Wow, what a weekend. As I mentioned in a previous entry, I travelled to Madison, Wisconsin for two days of TaeKwon-Do training. The first day was a knife defense seminar; the second was a general Black Belt workout.
The typical 5-hour drive from Minneapolis to Madison takes me 3 and a half hours, but the entire round-trip 7 hours involved driving through Mother Nature unleashing her fury on the countryside. It was non-stop pouring the whole way each way. Makes for some not-fun driving...
Anyways, training was excellent, as my body will attest to tomorrow when I wake up. I'm sure I'm going to find aches and bruises that I didn't see before, on areas of my body that I didn't know existed. But it was all worth it. The knife defense course was a great asset, especially since I hadn't done anything like that before. While I wouldn't feel invincible around a person wielding a knife (and that's a good thing), I would feel reasonably confident that I could take the necessary steps to disarm and stop an attacker from threatening my life. And that's the whole point anyways. The one drawback was that my wrists were practically destroyed for a day or two. Most of the knife defense revolved around grabbing the attacker's knife arm and twisting it into a position favorable to you. All this twisting, combined with a firm two-hand grip on your wrist, leads to plenty of pain.
As if 4 hours of knife defense wasn't enough, we trained for 6 hours on Sunday on general Black Belt requiremenets. Patterns, flying kicks, sparring, breaking - you name it. It was really good to spend time with some higher-ranked instructors who can help me in areas where I need it - that's something I've been craving because we have no one of that caliber in the Twin Cities area. But the class was great and I think it really motivated me to start preparing to test for Third Degree.
Pictures are up here (also a nice video of one of my breaks). Unfortunately no knife defense or flying kick pictures, because I was too busy participating. However, I got some good breaking and sparring shots. Hope you enjoy.
For Memorial Day... absolutely nothing, and I'm sure that will be amazing. Right now, I just need a little R&R, and that's exactly what I'm going to get...
So here are some pictures instead - my recent return trip to Atlanta, and some cool taekwon-do photos/videos.
Today was a day of endings. First, the third season of "24" wrapped up - not a spectacular ending, but still very good, and consistent with the reason of the season. Speaking of "24", could it be the best show of all time? Maybe, maybe not; but for my money, it's certainly the best show on TV right now. Wonderful acting, excellent writing, and you have to love the concept. The only thing that amazes me is that it can only draw 7.5 million viewers when American Idol gets about 86 billion a pop. Only in America. This is a pretty crummy time for TV actually, with May sweeps ending, and thus season finales to all the good shows (24, ER, The Shield, etc.) wrapping up. Thank God for Netflix...
The other conclusion was me finishing The Riftwar Saga series by Raymond Feist. Adam got me started on these with a Christmas gift, and I'm just getting around to wrapping up the 4-book series. I'm a real streaky reader, so I knocked two out real quick, had a long hiatus, then finished the last two up here within the last few weeks. Overall, it's a solid series for anyone interested in the fantasy / sword-and-sorcery genre. It definitely warrants comparison to Tolkien, but at times (especially in the first book) I felt it was a little too much like Tolkien. However, over the course of the 4 books, Feist stakes out his own story and it turns out pretty nicely. I don't think he has the same flare for epic literary descriptions and narratives, but he is certainly creative and knows how to develop a character. If interested, check out the beginning of the series (the "Magician" books) and see what you think. Next up on the reading list: the Harry Potter series....
This week should be pretty uneventful, but the weekend is looking better, as I'm traveling to Wisconsin for a knife defense seminar on Saturday and a black belt course on Sunday. Should be a great way to spend Memorial Day weekend. I'm sure stories (and maybe pictures) will be forthcoming next week.
Hi, I'm Shaun, and welcome to my corner of cyberspace. Welcome to any friends and family who may be reading this. Welcome also to any random strangers who may be passing by. So I guess I officially have a blog now - it's kind of strange, since I've always been such a low-tech guy. Of course, that's strange in itself, since I am a software engineer. It took me forever to get a cellphone, and now even longer to setup a personal homepage. But now that's all in the past, and I'm starting to ramble. On to the good stuff...
I guess this is a good a time as any for a first entry. Yesterday I returned from my short trip to Atlanta, which was fun and refreshing as always. I made the trip to attend the wedding of one of my fraternity brothers, and I'm very glad that I did. It was great to be there for such an important moment in Stuart and Amanda's life. The reception was a blast, mainly because I got to spend time with lots of friends and fraternity brothers that I hadn't seen in a long time (some in a very long time).
It also worked out that I was able to attend a party/cookout/shower/whatever for Will (another one of my fraternity brothers) and his fiancée Gini. After driving out to the middle of nowhere Georgia, we finally found the place and a good time was had by all. Pictures of both events will be available soon.
After boarding my return flight with about 18 seconds to spare (only to sit on the runway for an hour due to delays) I'm finally back in the clutches of the Twin Cities and it was back to the grindstone today. Oh well - the brief Atlanta trip and the good times with friends should keep me invigorated until the next trip, which is looking to be either in July (for Will's wedding) or October (for GT Homecoming). We'll see....
Just so you know: I plan to update this site frequently, at least once a week. It will be some random combination of life events, musings, pictures, reviews of any good movies/music/books I've checked out lately, etc. I'm just going to play it by ear and we'll see how it goes.
Until the next time...