura
a commitment, once a dark cloud
un magnete sul frigo, un quaderno di appunti
a magnet on the fridge, a notebook
una casa, un aereo che vola.
a house, a plane that flies
Baciami ancora…
kiss me still
Tutto il resto è un rumore lontano
everything else is a distant sound
una stella che esplode ai confini del cielo.
a star exploding on the edge of the sky
Baciami ancora…
kiss me still
Voglio stare con te
I wanna be with you
inseguire con te
chase with you
tutte le onde del nostro destino.
all the waves of our destiny
Una bimba che danza, un cielo, una stanza
a little girl who dances, the sky, a room,
una strada, un lavoro, una scuola
a road, a job, a school
un pensiero che sfugge
a thought that escapes
una luce che sfiora
a light that skims over
una fiamma che incendia l’aurora.
a flame that inflames the dawn
Un errore perfetto, un diamante, un difetto
a perfect mistake, a diamond, a defect
uno strappo che non si ricuce.
a tear that can't be mend
Un respiro profondo per non impazzire
a deep breath to don't go crazy
una semplice storia d’amore.
a simple love story
Un pirata, un soldato, un dio da tradire
a pirate, a soldier, a god to betray
e l’occasione che non hai mai incontrato.
and the chance that you've never met
La tua vera natura, la giustizia del mondo
your true nature, justice in the world
che punisce chi ha le ali e non vola.
that punishes who has wings and doesn't fly
Baciami ancora…
kiss me still
Tutto il resto è un rumore lontano
everything else is a distant sound
una stella che esplode ai confini del cielo.
a star exploding on the edge of the sky
Baciami ancora…
kiss me still
Voglio stare con te
i wanna be with you
invecchiare con te
grow old with you
stare soli io e te sulla luna.
be alone you and I on the moon

Coincidenze, destino,
coincidences, destiny
un gigante, un bambino
a giant, a child
che gioca con l’arco e le frecce
playing with bow and arrow
che colpisce e poi scappa
that hits and runs
un tesoro, una mappa,
a treasure, a map
l’amore che detta ogni legge
love that lays down the law
per provare a vedere
to try to see
che c’è laggiù in fondo
what there is down there
dove sembra impossibile stare da soli
where it seems impossible to be alone
a guardarsi negli occhi
looking each other in the eyes
a riempire gli specchi
filling the mirrors
con i nostri riflessi migliori
with our best reflections

GRUB RESTORE

2010-05-18T21:58:00.005-05:00

note to myself on how to restore the grub boot loader for Ubuntu

1. Pop in the Live CD, boot from it until you reach the desktop.
2. Open a terminal Window
3. Type "sudo grub"
4. Type "find /vmlinuz” and determine where the linux partition is as in (hd0,4)
5. Type "root (hd0,4)" which I think puts you in that partition
6. Type "setup (hd0)" "quit".
7. Type “quit”

I don't know if this will work on Grub2

I am planning to buy a copy of Windows7 and when I install it I plan to also tryout the new Ubuntu 10.04. So this info might come in handy.

Is My Mind Half Empty Or Half Full?

2010-05-17T22:48:00.002-05:00

Last week during Aikido class we worked on responses to ShomenUchi (strike to the head) and started off with the standard ikkyo, nikkyo techniques (moves #1 and #2). I've done these a number of times over the past few years so while I still feel like a beginner I sometimes feel like there is a little muscle memory going on and I can stumble through.

Durning the Sankyo move (#3, but who's counting) I kept getting to a point where I started kotegaishi which we had not even worked on at that point. The strange thing was I didn't simply forget what Sensei had showed us. Please allow me a little room for psycho-hyperbole since I kinda felt like I forgot everything and I would “wake up” just as I started kotegaishi and realize it was not what I was supposed to do, but I could get my mind back to what we were supposed to be practising. My mind kept emptying out half way when uke (the atacker) started the attack.

Sensi came by and watched a few times and I briefly explained my mind was skipping off track and could not stay on the Sankyo line.

He suggested that maybe I might have progressed enough that I was trying to simply do the most logical move for our positions at that time.. It might actually be a good thing that my body sensed what should be done and just did it.

The thing is in order to learn the techniques you have to sometimes practice them even with it really doesn't feel right. Of course when you are a beginner no moves really feel right but you have to start somewhere.

So.............there you go, I managed to pull success out of failure.

Saturday afternoon in the backyard in Houston

2010-05-01T19:24:00.004-05:00

2010-04-16T22:40:00.007-05:00

Originally I was going to take a few days off to visit relative in Houston but more local familial demands made me cancel that, BUT since I had already asked for the days off I have tried to squeeze in some fun time between those trip canceling obligations. I had two goals, read Wise Blood and ride my bicycle. Check and Check!

Here is the situation...you ate your lunch of a simple green salad with some marinated mozzarella balls thrown in plus you have the day off and have 3 beers to wash it down...THEN you think, “Hey, I should go for a bike ride!!”

So you take off and ride on the White Rock Lake trail from the lake north towards LBJ
(aka 635). On your way you realize you REALLY should have used the toilet at home, but with few options you look for relief. Do you use the freshly installed port-A potties for tomorrows charity run, or the long establish restrooms at the park? Here is the comparison.

I think it shows what kind of person you are from which choice you make.

Yesterday I went south from White Rock Rail station and today I went north. Yesterday I was on a bike trail that was newer and when through the older parts of a large city and today I went the other direction through what is now urban but once was SUB-urban. The result is the view today was just as level but way more boring and frankly a little more messy.

\

But it all ended up with a half way point coffee break at central and Forest Lane

On The Trail Again

2010-04-15T20:56:00.018-05:00

To avoid a complete mental breakdown I took off work today with the primary goal of riding my bicycle. Of course I didn't get away as early as planned but I rode via White Rock Lake Trail to White Rock Light Rail Station.

I tried to lug my bike in the first rail car and the driver opened up enough to tell me I was doing something wrong and all I got out of him was that I should move down. So I entered through the next door down and only later realized he was telling me to go to the middle car that has no steps and two measly bike hooks.

But I finally made it to Mockingbird Station

And took a short break at a convenient Starbucks for coffee

And then on my way to Katy Trail

And I unexpectedly found my way...

AND a police escort

There were plenty of places to stop and look...

And took a detour to Reverchon Park

Which led to the path on Turtle Creek

The path back through Reverchon Park has some interesting underpasses

..that are cleverly decorated...

FYI, those are not nooses hanging down, they are some sort of twisted steel cable.

Katy trail ends at American Airlines Center

and Victory Park, which is neither a park nor a victory

Then onto downtown Dallas

And a short stop for a photo of the art museum

and catch the train at one of the downtown stations

Where I finally found right place but disobeyed the instructions on which wheel to hang by

And back by White Rock Lake, watch out for the broken railing