All caught up

A great week at work, veryverybusywithlotstodo andohwehaveanewhireandIneedtotrainherwithbrandnewmaterial andbythewaywehavetomeetwithalltheseusersanddolayoutsanddesignthemandrunthembythePMatStanfordtoo andohdon’tforgetthoseothertrheeprojects andyouneedtosetyourselfupatyournewstationafteryourmove. Feels good to be in action.

And speaking of action, getting back into Kung Fu after a week ‘off’ is always amusing — the ancient Chinese addage of “miss one day, lose three days” certainly applies… it takes me a few days to get back up to speed. But back up to speed I am now, after a week and a half of class, teaching, working on the new sooper-seekret set and a good chunk of climbing (more on this in the next paragraph). On friday for our practice, Evan and I went to the volleyball sand pit where he works and practiced Tai Chi on the sand. Two things: one, sun in the late afternoon is H O T ! ! (we ended up wearing our socks) and secondly, it is a very interesting experience. It really was great to work on the spins in sand, there’s much to be gained when you can spiral into the depths if done non-optimally. As I practiced this morning I could tell I got something from that practice, and I think I’ll suggest we do that again sometime soon.

For climbing we visited the Sunnyvale gym — my last outing there left me none to impressed.  The owner of Coyote’s in Ottawa made me wonder if it was due to the fact the gym at that time had just opened (so in a flurry of rapidly putting up routes the routes were somewhat bland).  While the geometry certainly will never be back up to par with their old Santa Clara location, the climbs were pretty good this time round.  Certainly good enough for my forearms to feel it for the next week — something about 60′ high climbs, I think.

I also has me a 4e core book set, and have been reading through those, we played in Eberron last week for the first time in a while, haven’t seen Kung Fu Panda yet (and have heard it is worth seeing), been playing in new-found freedoms, thinking I’d like to seek out some new music (any suggestions anyone?), starting to work on the Northern Shaolin book again, got some car repairs/maintenance done, waiting for my camera back from a repair under warranty, and I could use to schedule some time to do a bit of cleaning up in my apartment.

Paraphrase of the Day to end this post:

“It’s like those fish at the bottom of the ocean — you bring them up and pow, they would explode.  But they never notice the pressure, they’re born into it.  We’re born into some things, and some other things and pressures end up being constant as well, so much so that we don’t even notice we have it.  When they’re removed, all of a sudden we have this experience of ‘wow’, we didn’t even realize what we were under or that there was some other way to be.  I guess that’s similar to the expression ‘weight lifted from one’s shoulders’, suddenly there’s an expansive feeling.”  — Unknown

Meandering

This is the type of research that one professor I’m designing lab space for at Stanford is currently working on:  Spontaneous Generation of Chirped Time-Energy Entangled Photons.  He works with lasers.  I get to work with lasers by proxy!

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here yet, but I passed my eighth Architectural Registration Exam — one left to go!

This is a nifty design for a helicopter, and amusing, as it basically is a similar idea to what Airwolf was to do…

This is a great site, it is amassing funds and making recordings of classical music (which is in the public domain) and then releasing the recordings into the public domain (as most recordings of said music are NOT in the public domain).  Ditto with the sheet music for a lot of these pieces.

In my post about Prince Caspian I spoke thusly:  “not so fine as an epic fantasy tale.”  In thinking about it later, I realized I misspoke.  One of the things about Narnia is that it is not really ‘epic.’  That’s key really, it’s a much more intimate scale, more of a yarn or a tale than an epic.  And perhaps that’s where the film took a wrong turn, in going for the epic LotR-type treatment rather than a more modest tone.  That might have guided them towards filling in those gaps and capturing the missing feel.

Aurora 2.3 is out!  And let the two week countdown begin.

QotD:  “What is that resistance?  You resist it when you think about it.  You resist when you prepare for it.  You resist as you go to it.  You resist as you start it.  Then you do it, and you’re always glad you did it.  What is that resistance?”  — Unknown

Oldskool dreaming

Had a most interesting dream last night that involved elevators, pistols and fabulous spycraftian action.  Could my dreamworld have been channeling this old game:  Elevator Action?  I loved this game back when it was in arcades… hmmmm.  However it arose, it was certainly an exciting dream.  Before it morphed into something truly odd… (as dreams are wont to do, eh?).

LotD

A double feature today!

One, this video here for an upcoming machinima film is mildly amusing and technically pretty well done… really though I’m linking it for the title sequence which I think is just great.

In a different vein, here is the Foreward to AD&D 1st Edition, way back in 1978. Great read, for nostalgia and with chunks that still inform (and are great reminders).

Buidings, Bikes and Blazerunner

A whack of stuff!

The day the dice stood still

Gary Gygax, creator of the D&D game, passed away today. All the jokes come easy… “He failed his Save vs Death.” And he might well have been amused by them. He created a game and founded a hobby that has been enjoyed by millions and continues to influence, expand and amuse. For your creativity, your drive, your courage to follow your dreams, and to the many worlds and adventures you launched, we salute you.

Ten rounds of silence in honour of the man.

Get your geek ON

I just pre-ordered all three D&D 4th ed core books… let the coundown BEGIN!

Wicked trip

Back home am I after my good vacation home in the land of the snow! Great trip — the fun in the snow, spent good time with my parents, saw lots and lots of friends both near home and up in Ottawa, including some I hadn’t seen in many years (hi to all of you!), watched some interesting films, watched Ratatouille a few more times, did Tai Chi a bunch, ate some fantastic food, read some great books (The Art of Possibility, A Separate Reality, a bit of The Principles of Effortless Power, re-read bits of The China Study, and the reference classics book China), worked on the Bloodstone Campaign some, made a mask that turned out awesome, set up my parent’s new computer, took the train, relaxed a bunch…

While in Ottawa we climbing at my old, er, stomping grounds(?). Well, the gym where I got my start climbing, Coyote Rock Gym. And boy, what an interesting time — certainly something about the climbs there vis-à-vis the climbs here at Planet Granite. A climbing friend had said to me, years ago, that there is a difference in the way easterners rate their climbs compared to west; basically the western routes were generally rated more difficult. Can’t be sure if this plays in here or not, as I’m only comparing two gyms, but the climbs at Coyote’s were certainly different. The walls are shorter there, and the climbs are much more technical, with smaller holds and a much greater reliance on body positioning and crux moves than what seem to be at PGs these days. (I do seem to remember the old PG location in Santa Clara not seeming all too different when I began there after moving, so it is possible they’ve mollified over time) I could get the 5.9s pretty easily, but as soon as I hit the 5.10s it was like hitting a wall (pun intended). Wow, good stuff. There were some moves I just couldn’t get my body wrapped around (needed to bring more Tai Chi to it, I think), and some where my fingers simply looked at me and said “What? Oh! You want to hold on! Haha, too bad.” Must get more climbing time in! I’m looking forward to hitting it again in the future after I get more back into the swing of it and seeing what comes out of it, it was a great afternoon of fun challenges. I even declared some routes my nemesis, but they’ll be changed by the time I return…

My flight home from Toronto departed right at about sunset, and during an overcast sky. As we took off, we went through, in succession, three layers of cloud cover, treating me to a succession of gorgeous and varied sunset tableaus, climbing steadily until we broke through and glided over a sea of clouds. Coming into Chicago, as we descended closer to that sea of clouds, again I was treated to scene after scene of the orange/red rays of light playing across the cloud tops, mountains of cloud rising like Mont St Michel from the cloud sea (also catching the light), and most interestingly, views through open pools in the illuminated cloud tops to the city below, where night had fallen and the city lights were on. Stunning, dazzling and magnificent.

A great batch of holiday wishes to all!

Fragments!

Even after two in-proximity successive viewings, Ratatouille continues to be one awesome movie.

Going to get my flying mount this coming weekend, which ought to be amusing.   Also going to buy some faux fur.

Games I thought I didn’t like, and that were totally not my thing, I enjoyed playing, and surprisingly won both.   Gotta love giving things up!

Landing on a carrier, it’s not an easy thing.  Really.  Flying a helicopter, also not an easy thing.

Getting something new every time I practice taiji is really fun.

New master model kits for Zoids, that are hyper detailed and hyper articulated?  Cooooool!

“Watching your friends and family fulfill on the fullest expression of who they are:  priceless.”

Wow, in several ways

This weeks marks the third anniversary of World of Warcraft being released, which means I have been playing WoW for about 3.5 years (!!) now.  Amazing and crazy at the same time, certainly a game that took hold of me far stronger than I thought an MMORPG could ever do (this incident during closed beta helped a plenty, methinks).  By coincidence, in ‘celebration’,  Ajathka (my main character) just hit 70th level (the current level cap), with still plenty of questing to do (and a tonne of instances not yet run).  And, of course, a gryphon to buy… Khyborr with be so jealous!  (You see, Khyborr’s been wanting a gryphon to ride on ever since this image was the loading screen for WoW…)

Not sure if it’s unconnected, but I’ve been getting the itch to play my secondary characters again, who’ve been unused since the expansion came out earlier this year.  They may soon awake from their slumber! (and status as an auction broker, at least for one of them…)

‘Course, for short diversions I’ve also been loaned Guitar Hero, which is fun in its own, different, way… come to think of it, theperson who loaned me that is the same one who got me into the WoW closed beta… I sense… a theme… or plot… here… hmmmm…