Yesterday I got halfway to the Furnaceville Public Library & Homeless Shelter on my decrepit old bucket of bolts bicycle before the back tire blew out. And I mean completely blew, like, riding on the rims. Luckily I live in central Furnaceville, so it was no hardship to walk back home and put the bike in the garage, vowing to Deal With It Later (DWIL).
At karate, I asked one of the Advanced Belts if she knew how to fix a tire. She gave me a quick lesson on bicycle repair, which was really helpful. Shout-out to her.
Today, I walked to the Furnaceville Bike and Psych Shop and bought a new tube. Then I went to the Local Hippie Grocery Store, where they have bicycle repair tools (because riding bikes saves the planet, dude!), and proceeded to use the tire shoe horn to take off the tire. Shout-out to the dude who helped me with the tire shoe horn, and the store's door greeter who saw me struggling with the tire pump and gave me a hand.
FINALLY, after what seemed like hours of struggling with the stupid thing, I got everything back together. Even filled up the front tire some more. So now I have a bicycle with a back wheel that rubs against the frame making the most horrific noise, a gearshift that takes forever to shift the gears, a lousy kickstand, a chain that needs lubricant in a big bad way ... and two. Working. Tires. Awesome.
So now it's okay for me to spend the afternoon watching TV, because I have Accomplished Something today. Maybe tomorrow I'll fix the back wheel so it doesn't make that horrific "chain is about to shear off" noise when it rubs against the frame ...
Today was Sparring Day at karate.
I am soaked in sweat, utterly exhausted, bruised in strange places, and have become reacquainted with my old friend the dojo floor many times.
Yessiree, I'd say this has been a day well spent.
On my blogger dashboard, it shows me all the stats for my blog. I have had fifteen pageviews so far, which is pretty good seeing as I only started it last week. Nobody's commented on anything yet, though, which is a shame. I want to hear what those fifteen pageviewers have to say.
It also shows me the traffic sources. One is EP Monthly, which is no surprise because I occasionally drop a comment on WhiteCoat's blog. The other two are airportcigarettes.com and fr.netlog.com, which is in French. How did these websites get ahold of my URL?
Ah, well. The Interweb works in mysterious ways.
Because as of yesterday, I am CPR certified!
It was an all-day class that I took from the Red Cross. We got to practice on manikins, doing chest compressions and artificial respiration. We also learned how to use an Automated External Defibrillator. Those things are awesome because they tell you everything you need to do. There was a little bit about first aid and choking, but it was mostly CPR/AED.
I hope I never need to use these skills (at least not until I'm an EMT and it's part of my job) but I feel safer knowing that I could help someone, if need be.
It was literally a hundred degrees in the shade yesterday. Thank God for air conditioners and cold showers.
Speaking of cold (or lack thereof) did you know that if you cool a liquid beyond its freezing point but keep it moving, it doesn't freeze? Instead it becomes SUPERCOOLED!
I'm going to start a series of posts that basically cure reader's block. Tired of browsing library shelves until your eyes are sore? Then come on over here and get tips on books that are worth your while.
Night Train To Rigel, by Timothy Zahn
Genre: Sci-fi and mystery
Age range: teen-adult
Ex-intelligence agent Frank Compton is drafted to help the Spiders, beings who control an interstellar train system, prevent a war. He is assigned an enigmatic partner named Bayta, and soon he discovers that everything - the train system, Bayta, the Spiders, his mission - isn't what he thought it was.
This is pretty hard sci-fi. Not too much violence, except at the end, and don't read it at night because it'll keep you up wondering what's going to happen next. I think the proper literary term is tour de force.
It's the first in a series. The other books are The Third Lynx, Odd Girl Out, The Domino Pattern, and Judgement At Proteus.
No, not the cool kind like on TV where you get to blow stuff up. I'm just doing a series of posts that tell the truth about common misconceptions. Today's topic is martial arts.
When we think of martial arts, we think of all the kung fu movies with people hacking each other to pieces, or epic battles in ninja comic books.
When I tell people I practice karate, they say something along the lines of "So you could beat me up if you wanted?" Their first thought is that I am willing and able to be violent. In fact, sometimes I don't tell people I do karate because I don't want to have them say, "Go beat him up for me," or "I better not make you mad."
Martial arts, specifically the style of karate I practice, is not violent. In fact, my dojo has a strong commitment to non violence. My standard "elevator speech" is that it's really more art than martial. Most of the techniques we do are very formal and look nice (when done correctly) but aren't useful in an actual fight.
Sparring is not fighting. Our sparring isn't full-contact, and you're not allowed to spar until green belt. Before then, you do bluebelt sparring, which is hands only, nothing to the head, or "harmony" sparring, which is basically taking turns giving each other techniques. I've heard sparring described as a physical dialogue between two people. It's meant to develop coordination and speed, not to hurt others.
But we do learn some fighting skills that are meant to be used on other people. It's okay to use these skills if you're scared. Not angry; scared. As in, your safety is threatened. This is something a lot of people don't understand; they assume karatekas (people who practice karate) will fight if they're offended. In fact, we're specifically taught not to do this.
So actual practical fighting skills make up only a fraction of what we learn. Karate isn't violent, though some movies and comic books make it out that way. Next time you meet a karateka, do him/her a favor and don't ask him/her to beat up your little brother for you. It's not part of what we do.
I would like to give a shout-out to www.fantasticfiction.co.uk. It's a great website for book enthusiasts. You can look up books by author, title, or subject. You can see all the books by a certain author. You can see more books like the one you're viewing; so you can look up a book you've read and see other ones like it. It's a really good website for people looking for something to read.
The link is down at the bottom of the blog, on the Links gadget. Enjoy!
A pandemic is underway. No, I'm not talking about bird flu or swine flu or pterodactyl flu; I'm talking about a computer virus pandemic. Computer viruses are everywhere, and anit-virus software is having a hard time keeping up.
My dad's PC has recently become the latest victim of the pandemic. It's come down with a tricky little bug; the virus causes the CPU to overheat every time he runs a virus scan. If anyone knows a way to beat this, please let me know.
All year, students at Furnaceville High School work very hard. They take AP classes and do their homework and are nice to teachers because they want to go on to Greater Things someday. Then, after nine (9) months of this torment, they get a vacation. No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks.
Or so we thought.
Because for students taking AP English, the teachers have devised a horrendous method of torture wonderful, enlightening educational activity. The Summer Reading Assignment. Basically, read a book, pick a bunch of passages and comment on them. I have no objection to that. If you have an objection to that, take grade-level English.
However, I have an objection to doing it on my vacation time.
It's not so bad this year. I mean, it's not like I'm reading Lord of the Flies. I'm taking two English classes next year because I want to skip senior year, so I've got two books to read. Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, and The Forever War, by Dexter Filkins. Note: There is also a book called The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. That is not the book I have to read.
Life of Pi is pretty good. It's not the kind of book I can gobble up in one sitting. I'm reading it slowly. The Forever War is by a journalist about the war in the Middle East. It's too much carnage for one sitting, so I'm going through it slowly too. I'm about halfway through.
I wish I had some advice for students who have to do these assignments. But really, I'm just figuring it out myself.
In a beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in an expert's mind, there are few.
I am a beginner. I haven't been alive very long (relatively speaking), so I'm a beginner at life. I'm still a yellow belt in karate, so I'm a beginner at karate. The only substantial science course I've taken is high school biology, so I'm a beginner scientist. And since this is my very first web log post, I'm a beginner 'blogger.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a beginner. When you're a beginner, you have an open mind. You see that there's so much to learn. You recognize your faults and shortcomings. Experts believe that they've learned everything, and that they can do no wrong. We should all strive to have beginners' minds and be open to new suggestions and ideas, even if we've been alive for a hundred million years and think we know absolutely everything.
Of course the downside of being a beginner is that I make a whole bunch of mistakes. I will post the funniest ones here, along with stuff that's happened to me, random thoughts, shout-outs, links to cool stuff on the Internet, links to other blogs, and whatever the heck I feel like posting.
