Return To Karate

07.07.2005

About 3 weeks ago, I messed up my knee whilst bowling. Yes, bowling. I tend to hurt myself in some way every time I go bowling, but this time I really over did it since I stayed home for about a week using a rolling office chair as my primary mode of transportation throughout the house. Suffice it to say, I think my bowling privileges have been revoked until such a time as my knees can better support my weight through the gruelling twisting and turning that bowling is so well known for.

My lack of mobility caused me to miss the last karate belt test. It's not that big of a deal to me (honestly) because I look at karate more as an excercise than as a martial art with ranks to advance through. Granted, it's nice to get a belt to show that you're learning, but it's not something I stay up late worrying about. Jer took the test, did well (except for a little accident from trhowing a normal sized person instead of me) and has advanced to the next belt of Orange. We now joke that he's a higher belt than me, even though we're both pretty sure I can kick his ass if it comes down to it.

Thursday I finally made my way back to participating in class for the first time in 3 weeks. I was trying to take it easy, but I still needed to do something (my knee's not going to get better and stronger by my just sitting around). I did my own version of warming up, trying to skip anything where knee impact is felt, such as running in place or jumping jacks. I was able to go through the 3 sets of katas that we're now responsible for knowing, although trying to be careful of my knee and not having done any of them for about a month made me not only rusty, but I was forgetting the sequence of steps a couple of times.

After class I was amazed by how good I actually felt. Working out my knee, as little as I actually did, was something I needed (that's not a pun, honest to god!). A couple of hours later I was hobbling around like I used to after karate class, but that was an all over stiffness instead of a crippling knee pain, so that was good. Good I say! I'm even looking forward to next Tuesday know to see if I can do a little bit better.

There's a make-up belt test scheduled for some time in the future so that I and about 6 other people can advance in belt rank. I'm not going to push myself if my knee's not ready when the time for the test come, but I've got to admit it would be nice to go ahead and replace my yellow belt with an orange belt. Even though I don't really care. Honest.

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In Need of a Schedule

07.05.2005

I had plans of grandeur for this past holiday weekend. Installation of light fixtures that have been sitting around for over a year. Spackling of walls in preparation for painting. Messing around with various websites, making them look less neglected than they have been. Cleaning of bathrooms, dusting of shelves, doing of laundry.

After 4 days of being off work, I had gotten the laundry done.

So now I think I need to make myself a schedule. After this weekend, it seems obvious that (a) this stuff isn't going to take care of itself, and (b) me thinking "I'll get around to it" ain't working. So I've started a schedule. A realistic schedule. Not one where I say that everything will magically get done in a weekend, but one which takes into account that I can never wire up a light right the first time, so a 30 minute job takes 2 hours. And after installing that light, I'm not going to jump in and install the next light, I'm going to sit down and take a break for a couple of hours, because I can't believe it took 2 hours to do 30 minutes of work!

I don't know if I can stick to the schedule that I'm making. That's not really the prupose. My goal from this is to make some progress. Any progress.

Permalink random renovation/remodelling

The Return

06.27.2005

After a few weeks of trying to see how eventful my life actually is, I've learned that.....

I'm a pretty average, boring guy.

Trying to blog every day is definitely too much (i.e. boring), so I'll try to see if something interesting happens once or twice a week. If nothing happens that seldom, I'll be forced to start making things up to seem less pitiful.

This also brings around the 6th incarnation of the Russellmania design, the timing of which is about right since I usually remake the site around the time the domain is up for renewal. So, take a look around. Some sections are gone (alas, poor Wrestling Babe of the Day), and a couple of sections are trying to spring in anew.

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Blog Free, As Free As The Wind Blows

05.31.2005

I've a dilemma with which I've been debating the solution.

I'm not sure about that sentence structure, but I'm going to go with it for now.

I don't really blog that much, maybe 3 times a week. And when I do blog, I usually have to search for something to say. I have to face it, my life just doesn't have that many interesting or abnormal occurrences on a daily basis. So, with that glaring me in the face, I'm going to take a little break from blogging. I know, I know, how will the interweb survive. But it will, never fret.

I'm going to take a break and either decide that I do have enough interesting things to talk about on a semi-regular basis, or I'll take the time to come up with a redesign or a new theme for the site, maybe pare down some of the sections that I never update (like camtoons) or serve to up my search hits on Google and Yahoo (like the Babe of the Day).

So, have a happy June!

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Day of (Star Wars) Gaming

05.23.2005

Jerry and I got together this weekend for a little "throwback to our gaming days" fun. Due in part to the Star Wars hysteria going on everywhere, I was in a bit of a Star Wars mood, and this offered the perfect opportunity to not only play some games, but play some games that have never been freed of their shrinkwrap as they've been sitting on the shelf for the past year. Or two.

Our first game to learn was Star Wars: Epic Duels. It's pretty quick to learn, pretty quick to play. You pick a card that has a major character (Name you should know, like Darth Maul or Mace Windu) that comes with two minor characters, like clone troopers or storm troopers or ewoks. I like to call them "fodder". There are cards involved to throw in some randomness, but the game is basically "kill the 2 fodder characters, race to see who has a card to kill the main character". It actually turned out to be kind of boring. But it had lots of cool figures, especially since the game had been marked down to $7.99! These miniatures could even be used in....

Game #2 was Star Wars Miniatures, a collectible miniatures game that leaves out the random cards and in their place puts random figures. The detail in the figures, and even the maps, are great. There is a little bookkeeping since you need to keep track of hit points and number of times using the Force per character, but after the record keeping of Car Wars and Star Fleet Battles, it's simple. The game is fast paced, but it needs more than "kill all of the opposing force" rules. Fortunately, they also make mission books that come with maps, tiles, and rules for missions to play out scenarios from the various movies.

Of the two, we had a blast playing the Miniatures game. I can see where you can easily get addicted to collecting all sorts of the miniatures for this one. Luckily, I can use my Jer approved mutant power of disposable income to see what all I can acquire!

Permalink boardgames