Curses, Foiled Again

I did my brown belt test on Friday night and it went well, if not as I expected. There was only me and two others testing and the other two were going for yellow and orange belts. So in essence I did the majority of my test alone.

I was expecting a 2 hour marathon and instead got a 1 hour sprint. It was a lot of material to cover and I had to do it bang-bang-bang without much pause. I managed the hold escapes very well, and the come-alongs and takedowns with relative ease, but sort of whiffed on the ground defense as I forgot half of them (4/8) on the first try.

I was supposed to get get my brown belt yesterday at class but I had to no go as work got very busy. There was some team shuffles and I had meetings in the afternoon that forced me to stay and get ready for. Curses, foiled again. I should have no problem going to class tomorrow though.

Dear Canoe.ca

Dear Canoe.ca,

I checked out one of your little photo features titled "Famous Buildings Never Completed" and was shocked to see this:


That photo does not depict Boldt Castle, you colossal losers. That's the power generator outbuilding on the end of the island.

THIS is Boldt Castle:

As a side note, an AWESOME place to visit.

Construction

This weekend we shipped the boys out to Grandma's place as we needed to start getting the office ready to be turned into a Nursery. Kim's pregnant again, did I mention that? Well, yeah, its true.

The problem is our house was starting to feel a little cramped with us and the boys, the addition of another family member has us in an absolute tizzy. The office was where all our computer and scrapbooking stuff went, as well as misc storage. Where would it all go now?

Well, we bought some cheap shelving units from Ikea on Saturday and started working on purging the office of stuff that has degraded to crap and in the basement replacing the small TV entertainment centre with a wall unit capable of storing lots of stuff. The idea is that the computer and scrapbook desk will be moving downstairs as the office is converted.

Tight is not the right word. Cramped is more like it. But we'll survive.

Tennis Report

Ah, the Tennis season is soon coming to a close. Perhaps one or two more weeks left depending on weather.

This year has been better than last year for me:

- Last year I won 3 full sets and 2 mini-sets out of 28 (20 full, 8 mini) and in total games Andrew won 136 to my 90, meaning he won 1.51 games for every 1 that I did.

- This year I only won 3 full sets (out of 19) again and only 3 mini-sets (out of 9) but the difference has been in how close those sets have been. I total games Andrew stands at 133 to my 99, a ratio improvement to 1.34 games for every 1 that I win.

- In 2008 we had 3 sets go to seven games to win, in 2009 we had 6.

- In 2008 the running ratio low point was 1.38 in mid July, in 2009 it got down to 1.25 my late July.

August was not kind to me this year and was responsible for the rise in my game ratio. It seems my two week vacation really took my stride off and I failed to really get it back until recently.

Hopefully next year I can improve some more and get closer to parity with Andrew.

Camping Is Not For The Weak

Our first ever camping trip with the boys completed on the weekend and I can truthfully say it was the most horrible and awesome time ever in the woods.

Horrible:
- Setting up and tearing down alone, loading and unloading the van alone.. we need lighter stuff. (Not anyone's fault, the others were busy with the boys.)

- The cold wet Saturday morning where everyone was tired and grumpy.

- The bees were insanely nasty. I've never seen so many come out during the day to bother us while eating before.

- The tent was cramped with the two playpens in there.

- Trying to be quiet in the night while going in and out was hard.

- The boys WAILED every time going into the tent... or coming out if they decided they were having fun.

- Boys waking up at 6 am.

- Being cold but too afraid of making too much noise to get up and get warmer clothes at night.

- All the dishes that had to be cleaned!

Awesome:
- The boys loved being outside and exploring.

- Lukas especially liked the dogs being walked by and going to say hi to them.

- The fresh air.

- The time at the beach and Lukas jumping in the water while Sean discovered burying his toes.

- Running down the road to catch one boy while the other went the opposite direction.

- Reading during naptimes.

- Watching the boys play with the hung to dry towels.

- The army of Raccoons that infiltrated our campsite and that I had to scare off with a flashlight and a stick. I swear the biggest one was about 45 pounds and thought about taking me down.

- Fire roasted hot dogs.

Overall it was a good start to a great family tradition.

Brain Freeze

There are a lot of techniques you have to remember in Jiu Jitsu. Usually its stuff from last belt you have the hardest time remembering but sometimes its stuff you didn't expect that you've been doing for years that trips you up.

Last night I was in a review session for my belt test later this month when I was asked to do an inside bent wrist comealong. This is a technique from white or yellow belt and one I've worked on over the years a lot. However, I haven't looked at it or thought about it in 6 months since it has not come up in classes.

I screwed it up. Then I got confused with the Outside bent wrist comealong which is taught at the same time in the cirriculum and totally brain froze. Just blank.

After a quick reminder demonstration from the instructor it started to come back to me but it was so embarrasing. Fortunately I had little trouble with the rest of the comealongs (except as usual, completely forgetting what technique the reverse wrist long comealong is... I can do it, just never associate name with technique).

This is why we do review: to find out what we've forgotten and to fine tune everything. Belt test is on the 24th.