amphibiman

Well, ostensibly, this was to be a low-travel month for me. Indeed, we have gotten to the point where instead of two weeks travel per month for the job, I am to be traveling one week a month.
However. This was also family reunion month, so I headed over to see the family (both [...]

Here’s a new one from titanium soul:

Just a short little piece that I was working with. It was actually inspired by a piece by Philip Sheppard from the Science Channel program “Moon Machines.”
In other (but maybe related news, now that I think about it…), my mom’s latest PET scan (no, not for the cat ) came back negative for any sort of cancer or growths. Cancer free, baby!! Woo hoo! Obviously, that’s great news. The week before her scan, the doctor felt around her neck, which had been so swollen before, and couldn’t feel anything abnormal.
He said it was remarkable, given that her treatment had been so… oddball. Just to refresh, before she had discovered she had cancerous growths, she had been super dehydrated and unable to eat, so when they took her in they put a feeding tube in her just in order to get water and food into her. She already was very weak and had lost like, 60 lbs.
Then they found out that she had cancerous growths, one on her epiglottis and one in the side of here neck–which is why she couldn’t eat or drink without choking.
So the treatment program was several weeks of radiation, and three sessions of chemo. However, after getting home right right after her second chemo treatment, on the day before Thanksgiving, she had a heart attack.
Back in the hospital… her rads and chemo were suspended while she recovered from that, but then she had an episode of ventricular defibrillation. We had the defibrillator put in, but her heart was irritable, and she kept getting the **** shocked out of her, until they were able to get back in there and tune the defib to less sensitivity.
Once that was all stabilized, she got to continue the radiation, but the chemo was indefinitely suspended. She ended up not going back for that, as it was deemed too stressful.
Apparently, once you start radiation therapy, you only have so many weeks you can do it before the course has to stop, for safety reasons. So in order to get as much...

I loooove a good review, usually of the ripping the movie apart variety, but done in a funny way. Here’s one I found that was pretty hysterical, similar to two of my all-time favorite reviews, the one of The Perils of Gwendoline, and the one for John Ringo’s Paladin of Shadows series.

Now, understand, even though this review had me guffawing, I LOVE this movie. For a lot of reasons that don’t make sense to anyone, really, but it’s one of my favorites. Unfortunately, I seem to be the only one, so I can’t enjoy it with anyone. Ah, more’s the pity…
But for your viewing pleasure, here’s the trailer:

Yes, I know that technically it’s pronounced like “rogue” vice “moon.” But anyway:

And he plays a nice piano version of it, much more recently:

Still good.

I noticed that one of the searches hitting my page was for “blackwater” and “davis,” and it made me go back and take a look at my original post. The original post has a mention of the YouTube video for the quads portion of the Blackwater 100, and you have to go over to my Vodpod to find it.
Well, since then, WordPress made it easier to embed videos (or maybe I just figured it out), so I thought I’d update the post and embed the vid. However, going back to YouTube, I see that the original poster of the video has added the Day Two video of the Route 93 crossing for the two-wheelers. So I’ll embed that for ya.

One thing I noticed–which doesn’t bear mentioning except to true dirtheads of a certain age, is that most of the bikes I see there do have the mono-shock rear suspension, by this time. I remember when that was a big deal and people were still debating the efficacy and safety of the design. I think at the time my family visited the race, that was still a very big question, and indeed most bike were still of the two-shock rear suspension.
My brother’s Yamaha XT 200 has two, if I remember correctly. This last year, my Uncle Dan took the bones of that one down to his place in Georgia and is restoring it. I bet it’s a real peach, now!

Had a good night last night at longsword practice. Primarily we were working on two Master Cuts–the Zornhau, and the Krumphau, using them to “break” an attack or guard, and then using “Fühlen” or feeling of the pressure of the opposing blade, and working around it using various “windings” such as “mutieren” and “duplieren.”
I did get to play a little with my side sword and “cloak” (actually my fencing jacket) against longsword. Fun stuff.
A pretty good example video below I found of some guys on YouTube (although some of the stuff is a little hard to see here) of use of the Krumphau, with accompanying text from the different master texts:

As you can see, very interesting, fluid work, which admittedly, appeals to me.

Looks like my friend Scott Simons is gonna be back in DC for a “Christmas” show… (buuut–you’re… oh, nevermind… ).
Here’s a song from his new album, that was used in a WVU commercial: Start Of Somthing. Nice.
Here’s some of his work with his former bandmates, the Argument:

Enjoy.

Unapologetically mix The Byrds with The Doors, after marinating with Jimi Hendrix spiced with Blue Öyster Cult, drag the mix kicking its pointy boots into the 21st century, and you have The Aliens.
Derivative, yet somehow original, I find them lightweight, yet strangely refreshing and addictive. Like Diet Sprite…

After a… smashing workout tonight (fast-paced kettlebell snatches, followed by hard thrashing of the heavy bag, followed by LCCJs), I settled down to recover by watching a couple of episodes of The Muppet Show on DVD.
First I watched the episode with Liberace. Enjoyable playing and a lot of humor. As a kid watching him on variety shows such as The Muppet Show, he always stuck me as a bit strange, though he seemed gentle and kind-hearted (though I would never know what went on backstage, of course). And

Good exercise I got off of Rob’s blog:

I liked the look of it so much I attempted it this morning right after seeing it. I used the baby bell, Peta (16 kg). Ahhhhhh, it felt really good. I could really feel it stretching the shoulder girdle, at the same time as I was applying strength to stabilize it. Nice. Try it–you’ll like it!

Because we’re geeks:

Freakin’ awesome. Like a whole semester of particle physics, in one song!

In case you all haven’t been keeping up with the comments section, below, Rob from Kettlebell Training For Sport (see sidebar) has posted a video with music from his band, Waster. So, I wanted to give a shout out to him, and give the vid it’s own post:

Way to go, Rob! The rest of you all–listen and enjoy! Besides, you can’t go wrong with a name like “Waster,” that’s one of the tools we use to practice our longsword fencing with… :D.
Oh, and here’s my “reminds me of

I just loooove her:

These guys aren’t too shabby either, in one of their versions:

Be sure to check out their whole “No Quarter” DVD. Fan-freakin’-tastic…

Just to remind you that I am indeed a geek, here’s Niall Ferguson discussing his book, The War of the World. If you have a minute…

I read the book, and it’s fantastic, especially if you like reading by the pound. In any case, I ended up seeing the PBS documentary a couple of nights ago, but only part of it, so I started looking for it on YouTube. I did find part–the beginning, but it’s only a few minutes.
However, I also found this interview he did with Harry Kreisler, which does a gr

My brother sent me the YouTube presentation of John Denver Live At The Apollo Theater. I haven’t watched each of the sections yet, but I liked this one:

Again with the titanium soul (cc)... reposted this one as well.

Reposted. From my album titanium soul. (cc)

Davis West Virginia. We went there as a family a couple of times when they were still having the motorcycles race. Great time. I love the fact that the "audience" truly participates in the sport. You don't see that many other places.