Back in the saddle

I’m back after a long weekend. I intended to post this weekend, and I even had wireless access at our friends’ house, but you know… I’m a slacker. So instead I went sailing (thanks, Cooneys three!), hottubbing (muchasis gracias for all your hospitality, Hagamans two!), guacamole slurping (great to see you, Jordans three!), and driving in my new old minivan (thank you, thank you, thank you parents two!).

Meg and Alden and I had a great time seeing friends that we’ve stayed away from for too long. We also saw some beautiful country in western Dunn County, and along the Chippewa and Mississippi rivers. We did a whole lot of playing and hanging out, and you know, when you’re going against the flow of traffic, even driving on Memorial Day weekend isn’t so bad.

Lost, tired, and chafed

Ran 10, walked 1 x5. Extra Credit: walked 70

I went for a run yesterday when we got to my folks’ house in St. Paul. Mom drew me a little map of where she suggested I go, and I headed off. I quickly got to the end of her map and still had plenty more time to go, so I kept on. And eventually realized that I had no idea, really, where I was. Long story short, my run that was supposed to be fifty five minutes turned into an hour and fifty minutes. Yee haw. :-(

Party with a view

Meg and I were getting ready to go out to a party for a friend when there was a knock at the door. Before I could open the thing, people started streaming through. The line was just a blur through the door that, once it got inside our apartment, shattered into all sorts of people we knew. They were all coming over to have a party in honor of and to help support us because apparently we needed honor and support for some reason.

I went to get Dad who was sleeping in the next room over. I walked in and there was some random guy working on the computer in the corner of the room. He said, “Shhh. Your dad is sleeping.” Dad, who was lying on something like a futon mattress on the floor opened an eye, then flashed a bigh toothy grin, said, “I’ve been trying to go to sleep for hours now, and I was just drifting off.” I turned around, looked out the window of the room and across San Francisco.

Seeing as how we were in the Golden Gate city, which just happens to be my favorite metro area currently, I took a walk downtown. At some point, I was sitting in the back of a concert hall or large bar where there was a band playing on stage. There was another group of musicians and instruments (notice they’re not a band) along the side of the room and yet another in the back. There were wierd, combative vibes flying all over the place, mostly from the band on stage. Not only were they trying to manipulate the audience, but they were constantly making digs at the other groups. At one point, I looked at the paper on the floor in front of me and realized that I didn’t have the sheet music for the song the group was playing and I had a clarinet solo coming up. I looked at the clarinet in my hands and hung my head. A tall black man dressed in a dark suit came to the front of the stage, handed his all-black clarinet to a guitar player, then pulled out another clarinet, this one with a big silver stripe around the barrel for his solo. The group in the back of the hall started playing a slow, grinding blues so that I could have my solo, even without the aid of sheet music. I played, though not well. After the song, large (and probably heavy) canvas curtains fell from the ceiling, sectioning off the audience.

A play started. I didn’t know what it was about, and I was ready to get back to the party, but a little cat (or maybe a scotty dog) came through the curtain in front of me and paused, obviously waiting for something. The animal, whatever is was, was dressed in a costume that was supposed to make it look like a small furry animal waiting for something. The resemblence was uncanny. Someone behind me took one of those toddler toys where you pull the cord and the box says something like, “The cow says mooo.” Anyway, someone put the oversized pull ring around the hind leg of the whatever it was, and that seemed to do the trick, because the whateveritwas bounded back to, and then on to, the stage dragging the box behind it. I got up, and went out the back door.

I was back, overlooking San Francisco. But I didn’t have an apartment. I had a compound. The party was still in full swing, though. I could see the Golden Gate Bridge glinting in the low morning sunlight, just left of center. And I could see huge waves breaking on the long beaches fronting the Pacific. Everything was crystal clear, like there was nothing – not even air – in the air. I turned to Jonus and asked him if he’d go body surfing with Dad and me. He smiled, said he was all for it, and put down his fishing rod after reeling in his line.

Meg, Alden and I went back into the city, walking down the street past one little restaurant after another until we got to one on the waterfront. There was only one waitress on staff, but there were only four tables. Still, she was pretty busy. Melanie served food to a table of folks who had been waiting too long. After they left, she was trying to figure out is she did enough work to keep the tip. Outside, a really tall, chubby kid played basketball with a hoop that was too low. He could have easilly dunked the ball, but he kept doing fade away jump shots from two and three feet out.

I got out of the car and walked into the hotel and told the front desk clerk I’d like to make a reservation. She said sure, the phones are in there, call whom ever you like. A guy was strutting past the front desk saying how he and his girl had all sorts of money and didn’t need to stay in a dump like this. I went into the room with the phones. It was just another hotel room with two phones. The wife of Strutmonton was on the phone asking how they aere going to be able to pay for the rest of their trip. I told her, “You need a reservation.” I turned to the mirror, picked up the phone and placed a call, though not for her.

Betrayed by George

Oh George, what have you done? I mean, just look at it. You’ve ruined, if not everything, at least Christmas, Easter, Chanukah, and Kawanza. Fortunately Halloween remains untainted, but only because that holiday is still bigger than you.

But I digress.

It’s one thing to go through your work, do a little remastering here, and add some details there. But to replace old Anakin with young Anakin? What the hell were you thinking? This is a story of redemption, of a father’s love for his child. It’s not a Botox commercial.

*Sigh*

I wish it didn’t have to come to this, but I’m afraid I have to ban you from ever having anything to do with Star Wars ever again. Turn in your Jedi transponder ring at the secretary’s desk and don’t let the door hit you in the can on the way out.

Code Jedi

I’ve been working on a little Intranet action for work in the last couple days. Check it out. I think the best part of it is that Hayden Christensen is no where to be found. Unlike the end of “The Return of the Jedi” (see above).

Letting the force flow

Last night, it was almost everything I could do to drag myself to taijutsu. I was tired, hungry, not particularly into it… I had a whole litany of excuses for why I didn’t want to go. But I ignored myself, hauled my butt off the couch and to the dojo, and am I glad I did!

We worked on some new ukemi (injury-preventing techniques) ideas, then tried applying the kione hapo in a situation where we want to protect someone else. That morphed into numbers fighting strategies (think two on one or three on one) and practice. We ended with projecting our ki/intent to a partner like this: I stood in shizen (a standing kamaie) with someone behind me with a shinai (bamboo training sword) or a padded boken. They were supposed to focus their intent, give a kiai (the stereotypical martial arts “yell”), and swing for me. I was supposed to pick up their intent, move with it and get out of the way of their strike. It was super cool to just *know* when and where to move.

Now, to practice that sort of openess during the rest of the day…

Takin’ it easy

I ran 3 min, walked 1 for 10 reps this morning after having a great taijutsu workout last night. My biggest challenge this morning was taking things slowly. I tried to go just faster than a shuffle down the road, but found it hard to stay slow. The beautiful morning, early sun burning mist off hayfields, made it easier by keeping my mind engaged with something other than my stride rate.

No Brakes

Driving through a montage of Ashland and Menomonie in the old silver and blue Toyota SR5 wagon. I’ve got four-wheel drive, but no brakes. Fortunately, it’s a manual transmission and I can downshift.

I’m a geek

I just added a time stamp to all my posts here. It may take a little deciphering on your part, since it’s the number of seconds that have elapsed since the beginning of the Unix Epoch (Jan 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT).

Happy trails, Dennis!

My sixth-grade teacher, Dennis Weibel, is retiring at the end of this school year. In fact, his party is Thursday. A family friend asked me to write a little bit about him for his party, and in the grand tradition of A.J., I’m only a day late.

—–

Dennis (yeah, it feels weird to call you by your first name, even after eighteen years, but I figure I’ll survive),

You were my first macro lense.

In the fall of 1986, probably late September or early October, you took us, your sixth-grade class at Downsville Elementary School, out to the edge of the playground where the tall grasses mingled with autumn’s scarlet sumac, and gave us our instructions:

“Mark off one square meter, then observe everything that’s going on inside that area.”

Armed with meter sticks, stakes, surveyor’s tape, and armfuls of phrenology paraphenalia, the class divided into small groups, staked claims and settled in.

For a while, there were things more interesting than my square meter of Earth. Crows winged their way across the sky, the occasional car cruised past, and my classmates were all hollering back and forth. Soon enough, though, my attention was pulled downward. I watched grass dance inside my ribbon to the gentle breeze. Ants scurried then paused, scurried and paused on their paths while the sun moved slowly overhead. A grasshopper casually bounded through my tiny plot.

An hour or more later, you called us together again to talk about what we found. We all had something neat to share with the rest of the class.

For the rest of that year, you would, every once in a while, ask us to focus on some small thing. On a field trip in the woods, you asked us to pay attention to how a creek flowed around a rock. At an art museum, we stood under a mobile, necks stretched, mostly silent. As the year went on, you’d have to ask us less, and in fact, we’d start comparing notes with each other about what we noticed.

My mindfulness of small things didn’t stop when the last school bell rang in the spring of 1987. It has stayed with me over time and through an incredible range of experience until now, eighteen years later, I can easilly lose myself in a dandelion’s petals. As my son, Alden, grows up, I plan on showing him how to focus on small things until he, too, carries this habit everywhere.

Thanks, Dennis, for everything you did for my classmates and me, but especially for the gift of focus. Here’s hoping you enjoy your retirement and spend time each day with little things in the world.

Sincerely,

A.J. Van Beest