I went to Marinobles tonight for 1 hour of kickboxing class (with sparring), followed by 1 hour of MMA training (also with sparring).
I learned how to pass someone's guard and transition into an armbar, and also how to prevent someone from passing my guard.
I practiced leg sweeps and several different kicks, as well as several punches, both to the body and head. Sparred (max 75% power) with a range of people, from an 11 year old boy and a small Asian woman, to numerous men of various ages and sizes.
Took down a jiu jitsu guy a couple of times after controlling the striking, but then he guillotine choked me both times:-(
And at the end of the night, only me and a teenager were still following the instructor's orders at full speed. And I don't remember seeing him in the kickboxing class either.
And to top it all off I received several compliments on my "Jesus Didn't Tap" t-shirt. It was a good night!
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Weekend Update - Amanda's Birthday!
Monday was Amanda's birthday. So we celebrated it slowly over the whole course of the weekend.
Friday night we went to Fresh Choice for dinner. Afterward, we picked up a bottle of ice wine from a adjacent beverage store. I was too ridiculously full from dinner to enjoy it though, so we refrained from opening it.
=====================================
On Saturday she went to lunch and clothes shopping with a friend. While she was gone, I fed the kids lunch and we watched the US soccer team lose to Ghana. Since we have an antenna for our TV though, the only channel I could find it on was a Spanish channel. And despite my previous post, I kinda enjoyed watching it, although the kids got bored way before I did. Maybe it's because neither team was doing excessive flopping.
Then in the evening we ended up watching our good friend's kids so they could have a date. While that doesn't sound exciting, we ended up jogging to the park with them while they rode their bikes, which was both a lot of fun and some exercise. Then we had a popsicle party in our front lawn when we got back home. To finish the evening, they all enjoyed watching a Pooh movie together. Both their kids and ours had a great time., which of course also makes us happy.
=====================================
Sunday, we went to Bodega Bay where we met Amanda's cousin and his wife. The weather was perfect, and I had some good one-on-one time with Emily when we went for a walk along the beach, and Lucas too when we were running and trying to fly a kite (not much wind though).
Amanda's other cousin (the first one's brother) also met us there later with his girlfriend, and after the beach we went to her Aunt's house for a phenomenal tri-tip dinner that he (Ben) cooked up.
=====================================
I took Monday off of work, in honor of Amanda's birthday. We mostly took it easy that day though, since Sunday wore us out (too much sun and lots of driving).
After I let her sleep in that morning we made crepes for breakfast (I cooked the dough and we both assembled them).
Later the kids and I baked a cake for Amanda - she requested vanilla cake with a lemon middle, and vanilla frosting over it which she made to make sure it came out right. It tasted great!
After the kids' afternoon nap, we went to watch Toy Story 3 in the theatre. Since it was Amanda's birthday, I took care of Clara for 90% of the time. Which meant that I only was able to watch the 1st half of the movie, until she was sick of popcorn and started getting restless and noisy. I ended up pacing the hallways with her during the 2nd half of the movie in an attempt to keep ourselves occupied. I can't blame her though, since she has no idea what they are saying in the dialogue.
Finally, after the kids were in bed we sat on our front bench outside and opened the ice wine that we picked up on Friday.
=====================================
It was a memorable and enjoyable weekend. I'll have to post some pictures once Landis (Amanda's cousin) sends them to us, since we left our camera in the car:-(
Friday night we went to Fresh Choice for dinner. Afterward, we picked up a bottle of ice wine from a adjacent beverage store. I was too ridiculously full from dinner to enjoy it though, so we refrained from opening it.
=====================================
On Saturday she went to lunch and clothes shopping with a friend. While she was gone, I fed the kids lunch and we watched the US soccer team lose to Ghana. Since we have an antenna for our TV though, the only channel I could find it on was a Spanish channel. And despite my previous post, I kinda enjoyed watching it, although the kids got bored way before I did. Maybe it's because neither team was doing excessive flopping.
Then in the evening we ended up watching our good friend's kids so they could have a date. While that doesn't sound exciting, we ended up jogging to the park with them while they rode their bikes, which was both a lot of fun and some exercise. Then we had a popsicle party in our front lawn when we got back home. To finish the evening, they all enjoyed watching a Pooh movie together. Both their kids and ours had a great time., which of course also makes us happy.
=====================================
Sunday, we went to Bodega Bay where we met Amanda's cousin and his wife. The weather was perfect, and I had some good one-on-one time with Emily when we went for a walk along the beach, and Lucas too when we were running and trying to fly a kite (not much wind though).
Amanda's other cousin (the first one's brother) also met us there later with his girlfriend, and after the beach we went to her Aunt's house for a phenomenal tri-tip dinner that he (Ben) cooked up.
=====================================
I took Monday off of work, in honor of Amanda's birthday. We mostly took it easy that day though, since Sunday wore us out (too much sun and lots of driving).
After I let her sleep in that morning we made crepes for breakfast (I cooked the dough and we both assembled them).
Later the kids and I baked a cake for Amanda - she requested vanilla cake with a lemon middle, and vanilla frosting over it which she made to make sure it came out right. It tasted great!
After the kids' afternoon nap, we went to watch Toy Story 3 in the theatre. Since it was Amanda's birthday, I took care of Clara for 90% of the time. Which meant that I only was able to watch the 1st half of the movie, until she was sick of popcorn and started getting restless and noisy. I ended up pacing the hallways with her during the 2nd half of the movie in an attempt to keep ourselves occupied. I can't blame her though, since she has no idea what they are saying in the dialogue.
Finally, after the kids were in bed we sat on our front bench outside and opened the ice wine that we picked up on Friday.
=====================================
It was a memorable and enjoyable weekend. I'll have to post some pictures once Landis (Amanda's cousin) sends them to us, since we left our camera in the car:-(
Saturday, June 26, 2010
A Kick in the World Cup
I want to root for my country, especially in a competition as worldwide as The World Cup. But I'm sorry, the only sport that is more boring to watch than soccer/football is golf.
Not only is it boring, but I simply refuse to support a sport where acting like a freaking sissy is not only not penalized, but even advocated. Watching these dill weeds fly to the ground while holding their faces when no one even touched them is downright sickening. Then, if the other guy doesn't fall to the ground and writhe in pain too then the ref will likely give him a penalty card.
I will venture to say that this may be the only sport I can think of where the professional women players appear to be tougher than the men.
I really WANT to get over it and participate in the cheering though. Somebody please convince me.
Not only is it boring, but I simply refuse to support a sport where acting like a freaking sissy is not only not penalized, but even advocated. Watching these dill weeds fly to the ground while holding their faces when no one even touched them is downright sickening. Then, if the other guy doesn't fall to the ground and writhe in pain too then the ref will likely give him a penalty card.
I will venture to say that this may be the only sport I can think of where the professional women players appear to be tougher than the men.
I really WANT to get over it and participate in the cheering though. Somebody please convince me.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Why I Didn't Vote Today
Amanda and I have voted in probably 9 out of 10 elections. Usually, we sit down with the mailed out information booklets, read through all of the proposition and candidates, and decide what/who we want to vote for. Most of the time our decisions are identical, but not always.
Leading up to this year's primary elections though, we have been up to our ears getting ready for Vacation Bible School (VBS) at our church. Amanda is in charge of the drama portion of it, and besides helping her as much as possible in the preparation, I have also volunteered to be the actor/character for 2 of the 5 nights.
Because of VBS, I am going to bed later (11:30+), and therefore getting up later, which leads to me getting to work later. Then on top of that I have to leave work early so I can be home by 4:30pm. So my work hours are going to be significantly short this week. Not only that, but we haven't had time to read through the informative material that we received in the mail.
Ok, now that the whine-fest is over, my co-worker pointed out that I can just swing by the voting station on the way home from work. While this is true, there is still one more reason why I refuse to just stop in and check those decision boxes.
I am completely opposed to people voting when uninformed. I don't care if you're a communist liberal or a nazi conservative, as long as you know what the hell you're voting for when you check those boxes, then more power to you. But it is my belief that many (most?) people go to the polls and just go straight down along party lines. Or at best they may carry a suggestion card with them from some organization and just follow their guidelines to the tee.
Admittedly, in the past I have been one of them. In 1993, at the age of 22 (yes, I am getting old), I voted for Bill Clinton because I thought he seemed cool. That's right, for no other reason but that.
In my opinion, there should be a screening process of some sort (a mail-in questionnaire?) which demonstrates that each person has an actual reason why they are making their voting decisions. And only then would they be allowed to make their choices count.
All of that to say that I didn't vote today because a) lack of time, and b) to do so would be in violation of my own principal of informed voting.
Leading up to this year's primary elections though, we have been up to our ears getting ready for Vacation Bible School (VBS) at our church. Amanda is in charge of the drama portion of it, and besides helping her as much as possible in the preparation, I have also volunteered to be the actor/character for 2 of the 5 nights.
Because of VBS, I am going to bed later (11:30+), and therefore getting up later, which leads to me getting to work later. Then on top of that I have to leave work early so I can be home by 4:30pm. So my work hours are going to be significantly short this week. Not only that, but we haven't had time to read through the informative material that we received in the mail.
Ok, now that the whine-fest is over, my co-worker pointed out that I can just swing by the voting station on the way home from work. While this is true, there is still one more reason why I refuse to just stop in and check those decision boxes.
I am completely opposed to people voting when uninformed. I don't care if you're a communist liberal or a nazi conservative, as long as you know what the hell you're voting for when you check those boxes, then more power to you. But it is my belief that many (most?) people go to the polls and just go straight down along party lines. Or at best they may carry a suggestion card with them from some organization and just follow their guidelines to the tee.
Admittedly, in the past I have been one of them. In 1993, at the age of 22 (yes, I am getting old), I voted for Bill Clinton because I thought he seemed cool. That's right, for no other reason but that.
In my opinion, there should be a screening process of some sort (a mail-in questionnaire?) which demonstrates that each person has an actual reason why they are making their voting decisions. And only then would they be allowed to make their choices count.
All of that to say that I didn't vote today because a) lack of time, and b) to do so would be in violation of my own principal of informed voting.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Selfish Attitude for Menial Servitude
I am really dreading the next two weeks in preparation for and execution of VBS (Vacation Bible School) at our church. I know I should have a better attitude about it, but my selfishness is annoyed (even ticked off?) about putting everything else on hold and having my wife and I bust our butt in all of our spare time.
And compared to other couples/families at our church, our sacrifice/participation is probably trivial.
Yeah, as I'm typing this I know that I should probably be praying more about it too.
And compared to other couples/families at our church, our sacrifice/participation is probably trivial.
Yeah, as I'm typing this I know that I should probably be praying more about it too.
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