Bonzai: Thoughts and Expressions

Still here. Really!

My good friend Terry reminded me that I have been slacking on my blog for a while so I thought I had better post something and bring him up to date.

Truth be told, I have been blogging steadily but not here. I have another blog that is updated at least once each week regarding my training in Chinese Kenpo. (Follow this link if interested). I’m now an Orange belt working toward my Purple belt under a very traditional and highly meticulous instructor, to whom I refer to as Sifu in the blog. My classmates and several others in the martial arts community frequent the site and I have had a lot of feedback, mostly from outside the comments area of the blog. Check it out.

My life is way too busy to recount everything that has happened since the last post. I’ll try to summarize things in a tidy fashion here in the next few paragraphs.

First and foremost – The Family Report.

• My son turns 7 in three days and my wife and I will be celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary next month.
• We took Duncan to Disney in Florida over spring break this year; he loved the roller coasters but could do without Mickey Mouse. Next year: Cedar Point?
• Duncan will be soon testing for his Red belt in Taekwondo.
• We have established the Ravenwood Academy as our official home school entity for Duncan. He is now working through the 3rd grade curriculum and reading well into 4th grade level and above. Want to hear something funny? I’m the principle! Hehee…

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The Hobby Report

• I just ordered a new computer. It’s a real screamin’ meme of a machine! Technically it’s a notebook computer but only in the sense that it is ‘portable’. The sucker weighs in at 15 lbs. with an additional 6 lb. power supply. It’s a beauty though and I have been waiting a long time to get this. It has the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ processor under the hood with several other goodies to boot (pardon the pun). It should be here on Friday
• Still brewin’! I have a batch of mead that has been bottled since the last report and have started a batch of strawberry wine. The strawberry is clearing nicely now and is about ready to rack. I’ll keep you posted.
• I’ve been drawn into a web site project through an associate at work for a local metal band here in NC. This has been an experience, to say the least, but it has been a lot of fun. The site isn’t finished yet but it can be seen at www.sorrowvalley.com.
• Kenpo on the web! Since the beginning of my training, I have been keeping notes and tracking thoughts regarding my experience with Kenpo and other martial arts. I have produced a sub-section of the Media Dragon website that highlights this information as part of an ongoing project. Check it out here.

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Everything Else…

• My sister informed me last night that she is getting married next July. Duncan will be part of the ceremony as a ring bearer. This means I’ll be up in the area of Grand Rapids, MI around the week of the 4th of July, 2007. Congratulations, Sis!
• Nannies, Inc. has slowed down a bit in the last few months. Hopefully things will rebound again soon.
• I’ve “discovered” a form of conditioning known as ‘High Intensity Interval Training’ or HIIT for short. Using it has really been kicking my butt! I’m starting to see some result though and it’s way cool for Kenpo, particularly sparring.
• I’m still taking pictures whenever I can. I’ve logged almost 10,000 pictures on my digi-cam since I got it about a year ago.
• I will be dragged to Carolina Beach for a week in August for some forced family fun with the in-laws. Wish me luck.

I think that’s about it for now. It’s sort of slow at work today so I might post something more later. Bye for now!

posted by Bonzai @ 10:58 AM