Bookended by food

Wow the rest of the week went quickly.

Friday Dave and I went to Chez TJs, joined by Vicki.  Since my last visit, Chez TJ has garnered a second star from the Michelin guide (out of three) and certainly the food did not disappoint.  The big standout for me came with the appetizer, a cube of delicate sea bream  (IIRC) nestled between two cubes of foie gras, atop a slice of cucumber.  One of those types of dishes that you might not be able to taste-picture by the description, but paired together was exquisite.

Saturday Dave and I hit the Planet Granite in Belmont for a solid few hours of climbing, with me climbing well some of the tougher climbs since I’ve gotten back into it, and Dave conquering a couple of 5.12As (and making it look easy).  Relaxing and mirth rounded out his visit.

Hmm, I’m considering getting a slow cooker…  any suggestions?

Traditions

The Game Developer’s Conference was moved up by a month this year, but tradition remains!  Dave is in town for the GDC, and off to Tahoe we went for two days of fine, fine skiing, dining and fun.  Despite the earlier timing it was spring skiing weather, with little cold protection needing for skiing and just starting to have an effect on the snow conditions (a bit heavy, but not slushy).

We hit Alpine Meadows on Saturday, which is an interesting skiground comprised of mostly open runs and bowls, a ‘choose your own adventure’ type of park as Dave put it (they also purchase all their power from wind sources and use biodiesel in everything).  We headed for the backside as we started out, but being south-facing the snow was already warming up and getting pretty heavy, so we hopped back over to the Summit 6 Chair and snowdanced the afternoon away, until the sun was dissapearing, the terrain losing all contrast, and it was skiing by feel.  Sunday was a trip back to Northstar at Tahoe (next to the condo at which we stay) and we hit up our favourite runs.  Ahhhh…

So, yeah, next year.  I’m feeling that tradition pull strong already!

LotD

A while back, Scott Adams asked his readers to submit nonsense lyrics that could be combined into a song, on his  premise that many hit songs had nonsense lyrics.  And submit the readers did, and a song was created, and even recorded by a band in Germany.  And the tune is oddly catchy…

The Trade

And it’s up! Thanks to tastyeagle, Rev and I’s performace at the FC 2008 FNL can now be viewed in all its staff-swinging glory! View it here! Also, thanks to smackjackal, you can see me perform/teach some Tai Chi in full costume… it’s at about 01:31 of this video.  (And I get a huge kick out of pandapawlin’s comment on that page!)

We finished the Tai Chi broadsword set today, it’s one of those great fun sets. Now to fully internalize it…

Trains, Memes and Running, Oh My!

Now this is quite something, Spain’s new High Speed Rail looks like it’ll be fantastic on many levels from convenience to emissions. And it’s sexxy to boot!

The meme:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.
2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.
3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4. Use your graphics program of choice to throw them together.

Do it speedily for extra fun… I did, and here’s my awesomest new album:

The person I run a Kung Fu class for on friday called and said he was sick with the flu today. Well then, what better thing to do than go running? So I hit up Rancho San Antonio park — despite the fact I’d been reccomending to others to wait for it to dry out more before running there. Hmmm. The trails I took were mostly dry, though, and after a stuttering start with a few 60-second recovery walks I got my groove on and ran for about 6 miles+. Felt good!

QotD

“The important thing is this: to be able, at any moment, to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.”  –  Maharishi Mahesh

Swords, and more swords

While I was away swinging staffs last weekend at FC, Sifu began teaching the Tai Chi broadsword set.  I got myself caught up during class on tuesday — the oft repeated quote of the evening was “turn it down 10%”.   I was putting too much Shaolin into my Tai Chi sword swinging.  Practiced (and learned) some more today and think I’ve gotten it down to the right level.  It’s interesting though, as the character of the broadsword is as a ferocious tiger, and that character has to be carried through while maintaining the Tai Chi concepts (and not slipping into full-on Shaolin swinging)… but after running through it a few times I think I’m already starting to find that balance.

This week was also full of straight swords, as I got to play distributor with our finally-arrived Damascus steel straight/schollar swords.  It got kinda funny, almost clandestine-like from the back of my car, including (and I’m not making this up) in an underground carpark that involved some sword swinging/testing.  Mmm, spycraftian overtones.

Spent this afternoon and evening at Sifu’s house working on the captions of the application photos for his Ha Say Fu Hung Gar book.  It was more than just simple writing of course, it was a series of discussions about concepts and movements, as well as trying things out with each other.  That is going to be one rocking book, and one to live up to as I finish working with him on the Shaolin book too.

Hmmm, it seems I’ve ended up having two pretty full Kung Fu weekends in a row.   Woo!