Kishi

Wow, all this good music! I'm gonna have to yoink it for some of my playlists, once I'm in a position to do so.

Thanks, y'all! * Goal 1: 3/3 Goal 2: 2/3 Goal 3: 2/3 And with that, we are off to the races! Trip out to the coast was fun times. This trip was to celebrate one of my Sci Fi Friend's wife's birthday. And so we did! Because she wound up with a bunch of nerds under her roof, she decided that she wanted to play D&D, having never played it before. We were able to facilitate this; our DM wound up giving us a heist game whose plot is a crossover between Ocean's 11 and Jack and the Beanstalk. The game has proven to be a lot of fun to play. I'm presently playing as a Warforged Monk who is acting as a pickpocket/sneak thief for the group. I've had a really easy time with improvising lines and playing comic relief, which is good since comic/adventure is the tone we're going for. OTOH, everyone else is really, really new to the game and it shows. Remember, this is supposed to be a heist game played in the course of an afternoon, but instead of going with the flow of the story and letting it happen, we've spent the past 2 days planning this thing out instead of actually executing the thing. The other players are basically playing the game like it's a game to be won rather than a story to be told, which is a rookie thing to do (and I know I done it). Also, one player basically doesn't trust the DM to not smack us around with information that he might provide in asking questions, so he's really circumspect and oblique in communicating with us and it's proving to be really frustrating for everyone else. Sigh. We should have played Blades In The Dark. Simpler mechanics, session's done in an hour, and no need to waste time on the planning stage. But she wanted what she wanted, and so we got what we got. And TBH, it really has been fun, and I think everyone else is having a good time. Suppose it remains to be seen. I do think some of our players are going to bounce off the game, but I don't think it's anyone's fault. Frankly, FWIW, I've had fun; it's good to know that I can actually improvise with people when I'm paying attention and investing myself in their stories without an attachment to the end result. Anyway, that's the big news of the last couple of days. Beyond that, we basically came home on Sunday. Since I skipped out on hand and neck work on Saturday, I did Sunday instead after having got home. Would have got after the other goals except that a game I'd been wanting to play came up on Steam Sale, so I went and got that instead. Game in question was Citizen Sleeper; in it, you play as a piece of sapient corporate property on the run from your masters in a hard-science space opera setting. So, think a cyberpunk take on The Expanse. It was fun stuff. It's a text-heavy RPG and plays out more like a visual novel than it does anything else; the gameplay loop is about time and resource management as you're trying to make enough money to buy the food and meds that you need to keep yourself alive as you're trying to stay one step ahead of the corporation that's chasing you. I really enjoyed it; I think I'd like to replay the game on some kind of annual basis so that the story beats hit harder rather than frying myself out on it. Monday, I took the day off of the job because my Dad wanted some help working on the house. That meant going home and helping with removing a bush in front of our porch as well as putting up some fascia board to pretty up the tongue-in-groove board that my folks rebuilt the porch with. Hung out with them for the day before going back to hang out with Sci Fi friends again to continue D&D, which was just another night of planning (although we did manage to punch it up some with the use of a flashback mechanic that we borrowed from Blades In The Dark. Which I'd offer is proof that we should have played that game instead, but I digress). The labor at my folk's place was my training, and the writing and meditation got done; I actually found that I'm going to have to bump my time to 3 minutes since 10 deep breaths is longer than 2 minutes for me. Today, back in the office. Training goal was accomplished at home, and writing and meditation goals are completed here at the job, hence my offering numbers up to today. Gonna make it out to the mats tonight and follow up with some overtime work. Gonna try to get my laundry caught up as well so I can make mat time tomorrow, but I suppose that we'll just have to wait and see how it shakes out.

Good start! I've observed that, when it comes to food, you either spend money to save time, or spend time to save money. What is appropriate when is down to you. I'm glad to hear that the dog wound up in a good place, and I hope your work trip goes well!

Howdy, y'all! Getting in early on this one as I'm taking off to the beach in a couple hours and I don't know if I'm going to get the chance to post on time. In keeping with the last challenge, I made a point of redistributing my training tasks to win back some much needed time. I applied that the past week as follows: Monday: Simple and Sinister, Farmer's Walks Tuesday: Straddle Planche progression, Side Lever progression Wednesday: Rope Climb progression, Single Leg Squat progression, Manna progression Thursday: Hollow Back Press progression, Front Lever progression Friday: Simple and Sinister, Farmer's Walks Saturday: Handstand and Neck work Sunday: ??? It all sounds like a lot and very heavy until you realize that at this point it's just planks and push ups and inverted rows and super basic things at this point. But I tried it out and, uh, it worked like gangbusters! Everything's done really fast; nothing takes more than 20-30 minutes and I hit enough of my body to feel good for having done it. I've even been able to retain my qigong practice, although that too has changed some. Shi Yan Lei, whose work I'm following, wants like 5 different stances in addition to the qigong, as part of a combined program of qigong and kung fu. Well, I've already got enough leg work in my kung fu program as it is, and only 2 of the stances he provides show up in the qigong movements, so there's no real reason for me to faff about and waste more effort. And the thing is, the training workload as it was distributed last challenge had some substantial effects on my ability to get after the non-training portions - the meditation and the writing. So I want to attack those problems again, but this time with this new set up, just to see how it goes. For those who didn't follow along last time, it goes like this: Goal 1: Training Like it says on the tin. Qigong is going to happen as it does; I actually want to try to get to 3-4 times a week, which I think will be quite doable. This was another one of those things that suffered under the prior load, but really it's more a matter of being an opportunity than something I'm going to pursue aggressively. Goal 2: Meditation Gonna shift this goal a little bit and set a time of 2 minutes as my minimum. To be clear, even if I miss this goal, I'm still going to take my deep breaths at bed time and get some benefit. So it's not an either/or situation by any stretch. I just want to challenge myself to do more, and having a hard standard that I won't wiggle out of will help. Maybe. Or maybe I'll be lazy again. IDK. Goal 3: Writing I found a more detailed version of the Snowflake Method. I think I'm going to use this one, since it has a more integrated approach to character profiling and stuff like that. The old 6-step program on Reedsy that I referenced before was a good starting point, but it was also looser in a way that I had a hard time connecting with. I still think I can use their character profiler as a way to construct a dossier on my characters for reference, but it's hard to use for the planning stages, at least for me. My figuring at this point is, plan out -> write the damn thing -> fill out dossiers afterward with the information I develop. But we'll see. 1st step is to follow the plan. Those are my goals this time. It works out to being mostly a repeat of the last challenge. There is some stuff I want to do/get into, but I don't really have a realistic way of approaching that just yet, so that'll be something that hums along in the background. No worries. T-minus a couple days. See y'all when I do!

Kudos to you for walking in the rain. Walking is something I really need to get back in my life in a bad way. That is some daggum dedication right there.

Wow! Sounds like life happened to you in a big way this challenge. I wish you luck in the new business venture! I hope it turns out well for you and everyone involved. How do you like HRV so far? I've heard mixed things about its value for recovery; I've seen some folk swear by it and other folk say that it's overcautious.

Job well done! I think for as much as this challenge threw at you in the Life department, you did wonderfully.

Oh, wow, yeah, no, that's terrible. That's definitely not a flavor profile that works. I'm hopeful. And even if it doesn't work out, I'm doing well enough at the job that I don't need to spend an extra half hour or so on my cases. Worst case, I get a little extra rest over the course of the day like you say, and I'm not complaining about that. See you soon! * OK, thoughts and feels about this challenge. Overall? Pretty good. This was one of those where I won some and learned some even as I won some. That is genuinely dope. The training win is that I've rediscovered my love of kettlebell swings and get ups, and they've had immediate carryover into the things I want to be good at, both in terms of martial arts and general physical prep. That is good. I also learned, however, that it's hard to combine this with other things afterward; it's not a problem of finding or having extra stuff to do so much as the more recent emphasis on "timeless" standards, meaning generous rest and looseness in the body. It takes enough time for it to become a compliance issue, and while it's not necessarily bad to stop and go as life demands, it's also not terribly pleasant to take that long. I was reminded recently that in the 1st edition, Pavel suggested that S&S could be combined with an ongoing S&C program at a dose of twice per week, which would slow my progression down considerably, but may be the easier option to comply with. Probably going to jump to that this week to give it a dry run and then plug it in for my next challenge. Meditation was really good this past challenge in lowering my blood pressure. Which is always a win. But the lesson is that, as usual, if I give myself permission, I'll settle for the least possible amount. In this case, it worked out to 10 deep breaths before going to sleep. I do believe I'd benefit from more work in this space, but I also know that I'd have to set a standard and stick to it without any wiggle room. Then again, though, if I'm benefitting from the present dose, do I really need more? I don't know. Ironically, the meditation I would do on my need to meditate doesn't appear to be at an appropriate dose to figure this out. Writing was hard, because being a creative is hard. As little as I got done, I actually feel really accomplished about. I do like what the Snowflake Method gave me in terms of story structure, and I eventually figured out a way to use it to generate character profiles, which feels right for the planning form. However, in researching the Snowflake Method, I found that there's actually a lot of variations on this form, and I want to research those and see if I could develop the story even further. I really think if I buckled down on this, I could return to prose work in the next month or so, which I'm actually really itching to get back to. Maybe some kind of morning pages too to scratch the itch and loosen those processes back up again. So, like I said, it's been a good challenge on the whole. And as always, I thank you for stopping by. Special thanks to @Jupiter, @KB Girl, @Mistr, @Scaly Freak, @Sovalis, @Tanktimus the Encourager, @The Most Loathed, @Everstorm, and @TimovieMan, and anyone else I missed who stopped by. It's the community I'm here for, and it wouldn't be a community without you. ❤️ See you next round!

Hey, maybe I want some protein powder in my mixed drinks. You don't know! Yeah, we'll see. I've observed that writing things down, even if I don't go looking for video references later, still helps a lot with retention. I'm hoping for similar results in writing down my rolls in terms of identifying trends and seeing how I get to where I get to. Maybe useful, maybe not. But can't hurt to try. * Goal 1: 35/35 Goal 2: 33/35 Goal 3: 18/35 Quick update here at the end of the challenge since I've gotta go and train, but basically, things ended out as well as they were probably going to. Used my protein shaker to whip up heavy cream for making Irish Coffee, which turned out super dope. Worked overtime on Friday night and then put in with my boss for an expansion of my lunch time from half an hour to an hour, which is a great, nonspecific way to get the time I need to sneak off and not have to answer to anyone for why I'm not responding to messages and doing what I'm told. I'll pay a price for it in terms of having to be to work a bit earlier, but only a bit, and it's manageable compared to what I was trying to do before, so it'll be no problem. Saturday was an all-social day. Got up and went to hang with friends. Slept too late to get any lifting done, which is my own fault. It was a good time overall, although it did use up all my time on Saturday, and so when I finally got the chance to sleep in super late today, I took it, and got up just in time to have more social demands on me, which. In practice, it doesn't really amount to being a problem, but in principle it's a real drain. Anyway, I'm off to lift things and then go to more social stuff with my folks, so a detailed write up of how things went here is going to be delayed. On the whole, it feels good. But it's also got some lessons in it that I think could be useful going forward.

Goal 1: 33/33 Goal 2: 32/33 Goal 3: 17/33 Thursday down! Happy Friday, everyone! I lifted heavy things and went off to the mats afterward. Good times, y'all. Yesterday marked the start of a new cycle where I was able to bump up the weight on a couple sets of swings and get-ups. It was fun to be able to lift a little more. Mat time was good. Worked on side control and guard recovery from there, something that I'm really bad at and need to practice as much as possible. Gonna take a page from @The Most Loathed and document the rolls as I remember them: 2-stripe White: relatively new student. Very intense. I started off with side control, and while he was initially able to escape to an open guard situation, I was able to knee-slide back to side control, convert to scarf hold, and submit him with an Americana using my leg. When it was his turn, I didn't really escape so much as I used survival postures to stymie him: he was able to convert to mount, so I got to my right side, got my left hand buried under my torso, and covered my neck with my right hand. He was able eventually to muscle my left arm out and sat back to arm bar, but I was able to use my left hand to catch my right bicep and use it as a sticking point. He didn't think to use his leg to break my grip, so I pushed up with my right hand to make a space and sat up into what became his guard, then managed to split it with a "tactical kneel." Timer ran out. That Freaking Purple Belt: that's right, went with that guy again! It was a better roll this time. Dunno if it was his attitude or mine, but there was no bad blood one way or the other. Actually, we spent the whole roll joking and laughing with each other, which causes me to look back at the prior interaction and conclude that I was probably looking at that badly. I think he was trying new stuff to him as far as back takes and stuff, but I stuffed most of what he was trying to do with survival postures. I don't recall getting subbed, which was its own victory, but I know for a fact that was a matter of largesse. No-stripe Blue: nice guy. He subbed me once. He's one of the most recent crop of blue belts, and he's always been better than me, but it's nice to see that he's not as much better than me as I thought. Surprisingly fluid. 2-stripe White: different from the first one. Lighter than me and wiry. He started off with side control and while I couldn't recover to guard, I was able to force a half-guard situation. He countered by putting me on my back in half-guard, which is a good place for questioning your life choices leading up to that point. I was able to sweep him so that I was on top, but I couldn't really do anything with it. At the last second, he went to sweep me, but I was able to roll with it and counter-sweep him to retain top position. It was a good night. Got off the mats afterward and managed to pick up some stuff for St. Padraig's Day today. Also, apparently you can use a protein shaker for shaking... ah, non-protein things. That's pretty neat to try and saves me $50 if it's true. I'd hoped I'd be able to sneak out to the mats for lunch, but the job indicated today that it's starting up a new initiative where we're going to be more aggressive in scheduling appointments with our doctors on aged cases, which for the purposes of sneaking off to the mats amounts to a more aggressive monitoring system as long as I've got aged cases to which this would apply. Which I do. So no more sneaking off until I get that caseload under control. Boo. Then again, maybe I could talk to my boss about it and see if she'd be cool with me going off at lunch to do that. After all, the job alleges that it cares more for our health and wellbeing, and this would certainly help with that. Having cleared lunch times to do this would also be really cool as far as letting me balance mat time with social time. Flip side being, if she says no, then there's definitely no way I can sneak off in the short term since she'll be looking for me to try. Anyway. Today is today. Let us lift and be about our business.

Seminars just be like that. There's a reason other people are asking these teachers to come out and teach. Generally, traveling teachers are very, very good at imparting knowledge. And personally, I find the break in routine to be a lot of fun. Sounds like you had a lot of fun too.

Goal 1: 32/32 Goal 2: 31/32 Goal 3: 17/32 I elected to sleep in today. Because getting up early hasn't been doing anything for me and it's not resolving the core issue, which is that I'm too focused on the job at the expense of exercise and artistic development. A better solution may be to cultivate an awareness of time and to honor myself and my pursuits. The job does not suffer for this. If anything, it actually benefits. A happy, independent Kishi is a productive Kishi. But not really a lot to report on yesterday. I took a short day and worked from home again before headed out to visit my friend and continue the vegetation. It was fine. We've been working through the Netflix show Outer Banks, which is this adventure series taking place on, well, the Outer Banks. It centers on a group of teens who wind up involved in a treasure hunt against murderous rich folk. Characterization is strong, and it's rather novel for me to see an episodic series taking place somewhere that I recognize, with all its familiar mores and quirks. In season 1, a couple of the characters wind up going to Chapel Hill, and it was surreal to recognize some of the places where they went. As to how the show is? It's all right. First season's really good; character work is strong and the conflict feels natural, with believable consequences and just enough luck to suspend disbelief. Season 2 is also good, but it starts to run into problems in that the characters get dumber because the plot has to happen and the writers apparently didn't have the imagination to see the show take different directions. It begins to show a reliance on the S1 formula and without spoiling it, there's a major jump the shark moment at the very, very end. Season 3 starts off with a bang, but it's leaning even harder on the formula now to the point that it feels kind of lazy. Characters are still a lot of fun, and the actors are acting the hell out of their scenes, but the sense of realism is gone, and I am 95% sure I know how this season's going to end. Which is disappointing, but hey. It's not like they asked for my help or anything. Anyway, I'm off of that today because season 2 of Shadow and Bone dropped and my friend is going to be mainlining that. So I get to lift heavy things and return to the mats tonight. That'll be good.

Kinda sorta? I stay up, but my own thing is apparently just coasting down and waiting for myself to get tired. Sometimes I'll stay up to write but sometimes not; there's not really a pattern there for me to point to and say, "Ah, yes, this is something I need to prioritize." Mostly it's just my own internal rhythm. I've always been a night owl, and it's never been a problem until I had a job that insisted on 1.5th shift hours. It's not quite first shift and it's not quite second shift, and so it's the worst of both. Maybe? Worth a shot. I'm personally paranoid about how my chores pile up and I worry that I'd ask for a day for myself and get it only to have to lose mat time in favor of chores and then wind up losing mat time later because I'd negotiated that time away to someone else. But that doesn't mean it's not worth trying. I'm losing time now, so worst case, I lose time having tried to do something about it. A bigger possible issue would be getting pulled into group stuff, where that kind of approach would render me some kind of a lone holdout. I would be very uncomfortable with trying to force a bunch of people to do what I want, but that's a separate situation. Mm! Yes! I've seen these before! I've never had a chance to use them because they're metal and my own pots and pans are nonstick, but my friend could have used them since he was cooking on a flattop (or rather, I've only ever seen metal). They look hecking convenient! Thanks. I just need to get used to making those little tweaks under pressure. Won't get that if I don't get out to the mats, but, I'm also on my own to make those tweaks, and I won't be able to study those in-depth if I'm on the mats. So, really, it seems I need both, and whichever will be available is a matter of 'the season,' I guess. Maybe that's why I'm doing better after so much time away? Between the S&C work and the home study, maybe that's getting me places. * Goal 1: 31/31 Goal 2: 30/31 Goal 3: 17/31 Day was done. Not much to say about it. Didn't get my lifting done before going to the office, and didn't get it done after getting home late. Did go off to hang with that friend, and it was a good time. She's been having some mental health troubles lately and needed some companionship since 2/3s of her polycule are off traveling without her. So we engaged in some companionable vegetation and it was fine. I'm bout to wrap up on work here. I'll get to lift some weight and then go off to veg some more. Should be enjoyable. Not sure if we're doing a third day together tomorrow or what. I'll take it as it comes.

Of course I am, but the way I see it, my priority has to be other people. Otherwise, I'd be spending every spare moment on the mats, and I wouldn't ever really see anyone else. Every weeknight would be given over to that, and a good chunk of my weekends too, like the midday sections. And for what? To get beat up? To remain mediocre despite everyone's best efforts including my own? That's its own kind of nonsense. We're also overlooking the fact that if I was out there on the mats all the time, I'd be complaining about how I don't have a dating life and whining about whether or not the investment of time is even worth it. Truthfully, I'm rather lucky. I get the privilege of choosing between things I want to do and people I want to be with. The real problem is, I don't know how to be happy about it. I'm just living through a high tide in other people's demands on my time. It won't last. * Goal 1: 30/30 Goal 2: 29/30 Goal 3: 17/30 So, good news and bad news. Good news is, I'm getting up earlier! The added hour has me getting tired earlier than before, so I've been able to ride that wave and get to bed earlier! Bad news is, it hasn't helped. I'm getting up at 8:30 now, but I'm dragging too much and by the time the tea's kicked in, it's time to job, and I've been letting that take up more of my focus rather than lifting in the morning, which was the whole reason I wanted to get up earlier in the first place. Part of the answer is getting down earlier to get up earlier, which is feasible, but it's still disappointing that I'm so whipped by the job that I can't just log in and jiggle the mouse for a while as I do the things I really want to do. So much for my politics. Still, self-knowledge is useful. Since I'm not immutable, I can change. And I can only consciously change what I know about, so knowing this is useful. SO, probably need to get earlier to bed. We'll all win that way. Last night was a good night. Finished off Season 3 of Lower Decks. Show got good. Glad I stuck it out. Can't wait for the next season. Plan from here is a rewatch of Chernobyl, as half the Nerds are into The Last of Us show and Chernobyl was the showrunner's debut. After that, our newest Nerd put in a request for Vox Machina, which I want to see and haven't made the time for, so this would be a good excuse. Anyway, tonight will be the first of three nights of bingeing Netflix stuff. Because my priority is people, and my plans are subject to change.

That's about what I figured. Though I should double-check the mat rules and make sure that I'm in line there. I don't think it's a problem; I've seen a wide variety of colors on the mats and a direct preference has never really been articulated. If I'm not out of line, then there's no problem until I'm told by someone who matters. I mean, eh. It's probably me. Truth is, I hadn't been smashed in a while and I forgot how much it smarts, and so I perceived everything through the lens of a stung ego. Everything sucks when you look through that lens. And nobody else seems to have taken it as if it was some sleight or as if he was out of line, so realistically I was probably just topical to a silly conversation that I wasn't in a position to receive well. No reason yet to make more of it than that. Beef. Just ground beef. Not complicated to do at all, but I haven't been managing my time well and I paid a price for it. * Goal 1: 29/29 Goal 2: 28/29 Goal 3: 16/29 Howdy everyone! It has been some days since last post. Had a pretty busy weekend. Mostly a lot of running around and not having time for myself. Just the way I like 'em. Friday was quiet. I got to get my cooking done and get some chores done around the place. Tweaked some small things on my present training program to allow for more rest and deloads on the bodyweight feats I'm pursuing, which is good. Saturday I went to go help my friend with lifting things. I know better than to think that lifting kettlebells on a daily basis predisposes people to come looking for me to lift their shit every couple weeks, but doggone if it doesn't feel like it. Gonna spoiler the reasons below: I couldn't stay for all the lifting that had to be done and it turned out complicated because I was also on the hook to be back in Raleigh to visit my folks for lunch, so I almost wound up being late for that and definitely didn't get there in time to clean up like I told myself I would, but they didn't treat it like a big deal and it really wasn't. Sunday I went out to breakfast with my folks, because this was how they wanted to celebrate my birthday from back on the Third. Which I thought was kind of weird. Since my Dad's birthday and mine are so close, I tend to treat his celebration as our celebration, especially since we gave up on gift giving some years ago. But they wanted it, and my younger bro was able to show up, and it was nice to see him and everyone and so we did it. It was a cold, sleety, snowy day after sunshine and spring the day before. Welcome to NC. After that, got home, chilled and lifted weights, then talked to my Librarian Friend and accidentally talked him into coming up here to visit us tonight for Nerd Night. Which'll be nice, although I don't know what the plans are or what we'll be doing. Also, one of my Dramatic Friends wants me to come out to visit her so we can binge some shows together. I'm trying to get her to plan this out. She is... ah, inert. So I suppose we'll see how that shakes out. I honestly wouldn't mind if it didn't. I'm getting tired of people getting in the way of my single-minded determination to get beat up in as many different ways as I possibly can.

Gotta go with the flow, right? Challenges are sometimes about changes and sometimes they're about learning things. Both are equally productive, although in different ways.

Yeah, that's Not Okay. Almost reads like he's treating you less as an employee whose labor he needs and more as a repository for capital that he can draw on. You hold him to it, and in the meantime I'd advise looking into what kinds of consequences you can force on him in case he tries to weasel out.

Given all the breaks everyone else appears to be taking while leaving you on the hook, it should be no big deal.

This one. The information that they insist on is freely available, but they offer a PDF template download thing, which I'm not sure if I think is useful or not? I ultimately downloaded it since a lot of the places I go to write don't have easy internet access, and having the resource downloaded is just easier. * Goal 1: 26/26 Goal 2: 25/26 Goal 3: 14/26 Thursday done. Friend never confirmed our writing time, so mat-time it was. I've been sticking to the fundamental classes, since I've never thought I was too good to skip the fundamentals, and while it means I don't get access to more advanced stuff (because they limit mat time to only one class), I genuinely don't mind. The only deficiency is that the sparring is situational only, but that can be addressed by hitting up open mats, which I'll be doing once the ortho clears me for it again. Anyway, we worked on basic guard stuff - mostly posture breaks and a triangle counter to the stall position, which I really liked and was almost able to pull off. Also did a very, very simplified version of a Flower/Pendulum Sweep from guard. It's got almost all the same pieces, but instead of getting an arm under your partner's leg and curling with the sweep, you just get one leg in their armpit and the opposite on the ground. Sweep up and over. This is apparently referred to in the old school as a "Calf Roll Sweep," but I can't confirm since I went looking for a video and everything came back with calf slices instead. Situational sparring was a mixed bag. First opponent was squirrely and athletic but I was able to cancel him out with weight and technique. Second opponent was a cinnamon roll; I played as nicely with her as I could and tried to be as gentle in my technique as I could manage, and she couldn't do anything about. Next roll was with a purple belt who I think had it out for me on account of crushing the cinnamon roll, as he crushed me, and then I saw him on the final roll going nice and easy with her. (he also made an offhand comment afterward when we were cleaning up that the head coach doesn't like green gi, and I was the only one wearing green. Which, like, okay my guy. If coach has a problem, he can tell me himself. Also, it could be that I'm misreading that; there was some talk about wearing different colored gi and how wearing red is apparently a power move of some kind and how coach apparently only likes white and blue and black gi as those are the colors he wears, and I just happened to be the one person who was wearing different colors). My last roll was with a younger, more athletic man who outplayed me pretty hard. No two ways about that one. I have to admit, I walked off the mats pretty frustrated, but that's really more to do with how I finished and how I was reading the situation at the time. Dunno if it means anything in terms of whether I'm getting better or not. Have to keep showing up and doing what I can. Unfortunately, I couldn't do mat time today because I totally forgot to wash my uniform and my belt afterward, and I wanted to be a good teammate and present clean today. Couldn't do that, so no mat time. And no mat time tomorrow because I'm going off to help someone with moving stuff tomorrow morning and then coming back to do lunch with my folks. Sunday would be mat-time if I wasn't committed to keeping my word to my ortho and limiting my sparring to situationals. So I'll have to sneak out on Monday instead. At least meditation, writing, and qigong happened last night. And it'll happen again tonight. And I'll finally get the batch cooking done. So there's that.

Basically, if insurance covers something like a doctor's appointment or lab work or whatever, the patient is still on the hook to pay some money for it. The money that they pay alongside the insurance company is the copay. Sounds like their policy isn't very helpful. Good of you to help out. ❤️ Also, excited to hear that y'all might be getting a raise! 🤞

Well, I think you're right that the egg is supposed to have a soft yolk, but I actually messed up and did a hard fry instead. It still tasted fine! I reckon if you wanted to go ahead and wrap the burger in some parchment paper or something then you could even get away with scrambling too, which if I was gonna do I'd want to do hard. Although one of the things I found in this latest dietary experiment was scrambling eggs with a curdy cheese like cottage or feta, so you could mix it in that way. I personally vouch for feta, since the cottage cheese tends to release a lot of water into the pan and it makes the eggs more runny, which I don't like, and also it doesn't taste as good to me. Literal food for thought. * Goal 1: 25/25 Goal 2: 24/25 Goal 3: 13/25 Wednesday down! Made a mistake in terms of not cooking yesterday like I said I would. Since I'd said that I was going to take the night off, I made the choice to bring work home with me and work OT, and then I found that my laundry bin was full, so I wound up doing laundry and work instead of the batch cooking I promised myself. I told myself if worse came to worse, I could just do that this afternoon since I'm working at home, and fortunately this has turned out to be true. Or it will. Shhhhhhhhh. Last night was productive, though. I managed to lift heavy things like I promised myself and finished up the broad strokes of the plot for this next draft of the novel. Neato! Next is character dossiers which are to expand out from the broad-stroke things that I wrote before. The method itself calls for a page of information on each character, but the blog I pulled from has a kind of character-builder that's really in-depth and is also like 20 pages or so. I think what I'm probably going to do is pick my favorite questions from the dossier for each character and roll it from there, just because it's possible to know too much and to be overloaded with information. Felt good to get all that done and be on to the next thing, though. Let's see, beyond that I'm doing a watch-along of Star Trek: DS9 with one of my dirty leftist podcasts. Presently at S2E5. Enjoying it, but it's definitely a timesink and needs to be managed/accounted for/worked around. I'll get it done. Today's docket will be lifting heavy things and getting the batch cooking done. Not sure if I'm making mat-time tonight or if I'm off to write with writer friend or what. Think we're getting toward the point where she's not gonna be able to do this anymore, but I'm going to work to make it work until it doesn't anymore. No bad options.

Yeah, I can see how that would be. The movie was part of my childhood and I came to like it as I got older, but I didn't know growing up that it was based on a book, and being unfamiliar with the source material I can't really make a call one way or the other. But adaptation is hard. That much is certain. Yeah, the sequels weren't ever really necessary, but I've got enough nostalgia for the original that for me it's enjoyable. Even coming back to it after all the time away, I found myself liking it. The film has the shortcomings of an adaptation whose ambitions exceeded its grasp, but I find that refreshing and endearing in this case. I do think I'd like to read the book, having read summaries of it. Just another one to chuck on the pile! * Goal 1: 24/24 Goal 2: 23/24 Goal 3: 12/24 Tuesday down! Not much to report about it. Did not hit up S&S yesterday but did manage to hit the mats. Worked on grapevine from guard and using that to set up sweeps. I wasn't able to hit that in sparring, but I was able to outfight everyone I got the chance to roll with. Passed more than I got passed, and got subs without getting subbed. I don't know what the difference is between now and before, although I have some suspicions that S&S has got something to do with it. What that is exactly, I couldn't say; I'm not sure if I'm actually stronger or if it's a mindset thing where I'm just more comfortable with certain discomforts. Maybe my technique is a bit better too than the people I've been going with lately? Or maybe I'm just playing the game better? I hoped in writing this out I'd have an answer, but one did not arrive. Maybe it's just time. Maybe I'm breaking through the plateau finally and on my way to the next one. So, yeah. Things are good. At this point, the main issue is time management. There is enough time to do all the things I want to do, but I'm not really using it very well, and it's frustrating to run up against the limits that imposes. Also, my body fat percentage has dug in and it's not moving anywhere despite my efforts as far as raising protein and cutting carbs and all that. Part of it is down to a lot of social eating in the past week, but even with moderation, I'm completely stalled out. I'm thinking it might be time to return to the upper end of maintenance for a while and just let my metabolism rest. Part of the struggle might just be down to a lack of energy, since 1) I'm not taking as much energy in, and 2) clearly I'm not getting energy from the release/burn of body fat. So I might just have to be kind to myself and eat more food for a while and just observe. See what happens. Otherwise, tonight I'll be off the mats. Need to get some batch cooking done, and as long as I'm on the hook for that, I might as well do some cleaning and lift heavy things.

Well, from what I can find on the Internet, the "Greenskins" are supposed to be green, and there was apparently a scheme to color Noah Hathaway (the actor who played Atreju in the film) green that just didn't work for filming. The reason I say that he's patterned after a Plains Native specifically is because in the film, when Bastian looks for a picture to give himself an idea of what Atreju looks like, it's a very red Plains Native hunting buffalo. (or at least, that's how I took that part, like he was looking for a reference). We cut back into Fantasia, and up walks this white-presenting kid in skins with a bow and arrow. It's more complicated by mixed reporting concerning Hathaway. There's one 'source' that says he's Mohawk, and Wolfgang Petersen himself said he's half-Native, but most of what I found in researching it seems to indicate European/Jewish ancestry. Which is all to say that I don't think it was Ende's idea, and I wouldn't ascribe it to him. I think Petersen read the book and made some adaptational choices that haven't aged well. Which tracks, really. Ende apparently wasn't a fan of Petersen's choices in adapting his work.

Yeah, that's about what I found. I'm kind of stuck now between wanting to get back to open sparring and wanting to honor my word to the doc that I'd stick to the situationals. At this point it's mostly knee slides/arm weaves and stack passing. I get a lot of mileage out of the "anti-jiu jitsu" method of standing up out of someone's guard, and most of the people I play with at my level don't feel like they have strong sweeps or anything like that. Honestly, compared to the maulings I endure in tournament, most folk in the Academy are rather tame. * Goal 1: 23/23 Goal 2: 22/23 Goal 3: 12/23 Hey y'all! Sorry for having been absent so long. It's been a pretty busy week. Chores and such on Wednesday meant no mat time. Thursday wasn't anything memorable, although I was able to make mat time and I did write down what I did, so I can refer back to it for study. Friday was my birthday, which I took off and didn't really do anything. Slept late and listened to the rain. It was glorious. Saturday I met my Dramatic Friends for brunch and then hit up an Escape Room for the first time. It was awesome. We wound up in a kind of cozy murder mystery setting and while we didn't escape, we got damn close and did so without any hints from the gamemaster. We actually got the final puzzle that would have given us the combination to get out of the room and we could have got it if we didn't run out of time; as it was, the GM was so impressed that she actually walked us through the final one to show us what was what. Sunday, we had a seminar at the Academy! Spent a few hours studying under Gianni Grippo, a black belt under Marcelo Garcia up in New York. I liked him a lot; he's a younger man, but he reminds me of a boss I liked once upon a time before I landed where I am now. Spent 3 hours dissecting the Tripod Pass before going to spar, and I started out feeling like I shouldn't have and finished feeling totally fine and like I'd returned to something I missed very much. Rolls went pretty evenly; I was able to outfight a couple folk on position and was able to achieve "survival postures" when I couldn't, although these need to be reviewed and I need to re-visit mount escapes. Also, I got the chance to roll with the girl who made blue belt before I did. I was curious to see how that would go. It seems her new belt has not given her any new answers to the problems I present for her. So I did what @The Most Loathed told me to do and tapped her a couple times in 5 minutes. She had no answer. This helped to reinforce the notion that a belt just keeps the uniform together. I went home to see my folks and watched The Neverending Story for the first time in, like, a decade. I was able to recognize it off a couple frames of film when I got home and that was just a fun trip down nostalgia lane. Music's better than I remember it being too. More sensitive to the fact that Atreyu is supposed to be a Plains Native American and he's whitewashed as hell for this film. Although apparently, in the book the film is based on, Atreyu is supposed to be greenskinned, so I'm not sure if this compounds the erasure or not. Definitely a product of its time in that regard. Monday I made some mat time where we focused on De La Riva and Single Leg X. Didn't spar. Did go off to visit Sci Fi Friends afterward, where they insisted on honoring my birthday, and so I punished them with some off-kilter smash burger requests, like peanut butter and pineapple and fried egg. (it was dope, by the way. I knew the pineapple and fried egg would be. I've done peanut butter on a burger before and I know it's good, but I didn't know if it would play well with the other two. If you're ever of a mind to try, peanut butter pairs well with honey as a topping. You don't need any cheese, but if you're going to do a cheese, you'll want something sharp to cut through the sweetness, like cheddar or something). That brings us to today. So far, so good. Gonna hop on the mats some tonight and then get home and lift heavy things. Challenge overall is going really well, and even the writing, when I do it, is higher-quality stuff than it was before. It's just sitting down to do it that's the trick, but this is a standard problem FWIW.

I'm sure whatever's going on right now is Entirely Too Much, so I just want to let you know that that stuff is going to pass. We'll be here for you when it does and you're ready for us.