The Kickathon is tomorrow, and I thought that today I'd do a wrap-up of the blogging experiment, because statistics are fun! Courtesy of Google Analytics, bit.ly, and Facebook.
- 28 posts
- 1,402 total pageviews
- 384 unique visitors
- 39 Facebook comments
- 31 "likes"
- 10 blog comments
- One link from a well-known women's athletics blog
- Six donors
- $125 dollars raised
Saturdays and Sundays are definitely slow times - y'all are clearly only reading these at work. The fiction got the most feedback on Facebook for sure, but didn't get anywhere near the most traffic. (That's not definitive, of course, because I can't sort out people who just read posts from the front page rather than the permalinks, but there's a large difference between the top posts and the lesser ones.)
Thanks to everyone who donated, and if you haven't, there's still time. This was a great experiment, and an excellent writing challenge for me. I still got my butt soundly kicked, fundraising-wise, by people who went with more traditional methods, but hey - we reached our overall goal, and I ain't complaining. I would love to hear feedback on what y'all who have read so regularly thought of the whole thing - too much content? Not enough? More fiction? More pictures? Kill the italicized explanatory bits?
I dunno if I'll do the same thing next year, but this year was fun! Tomorrow is the actual event, and I'll post a report with pics sometime in the next few days. Thanks for coming!
Friday, November 6, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Thirty
I have been remiss this week, but ramp-up to the actual event is eating much of my brain power. And we are less than two hundred dollars from our goal! This is awesome - I confess I was a little skeptical that we'd hit it, in this economy.
Thanks to everyone who's donated, and if you haven't yet, There's still time! Here is the link.
Thanks to everyone who's donated, and if you haven't yet, There's still time! Here is the link.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Twenty-Eight
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense, or possibly just whatever strikes my fancy. Enjoy!
It's Tuesday, and that means I get to make bullet lists. I love bullet lists. Although I'm too lazy to make actual bullets.
- We're only a few days from the Kickathon. I hope everyone's been enjoying the blog - I know I've got a reasonably steady readership, from the stats (which I totally do not obsess over, whatever gave you that idea?) If you've been one of those regulars, I will ask again that you please consider chipping in $5! We're not quite at our goal yet - it's reachable, but we need just a little more help to make it happen.
- If you're still a little fuzzy on what we're actually raising money for, black belt Graham lays it out in plain terms.
- I mentioned this yesterday, but hi to the Stumptuous folks wandering over!
- Either Saturday or Sunday I'll post pics and results from the Kickathon itself - hopefully none will be too terribly embarrassing, but with my sense of balance, that may be too much to ask.
If you'd like to donate to our fundraiser, there's the link!
It's Tuesday, and that means I get to make bullet lists. I love bullet lists. Although I'm too lazy to make actual bullets.
- We're only a few days from the Kickathon. I hope everyone's been enjoying the blog - I know I've got a reasonably steady readership, from the stats (which I totally do not obsess over, whatever gave you that idea?) If you've been one of those regulars, I will ask again that you please consider chipping in $5! We're not quite at our goal yet - it's reachable, but we need just a little more help to make it happen.
- If you're still a little fuzzy on what we're actually raising money for, black belt Graham lays it out in plain terms.
- I mentioned this yesterday, but hi to the Stumptuous folks wandering over!
- Either Saturday or Sunday I'll post pics and results from the Kickathon itself - hopefully none will be too terribly embarrassing, but with my sense of balance, that may be too much to ask.
If you'd like to donate to our fundraiser, there's the link!
Monday, November 2, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Twenty-seven
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense, or possibly just whatever strikes my fancy. Enjoy!
I confess I missed last night's update - so close to perfection, too. Also, if you've found your way here from Stumptuous, welcome! And now, on with the blog.
Tonight in class, our instructor talked a little bit about maintaining focus and composure in practice, even - especially - when doing things that make us uncomfortable. She said "Has anyone ever said something totally insulting, and you got so flustered you couldn't respond? Practicing keeping your composure here will help your brain get used to that feeling, so it doesn't totally lock up when you're stressed." I could certainly relate to that - today more than usual.
I am not a girly girl. I tend to wear baggy t-shirts and jeans, my hair is as often buzz-cut as anything, and I spend very little time worrying about my appearance. This is, however, partly a defense mechanism - I am rather well-endowed in the chest region, and if I wear tight shirts or look particularly feminine, I get attention that's unwanted at best, and usually unpleasant.
This morning I grabbed a shirt that I haven't worn in ages. It's just a long-sleeve tee, but it's got a particularly wide neckline - wide enough that I had to move my bra straps over a bit so they weren't hanging out. I'm thoroughly tattooed around the shoulders, so on the one hand it's nice to be able to show off the art. But in the elevator on the way to work, I realized that I looked way more femme than usual, and it made me uncomfortable.
Nothing in particular happened today to justify it, but it has, in the past. I remember one time at a restaurant out in the Hill Country, some good ole boy came up to me out of a clear blue sky and said, "You're pretty, but you need to wear some makeup."
What do you say to something like that? There were so many different things wrong with that statement that I couldn't pick one to call out. I just stared at him, appalled, and he went away. I didn't feel particularly insulted, because the opinions of ill-bred idiot strangers are not particularly valuable to me, but I certainly wished I'd had some snappy comeback instead of just a blank stare.
Hopefully self-defense practice will improve the odds of getting a quip out before I punch the next bastard to pull something like that right square in the throat. Really, people. Who raised you, anyway?
Some days I suspect my instructor despairs of ever teaching some of us the principles of non-violence. She keeps trying, though.
If you haven't already, please do donate $5 to our fundraiser - the event is on Saturday, and this is the last big push to meet our goal.
I confess I missed last night's update - so close to perfection, too. Also, if you've found your way here from Stumptuous, welcome! And now, on with the blog.
Tonight in class, our instructor talked a little bit about maintaining focus and composure in practice, even - especially - when doing things that make us uncomfortable. She said "Has anyone ever said something totally insulting, and you got so flustered you couldn't respond? Practicing keeping your composure here will help your brain get used to that feeling, so it doesn't totally lock up when you're stressed." I could certainly relate to that - today more than usual.
I am not a girly girl. I tend to wear baggy t-shirts and jeans, my hair is as often buzz-cut as anything, and I spend very little time worrying about my appearance. This is, however, partly a defense mechanism - I am rather well-endowed in the chest region, and if I wear tight shirts or look particularly feminine, I get attention that's unwanted at best, and usually unpleasant.
This morning I grabbed a shirt that I haven't worn in ages. It's just a long-sleeve tee, but it's got a particularly wide neckline - wide enough that I had to move my bra straps over a bit so they weren't hanging out. I'm thoroughly tattooed around the shoulders, so on the one hand it's nice to be able to show off the art. But in the elevator on the way to work, I realized that I looked way more femme than usual, and it made me uncomfortable.
Nothing in particular happened today to justify it, but it has, in the past. I remember one time at a restaurant out in the Hill Country, some good ole boy came up to me out of a clear blue sky and said, "You're pretty, but you need to wear some makeup."
What do you say to something like that? There were so many different things wrong with that statement that I couldn't pick one to call out. I just stared at him, appalled, and he went away. I didn't feel particularly insulted, because the opinions of ill-bred idiot strangers are not particularly valuable to me, but I certainly wished I'd had some snappy comeback instead of just a blank stare.
Hopefully self-defense practice will improve the odds of getting a quip out before I punch the next bastard to pull something like that right square in the throat. Really, people. Who raised you, anyway?
Some days I suspect my instructor despairs of ever teaching some of us the principles of non-violence. She keeps trying, though.
If you haven't already, please do donate $5 to our fundraiser - the event is on Saturday, and this is the last big push to meet our goal.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Twenty-five
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense, or possibly just whatever strikes my fancy. Enjoy!
Happy Halloween! Here's a spooky true story appropriate for the occasion.
On a fine cool day, we hiked up the hill, through the forest, down the road, and across the cornfield to the graveyard. I no longer recall why we went to the graveyard, but we were ten, and graveyards were neat. Our group leader pointed out some significant older graves, and we solemnly examined the inscriptions. Then we scattered a little bit to contemplate our inevitable mortality at our leisure.
I crouched at a particularly interesting grave with two other girls, murmuring perhaps over the youth of its occupant. For some reason, I looked up. Walking along the gravel drive in the bright sunlight was a woman in a long coat. I mentioned her to the other girls, and then we went back to our examination. Not more than half a minute later, I glanced up again. The woman was gone.
I stood up and looked up and down the drive - it was clear for a hundred yards in both directions. The other girls also stood, and we peered all around us. With many nervous glances at each other, we walked toward the road, always expecting to see the woman behind one of the few trees, or perhaps kneeling at a grave. But she was gone.
That evening around the campfire, ghost stories brought a chill - but not for their own sakes. The three of us had seen a ghost for real.
I'm much less convinced of it now, of course, but at the time, that was the eeriest thing I'd ever seen.
Only one week left to donate $5 to our fundraiser!
Happy Halloween! Here's a spooky true story appropriate for the occasion.
On a fine cool day, we hiked up the hill, through the forest, down the road, and across the cornfield to the graveyard. I no longer recall why we went to the graveyard, but we were ten, and graveyards were neat. Our group leader pointed out some significant older graves, and we solemnly examined the inscriptions. Then we scattered a little bit to contemplate our inevitable mortality at our leisure.
I crouched at a particularly interesting grave with two other girls, murmuring perhaps over the youth of its occupant. For some reason, I looked up. Walking along the gravel drive in the bright sunlight was a woman in a long coat. I mentioned her to the other girls, and then we went back to our examination. Not more than half a minute later, I glanced up again. The woman was gone.
I stood up and looked up and down the drive - it was clear for a hundred yards in both directions. The other girls also stood, and we peered all around us. With many nervous glances at each other, we walked toward the road, always expecting to see the woman behind one of the few trees, or perhaps kneeling at a grave. But she was gone.
That evening around the campfire, ghost stories brought a chill - but not for their own sakes. The three of us had seen a ghost for real.
I'm much less convinced of it now, of course, but at the time, that was the eeriest thing I'd ever seen.
Only one week left to donate $5 to our fundraiser!
Friday, October 30, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Twenty-Four
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense, or possibly just whatever strikes my fancy. Enjoy!
When I'm stressed, my dreams get violent. This isn't much of a surprise given my preference for swordfight-packed books and video games, but my subconscious is shockingly good at providing detailed action-movie plots to externalize whatever is bugging me at any given moment. There was a lot bugging me in high school, even if it was just raging hormones and homework, so my dreams regularly featured full-color surround-sound with extra explosions.
One fine evening my sophomore year, I found myself leading the remnant of a scouting squad back to the main camp after an ambush by the orcs. I was pissed - the orcish champion (who was inexplicably human, and also kinda hot) had engineered the ambush, and I'd lost at least one friend. In typical dream fashion, the next scene was the full-out melee between the human and the orcish armies. I was trying to find the orcish champion, but instead encountered the orc king. He was about four feet tall, green, and not nearly good enough with a sword. I killed him, and the battle melted away.
My own king told me the orcish champion had escaped - I was ordered to run her down and capture her. So off I went, and I ended up cornering her in what was, if I recall correctly, my junior high school bathroom. I attempted to menace her with my sword. She laughed and mocked me. Pissed, I knocked her sword from her hand and lunged. I stabbed her square in the chest, and she dropped.
And that was when I realized I loved her.
Now, this was a dream. It didn't have to make sense. I didn't need any particular relationship with her or even to know her name. It was pure emotion - I dropped to my knees, told her I loved her, and watched the light go out of her eyes. I woke up sobbing.
I still don't know if she heard me.
I think about her almost every night, more than a decade later. And the idea of losing my temper like that, lashing out, still scares me white. It was just a dream, but I can still feel that sense of overwhelming loss and grief. Sometimes, while sparring, I'll kick a little bit harder than I should, more out of reaction than strategy, and then I'll freak out very quietly and pull way back. Maybe it makes me a safer partner - that would be nice to believe. But mainly I still have to deal with the unshakable knowledge that I could kill someone in a moment of heat. It doesn't matter that it was just a dream.
I've accepted that I have to learn how to fight better in order to make myself safer - it's part of why I like studying karate in a non-competitive environment. But I still I tend to look a little longer than I should at tall brunettes with long, straight hair, because part of my mind insists that she was *real*, and someday maybe I'll find her, and get a chance to apologize.
Incidentally, taking a shotgun blast to the stomach - even in a dream - is not a pleasant experience. I don't miss high school a bit. Only one week left to donate $5 to our fundraiser!
When I'm stressed, my dreams get violent. This isn't much of a surprise given my preference for swordfight-packed books and video games, but my subconscious is shockingly good at providing detailed action-movie plots to externalize whatever is bugging me at any given moment. There was a lot bugging me in high school, even if it was just raging hormones and homework, so my dreams regularly featured full-color surround-sound with extra explosions.
One fine evening my sophomore year, I found myself leading the remnant of a scouting squad back to the main camp after an ambush by the orcs. I was pissed - the orcish champion (who was inexplicably human, and also kinda hot) had engineered the ambush, and I'd lost at least one friend. In typical dream fashion, the next scene was the full-out melee between the human and the orcish armies. I was trying to find the orcish champion, but instead encountered the orc king. He was about four feet tall, green, and not nearly good enough with a sword. I killed him, and the battle melted away.
My own king told me the orcish champion had escaped - I was ordered to run her down and capture her. So off I went, and I ended up cornering her in what was, if I recall correctly, my junior high school bathroom. I attempted to menace her with my sword. She laughed and mocked me. Pissed, I knocked her sword from her hand and lunged. I stabbed her square in the chest, and she dropped.
And that was when I realized I loved her.
Now, this was a dream. It didn't have to make sense. I didn't need any particular relationship with her or even to know her name. It was pure emotion - I dropped to my knees, told her I loved her, and watched the light go out of her eyes. I woke up sobbing.
I still don't know if she heard me.
I think about her almost every night, more than a decade later. And the idea of losing my temper like that, lashing out, still scares me white. It was just a dream, but I can still feel that sense of overwhelming loss and grief. Sometimes, while sparring, I'll kick a little bit harder than I should, more out of reaction than strategy, and then I'll freak out very quietly and pull way back. Maybe it makes me a safer partner - that would be nice to believe. But mainly I still have to deal with the unshakable knowledge that I could kill someone in a moment of heat. It doesn't matter that it was just a dream.
I've accepted that I have to learn how to fight better in order to make myself safer - it's part of why I like studying karate in a non-competitive environment. But I still I tend to look a little longer than I should at tall brunettes with long, straight hair, because part of my mind insists that she was *real*, and someday maybe I'll find her, and get a chance to apologize.
Incidentally, taking a shotgun blast to the stomach - even in a dream - is not a pleasant experience. I don't miss high school a bit. Only one week left to donate $5 to our fundraiser!
Thursday, October 29, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Twenty-three
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense, or possibly just whatever strikes my fancy. Enjoy!
I am grumpy.
I was reminded rather forcefully today that my digestion only handles dairy if it's exposed to it frequently - the last couple of weeks I've had almost none, and my guts were VERY displeased at the bacon cheddar burger with cheese fries at lunch. Cheese is one of my favorite things in all the world, but this brought it home that it's really not very good for me.
For those of you who haven't read my earlier whining on the topic, I am also gluten-intolerant - this means anything involving bread and quite a few things that don't make all of my joints swell up and hurt like a $%@@^%@er. This was a fairly recent discovery, and while I'm mostly resigned to it, I'm still not happy about it.
And then, while recovering from lunch, I read this. The rest of the thread was touching, but that comment was a punch in the gut.
I was an on-and-off vegetarian for several years in high school and afterwards. I wasn't a huge fanatic or anything, I just felt better when I wasn't eating meat (unless I was lifting weights, which would give me steak cravings like you wouldn't believe. That usually led to an "off" phase.) But I felt good about my choices, and I felt good about myself.
When I moved to Austin my girlfriend, who is a fabulous cook, wasn't thrilled that I wouldn't eat much of what she wanted to make. I stuck to my guns for a little while, but... she was a fabulous cook. So I went back to eating meat - with relish, mind you - and have very carefully not thought about it too hard since.
Until today. And now I face a dilemma - I could go back to being a vegetarian, but now I can't eat most bread products either, and I really shouldn't go back to eating a ton of dairy. That cuts out a lot of calories that I'm not sure how I'd replace - eating nothing but fresh fruits and vegetables is expensive. And if eggs are my primary source of protein... I guess I could eat a lot of tofu, but a) I don't particularly like tofu, and b) the hormonal implications of eating a ton of soy products are not terribly well-explored. And my friends are already graciously accommodating my gluten issues - I don't know how much more I can ask.
But dammit, the only way I can eat meat is to stop thinking about it again. And I don't know if I can do that either.
At least half the dojo raises chickens, so I can get guilt-free eggs if I ever remember to ask about them. Support your local hippies! Donate $5 to our fundraiser today!
I am grumpy.
I was reminded rather forcefully today that my digestion only handles dairy if it's exposed to it frequently - the last couple of weeks I've had almost none, and my guts were VERY displeased at the bacon cheddar burger with cheese fries at lunch. Cheese is one of my favorite things in all the world, but this brought it home that it's really not very good for me.
For those of you who haven't read my earlier whining on the topic, I am also gluten-intolerant - this means anything involving bread and quite a few things that don't make all of my joints swell up and hurt like a $%@@^%@er. This was a fairly recent discovery, and while I'm mostly resigned to it, I'm still not happy about it.
And then, while recovering from lunch, I read this. The rest of the thread was touching, but that comment was a punch in the gut.
I was an on-and-off vegetarian for several years in high school and afterwards. I wasn't a huge fanatic or anything, I just felt better when I wasn't eating meat (unless I was lifting weights, which would give me steak cravings like you wouldn't believe. That usually led to an "off" phase.) But I felt good about my choices, and I felt good about myself.
When I moved to Austin my girlfriend, who is a fabulous cook, wasn't thrilled that I wouldn't eat much of what she wanted to make. I stuck to my guns for a little while, but... she was a fabulous cook. So I went back to eating meat - with relish, mind you - and have very carefully not thought about it too hard since.
Until today. And now I face a dilemma - I could go back to being a vegetarian, but now I can't eat most bread products either, and I really shouldn't go back to eating a ton of dairy. That cuts out a lot of calories that I'm not sure how I'd replace - eating nothing but fresh fruits and vegetables is expensive. And if eggs are my primary source of protein... I guess I could eat a lot of tofu, but a) I don't particularly like tofu, and b) the hormonal implications of eating a ton of soy products are not terribly well-explored. And my friends are already graciously accommodating my gluten issues - I don't know how much more I can ask.
But dammit, the only way I can eat meat is to stop thinking about it again. And I don't know if I can do that either.
At least half the dojo raises chickens, so I can get guilt-free eggs if I ever remember to ask about them. Support your local hippies! Donate $5 to our fundraiser today!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Twenty-Two
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense - enjoy!
Imagine two cultures.
One, a clan-based warrior people. Every child becomes at least competent with weapons, and many people, men and women, join warrior societies and raid, duel, and feud all the time. They have an intricate code of honor and obligation, and follow it to the letter - to do otherwise is unthinkable.
Another is an absolutely pacifist society. They would - and do - die rather than raise an hand against another human. They are nomadic, living it wagons and avoiding cities because wherever they go, young people are intrigued by their beliefs, giving them the reputation that they steal children. They are a happy, singing people, but are distrusted and harassed.
Which culture descended from the other?
I still have the Wheel of Time on the brain. Don't let that distract you from donating $5 to our fundraiser!
Imagine two cultures.
One, a clan-based warrior people. Every child becomes at least competent with weapons, and many people, men and women, join warrior societies and raid, duel, and feud all the time. They have an intricate code of honor and obligation, and follow it to the letter - to do otherwise is unthinkable.
Another is an absolutely pacifist society. They would - and do - die rather than raise an hand against another human. They are nomadic, living it wagons and avoiding cities because wherever they go, young people are intrigued by their beliefs, giving them the reputation that they steal children. They are a happy, singing people, but are distrusted and harassed.
Which culture descended from the other?
I still have the Wheel of Time on the brain. Don't let that distract you from donating $5 to our fundraiser!
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Twenty-One
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense - enjoy!
It's Tuesday, and it's also the Gathering Storm release day, so... have a status update!
- We're at 55% overall, which is awesome, but there are less than two weeks left! If you've considered donating, please go ahead and do so!
- Thanks to everyone for your kind words about the short story - it's much appreciated! I haven't written non-video-game-related short fiction in... well, I can't remember how long. But I'm glad people enjoyed it.
- I'm definitely at the flailing-for-topics stage, so the next ten blog posts will be much more general. I'll stick to the one-a-day limit, but aim more to amuse than to educate, since no doubt y'all have gotten the point by now.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you're having fun!
Sun Dragon is home to one of the most consistently awesome groups of people I've ever encountered. Please support the awesomeness by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
It's Tuesday, and it's also the Gathering Storm release day, so... have a status update!
- We're at 55% overall, which is awesome, but there are less than two weeks left! If you've considered donating, please go ahead and do so!
- Thanks to everyone for your kind words about the short story - it's much appreciated! I haven't written non-video-game-related short fiction in... well, I can't remember how long. But I'm glad people enjoyed it.
- I'm definitely at the flailing-for-topics stage, so the next ten blog posts will be much more general. I'll stick to the one-a-day limit, but aim more to amuse than to educate, since no doubt y'all have gotten the point by now.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you're having fun!
Sun Dragon is home to one of the most consistently awesome groups of people I've ever encountered. Please support the awesomeness by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
Monday, October 26, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Twenty
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense - enjoy!
This is completely unrelated except in that it involved a bunch of people from karate, but it's too good a story not to tell.
KJ, Laura and I went to the Texas Renaissance Festival this weekend. We were meeting a bunch of other folks there the next morning, but Laura really REALLY likes to camp, so we packed up and shipped out after work on Friday. Laura's station wagon was pretty jam-packed, and I was pretty tightly wedged in to the back seat, but it wasn't unbearable and we didn't have to leave anything critical behind.
The festival is about two and a half hours away. About an hour in, Laura began muttering about how it really wasn't that windy, but none of us thought anything of it. Half an hour later, she said she thought something was funny - maybe a tire was flat?
"No, if a tire was flat you'd totally feel it," I said.
"We can stop at the next gas station," said KJ. The next gas station was probably fifteen minutes away.
"Ok," says Laura.
*pause*
BANG!
"Ok, NOW the tire's flat."
Laura steered the shuddering wagon onto the shoulder, and we got out. The right rear tire was shredded. It was chilly and very dark, but, conveniently, we had a lovely electric lantern handy. We unloaded the back of the wagon and, working together, got the spare on in record time.
We wedged the flat tire back in the well, but it was too big to fit neatly. This wouldn't have been a problem except that we needed every cubic inch of space. I ended up in the back seat with a plastic tub on my lap big enough that I couldn't see over it. It was very isolating, and I spent the next fifteen minutes praying that we wouldn't get rear-ended, or I'd be be squashed like a bug.
The guys at the nearest Wal-Mart weren't much help. They gave us vague directions to "that guy who does tires" and, as it was nine o'clock on a Friday, we decided to just put some more air in the donut and deal with it in the morning. None of us felt terribly secure on the teeny, cute little spare tire with the car as loaded down as it was, but there weren't very many options in the middle of nowhere, East Texas, at that hour.
The next morning, Laura and I hopped in the car - KJ stayed behind to wash the breakfast dishes - and set out in search of someone who could sell us a tire. The directions we'd gotten the previous night pointed to a location at least half an hour away, and we had no way of knowing if the place was open - or even if it really existed.
As we were coming up to 105, I suggested we pull into the Shell and ask. We turned into their parking lot, and, as we turned, we spotted a sight across the street - "Tire and Tractor". It was a very small building with two garage doors and a couple piles of sagging tires out front. It wouldn't have been very promising, but we were fairly desperate - and the doors were open. Laura swung the car around and we pulled in.
There were two guys inside looking bored, and they were more than happy to make fun of our shredded tire and replace it with another one that wasn't new but was more or less the right size, and we were thrilled. We were back at the faire no more than half an hour after we'd left, and the tire held all the way home.
Sun Dragon is home to one of the most consistently awesome groups of people I've ever encountered. Please support the awesomeness by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
This is completely unrelated except in that it involved a bunch of people from karate, but it's too good a story not to tell.
KJ, Laura and I went to the Texas Renaissance Festival this weekend. We were meeting a bunch of other folks there the next morning, but Laura really REALLY likes to camp, so we packed up and shipped out after work on Friday. Laura's station wagon was pretty jam-packed, and I was pretty tightly wedged in to the back seat, but it wasn't unbearable and we didn't have to leave anything critical behind.
The festival is about two and a half hours away. About an hour in, Laura began muttering about how it really wasn't that windy, but none of us thought anything of it. Half an hour later, she said she thought something was funny - maybe a tire was flat?
"No, if a tire was flat you'd totally feel it," I said.
"We can stop at the next gas station," said KJ. The next gas station was probably fifteen minutes away.
"Ok," says Laura.
*pause*
BANG!
"Ok, NOW the tire's flat."
Laura steered the shuddering wagon onto the shoulder, and we got out. The right rear tire was shredded. It was chilly and very dark, but, conveniently, we had a lovely electric lantern handy. We unloaded the back of the wagon and, working together, got the spare on in record time.
We wedged the flat tire back in the well, but it was too big to fit neatly. This wouldn't have been a problem except that we needed every cubic inch of space. I ended up in the back seat with a plastic tub on my lap big enough that I couldn't see over it. It was very isolating, and I spent the next fifteen minutes praying that we wouldn't get rear-ended, or I'd be be squashed like a bug.
The guys at the nearest Wal-Mart weren't much help. They gave us vague directions to "that guy who does tires" and, as it was nine o'clock on a Friday, we decided to just put some more air in the donut and deal with it in the morning. None of us felt terribly secure on the teeny, cute little spare tire with the car as loaded down as it was, but there weren't very many options in the middle of nowhere, East Texas, at that hour.
The next morning, Laura and I hopped in the car - KJ stayed behind to wash the breakfast dishes - and set out in search of someone who could sell us a tire. The directions we'd gotten the previous night pointed to a location at least half an hour away, and we had no way of knowing if the place was open - or even if it really existed.
As we were coming up to 105, I suggested we pull into the Shell and ask. We turned into their parking lot, and, as we turned, we spotted a sight across the street - "Tire and Tractor". It was a very small building with two garage doors and a couple piles of sagging tires out front. It wouldn't have been very promising, but we were fairly desperate - and the doors were open. Laura swung the car around and we pulled in.
There were two guys inside looking bored, and they were more than happy to make fun of our shredded tire and replace it with another one that wasn't new but was more or less the right size, and we were thrilled. We were back at the faire no more than half an hour after we'd left, and the tire held all the way home.
Sun Dragon is home to one of the most consistently awesome groups of people I've ever encountered. Please support the awesomeness by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
Sunday, October 25, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Nineteen
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense - enjoy!
So I'm running up against the "every day" rule here - I got back from Renfaire this afternoon, and I'm pretty braindead. Operating on the principle that a picture is worth a thousand words, tonight's post will consist of simply this:
I write about zombies too long, I become one! Please do consider donating $5 to our fundraiser!
So I'm running up against the "every day" rule here - I got back from Renfaire this afternoon, and I'm pretty braindead. Operating on the principle that a picture is worth a thousand words, tonight's post will consist of simply this:
I write about zombies too long, I become one! Please do consider donating $5 to our fundraiser!
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Fifteen
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense - enjoy!
Our instructor Joy's teachers Shihan Nancy and Kyoshi Sarah (Shihan and Kyoshi are titles referring to their holders' sixth and fifth degree black belt ranks, respectively) came down this spring to administer the first-degree black belt test for two Sun Dragon students. We spent the weeks before their arrival practicing super-formal address to everyone and scrubbing every surface compulsively. They're really very nice people, but the mood was that of a family preparing for a visit from its revered but strict and intimidating older relatives. (A feeling I'm used to - every time Grandma visits, Mom pays for a visit from a cleaning service to prepare. Sometimes two visits.)
The first night they were there, they taught a couple classes (which were interesting and fun and just about the whole school turned out for them, which was neat) and then we went to dinner. We went to a Mexican place not far away. It was Friday night, and we had a fairly big party, so it wasn't that big a surprise that there was a wait. It was slightly annoying that we had to stand outside because there was no place to sit, but it wasn't that cold.
Ten minutes later, it was getting that cold. I had a sweatshirt in my car, so I ran to get it. A little further redistribution of outerwear later, and we were fine. We stood shoulder to shoulder in the traditional damn-it's-cold circle, and I felt very much at home. So did the visiting Chicagoans, I imagine. One big table on the patio opened up shortly thereafter, and half the group, including our guests, went with apologies to the rest of us to sit down.
Fifteen minutes after that, we sent a messenger to the hostess to find out what our place in line was. She said the table next to the other half of our party was just finishing up, so it wouldn't be long. Fair enough. We reformed the huddle.
Ten minutes later and the people at our promised table were lingering over drinks. The huddle drifted slightly closer and we started to shoot glares at them.
Another ten minutes passed with no movement. The hostess apologized profusely, but there really wasn't anything she could do. She was very nice, really, and we all tried hard not to catch her in the crossfire of glaring.
Ten minutes later, the table finally picked up the check. We cheered very quietly. They started passing it around and obviously debating it. We followed it like spectators at a tennis match. One person pulled out his wallet and then rummaged through his pockets, and we groaned. We debated offering to cover the tip for them if they'd just go away, but decided to wait.
The seated half of the party had already gotten their food. We were still waiting. We were now leaning on the porch rail about ten feet from our adversaries and making no secret of our intense interest in their leavetaking. It took another ten minutes before they actually got up. As near as we could tell, they never noticed us at all.
At this point we were cold, hungry, and cranky. When we finally sat down, our other table immediately passed us their half-finished appetizers so we wouldn't faint. They were of course done with their meals before we got ours, but they graciously waited while we ate. It didn't take long. In the end, we were grateful that the two black belt candidates had decided to go home and retire early instead of joining us, and fervently hoped that the meal wasn't as memorable for our guests as it had been for our table.
I think this incident highlights the effectiveness of Sun Dragon's violence prevention training, because without that, there surely would have been a rumble. Help us prevent more restaurant riots by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
Our instructor Joy's teachers Shihan Nancy and Kyoshi Sarah (Shihan and Kyoshi are titles referring to their holders' sixth and fifth degree black belt ranks, respectively) came down this spring to administer the first-degree black belt test for two Sun Dragon students. We spent the weeks before their arrival practicing super-formal address to everyone and scrubbing every surface compulsively. They're really very nice people, but the mood was that of a family preparing for a visit from its revered but strict and intimidating older relatives. (A feeling I'm used to - every time Grandma visits, Mom pays for a visit from a cleaning service to prepare. Sometimes two visits.)
The first night they were there, they taught a couple classes (which were interesting and fun and just about the whole school turned out for them, which was neat) and then we went to dinner. We went to a Mexican place not far away. It was Friday night, and we had a fairly big party, so it wasn't that big a surprise that there was a wait. It was slightly annoying that we had to stand outside because there was no place to sit, but it wasn't that cold.
Ten minutes later, it was getting that cold. I had a sweatshirt in my car, so I ran to get it. A little further redistribution of outerwear later, and we were fine. We stood shoulder to shoulder in the traditional damn-it's-cold circle, and I felt very much at home. So did the visiting Chicagoans, I imagine. One big table on the patio opened up shortly thereafter, and half the group, including our guests, went with apologies to the rest of us to sit down.
Fifteen minutes after that, we sent a messenger to the hostess to find out what our place in line was. She said the table next to the other half of our party was just finishing up, so it wouldn't be long. Fair enough. We reformed the huddle.
Ten minutes later and the people at our promised table were lingering over drinks. The huddle drifted slightly closer and we started to shoot glares at them.
Another ten minutes passed with no movement. The hostess apologized profusely, but there really wasn't anything she could do. She was very nice, really, and we all tried hard not to catch her in the crossfire of glaring.
Ten minutes later, the table finally picked up the check. We cheered very quietly. They started passing it around and obviously debating it. We followed it like spectators at a tennis match. One person pulled out his wallet and then rummaged through his pockets, and we groaned. We debated offering to cover the tip for them if they'd just go away, but decided to wait.
The seated half of the party had already gotten their food. We were still waiting. We were now leaning on the porch rail about ten feet from our adversaries and making no secret of our intense interest in their leavetaking. It took another ten minutes before they actually got up. As near as we could tell, they never noticed us at all.
At this point we were cold, hungry, and cranky. When we finally sat down, our other table immediately passed us their half-finished appetizers so we wouldn't faint. They were of course done with their meals before we got ours, but they graciously waited while we ate. It didn't take long. In the end, we were grateful that the two black belt candidates had decided to go home and retire early instead of joining us, and fervently hoped that the meal wasn't as memorable for our guests as it had been for our table.
I think this incident highlights the effectiveness of Sun Dragon's violence prevention training, because without that, there surely would have been a rumble. Help us prevent more restaurant riots by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Fourteen
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense - enjoy!
We're two weeks in! Today's is going to be another housekeeping/status post because it's Tuesday, and that's apparently my right brain's contractually guaranteed day off.
First of all, thank you to everyone who has donated! It's much appreciated, and it's going to a good cause. If you haven't donated yet, please consider it! I'm only asking $5 (although people have been much more generous than that, for which I am grateful,) and while I know times are tight, I hope it's something you can manage. (Incidentally, I was totally serious about the wearing a Ninja Turtles headband if y'all chip in $1000 in total. Pass the links around to your friends, and you too can revel in your power to instigate absurd pictures!)
If rather than donating money, you or your organization would like to donate prizes, that would be just as welcome. We have students of all ages from kindergarten on up participating in the Kickathon, and we would love to reward all of their efforts in some small way. Also, we'll be recognizing companies that donate prizes on our website and at the Kickathon! Email me for more details about prize donation.
We've got quite a few more days, and therefore posts, until November 7th. That's a lot of topics! I have a handful in the queue, but if you have topic requests, by all means send them over! My email address is in the sidebar, and I'm happy to take requests and also answer questions, provide additional info about the school, etc.
Either tomorrow or Thursday I'm going to start something different - I have a short story that, while it is currently a glorious mess, I think I can thump into shape. It's about zombies and karate and nanomolecular body modifications. Because, you know, regular zombies are so last week. So that will most likely go up in three parts over this week/weekend, unless it just refuses to stop being awful, which is always a possibility.
Thanks again for everyone's support - I hope you're enjoying this little exercise. And don't forget to donate $5 to our fundraiser!
We're two weeks in! Today's is going to be another housekeeping/status post because it's Tuesday, and that's apparently my right brain's contractually guaranteed day off.
First of all, thank you to everyone who has donated! It's much appreciated, and it's going to a good cause. If you haven't donated yet, please consider it! I'm only asking $5 (although people have been much more generous than that, for which I am grateful,) and while I know times are tight, I hope it's something you can manage. (Incidentally, I was totally serious about the wearing a Ninja Turtles headband if y'all chip in $1000 in total. Pass the links around to your friends, and you too can revel in your power to instigate absurd pictures!)
If rather than donating money, you or your organization would like to donate prizes, that would be just as welcome. We have students of all ages from kindergarten on up participating in the Kickathon, and we would love to reward all of their efforts in some small way. Also, we'll be recognizing companies that donate prizes on our website and at the Kickathon! Email me for more details about prize donation.
We've got quite a few more days, and therefore posts, until November 7th. That's a lot of topics! I have a handful in the queue, but if you have topic requests, by all means send them over! My email address is in the sidebar, and I'm happy to take requests and also answer questions, provide additional info about the school, etc.
Either tomorrow or Thursday I'm going to start something different - I have a short story that, while it is currently a glorious mess, I think I can thump into shape. It's about zombies and karate and nanomolecular body modifications. Because, you know, regular zombies are so last week. So that will most likely go up in three parts over this week/weekend, unless it just refuses to stop being awful, which is always a possibility.
Thanks again for everyone's support - I hope you're enjoying this little exercise. And don't forget to donate $5 to our fundraiser!
Monday, October 19, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Thirteen
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense - enjoy!
Here's the less-lovely thing about our dojo's lovely cork flooring - it's very smooth. Now that doesn't sound like a bad thing, and indeed most people seem to have little problem with it, but my feet sweat more than the usual amount, and in the summertime I just can't get a grip on it.
It started after we'd gotten the floor sealed. We had one practice before that, and that was more slippery than the rubber-mat-and-industrial-carpet flooring at the old place, but that was to be expected. The first day on the newly-sealed floor, though, I was slipping and sliding all over the place. I'd try to hold a stance and watch in panic as my feet slooowly slid apart, leaving me to choose whether to heave them back together or to end up in a very uncomfortable position on the floor.
When the second practice proved no better, I went home and googled for solutions to sweaty feet. The easiest seemed to be to coat my feet in aluminum-based antiperspirant, but that didn't seem feasible - I'd leave little antiperspirant footprints all over the nice new floor. On the hippier side of things, quite a few sites suggested I soak my feet in black tea every day for ten days, and it would shrink the sweat glands or something. Well, black tea is cheap, and it seemed worth a shot.
I got a box of plain, unflavored black tea, got out the big stew pot, boiled some water, steeped the tea, and stuck my feet in it. At this point I was working from home, so I could sit there fore the requisite 20 minutes with my laptop on my lap at any point during the day. I felt a little weird about it, and the cats clearly thought I was crazy, but it did make my feet smell nice, at least.
All the websites said it would take a least a week before it took effect, so in the meantime, I slid around the floor like a drunken penguin. At one point during a formal pair exercise I stepped forward to throw a punch and my foot just kept going - I ended up in a seriously uncomfortable half-split. Fortunately my partner was a black belt, long used to dodging the most ridiculously inept of attacks.
I kept soaking my feet in tea. I kept sliding around the floor. I took to carrying a little washrag tucked behind my belt to mop up the puddles, and my white gi pants turned gray below the knee from my frantic efforts to rub my feet dry in between exercises. My stances got shorter and I lived in fear of sliding the wrong direction and blowing out a knee.
Finally, the ten days were up. My feet were a strange yellow color, but they still sweated like mad. After the next practice I went humbly to my head instructor and asked permission to wear shoes. Now I stick to the floor almost too much, but at least my feet stay where I put them.
I have another pair of Vibrams for everyday use, and I get stopped on the street on a regular basis and asked about them. They're awesome! Thanks to everyone who has donated $5 to our fundraiser - we're not done yet! We've still got a long way to go.
Here's the less-lovely thing about our dojo's lovely cork flooring - it's very smooth. Now that doesn't sound like a bad thing, and indeed most people seem to have little problem with it, but my feet sweat more than the usual amount, and in the summertime I just can't get a grip on it.
It started after we'd gotten the floor sealed. We had one practice before that, and that was more slippery than the rubber-mat-and-industrial-carpet flooring at the old place, but that was to be expected. The first day on the newly-sealed floor, though, I was slipping and sliding all over the place. I'd try to hold a stance and watch in panic as my feet slooowly slid apart, leaving me to choose whether to heave them back together or to end up in a very uncomfortable position on the floor.
When the second practice proved no better, I went home and googled for solutions to sweaty feet. The easiest seemed to be to coat my feet in aluminum-based antiperspirant, but that didn't seem feasible - I'd leave little antiperspirant footprints all over the nice new floor. On the hippier side of things, quite a few sites suggested I soak my feet in black tea every day for ten days, and it would shrink the sweat glands or something. Well, black tea is cheap, and it seemed worth a shot.
I got a box of plain, unflavored black tea, got out the big stew pot, boiled some water, steeped the tea, and stuck my feet in it. At this point I was working from home, so I could sit there fore the requisite 20 minutes with my laptop on my lap at any point during the day. I felt a little weird about it, and the cats clearly thought I was crazy, but it did make my feet smell nice, at least.
All the websites said it would take a least a week before it took effect, so in the meantime, I slid around the floor like a drunken penguin. At one point during a formal pair exercise I stepped forward to throw a punch and my foot just kept going - I ended up in a seriously uncomfortable half-split. Fortunately my partner was a black belt, long used to dodging the most ridiculously inept of attacks.
I kept soaking my feet in tea. I kept sliding around the floor. I took to carrying a little washrag tucked behind my belt to mop up the puddles, and my white gi pants turned gray below the knee from my frantic efforts to rub my feet dry in between exercises. My stances got shorter and I lived in fear of sliding the wrong direction and blowing out a knee.
Finally, the ten days were up. My feet were a strange yellow color, but they still sweated like mad. After the next practice I went humbly to my head instructor and asked permission to wear shoes. Now I stick to the floor almost too much, but at least my feet stay where I put them.
I have another pair of Vibrams for everyday use, and I get stopped on the street on a regular basis and asked about them. They're awesome! Thanks to everyone who has donated $5 to our fundraiser - we're not done yet! We've still got a long way to go.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Twelve
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense - enjoy!
The other obvious 80s influence in my interest in martial arts (and my interest in silly headgear) is The Karate Kid. This one had some unfortunate side effects.
My regular after-school babysitter, Heather, was my favorite, largely because she put up with nearly all of my more rambunctious ideas. Every so often, if I hadn't exhausted her yet, we'd go into the living room and move everything breakable away, and we'd... well, I'd say we sparred if I had known what I was doing - and if she was doing anything other than humoring me. Sometimes she'd teach me a little tumbling, but mostly I tried to hit her and she tried not to wince when I did.
Anyway, after seeing The Karate Kid I was inspired. I asked Heather if I could try out the crane kick that looked so cool when performed on a pole on the beach at sunrise. She said, sure, go ahead. So I hoisted one knee up, got my balance, jumped, and kicked my poor babysitter right square in the crotch. She dropped like a rock.
I've never gotten kicked solidly in the groin like that, but if Heather's whimpers were anything to go by, it hurts quite a bit, even for women. She stayed in the fetal position for a good three or four minutes, and when she finally uncurled, I knew playtime was over. But I also knew something more important - the movie was right! That move WORKED.
It's always amused me that when setting a pick in basketball, women stand with their arms crossed over their chest, and men cross their hands over their crotch. Priorities, I guess. Won't you please donate $5 to our fundraiser? I won't threaten to kick you in the crotch if you don't, but you know, I could...
The other obvious 80s influence in my interest in martial arts (and my interest in silly headgear) is The Karate Kid. This one had some unfortunate side effects.
My regular after-school babysitter, Heather, was my favorite, largely because she put up with nearly all of my more rambunctious ideas. Every so often, if I hadn't exhausted her yet, we'd go into the living room and move everything breakable away, and we'd... well, I'd say we sparred if I had known what I was doing - and if she was doing anything other than humoring me. Sometimes she'd teach me a little tumbling, but mostly I tried to hit her and she tried not to wince when I did.
Anyway, after seeing The Karate Kid I was inspired. I asked Heather if I could try out the crane kick that looked so cool when performed on a pole on the beach at sunrise. She said, sure, go ahead. So I hoisted one knee up, got my balance, jumped, and kicked my poor babysitter right square in the crotch. She dropped like a rock.
I've never gotten kicked solidly in the groin like that, but if Heather's whimpers were anything to go by, it hurts quite a bit, even for women. She stayed in the fetal position for a good three or four minutes, and when she finally uncurled, I knew playtime was over. But I also knew something more important - the movie was right! That move WORKED.
It's always amused me that when setting a pick in basketball, women stand with their arms crossed over their chest, and men cross their hands over their crotch. Priorities, I guess. Won't you please donate $5 to our fundraiser? I won't threaten to kick you in the crotch if you don't, but you know, I could...
Saturday, October 17, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Eleven
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense - enjoy!
My interest in the martial arts probably started with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Yeah, I'm a child of the eighties. I honestly can't remember where I came across them, but when I did, I was instantly hooked. And not really to the TV show, either - no, I got all the action figures and made up wild adventures for them, and admired their little plastic weapons, and wanted a full-size set of my own. And then there were the Thundercats, who were also pretty awesome and kicked bad-guy ass in a variety of ways. Maybe I'm lucky to have developed a taste for martial arts and not for furries, eh?
Then there were the video games. I had one, an off-brand fighting game with no fireballs or crazy hairstyles, just guys in black belts kicking and punching, that I played for hours. It wasn't even a very fun game - if you held the down arrow and hit 'B' as fast as you could, you'd win most fights because the AI just wasn't very smart. But it was karate, and therefore it was awesome. (Not as awesome as Tetris - I wasn't dumb, after all - but awesome.) And when Nintendo Power sent the issue with the extended Ninja Gaiden walkthrough, with the little asides about the history of nijitsu, I ate it up. I clearly remember lying in front of the TV reading about caltrops while Father Dowling solved some mystery with his wisecracking nun sidekick. Yeah, child of the 80s for sure.
I wanted to take martial arts lessons, even then. The Park District offered them - it wasn't far, and it wasn't expensive. My parents didn't exactly disapprove... but they didn't encourage it, either. There was baseball, after all. And soccer. And Hebrew school. None of this prevented me from dressing up like a ninja three years running for Halloween, but it definitely made it easy to push back actually taking classes. By the time I got to high school, I was so thoroughly scheduled with after-school sports that there wasn't any room anyway.
Even so, when my cousin, who was always cooler than I was, got to take Tae Kwon Do, I was crazy jealous. I believe he made it to brown belt - maybe to black. I remember him showing me how he tied his belt, one trip up to see the extended family. You had to wrap it carefully and tie it just so. I was terribly impressed.
This wasn't really going anywhere in particular - it's Saturday night, and I've had some wine. But I'd love to hear from other martial artists - what got you into it? Was it TMNT as well? Or did you have, like, a respectable influence?
I am still sort of disappointed that I don't have an excuse to wear a headband with eyeholes in it to class. Maybe I can make that a bonus - if y'all donate $1000 total to our fundraiser, I'll make myself a ninja turtle headband and post the pics online. What do you say?
My interest in the martial arts probably started with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Yeah, I'm a child of the eighties. I honestly can't remember where I came across them, but when I did, I was instantly hooked. And not really to the TV show, either - no, I got all the action figures and made up wild adventures for them, and admired their little plastic weapons, and wanted a full-size set of my own. And then there were the Thundercats, who were also pretty awesome and kicked bad-guy ass in a variety of ways. Maybe I'm lucky to have developed a taste for martial arts and not for furries, eh?
Then there were the video games. I had one, an off-brand fighting game with no fireballs or crazy hairstyles, just guys in black belts kicking and punching, that I played for hours. It wasn't even a very fun game - if you held the down arrow and hit 'B' as fast as you could, you'd win most fights because the AI just wasn't very smart. But it was karate, and therefore it was awesome. (Not as awesome as Tetris - I wasn't dumb, after all - but awesome.) And when Nintendo Power sent the issue with the extended Ninja Gaiden walkthrough, with the little asides about the history of nijitsu, I ate it up. I clearly remember lying in front of the TV reading about caltrops while Father Dowling solved some mystery with his wisecracking nun sidekick. Yeah, child of the 80s for sure.
I wanted to take martial arts lessons, even then. The Park District offered them - it wasn't far, and it wasn't expensive. My parents didn't exactly disapprove... but they didn't encourage it, either. There was baseball, after all. And soccer. And Hebrew school. None of this prevented me from dressing up like a ninja three years running for Halloween, but it definitely made it easy to push back actually taking classes. By the time I got to high school, I was so thoroughly scheduled with after-school sports that there wasn't any room anyway.
Even so, when my cousin, who was always cooler than I was, got to take Tae Kwon Do, I was crazy jealous. I believe he made it to brown belt - maybe to black. I remember him showing me how he tied his belt, one trip up to see the extended family. You had to wrap it carefully and tie it just so. I was terribly impressed.
This wasn't really going anywhere in particular - it's Saturday night, and I've had some wine. But I'd love to hear from other martial artists - what got you into it? Was it TMNT as well? Or did you have, like, a respectable influence?
I am still sort of disappointed that I don't have an excuse to wear a headband with eyeholes in it to class. Maybe I can make that a bonus - if y'all donate $1000 total to our fundraiser, I'll make myself a ninja turtle headband and post the pics online. What do you say?
Friday, October 16, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Ten
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense - enjoy!
I was 19 and had just moved to Austin, and things looked rosy until the dot-com bubble popped. Then the little startup I was working for started to have some funding issues, and I started to get nervous, so I bailed. I didn't have a new job lined up, but hey, I was 19 and invincible.
I found an ad in the paper offering a job for $60k a year after the training period. Sounded too good to be true, but I sent them my resume, got an interview, and went downtown to the fancy office building to meet with the recruiter. It was a real office, with a real recruiter. But the catch was the training wasn't free - it cost $2500 or so for a four-week certification class, money I definitely didn't have. But I talked it over with my mom, and the contract they offered looked pretty solid - offer of employment contingent upon finishing the class - and Mom offered to pay for it.
The company was called Linuxgruven, and they were taking everyone for a ride. They didn't have income beyond what prospective employees would pay for the class, and after a week of class, the owners took off for a tropical island with everyone's money (and paychecks) and there was no more class for me. I had the basic one-week cert (a little card that proclaimed that I could install Linux without setting anything on fire) and nothing else - no job, no prospects, and no way to pay my long-suffering mother back except to forward her the letter from the MO Attorney General who wanted to sue the pants off those people.
I don't bitch much about this one because eventually I got a good job at Dell and I sure whipped out that overpriced certification when I interviewed. But it was definitely a learning experience. In writing circles there's a concept called Yog's Law - money flows towards the writer. If it doesn't (if an agent or a publisher is charging up-front fees) there's a good chance the outfit you're talking to is a scam. In this case, the money wasn't flowing towards the employee, and guess what, it was a scam! (Just requiring a certification isn't a sign of a scam, of course, but I'd be very leery of the ones that want you to pay them to certify you first.)
There are a lot of people out there who would like to take your money without giving you much or anything back in return. Keeping a firm eye on where the money is actually flowing, vs. where you were promised it would flow, is a good rule of thumb. And practicing saying "No," asking questions, and being comfortable walking away are all critical skills to have when things start to look iffy. I lost some of Mom's money on this deal, but much worse things can happen if you aren't keeping an eye on your own well-being.
Ten days in, and I'm wandering pretty far afield of my topics. This is going to get interesting! But I'll keep getting weirder until all of you have donated $5 to our fundraiser!
I was 19 and had just moved to Austin, and things looked rosy until the dot-com bubble popped. Then the little startup I was working for started to have some funding issues, and I started to get nervous, so I bailed. I didn't have a new job lined up, but hey, I was 19 and invincible.
I found an ad in the paper offering a job for $60k a year after the training period. Sounded too good to be true, but I sent them my resume, got an interview, and went downtown to the fancy office building to meet with the recruiter. It was a real office, with a real recruiter. But the catch was the training wasn't free - it cost $2500 or so for a four-week certification class, money I definitely didn't have. But I talked it over with my mom, and the contract they offered looked pretty solid - offer of employment contingent upon finishing the class - and Mom offered to pay for it.
The company was called Linuxgruven, and they were taking everyone for a ride. They didn't have income beyond what prospective employees would pay for the class, and after a week of class, the owners took off for a tropical island with everyone's money (and paychecks) and there was no more class for me. I had the basic one-week cert (a little card that proclaimed that I could install Linux without setting anything on fire) and nothing else - no job, no prospects, and no way to pay my long-suffering mother back except to forward her the letter from the MO Attorney General who wanted to sue the pants off those people.
I don't bitch much about this one because eventually I got a good job at Dell and I sure whipped out that overpriced certification when I interviewed. But it was definitely a learning experience. In writing circles there's a concept called Yog's Law - money flows towards the writer. If it doesn't (if an agent or a publisher is charging up-front fees) there's a good chance the outfit you're talking to is a scam. In this case, the money wasn't flowing towards the employee, and guess what, it was a scam! (Just requiring a certification isn't a sign of a scam, of course, but I'd be very leery of the ones that want you to pay them to certify you first.)
There are a lot of people out there who would like to take your money without giving you much or anything back in return. Keeping a firm eye on where the money is actually flowing, vs. where you were promised it would flow, is a good rule of thumb. And practicing saying "No," asking questions, and being comfortable walking away are all critical skills to have when things start to look iffy. I lost some of Mom's money on this deal, but much worse things can happen if you aren't keeping an eye on your own well-being.
Ten days in, and I'm wandering pretty far afield of my topics. This is going to get interesting! But I'll keep getting weirder until all of you have donated $5 to our fundraiser!
Thursday, October 15, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Nine
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense - enjoy!
One of the most difficult exercises in the last self-defense class I took at Sun Dragon was one I really didn't expect would be hard. It was a very simple exercise: pair up, and take turns asking each other things. Questions, requests, whatever. The other person says "No." That's it.
Sounds really easy, doesn't it? And indeed, the first several questions weren't difficult at all - the hard part was coming up with things to ask. We were just supposed to say "no" without apologizing, explaining, smiling, or any of the other culturally-ingrained behaviors that people - and especially women - are so prone to do. But then I got thrown for a loop. My partner asked, "Do these glasses look good on me?"
And wow, I couldn't do it. I don't consider myself a habitual flatterer, or even a particularly nice person. I very seldom notice other people's appearance, and only rarely does it occur to me to comment on it. But I still hit all of the ingrained making-nice behaviors before I managed to get out a "no" - blushed, dropped my eyes, smiled weakly. It was startling.
Not that I was reluctant to be overtly rude, really. That's one situation where I have no problem with a little white lie, if necessary. No, what was startling was how fast my reaction was, and how hard it was to control even when I was consciously watching for it and trying to stifle it. I know exactly what I would have done if not under specific instructions - smiled and said "yeah, they look great!"
That particular instinctive reaction would probably have been the appropriate one, most of the time. But what happens when I have that reaction to a less-harmless question? It was a great exercise, because now I can sort of tell, if I'm paying attention, to what that embarrassed smile feels like, and when I drop my eyes, and what that means - and maybe I will be able to tell when I should be looking someone dead in the eye and saying "No!" instead.
It's actually sort of refreshing to stand around for a few minutes saying "No!" to everything like a petulant toddler. Help us bring this perverse pleasure to more people - and particularly women - by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
One of the most difficult exercises in the last self-defense class I took at Sun Dragon was one I really didn't expect would be hard. It was a very simple exercise: pair up, and take turns asking each other things. Questions, requests, whatever. The other person says "No." That's it.
Sounds really easy, doesn't it? And indeed, the first several questions weren't difficult at all - the hard part was coming up with things to ask. We were just supposed to say "no" without apologizing, explaining, smiling, or any of the other culturally-ingrained behaviors that people - and especially women - are so prone to do. But then I got thrown for a loop. My partner asked, "Do these glasses look good on me?"
And wow, I couldn't do it. I don't consider myself a habitual flatterer, or even a particularly nice person. I very seldom notice other people's appearance, and only rarely does it occur to me to comment on it. But I still hit all of the ingrained making-nice behaviors before I managed to get out a "no" - blushed, dropped my eyes, smiled weakly. It was startling.
Not that I was reluctant to be overtly rude, really. That's one situation where I have no problem with a little white lie, if necessary. No, what was startling was how fast my reaction was, and how hard it was to control even when I was consciously watching for it and trying to stifle it. I know exactly what I would have done if not under specific instructions - smiled and said "yeah, they look great!"
That particular instinctive reaction would probably have been the appropriate one, most of the time. But what happens when I have that reaction to a less-harmless question? It was a great exercise, because now I can sort of tell, if I'm paying attention, to what that embarrassed smile feels like, and when I drop my eyes, and what that means - and maybe I will be able to tell when I should be looking someone dead in the eye and saying "No!" instead.
It's actually sort of refreshing to stand around for a few minutes saying "No!" to everything like a petulant toddler. Help us bring this perverse pleasure to more people - and particularly women - by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Eight
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense - enjoy!
I've been sick the last couple of days, so today I just want to do a little status update. We're a third of the way to our overall fundraising goal, but we have only three weeks left. We've still got a ways to go. If you've been reading and enjoying these posts, I'd like you to please consider pitching in - I'm only asking for $5.
My own goal is fairly arbitrary - I'm perfectly happy if you choose to donate to someone other than me. And as a matter of fact, if my dojo-mates want to link these posts to their friends with their own donation pages attached, that's fine by me!
Thanks for reading, and hopefully by tomorrow I'll be coherent enough to write something interesting.
Self-defense training isn't just about learning how to punch people in the head. It's about learning how to recognize bad situations, avoid them if possible, and get out of them in the minimum number of pieces if not. Help us provide this training to more people - and particularly women - by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
I've been sick the last couple of days, so today I just want to do a little status update. We're a third of the way to our overall fundraising goal, but we have only three weeks left. We've still got a ways to go. If you've been reading and enjoying these posts, I'd like you to please consider pitching in - I'm only asking for $5.
My own goal is fairly arbitrary - I'm perfectly happy if you choose to donate to someone other than me. And as a matter of fact, if my dojo-mates want to link these posts to their friends with their own donation pages attached, that's fine by me!
Thanks for reading, and hopefully by tomorrow I'll be coherent enough to write something interesting.
Self-defense training isn't just about learning how to punch people in the head. It's about learning how to recognize bad situations, avoid them if possible, and get out of them in the minimum number of pieces if not. Help us provide this training to more people - and particularly women - by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Seven
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense - enjoy!
Several years ago, I decided to try the whole internet dating thing. This was in the Spring Street Network era, before eHarmony and OKCupid. I was looking for fun, maybe a little play, but definitely not a serious relationship. This led me to some... interesting people. And some good lessons in self-defense.
I can't remember if this woman was the first or second real-life date. She was, if I remember correctly, about 35 (I was 22,) a massage therapist, and interested in astrology. We exchanged a couple of emails, which went tolerably well, spoke on the phone for a few minutes, which didn't go horribly, and made a date to meet at a coffee shop. I gave her my birthday so she could do my horoscope, which sounded like a good pretext to talk.
I wasn't entirely thrilled by her, but I wasn't entirely repulsed, either. The horoscope was moderately interesting, and she was not unattractive, except she had a habit of smacking her lips every minute or so. I found that so thoroughly distracting that when we got to talking about massage, and she offered to give me a free one at her office - just a few streets away - I said yes.
We took separate cars - I wasn't that dumb, even then. I didn't find her physically threatening, but as I drove to her office my instincts were growing increasingly unhappy with the plan. I decided to go ahead, though - because I said I'd do it, and dammit, I'd do it.
Let me perhaps spoil the tension of the narrative by saying now that it really was her office, and that she really did give me a massage. Not a spectacular massage - she seemed a little distracted - but she made the effort. When she finished with my back and I rolled over, she kissed me. I remember the train of thought very clearly.
"Um. This isn't all that fun. It's not really her fault, though, and I did say I wanted some play. No, you know what? This isn't fun. I'm done here."
I disengaged, said something vague about not really being over my last relationship after all, and bailed. She was obviously disappointed, but didn't press the issue.
Which, you know, was nice. Because I had put myself in a really crappy position, in terms of safety. I was on her turf, in an office building after 9pm with no one around, and if things had gotten ugly I wouldn't have had very many options.
So there were a couple of learning experiences here - number one, if your gut says bail, bail and don't worry about manners - or pride. That's the one I did wrong. Number two, if you're not having fun, get out, move on, and don't worry about the other person. That's the one I did right. I am still glad I didn't let that scene go any further, and I'm sure she got over the disappointment almost immediately.
So yeah, this one probably wasn't very amusing, but these are topics that aren't always funny.
Self-defense training isn't just about learning how to punch people in the head. It's about learning how to recognize bad situations, avoid them if possible, and get out of them in the minimum number of pieces if not. Help us provide this training to more people - and particularly women - by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
Several years ago, I decided to try the whole internet dating thing. This was in the Spring Street Network era, before eHarmony and OKCupid. I was looking for fun, maybe a little play, but definitely not a serious relationship. This led me to some... interesting people. And some good lessons in self-defense.
I can't remember if this woman was the first or second real-life date. She was, if I remember correctly, about 35 (I was 22,) a massage therapist, and interested in astrology. We exchanged a couple of emails, which went tolerably well, spoke on the phone for a few minutes, which didn't go horribly, and made a date to meet at a coffee shop. I gave her my birthday so she could do my horoscope, which sounded like a good pretext to talk.
I wasn't entirely thrilled by her, but I wasn't entirely repulsed, either. The horoscope was moderately interesting, and she was not unattractive, except she had a habit of smacking her lips every minute or so. I found that so thoroughly distracting that when we got to talking about massage, and she offered to give me a free one at her office - just a few streets away - I said yes.
We took separate cars - I wasn't that dumb, even then. I didn't find her physically threatening, but as I drove to her office my instincts were growing increasingly unhappy with the plan. I decided to go ahead, though - because I said I'd do it, and dammit, I'd do it.
Let me perhaps spoil the tension of the narrative by saying now that it really was her office, and that she really did give me a massage. Not a spectacular massage - she seemed a little distracted - but she made the effort. When she finished with my back and I rolled over, she kissed me. I remember the train of thought very clearly.
"Um. This isn't all that fun. It's not really her fault, though, and I did say I wanted some play. No, you know what? This isn't fun. I'm done here."
I disengaged, said something vague about not really being over my last relationship after all, and bailed. She was obviously disappointed, but didn't press the issue.
Which, you know, was nice. Because I had put myself in a really crappy position, in terms of safety. I was on her turf, in an office building after 9pm with no one around, and if things had gotten ugly I wouldn't have had very many options.
So there were a couple of learning experiences here - number one, if your gut says bail, bail and don't worry about manners - or pride. That's the one I did wrong. Number two, if you're not having fun, get out, move on, and don't worry about the other person. That's the one I did right. I am still glad I didn't let that scene go any further, and I'm sure she got over the disappointment almost immediately.
So yeah, this one probably wasn't very amusing, but these are topics that aren't always funny.
Self-defense training isn't just about learning how to punch people in the head. It's about learning how to recognize bad situations, avoid them if possible, and get out of them in the minimum number of pieces if not. Help us provide this training to more people - and particularly women - by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
Monday, October 12, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Six
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense - enjoy!
One of the things about studying martial arts at a not-for-profit school is that sometimes it bears more of a resemblance to Mr. Miyagi's backyard than it does a slick strip-mall storefront - even when we're in a strip mall.
I started training last summer at the old dojo on Riverside, where Sun Dragon had been for ages. It was a little tin-walled shack next to the Thundercloud, with extremely sketchy carpeting but a very authentic atmosphere. The less-charming thing about it was that it had no air conditioning, and by late June I was as happy as any of the ten-year vets to hear we were moving to a climate-controlled storefront on Westgate.
The thing was, the new spot needed some work. It needed changing rooms, an office, and a floor suitable to jump around and fall down on. And Sun Dragon is a non-profit - there's not a deep pool of money to pay for that sort of stuff out of. So our head instructor's partner, who's a contractor, agreed for the sake of domestic tranquility to handle the tough parts, and for the day labor - well, we'd all seen the movie. Wax on, wax off, and all that.
I hadn't painted in years, but working a roller isn't that hard. The really fun stuff was all new:
The move was funded in part by Kickathons of years past. In addition to our scholarship fund, this year's fundraiser will help us hang mirrors to aid our training. Help improve our facility and our community by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
One of the things about studying martial arts at a not-for-profit school is that sometimes it bears more of a resemblance to Mr. Miyagi's backyard than it does a slick strip-mall storefront - even when we're in a strip mall.
I started training last summer at the old dojo on Riverside, where Sun Dragon had been for ages. It was a little tin-walled shack next to the Thundercloud, with extremely sketchy carpeting but a very authentic atmosphere. The less-charming thing about it was that it had no air conditioning, and by late June I was as happy as any of the ten-year vets to hear we were moving to a climate-controlled storefront on Westgate.
The thing was, the new spot needed some work. It needed changing rooms, an office, and a floor suitable to jump around and fall down on. And Sun Dragon is a non-profit - there's not a deep pool of money to pay for that sort of stuff out of. So our head instructor's partner, who's a contractor, agreed for the sake of domestic tranquility to handle the tough parts, and for the day labor - well, we'd all seen the movie. Wax on, wax off, and all that.
I hadn't painted in years, but working a roller isn't that hard. The really fun stuff was all new:
- Ripping a short wall-stub down with a hammer
- Spending time with my dojo-mates when none of us were trying to hit anyone else.
- Ghetto-texturing the strip where the wall-stub had connected to the main wall (mud and a texture roller woo! I still see that strip every time I'm in the dojo and wonder how I could have done it better.)
- Hanging drywall. Lots of drywall. (We built out the office and two changing rooms, which was a lot of drywall.)
- Drinking a beer. I hate beer, but after six hours of construction work, nothing else would do. It was perfect.
- Laying a tongue-and-groove cork floor. Then ripping it up, putting down plywood because using the old industrial carpet as a subfloor was too squishy, and laying it again.
- Painting pine boards with three coats before finally realizing they were going to be completely invisible unless you were on an eight-foot ladder.
- Framing a window for the Eye of God (the head instructor's office, so she can keep an eye on us without being deafened by the constant yelling.)
- Reveling in the air conditioning, the working plumbing, and the clean walls. And the parking.
The move was funded in part by Kickathons of years past. In addition to our scholarship fund, this year's fundraiser will help us hang mirrors to aid our training. Help improve our facility and our community by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
Sunday, October 11, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Five
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense - enjoy!
This morning I lifted some weights and then sparred a little with an old friend of mine, and that brought to mind some of our more amusing attempts at martial arts of years past. Eight or nine years ago, a work friend of hers said he had a buddy who studied Kuk Sool Won, which is a particularly weapons-heavy Korean style (the guy who played Darth Maul studies it.) He'd offered to teach them a bit of swordwork, and were we interested?
I am not sure Jo really was, but I definitely was, and she is nothing if not a good sport. So we ordered cheap katanas off the internet and trooped out one Sunday afternoon to a dead-end street somewhere in Bastrop, where we could swing live steel at each other without anyone calling the cops.
We did this a few Saturdays without incident, learning the basics - how to hold the sword, basic safety and etiquette, and the first dozen or so moves in a sword kata. Afterwards, we'd go to lunch and listen to our ex-Navy teacher's bar brawl stories, of which he had many.
We'd been doing this for several weeks when I managed to get my first sword-related scar. It's probably the most pathetic scar on my body. I was finishing up the sword kata when I mimed the sheathing motion and managed to nick the cuticle of my thumb. Just clumsiness, that was all - I barely felt it.
Except it bled pretty good. And it kept bleeding. It bled until we left for lunch, it bled in the car on the way to lunch, and it bled all through lunch. I soaked through three paper towels trying to eat without dripping gore all over my food. The cut was a quarter of an inch long, and it bled for an hour and a half before it finally stopped.
I still have the scar. I can show it to you, if you run into me some day. It's tiny, but it's mighty.
The only thing I regret about Sun Dragon is that it currently has no wildly profane ex-military instructors. Some may see this as an advantage, I suppose. Help us reach out to more people by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
This morning I lifted some weights and then sparred a little with an old friend of mine, and that brought to mind some of our more amusing attempts at martial arts of years past. Eight or nine years ago, a work friend of hers said he had a buddy who studied Kuk Sool Won, which is a particularly weapons-heavy Korean style (the guy who played Darth Maul studies it.) He'd offered to teach them a bit of swordwork, and were we interested?
I am not sure Jo really was, but I definitely was, and she is nothing if not a good sport. So we ordered cheap katanas off the internet and trooped out one Sunday afternoon to a dead-end street somewhere in Bastrop, where we could swing live steel at each other without anyone calling the cops.
We did this a few Saturdays without incident, learning the basics - how to hold the sword, basic safety and etiquette, and the first dozen or so moves in a sword kata. Afterwards, we'd go to lunch and listen to our ex-Navy teacher's bar brawl stories, of which he had many.
We'd been doing this for several weeks when I managed to get my first sword-related scar. It's probably the most pathetic scar on my body. I was finishing up the sword kata when I mimed the sheathing motion and managed to nick the cuticle of my thumb. Just clumsiness, that was all - I barely felt it.
Except it bled pretty good. And it kept bleeding. It bled until we left for lunch, it bled in the car on the way to lunch, and it bled all through lunch. I soaked through three paper towels trying to eat without dripping gore all over my food. The cut was a quarter of an inch long, and it bled for an hour and a half before it finally stopped.
I still have the scar. I can show it to you, if you run into me some day. It's tiny, but it's mighty.
The only thing I regret about Sun Dragon is that it currently has no wildly profane ex-military instructors. Some may see this as an advantage, I suppose. Help us reach out to more people by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
Saturday, October 10, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Four
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense - enjoy!
Last weekend I was in New York at Honbu, the home school for our particular style of karate. Our head instructor was testing for her next black belt rank, and several of us decided that it was a great excuse for a vacation. We did take some classes while we were there, though, on the logic that it was easier to get used to the formality (and the accents - at Sun Dragon we get Japanese spoken by Texans who learned it from a French-Canadian, which is... not the same) when we weren't trying to take a high-stress belt test.
Saturday morning we took a kata class. (For those of you who haven't watched The Karate Kid III recently, kata are choreographed series of movements performed solo - like a dance, but with more punching.) Other than having to do OMG TOO MANY pushups, it went just fine - until the very end. All the students of my rank and above were instructed to perform Sanchin - a kata that I had fumbled through maybe twice, and don't really know at all. I'm not completely hopeless, though, so I figured I could just follow along. It wasn't something I was expected to have down cold or anything.
On my right was the other Sun Dragon student of my rank. She didn't know it any better than me, so she was no help. So at first I tried to watch the green belt ahead and to my left. She was a rank above me - she should know it reasonably well. But after the third time she did something, made a face, and switched her hand position, I looked to the green belt ahead of me instead.
I hadn't been watching him through most of the class, because the green belts were always doing a different kata than the one we'd been assigned. (Trying to figure out how to dodge three students throwing punches and kicks in different directions, plus a support pillar and the door to the girls' locker room, was its own challenge.) But he looked perfectly confident, so I tried to follow along as we went through a sequence of slow, deliberate blocks and punches.
I was concentrating so hard on not screwing up that it took me three or four moves to figure out why I couldn't seem to sync up with him. The guy only had one arm.
I spent the rest of the kata just making sure my feet were in the right position and thanking whatever provident spirits had stuck me in the back corner of the dojo where the instructor couldn't see me flailing.
That guy does better pushups with one arm that I can with two, and on my knees. One of the neat things about our style is that it is consciously intended to be usable by everyone, not just high-testosterone 18-year-old boys. Help us reach out to more people by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
Last weekend I was in New York at Honbu, the home school for our particular style of karate. Our head instructor was testing for her next black belt rank, and several of us decided that it was a great excuse for a vacation. We did take some classes while we were there, though, on the logic that it was easier to get used to the formality (and the accents - at Sun Dragon we get Japanese spoken by Texans who learned it from a French-Canadian, which is... not the same) when we weren't trying to take a high-stress belt test.
Saturday morning we took a kata class. (For those of you who haven't watched The Karate Kid III recently, kata are choreographed series of movements performed solo - like a dance, but with more punching.) Other than having to do OMG TOO MANY pushups, it went just fine - until the very end. All the students of my rank and above were instructed to perform Sanchin - a kata that I had fumbled through maybe twice, and don't really know at all. I'm not completely hopeless, though, so I figured I could just follow along. It wasn't something I was expected to have down cold or anything.
On my right was the other Sun Dragon student of my rank. She didn't know it any better than me, so she was no help. So at first I tried to watch the green belt ahead and to my left. She was a rank above me - she should know it reasonably well. But after the third time she did something, made a face, and switched her hand position, I looked to the green belt ahead of me instead.
I hadn't been watching him through most of the class, because the green belts were always doing a different kata than the one we'd been assigned. (Trying to figure out how to dodge three students throwing punches and kicks in different directions, plus a support pillar and the door to the girls' locker room, was its own challenge.) But he looked perfectly confident, so I tried to follow along as we went through a sequence of slow, deliberate blocks and punches.
I was concentrating so hard on not screwing up that it took me three or four moves to figure out why I couldn't seem to sync up with him. The guy only had one arm.
I spent the rest of the kata just making sure my feet were in the right position and thanking whatever provident spirits had stuck me in the back corner of the dojo where the instructor couldn't see me flailing.
That guy does better pushups with one arm that I can with two, and on my knees. One of the neat things about our style is that it is consciously intended to be usable by everyone, not just high-testosterone 18-year-old boys. Help us reach out to more people by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
Friday, October 9, 2009
Housekeeping - Kickathon Donations
If you'd like to make a cash or check donation, please give a valid email address at least so we can be sure you're real. We've had either a rash of very generous anonymous people and we'll be very happy when the mailman arrives in a week or so, or someone's just fooling around, which is sorta weird. We'll be keeping all anonymous cash or check donations out of the system so it doesn't skew our progress charts - until the checks arrive, of course!
You can mail checks to the following address:
Sun Dragon Martial Arts
4534 West Gate Blvd; Suite 101
Austin, TX 78745
If you'd like to make sure I get credit, you're welcome to include a note to that effect, but either way, it's fine!
You can mail checks to the following address:
Sun Dragon Martial Arts
4534 West Gate Blvd; Suite 101
Austin, TX 78745
If you'd like to make sure I get credit, you're welcome to include a note to that effect, but either way, it's fine!
My Life and Karate, Day Three
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense - enjoy!
This is only related to karate and/or self defense in that we do learn break-falls - I actually picked up the skill (at least for certain angles) playing volleyball. But it's one of my very favorite stories to tell, so... stop me if you've heard this one before.
It was a Friday or Saturday night, and I got out of the bar at 2:15ish. I had quit drinking at midnight (which I always do if I'm driving,) so I felt just fine. I walked down Sixth Street on the sidewalk until I hit one of the seething crowds in front of the pizza shops, then I angled to step into the street.
This isn't a complicated maneuver. But there was a big piece of plywood on the ground, and with my supernatural coordination, I managed to catch my toe on it. You know that bit in Spider-Man where Biff takes a punch at the newly-irradiated Peter and everything slows waaaay down? I get that every time I'm about to bust my ass. I looked down, realized there was no way I was going to get my leg back out in front before I pitched headfirst off the curb, and my last thought was "Oh, shit!" before my volleyball reflexes took over.
I stuck out an arm as I hit the ground, tucked my knees, rolled over my shoulder, and flipped to my feet in one graceful motion. I was almost feeling proud of myself when I glanced back to my right. Three sorority girls were sitting on the curb, pizza slices in hand, gaping at me. I feebly protested that I wasn't actually drunk. I don't think they believed me.
We haven't specifically covered pitching-headfirst-into-the-street-and-emerging-unscathed-but-for-slight-scrapes yet, but I am assured it comes up later in the curriculum. Help us teach people these critical skills by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
This is only related to karate and/or self defense in that we do learn break-falls - I actually picked up the skill (at least for certain angles) playing volleyball. But it's one of my very favorite stories to tell, so... stop me if you've heard this one before.
It was a Friday or Saturday night, and I got out of the bar at 2:15ish. I had quit drinking at midnight (which I always do if I'm driving,) so I felt just fine. I walked down Sixth Street on the sidewalk until I hit one of the seething crowds in front of the pizza shops, then I angled to step into the street.
This isn't a complicated maneuver. But there was a big piece of plywood on the ground, and with my supernatural coordination, I managed to catch my toe on it. You know that bit in Spider-Man where Biff takes a punch at the newly-irradiated Peter and everything slows waaaay down? I get that every time I'm about to bust my ass. I looked down, realized there was no way I was going to get my leg back out in front before I pitched headfirst off the curb, and my last thought was "Oh, shit!" before my volleyball reflexes took over.
I stuck out an arm as I hit the ground, tucked my knees, rolled over my shoulder, and flipped to my feet in one graceful motion. I was almost feeling proud of myself when I glanced back to my right. Three sorority girls were sitting on the curb, pizza slices in hand, gaping at me. I feebly protested that I wasn't actually drunk. I don't think they believed me.
We haven't specifically covered pitching-headfirst-into-the-street-and-emerging-unscathed-but-for-slight-scrapes yet, but I am assured it comes up later in the curriculum. Help us teach people these critical skills by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
Thursday, October 8, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day Two
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense - enjoy!
My high school had a self-defense instructor come in for a few days my junior year. She was a tiny lady in her sixties, and when we were all herded into the gym no one was quite certain how seriously to take her. It was still gym class, after all.
I was standing at the front of the reluctant semicircle around her, so she picked me to do a demonstration. I stood about ten feet from her, and she told me to walk up to her and try to get really close. That seemed easy enough.
I started to walk forward and she dropped her eyes and cringed. It was the weirdest feeling - I started to smirk and felt ten feet tall. I came within about 8 inches of her and did my best to loom over her - which wasn't hard, since she was 5'1", tops - and she said "Ok, now go back and do it again."
I was feeling pretty cocky. When I started walking forward this time, she took a step forward and roared at me. I don't know what she said - probably something along the lines of "Stay away!" I was too busy levitating backwards to pay much attention.
I'm not sure how much it helped the rest of the class, but it was quite a revelation for me. We're really not that far from our animal roots - basic dominance behavior is pretty hardwired. That feeling of superiority I got when she flinched and dropped her eyes was purely instinctive - I knew it was just an exercise, and I'm really not much of an alpha dog anyway, but that didn't change my physical and emotional reaction at all.
I paid very close attention to the rest of her lecture about body language and voice. I've been in a lot of fairly sketchy situations since, and I have had quite a few occasions to remember to keep my shoulders back and my eyes up. I'm more inclined to snarl than yell, but I can if I have to, and I know exactly how effective it really is.
I firmly believe that everyone should grow up to be a little old lady who can knock people down by shouting at them. Or a little old man - you know, whichever. Help Sun Dragon teach people these critical skills by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
My high school had a self-defense instructor come in for a few days my junior year. She was a tiny lady in her sixties, and when we were all herded into the gym no one was quite certain how seriously to take her. It was still gym class, after all.
I was standing at the front of the reluctant semicircle around her, so she picked me to do a demonstration. I stood about ten feet from her, and she told me to walk up to her and try to get really close. That seemed easy enough.
I started to walk forward and she dropped her eyes and cringed. It was the weirdest feeling - I started to smirk and felt ten feet tall. I came within about 8 inches of her and did my best to loom over her - which wasn't hard, since she was 5'1", tops - and she said "Ok, now go back and do it again."
I was feeling pretty cocky. When I started walking forward this time, she took a step forward and roared at me. I don't know what she said - probably something along the lines of "Stay away!" I was too busy levitating backwards to pay much attention.
I'm not sure how much it helped the rest of the class, but it was quite a revelation for me. We're really not that far from our animal roots - basic dominance behavior is pretty hardwired. That feeling of superiority I got when she flinched and dropped her eyes was purely instinctive - I knew it was just an exercise, and I'm really not much of an alpha dog anyway, but that didn't change my physical and emotional reaction at all.
I paid very close attention to the rest of her lecture about body language and voice. I've been in a lot of fairly sketchy situations since, and I have had quite a few occasions to remember to keep my shoulders back and my eyes up. I'm more inclined to snarl than yell, but I can if I have to, and I know exactly how effective it really is.
I firmly believe that everyone should grow up to be a little old lady who can knock people down by shouting at them. Or a little old man - you know, whichever. Help Sun Dragon teach people these critical skills by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
My Life and Karate, Day One
My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense - enjoy!
My first memory of karate in real life was in fourth or fifth grade, on the playground. A very sweet if dorky boy named Ben (I have long since forgotten his last name) was attempting to win my favor by bragging about his karate skills. His account of a couple years of classes at the Y failed to impress me - I had hit a growth spurt and probably had three inches and thirty pounds on him, and I knew it.
He waved his arms around in a way that was, I suppose, intended to be menacing. I did not feel menaced. He came at me. I picked up a four-foot-long fallen tree branch the width of my thigh. He stopped.
Apparently his training, which obviously didn't impart the wisdom of not showing off in the schoolyard, also didn't cover how to cope with an armed attacker. I felt sorta bad for him - he was obviously trying to flirt in that fourth-grade-boy sort of way - but the fellow was barking up a tree in the wrong forest altogether.
Many years later, I found a school that teaches practical self defense as well as fancy hand-waving. Hopefully poor Ben eventually found a girl to swoon over him.
Everyone should know what to do when confronted with clueless ten-year-olds or smart-alecks holding chunks of wood. Help us teach people these critical skills by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
My first memory of karate in real life was in fourth or fifth grade, on the playground. A very sweet if dorky boy named Ben (I have long since forgotten his last name) was attempting to win my favor by bragging about his karate skills. His account of a couple years of classes at the Y failed to impress me - I had hit a growth spurt and probably had three inches and thirty pounds on him, and I knew it.
He waved his arms around in a way that was, I suppose, intended to be menacing. I did not feel menaced. He came at me. I picked up a four-foot-long fallen tree branch the width of my thigh. He stopped.
Apparently his training, which obviously didn't impart the wisdom of not showing off in the schoolyard, also didn't cover how to cope with an armed attacker. I felt sorta bad for him - he was obviously trying to flirt in that fourth-grade-boy sort of way - but the fellow was barking up a tree in the wrong forest altogether.
Many years later, I found a school that teaches practical self defense as well as fancy hand-waving. Hopefully poor Ben eventually found a girl to swoon over him.
Everyone should know what to do when confronted with clueless ten-year-olds or smart-alecks holding chunks of wood. Help us teach people these critical skills by donating $5 to our fundraiser!
Monday, September 28, 2009
Training for a 5k
After my last post, I've made some progress towards improving my approach towards fitness. I set the specific, achievable goal of improving my 5k time by the Race for the Cure. My friend Jo volunteered to put together a three-day-a-week training program for me, and that takes care of the regular scheduling and accountability parts. I've done four workouts so far, and plan to keep it up for the full six weeks. My latest 5k time was pretty terrible (about 37:30) so I am confident I'll be able to improve on it.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Going Both Ways
There is too much I want to do with my time and energy. The three big ones: I want to finish a novel, I want to study karate, I want to get really fit. I end up not reaching any of my goals because even when they don't actively conflict, there's just only so much time, energy, and focus I can come up with.
Lately, studying karate has been winning. I think that's because of a couple of things:
- It's regularly scheduled. I am totally a creature of habit.
- There are other people involved who will notice if I slack off
- It's got regular, predictable milestones and goals.
- It's fun!
Hmm, that's sort of a useful little list. Consistency, accountability, clear progress markers, and... fun. I wonder if applying that to my other two goals will result in anything interesting.
The novel - it's been making some progress, although not nearly enough to suit me.
- Consistency: none. I write when I feel like it, which isn't all that often.
- Accountability: I have recently improved this, and that's really the only reason I've been making progress. It's harder to slack off completely when I know I have to cancel a coffee date, or sit through it knowing I haven't done my share.
- Progress: On the one hand, the work is divided neatly into chapters. On the other, I haven't really set time-based goals. So about 50% on this one.
- Fun: I enjoy the process once I get started, and I do feel really good when I finish a session.
That more closely resembles "getting really fit." (Which I am counting totally separately from karate, because if that alone got me really fit, I'd be a ninja already.)
- Consistency: None at the moment. I can be good about this for about six weeks at a stretch.
- Accountability: Posting to the blog doesn't seem to do it. Possibly because only half a dozen people (at best) read it.
- Progress: Let's face it, "getting really fit" is a crappy goal. I need to define that better.
- Fun: I do enjoy the various activities involved, when I make myself do them.
So I need to define my goals better for fitness, and figure out how to get into the habit of both sitting and writing and... doing whatever will support my fitness goals.
More to come in further posts.
Lately, studying karate has been winning. I think that's because of a couple of things:
- It's regularly scheduled. I am totally a creature of habit.
- There are other people involved who will notice if I slack off
- It's got regular, predictable milestones and goals.
- It's fun!
Hmm, that's sort of a useful little list. Consistency, accountability, clear progress markers, and... fun. I wonder if applying that to my other two goals will result in anything interesting.
The novel - it's been making some progress, although not nearly enough to suit me.
- Consistency: none. I write when I feel like it, which isn't all that often.
- Accountability: I have recently improved this, and that's really the only reason I've been making progress. It's harder to slack off completely when I know I have to cancel a coffee date, or sit through it knowing I haven't done my share.
- Progress: On the one hand, the work is divided neatly into chapters. On the other, I haven't really set time-based goals. So about 50% on this one.
- Fun: I enjoy the process once I get started, and I do feel really good when I finish a session.
That more closely resembles "getting really fit." (Which I am counting totally separately from karate, because if that alone got me really fit, I'd be a ninja already.)
- Consistency: None at the moment. I can be good about this for about six weeks at a stretch.
- Accountability: Posting to the blog doesn't seem to do it. Possibly because only half a dozen people (at best) read it.
- Progress: Let's face it, "getting really fit" is a crappy goal. I need to define that better.
- Fun: I do enjoy the various activities involved, when I make myself do them.
So I need to define my goals better for fitness, and figure out how to get into the habit of both sitting and writing and... doing whatever will support my fitness goals.
More to come in further posts.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Rawr
I definitely need to make sure I'm eating enough during the day - I was pretty crazy by 6pm yesterday. Once I chomped through a third of a pound of roast beef I was all better, though.
As I often do, I deliberately went a bit overboard this weekend, so I was artificially bloated when I hopped on the scale Monday morning - but I am amused to report I'm six pounds down already. That might be my new record for water-weight loss.
My caffeine plan seems to be to avoid sugared sodas but go ahead with the sugar-free ones, at least for the moment. Maybe in a week or two I'll feel strong enough to give them up too.
As I often do, I deliberately went a bit overboard this weekend, so I was artificially bloated when I hopped on the scale Monday morning - but I am amused to report I'm six pounds down already. That might be my new record for water-weight loss.
My caffeine plan seems to be to avoid sugared sodas but go ahead with the sugar-free ones, at least for the moment. Maybe in a week or two I'll feel strong enough to give them up too.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Daily Posting
The daily check-in is really helpful for me when I'm trying to do something new, hence all the posting.
Yesterday went just fine, although I realize I'm eating much less than usual. It's not precisely bad, but it's not precisely intentional, either, and it's something I'm going to need to keep an eye on to make sure I don't go overboard.
Yesterday went just fine, although I realize I'm eating much less than usual. It's not precisely bad, but it's not precisely intentional, either, and it's something I'm going to need to keep an eye on to make sure I don't go overboard.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
*blinkblink*
Day one went pretty well, on the whole. I confess I cheated a little bit and ate the last few bites of a couple of desserts lying around the house, because I couldn't stand to throw out perfectly good Ben and Jerry's, but otherwise I was fine.
I need to consider my caffeine solutions - Jamba Juice is clever and all, but it's a whole meal by itself. Caffeine isn't actually on my to-avoid list, but sugar is. We'll see. I should go off it again but I can't face that while I'm quitting everything else.
I need to consider my caffeine solutions - Jamba Juice is clever and all, but it's a whole meal by itself. Caffeine isn't actually on my to-avoid list, but sugar is. We'll see. I should go off it again but I can't face that while I'm quitting everything else.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Day One
Started the morning with an all-fruit smoothie from Jamba Juice, and lunch will be sushi. So not a success on the "hey, this will save money!" front, but yummy all the way around.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Follow-up and Refinement
This is a good short rundown of the "no" list. Tomatoes (and probably other nightshade-family stuff) is not directly related to the Paleo diet - it's a RA-trigger possibility. I will probably add them back in two weeks and see how (or if) I react.
This is going to be quite a challenge. I am still in denial about cheese.
This is going to be quite a challenge. I am still in denial about cheese.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
A Challenge
One month - September.
Eat purely "paleo" - no processed food, no grains, no legumes.
Also, no tomatoes.
Why? This is why.
I'm already avoiding wheat, and it's had a profound effect on my joint issues. It's not 100% fixed, though, and I want to try to go whole hog to see if it makes any further difference. I also need to quit eating the shite I have been eating. It doesn't help my mood or focus or overall health. So, we shall see how possible this is.
Eat purely "paleo" - no processed food, no grains, no legumes.
Also, no tomatoes.
Why? This is why.
"Another suspect lectin disease is rheumatoid arthritis. The normal human IgG molecule possesses carbohydrate side chains, which terminate with galactose. In rheumatoid arthritis much of the galactose is missing, so that the subterminal sugar---N-acetyl glucosamine---is exposed instead. These deficient IgG molecules feature strongly in the circulating immune complexes that cause fever and symptoms.12 In diet responsive rheumatoid arthritis one of the commonest trigger foods is wheat, and wheat lectin is specific for N-acetyl glucosamine---the sugar that is normally hidden but exposed in rheumatoid arthritis. This suggests that N-acetyl glucosamine oligomers such as chitotetraose (derived from the chitin that forms crustacean shells) might be an effective treatment for diet associated rheumatoid arthritis. Interestingly, the health food trade has already siezed on N-acetyl glucosamine as an antiarthritic supplement"
I'm already avoiding wheat, and it's had a profound effect on my joint issues. It's not 100% fixed, though, and I want to try to go whole hog to see if it makes any further difference. I also need to quit eating the shite I have been eating. It doesn't help my mood or focus or overall health. So, we shall see how possible this is.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
A Challenge
One of the things this lively debate crystallized for me is how hard it must be for people who have never questioned their sexuality to really grok the concept of "the closet".
What would it be like for a straight person to try to spend a day, or maybe a weekend, "in the closet"? Play the pronoun game! Avoid making appreciative remarks about people of your preferred gender! Avoid all lingering glances! When out in public with your partner, avoid any hint of affection! (Well, warn your partner first.) Try desperately to avoid macho/femme mannerisms! Doesn't that sound like fun?
I realized I liked girls "that way" when I was 13 or 14, so I got to go through most of adolescence trying very, very hard not to give myself away. The high school I went to was not an environment that was or is particularly gay-friendly, although lately the school itself does seem to be making a substantial effort. But in my day, you just... didn't come out. The one boy who did got himself emancipated and moved to the city because not even his parents supported him, and the one effort to set up a support group led to harassment and threats from whatever male sports team was active that season. I was on a sports team myself and... there was just no way.
That experience has left me with a couple of interesting scars. The most obvious one is that I am a complete disaster at any sort of casual physical affection. I spent so long worrying that if I touched any woman that she'd believe (or realize) that I was attracted to her that now I am almost totally incapable of initiating contact, and I'm almost as bad at accepting it without twitching and flinching and generally looking like a freak. Which annoys me, because I'd love to be one of those indiscriminately affectionate people, or at least be able to give people hugs without it being a Big Deal.
I wouldn't wish that aspect of my high school experience on anyone, but as a controlled experiment, I'd love to see some people trying to get a sense of it - consciously noting what they usually do without thinking that they'd have to change or stop doing altogether. Even without the threat of substantial social consequences for failure, it might give some folks a perspective they wouldn't find otherwise.
What would it be like for a straight person to try to spend a day, or maybe a weekend, "in the closet"? Play the pronoun game! Avoid making appreciative remarks about people of your preferred gender! Avoid all lingering glances! When out in public with your partner, avoid any hint of affection! (Well, warn your partner first.) Try desperately to avoid macho/femme mannerisms! Doesn't that sound like fun?
I realized I liked girls "that way" when I was 13 or 14, so I got to go through most of adolescence trying very, very hard not to give myself away. The high school I went to was not an environment that was or is particularly gay-friendly, although lately the school itself does seem to be making a substantial effort. But in my day, you just... didn't come out. The one boy who did got himself emancipated and moved to the city because not even his parents supported him, and the one effort to set up a support group led to harassment and threats from whatever male sports team was active that season. I was on a sports team myself and... there was just no way.
That experience has left me with a couple of interesting scars. The most obvious one is that I am a complete disaster at any sort of casual physical affection. I spent so long worrying that if I touched any woman that she'd believe (or realize) that I was attracted to her that now I am almost totally incapable of initiating contact, and I'm almost as bad at accepting it without twitching and flinching and generally looking like a freak. Which annoys me, because I'd love to be one of those indiscriminately affectionate people, or at least be able to give people hugs without it being a Big Deal.
I wouldn't wish that aspect of my high school experience on anyone, but as a controlled experiment, I'd love to see some people trying to get a sense of it - consciously noting what they usually do without thinking that they'd have to change or stop doing altogether. Even without the threat of substantial social consequences for failure, it might give some folks a perspective they wouldn't find otherwise.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
I Haven't Mentioned the Game's Name For a Reason
Kill Ten Rats has the right idea. One of the more frustrating things about situations like this is that there's just not much any individual can do about it. I was tickled to see myself quoted in various places, and I'm glad I brought the issue to the attention of various folks, but that's not going to hit EA very hard. It's not like I was going to buy the game anyway (I don't have the right console, or a console at all, for that matter.) I also know too much about EA's internal structure to think that boycotting, say, The Sims is going to have any useful impact - the two products are so widely separated that no one's going to be able to correlate that kind of data. A media blackout, on the other hand - that, I like.
I will have to remember this particular product, though - I will be very curious to see what the sales are, and if this controversy sparks again around launch. I suspect it will - the internet has a very long memory.
I will have to remember this particular product, though - I will be very curious to see what the sales are, and if this controversy sparks again around launch. I suspect it will - the internet has a very long memory.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Non-Apologies and Other Links
Apologies like this are worth less than nothing, very literally. It annoys me more to see that the people behind it still can't see the problem even when it's explicitly pointed out to them than it would if they just went on their merry way.
A real live booth babe weighs in. She uses more caps than I did, and I applaud her for it.
I love Lum's blog, and I'm always grateful for the traffic, but his commenters are... not good with topics like this.
An unemotional social media perspective on the contest and the resulting stink. I usually prefer to write pieces like that, but every now and then it's more fun to bellow at the stars.
A really good link roundup and perhaps the most succinct summary of the issue at hand: "This contest ENCOURAGES the behavior that makes cons UNSAFE FOR WOMEN. PERIOD."
I'll probably try to do a somewhat more technical analysis of this contest once my blood pressure is a little more stable.
A real live booth babe weighs in. She uses more caps than I did, and I applaud her for it.
I love Lum's blog, and I'm always grateful for the traffic, but his commenters are... not good with topics like this.
An unemotional social media perspective on the contest and the resulting stink. I usually prefer to write pieces like that, but every now and then it's more fun to bellow at the stars.
A really good link roundup and perhaps the most succinct summary of the issue at hand: "This contest ENCOURAGES the behavior that makes cons UNSAFE FOR WOMEN. PERIOD."
I'll probably try to do a somewhat more technical analysis of this contest once my blood pressure is a little more stable.
Friday, July 24, 2009
GAHHHHHH
(Warning: Adult Language and EXCESSIVE USE OF CAPS)
I am fucking sick of working in an industry where this sort of shit makes it out into the public eye. I understand that absymally stupid ideas get floated in meetings all the time, but at a billion-dollar company like EA, you'd think SOMEONE would have the basic common sense to put a stop to a FUCKING CONTEST TO SEE WHO CAN HARASS YOUR EMPLOYEES THE MOST.
Yeah, they're booth babes, yeah, they're probably used to it. I don't care. First of all, "commit acts of lust" is NOT an acceptable way to describe "take your picture with the girl in the costume!" I've worked Comic-Con, and while there are lots of perfectly normal, well-adjusted people there, there are also a LOT of people with boundary issues, an imperfect understanding of social norms, and/or a really fucking twisted view of women. It's hard enough to maintain one's personal space - having fucking Marketing supporting the random gropage as a CONTEST does NOT HELP.
Secondly, any other women in, around, or remotely near that booth is going to have to deal with the spillover, guaranteed. I can barely imagine a more hostile work environment. I hope to hell they have an otherwise-all-male booth, or that the female employees have some good practical self-defense skills and a lawyer. *shudder*
Thirdly - Jesus, what kind of monkeys did EA hire instead of lawyers? I expect a certain casual misogyny from the Marketing department (sad to say) - sex sells, those boys know it, and they don't ever bother to think real hard about the implications of using it. But if I were anywhere near the EA booth and got my tit grabbed, I'd be on the phone to a shyster in seconds.
My God, what a stupid fucking idea. I can't decide if I'm glad I'm shut of those assholes, or if I'm sorry I no longer have a building key, because there's some nuts need kicking.
(Edited to add, apparently it's ANY booth babe, not just EA's. Lawsuit in 3, 2, 1...)
I am fucking sick of working in an industry where this sort of shit makes it out into the public eye. I understand that absymally stupid ideas get floated in meetings all the time, but at a billion-dollar company like EA, you'd think SOMEONE would have the basic common sense to put a stop to a FUCKING CONTEST TO SEE WHO CAN HARASS YOUR EMPLOYEES THE MOST.
Yeah, they're booth babes, yeah, they're probably used to it. I don't care. First of all, "commit acts of lust" is NOT an acceptable way to describe "take your picture with the girl in the costume!" I've worked Comic-Con, and while there are lots of perfectly normal, well-adjusted people there, there are also a LOT of people with boundary issues, an imperfect understanding of social norms, and/or a really fucking twisted view of women. It's hard enough to maintain one's personal space - having fucking Marketing supporting the random gropage as a CONTEST does NOT HELP.
Secondly, any other women in, around, or remotely near that booth is going to have to deal with the spillover, guaranteed. I can barely imagine a more hostile work environment. I hope to hell they have an otherwise-all-male booth, or that the female employees have some good practical self-defense skills and a lawyer. *shudder*
Thirdly - Jesus, what kind of monkeys did EA hire instead of lawyers? I expect a certain casual misogyny from the Marketing department (sad to say) - sex sells, those boys know it, and they don't ever bother to think real hard about the implications of using it. But if I were anywhere near the EA booth and got my tit grabbed, I'd be on the phone to a shyster in seconds.
My God, what a stupid fucking idea. I can't decide if I'm glad I'm shut of those assholes, or if I'm sorry I no longer have a building key, because there's some nuts need kicking.
(Edited to add, apparently it's ANY booth babe, not just EA's. Lawsuit in 3, 2, 1...)
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Forums, Again
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Labels
Added labels, mostly for my own convenience. If for some ungodly reason you're reading my blog and you're not my mother, I'll remind you that this is actually about four blogs merged into one, so it's very streaky.
Proving My Point
I'm still kicking around the idea of how to teach (or at least define) good writing for community management. To that end, I was idly googling the friend who spurred this train of thought, and came across a completely unrelated paper. That paper contained this lovely bit:
I sent that around for various of my colleagues to admire, and Sanya used it as the nucleus of her weekly column. It's a good column - go read it.
What really interest me are the comments. The MMO players who are invested to the point where they read and comment on industry-insider process columns like Sanya's are the ones most likely to give feedback to the companies in the first place, so what they have to say is worth listening to.
This, I think, rather proves the point of the quote above. The feedback to CS is just as important, if not more so - it could be on any topic, and the CS folks are well-situated to spot trends and report them (although some teams are better than others in having a channel for the CS team to pass those issues along.) A focus group is usually, well, focused, and feedback that doesn't touch on the specific area in question is tossed out - but usually the focus groups have much more visibility into the process and the decisions as they're made, so their feedback feels much more influential.
That definitely matches my experience. People like to feel heard, and you can't look interested and nod meaningfully over the internet. What you can do is respond. The problem is, not every idea or thought or post is one we can respond to without causing even more trouble. The standard "Thanks for your feedback!" note rapidly becomes worthless, because it's a form response. That's why customers like it best when they have a forum they can post on, particularly one where the devs respond. They can tell they're being listened to by their peers as well as by their desired target audience. The problem with that of course being that it doesn't scale.
The weekly Q&A/Grab Bag style of response that Sanya herself pioneered is one way to handle the situation, but I can say from experience (about two years of those linked archives were my posts) that it can be a very tricky thing to pick what gets attention and what doesn't. And it's even trickier when you have weeks where there are literally no new customer issues that you can address, because there's no decision or reaction that can be made public.
So this is what I'm kicking around. There's gotta be a better way to do this that a) encourages quality customer feedback and b) scales with the size of the community without requiring ridiculous amounts of headcount. I have my own plots and schemes, but I'd love to hear other people's thoughts.
"If you ask people for information (or compel them to provide it), you should give it back to them in some familiar form that lets them see how it is useful or interesting. They will then be less inclined to resent your asking in the first place, more inclined to be curious about the relationship of their work to others’, and more open to considering its implications"
I sent that around for various of my colleagues to admire, and Sanya used it as the nucleus of her weekly column. It's a good column - go read it.
What really interest me are the comments. The MMO players who are invested to the point where they read and comment on industry-insider process columns like Sanya's are the ones most likely to give feedback to the companies in the first place, so what they have to say is worth listening to.
"Sending your feedback to Customer Support will most likely get you a "Thanks for your feedback!" standard response while your suggestions will end up in the CRM's digital bin as a single person's opinion will most probably be regarded as rather unimportant.
You will be better off with becoming part of a focus group (if such thing is in place), or with providing feedback on the game forums where other players and maybe community representatives may discuss it." - Phall
This, I think, rather proves the point of the quote above. The feedback to CS is just as important, if not more so - it could be on any topic, and the CS folks are well-situated to spot trends and report them (although some teams are better than others in having a channel for the CS team to pass those issues along.) A focus group is usually, well, focused, and feedback that doesn't touch on the specific area in question is tossed out - but usually the focus groups have much more visibility into the process and the decisions as they're made, so their feedback feels much more influential.
"The suggestion and class-specific forums almost NEVER draw an official dev response... the ACTUAL feedback forums are viewed as the places where ideas go to die, so fewer and fewer people bother." - ArKane
That definitely matches my experience. People like to feel heard, and you can't look interested and nod meaningfully over the internet. What you can do is respond. The problem is, not every idea or thought or post is one we can respond to without causing even more trouble. The standard "Thanks for your feedback!" note rapidly becomes worthless, because it's a form response. That's why customers like it best when they have a forum they can post on, particularly one where the devs respond. They can tell they're being listened to by their peers as well as by their desired target audience. The problem with that of course being that it doesn't scale.
The weekly Q&A/Grab Bag style of response that Sanya herself pioneered is one way to handle the situation, but I can say from experience (about two years of those linked archives were my posts) that it can be a very tricky thing to pick what gets attention and what doesn't. And it's even trickier when you have weeks where there are literally no new customer issues that you can address, because there's no decision or reaction that can be made public.
So this is what I'm kicking around. There's gotta be a better way to do this that a) encourages quality customer feedback and b) scales with the size of the community without requiring ridiculous amounts of headcount. I have my own plots and schemes, but I'd love to hear other people's thoughts.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Stray Thought
I like some of Stephen King's work very much. I dislike some of it quite a bit as well. Stephen King writes about upper-middle-class people sometimes (writers, artists, etc) and working-class people sometimes. Are the two related? Must go flip though bookshelf.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Community Management 101, Writing Component
I had a conversation this weekend with a friend who's involved in developing writing curricula for various different disciplines, and it got me to wondering about how I'd teach the particular style of writing needed in my own job.
There are really only two key elements:
- Control of tone: Emotional content is a very big part of everything we write, because much if not most of it is targeted at individuals, rather than a general audience.
- Clarity of content: The most minor of misunderstandings can spark week-long drama fests and infinitely repeated misinformation. (Ask me sometime about the function of hunger in UO.)
The content that requires factual clarity would probably be pretty much covered by a standard technical writing curriculum. I've learned it more or less by trial and error, but I think that's the easier part to teach. (Learning to translate patch notes from programmerese is a separate art...) The question of tone is the more interesting one.
We talk a lot about "good instincts" when discussing what to look for in a new hire, and while half of this is not necessarily writing-specific - when not to respond to a situation, when to ask for backup, that sort of thing - half of it is about choosing the most effective emotional content for a particular piece of writing and being able to accurately convey it. Both parts of that are very hard.
Picking the right emotional content is hard. It's slightly easier in one-on-one communications, because you only have to predict one person's reaction - but I very seldom get the luxury of dealing with my customers one-on-one. I usually need to talk to large numbers of them at once, and walk a very narrow path that will give me the best reaction from the largest number of people. Different communities have different temperaments - a friendly, cheerful tone may give you a warm and positive reaction from one group, whereas in another it's taken as a sign of weakness. Being able to read the room is one of those things that we call "instinct" and can only be taught by experience.
I would kill, however, for a class that taught how to convey that tone - avoiding common pitfalls, learning and working around loaded words and phrases ("working as designed," "soon," etc, in the MMO industry.) It is NOT a good area in which to have to learn by doing, but that's the only way I know how to teach it.
There are really only two key elements:
- Control of tone: Emotional content is a very big part of everything we write, because much if not most of it is targeted at individuals, rather than a general audience.
- Clarity of content: The most minor of misunderstandings can spark week-long drama fests and infinitely repeated misinformation. (Ask me sometime about the function of hunger in UO.)
The content that requires factual clarity would probably be pretty much covered by a standard technical writing curriculum. I've learned it more or less by trial and error, but I think that's the easier part to teach. (Learning to translate patch notes from programmerese is a separate art...) The question of tone is the more interesting one.
We talk a lot about "good instincts" when discussing what to look for in a new hire, and while half of this is not necessarily writing-specific - when not to respond to a situation, when to ask for backup, that sort of thing - half of it is about choosing the most effective emotional content for a particular piece of writing and being able to accurately convey it. Both parts of that are very hard.
Picking the right emotional content is hard. It's slightly easier in one-on-one communications, because you only have to predict one person's reaction - but I very seldom get the luxury of dealing with my customers one-on-one. I usually need to talk to large numbers of them at once, and walk a very narrow path that will give me the best reaction from the largest number of people. Different communities have different temperaments - a friendly, cheerful tone may give you a warm and positive reaction from one group, whereas in another it's taken as a sign of weakness. Being able to read the room is one of those things that we call "instinct" and can only be taught by experience.
I would kill, however, for a class that taught how to convey that tone - avoiding common pitfalls, learning and working around loaded words and phrases ("working as designed," "soon," etc, in the MMO industry.) It is NOT a good area in which to have to learn by doing, but that's the only way I know how to teach it.
Friday, May 15, 2009
This is My Father
He's coming out of surgery yesterday, and my mom meets him as they're rolling him to his room
He says, "Piece of cake!"
Mom says, "Oh, good, it was a piece of cake?"
He says, "No, I want a piece of cake!"
He says, "Piece of cake!"
Mom says, "Oh, good, it was a piece of cake?"
He says, "No, I want a piece of cake!"
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Like The Back of My Hand, part 2
I've always had an active fantasy life. (Not like that... well, yes, like that, too. But anyway.) In my head I've always been an athlete, a tall, competent, coordinated athlete who can dodge a bullet or take down a mugger with one punch or perform heroic leaps to catch falling babies. In reality, I'm a stocky, uncoordinated, awkward desk jockey with years of experience playing sports badly and staying out of trouble. But there was always the thought that if I won the lottery, took myself off to some mysterious island, and trained diligently for a couple of years, I could become the ass-kicking Amazon of my fantasies.
The hardest part of dealing with my joint issues is coming to terms with the fact that that is no longer true.
It's not a loss of something tangible. I'm not even all that upset about some of the nastier possible consequences of this incurable, degenerative condition. It's more like the "loss of hope" described here - I have a surprising amount of emotional energy invested in my athletic potential. Untangling that is taking a lot of time, and I find myself resisting it very strongly - it's much easier to just forge ahead and take my pills and go to my PT appointments and not think about it too hard. I don't know if that's healthy or not. It seems like something is sort of broken with my self-image, and I should probably figure out what's wrong so I can fix it, but I'm having trouble sitting still long enough.
Speaking of which, I'm going to continue musing in later posts.
The hardest part of dealing with my joint issues is coming to terms with the fact that that is no longer true.
It's not a loss of something tangible. I'm not even all that upset about some of the nastier possible consequences of this incurable, degenerative condition. It's more like the "loss of hope" described here - I have a surprising amount of emotional energy invested in my athletic potential. Untangling that is taking a lot of time, and I find myself resisting it very strongly - it's much easier to just forge ahead and take my pills and go to my PT appointments and not think about it too hard. I don't know if that's healthy or not. It seems like something is sort of broken with my self-image, and I should probably figure out what's wrong so I can fix it, but I'm having trouble sitting still long enough.
Speaking of which, I'm going to continue musing in later posts.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Like the Back of My Hand
I have had mysterious joint pain since I was about fifteen. At first I just assumed that years of spraining my fingers playing goalie had made them sensitive to weather changes. My pediatrician, after the blood tests came back negative for anything interesting, said "yeah, lots of girls get growing pains, take some Advil and don't worry about it." So I didn't. The pain got worse, and the joints in my feet started to ache, too, but it still wasn't critical.
Moving to Texas definitely seemed to help - warmer weather and less rain made the bad patches less frequent and severe. So for several years I didn't think much about it at all. I asked one doctor about it when I had a chance, but all he wanted to know was what painkiller I was looking for. I wasn't, and shrugged and let it drop. Maybe I shouldn't have, but it still wasn't bad enough for me to worry about.
A year or so after that, I had one brief really bad spell - the pain had spread to all my joints, and was severe enough that I took a few days off work to stay in bed. Finally my roommate bullied me into going to a chiropractor, and that seemed to help, but I didn't much like the doctor and I definitely couldn't afford to go as often as he wanted me to. Fortunately, the pain dropped off pretty quickly after that and I was back to normal. From there on my bad spells were no worse than before, although they would now involve all of my joints.
This winter, everything changed. I went from a little achy to unable to function in about a day. I spent the holidays in a hot bath, and had to take a month off of karate because I just couldn't make it through. It was finally bad enough that I couldn't ignore it. I started googling, and found pictures like this. I got my insurance in order and found an internist.
After all of the bloodwork, tests, x-rays, and everything, the verdict is... I am blindingly healthy. Except, of course, for my swollen and painful joints. The rheumatologist is going with a verdict of rheumatoid arthritis, which seems likely enough. I'm currently on three different medications, seeing a physical therapist, and, for the moment, cutting wheat out of my diet to see if it has any effect at all. The pain and swelling still vary pretty widely week to week, but I'm doing much better than I was in January.
So that's the backstory. Looks like this one will be a multi-post effort - stay tuned.
Moving to Texas definitely seemed to help - warmer weather and less rain made the bad patches less frequent and severe. So for several years I didn't think much about it at all. I asked one doctor about it when I had a chance, but all he wanted to know was what painkiller I was looking for. I wasn't, and shrugged and let it drop. Maybe I shouldn't have, but it still wasn't bad enough for me to worry about.
A year or so after that, I had one brief really bad spell - the pain had spread to all my joints, and was severe enough that I took a few days off work to stay in bed. Finally my roommate bullied me into going to a chiropractor, and that seemed to help, but I didn't much like the doctor and I definitely couldn't afford to go as often as he wanted me to. Fortunately, the pain dropped off pretty quickly after that and I was back to normal. From there on my bad spells were no worse than before, although they would now involve all of my joints.
This winter, everything changed. I went from a little achy to unable to function in about a day. I spent the holidays in a hot bath, and had to take a month off of karate because I just couldn't make it through. It was finally bad enough that I couldn't ignore it. I started googling, and found pictures like this. I got my insurance in order and found an internist.
After all of the bloodwork, tests, x-rays, and everything, the verdict is... I am blindingly healthy. Except, of course, for my swollen and painful joints. The rheumatologist is going with a verdict of rheumatoid arthritis, which seems likely enough. I'm currently on three different medications, seeing a physical therapist, and, for the moment, cutting wheat out of my diet to see if it has any effect at all. The pain and swelling still vary pretty widely week to week, but I'm doing much better than I was in January.
So that's the backstory. Looks like this one will be a multi-post effort - stay tuned.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
50 Books Challenge
I don't actually have a comment at the moment about what's become known on Livejoural as Racefail '09 (although I may eventually) but one thing that came out of it was the challenge to read 50 books by people of color this year. That sounds like a good one to me, and I plan to participate. More comments once I have something of substance to report.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
March Challenge
It's just so terribly convenient that everything is happening for me at the start of a month. I'm participating in a fitness challenge, among other things, and last summer I found it very helpful to babble in my blog about my diet and exercise challenges, so I may do more of that this month. My high school reunion is not going away just because I've had job and health issues - I really need to get back on track to achieve my goals. My plan has changed a little (see the challenge post for those details) but I have a hard date for the reunion - November 27th. It's still very much an achievable goal :)
Monday, February 23, 2009
Creators and the Internet
George R.R. Martin posted a wee rant about some of his fans' behavior here, and John Scalzi expanded on the topic here. I was going to comment directly in Scalzi's blog, but it ran long.
It seems like there are two issues here - there's being discontented with the pace of production of a product you're interested in, and then there's how customers express that discontent.
The first is entirely the consumer's right. I'd be terribly curious to see the actual sales impact of longer delays vs shorter delays on publishing books in a genre series - I doubt that info is public anywhere, but I have to wonder if there's a sweet spot of building audience anticipation vs. losing the audience's interest. I suspect there is, and I suspect that publishers know about it. If the wait's too long, people probably will get frustrated and get distracted and wander off.
Now, if you're frustrated about something, isn't it your inviolate right to go bitch about it on the internet? Isn't that what the internet is for? And people often don't moderate their tone or take others' feelings into account on the internet. (This should not be news to anyone.) And I have met few if any authors, artists, game designers - anyone who produces a creative product for public consumption - who handled public, vitriolic criticism well at all. So this kerfuffle is absolutely unsurprising to me.
It seems like writing, because it's entirely a one-man job, is a little more intensely affected by this phenomenon, because there's no one else for the audience to blame. There's no production team running behind, no art contracts that fell through, no unexpected hardware failures or bugs in the code. The process takes place entirely in the black box of an author's head. This probably makes criticism a lot more personal, and it makes long delays (and make no mistake, Mr. Martin's latest book is long delayed indeed) even more frustrating, because the consumer literally can't understand what's holding up the process, and so they seize on anything handy - Livejournal posting, convention appearances, whatever.
In this particular case, though, the problem is one that's all too common, and all too avoidable - failure to correctly set expectations. I love transparency on the part of my favorite authors, and I read several of their blogs regularly. But this book was previously, publicly estimated to be released in 2006, 2007, and 2008. It has not yet been published - it is not, by the author's own admission, even completed. Now, this isn't a moral failing - no one deliberately lied. But there's a damn good reason the MMO industry customarily overuses the word "soon" when talking about... anything, really. Things change, deadlines get missed, plans get updated, and explaining all that to a bunch of furious customers is not anyone's idea of a good time.
I'm not blaming anyone here, and I will wait patiently until all of my favorite authors produce more masterpieces out of their black boxes. But guys, please don't tease me? I'd rather get a lovely surprise than another disappointment as an estimated date slips by.
It seems like there are two issues here - there's being discontented with the pace of production of a product you're interested in, and then there's how customers express that discontent.
The first is entirely the consumer's right. I'd be terribly curious to see the actual sales impact of longer delays vs shorter delays on publishing books in a genre series - I doubt that info is public anywhere, but I have to wonder if there's a sweet spot of building audience anticipation vs. losing the audience's interest. I suspect there is, and I suspect that publishers know about it. If the wait's too long, people probably will get frustrated and get distracted and wander off.
Now, if you're frustrated about something, isn't it your inviolate right to go bitch about it on the internet? Isn't that what the internet is for? And people often don't moderate their tone or take others' feelings into account on the internet. (This should not be news to anyone.) And I have met few if any authors, artists, game designers - anyone who produces a creative product for public consumption - who handled public, vitriolic criticism well at all. So this kerfuffle is absolutely unsurprising to me.
It seems like writing, because it's entirely a one-man job, is a little more intensely affected by this phenomenon, because there's no one else for the audience to blame. There's no production team running behind, no art contracts that fell through, no unexpected hardware failures or bugs in the code. The process takes place entirely in the black box of an author's head. This probably makes criticism a lot more personal, and it makes long delays (and make no mistake, Mr. Martin's latest book is long delayed indeed) even more frustrating, because the consumer literally can't understand what's holding up the process, and so they seize on anything handy - Livejournal posting, convention appearances, whatever.
In this particular case, though, the problem is one that's all too common, and all too avoidable - failure to correctly set expectations. I love transparency on the part of my favorite authors, and I read several of their blogs regularly. But this book was previously, publicly estimated to be released in 2006, 2007, and 2008. It has not yet been published - it is not, by the author's own admission, even completed. Now, this isn't a moral failing - no one deliberately lied. But there's a damn good reason the MMO industry customarily overuses the word "soon" when talking about... anything, really. Things change, deadlines get missed, plans get updated, and explaining all that to a bunch of furious customers is not anyone's idea of a good time.
I'm not blaming anyone here, and I will wait patiently until all of my favorite authors produce more masterpieces out of their black boxes. But guys, please don't tease me? I'd rather get a lovely surprise than another disappointment as an estimated date slips by.
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