Hi there. It's been over a week since I've updated...and so much has happened since then! Let's see...I guess I'll start with last Thursday. That was an interesting day.

Ok, so I go to work on Thursday morning and they put me in really, really old file. Ok, let me explain some...when the client gives the company a long list of phone numbers, they are placed in files. For example, aol4lk (that happened to be the one I was in). You then open that file from your computer and it starts making calls for you. When a file has been in use for a long time, it becomes basically worthless. For example, in about three hours of being in that file, I only was able to talk to 1.3% of the calls I made (the rest were answering machines or not available.

So the long short of it is that I'm getting rather annoyed by the time I come back from lunch. After lunch that put me in a CBSI file (selling a product to CitiBank cardmembers). It wasn't the best of files, but it wasn't that bad. But then they tell us that unless it's a sale, we are to put down every call for a callback in one or two hours. So if John Doe says "I don't want it, you've called me before, I don't want it!!!!!!!" I say "goodbye" and then call him back in an hour. Not exactly a nice thing to do. And pretty soon after that I start getting a lot of people complaining of being called six or more times already that day. Which is illegal. So I logged off my computer and quit. Didn't figure it was worth it to stick around for another week.

So Friday morning we left for Archer City, TX. We got there about 2 pm. I had hurt my foot Thursday night, so I went running to get some blood flowing through it and then we played dutch blizt until Aunt Von and her grand daughter Misty and her three kids showed up. Then Catherine showed up. And then Jack and Maria and Craig and Jacob showed up and we had a hoot! Not too much to say: we just talked about what all the family was up to.

Saturday morning we drove to Bowie for the ABKA black belt testing. That was a blast. Other than plurral fights and quick kill, I only got to fight two fights. One was a fellow going for his black belt. It was a really fun fight, even though I got my lip cut in the process. My other fight was against Jane S. who was going for her first degree brown. She's always a hoot to fight, because she's one of the few girls who will take and give hard hits without making a big deal out of it. Mr. Henderson, one of our black belt, got his second degree black belt. He did a jump three sixty back kick that was awesome.

So after the testing we drove home and not too much interesting has happened since then. I got my purple belt on Monday, as did Anna and Ethan. That was cool.

Well good evening. I've had an interesting day.

In fact, it kinda started in an interesting way at about 4 something this morning. I had a rather odd dream...somewhat disturbing. Kinda made me wonder what I'm really like. But first a little background. I don't like certain things, and I tend to try and avoid them whenever I can. Dead bugs, for example. I hate dead bugs. So whenever I hear somebody say something about finding a dead bug, I stay away, even if it's one of the little kids who wants me to take care of it for them. Or throw up. I hate dealing with it, so whenever somebody hurls, I tend to kinda sit where I'm at, hoping that I'll turn invisible and that somebody else will take care of it. I know this is selfish, but I do it anyway.

I hate pain. Not feeling it, but being around people who are in pain. I can take pain pretty well myself, but being around somebody who is hurting is horrible for me. Not that that is a bad thing. But I tend to do the same thing as with the throw up. If one of the little guys gets hurt, for instance, I tend to wait, hoping that somebody else will take care of them. It's probably only a five second wait, at the most, but it still is very selfish of me.

So in my dream, I was driving BonnieJean's car down a four lane divided highway. I was by myself in the car and seemed to be driving in the mountains. There was a large group of cars about a mile or so behind me, and an old brown car driving behind and to the right of me. On my left, on the other side of the road, I saw three semi trucks crashed along the highway. They didn't have trailers on them. A short way further down the road two more where wrecked trucks, just like the first three. I slowed down, looking at them. Before I could speed up again, I went down a rather sudden drop. Driving along, you couldn't really see what was on the road down that hill until you were almost on top of it. And to top it off, you couldn't really swerve, because the road at that point had been blasted through a hill, and so there were rock walls twenty feet high on either side. So it was a very good thing that I had been going slow, because right there in the middle of the road where three semi trailers, piled on top of each other and totally blocking the road. I slammed on the brakes and just barely avoided hitting them. The brown car behind me also stopped in time. I sat there for a moment, stunned and then realized that if I had barely had time to stop, it wouldn't take long for all those cars behind me to create a milti-car wreck. I jumped out of the car and ran to the rock wall on the side of the road and started to climb. I found a ledge and turned around to look down. The brown car had turned around and was going back the way it had come (to the try and stop the other cars, I guess). It was just about to get out of the dip where the trailers were when a red F-350 double cab came over the hill at 75 miles an hour and hit him head on. The brown car was pushed all the way back to the trailers and squished there. Then car after car came over the hill and crashed into the one before it. It was horrible. I knew that there where people down there who were hurt bad and needed help. But I didn't want to see them in pain. That would make me too uncomfortable. I wasn't afraid of getting hurt myself, but of seeing other people hurt. And so I turned and ran down the ledge and away from the pile up.

Now I know that what you do in dreams isn't always what you would do in real life. Dreams can be really strange at times. And yet I have this horrible feeling that in that situation I might do that. That I would turn my back and hope that somebody else would help them. Would I do that? I don't know. But it's a sobering thought.

At any rate, other than that my day has been pretty normal. I just want to say that Tulsa drivers have no idea how to drive in ice and they are reckless and insane. How low does your IQ have to be for you not to realize that you should not pass somebody while on a bridge when it's 15 degrees and has been raining all day?

I'm leaving for Taiwan in three weeks. I can't believe it. I've got one more week of working as a tele-marketer. I'm glad of that. They've put me on a new program the past couple days, selling AOL to people who used to use it. It's actually a pretty good deal, so long as you'll be using dial-up. I've been making a lot more sales in this program too, which is a good thing.

Last night we watched Hamlet. I'd never seen it before. The acting was pretty good, but there's some things you just can't overcome with good acting: like a bad story. I'm sorry, but classic or no classic, it's a pathetic story.

Man, but it's cold outside. I hope I can make it to work tomorrow morning.

I need to get some other stuff done now. Bye!

I have started a new blog. Check it out.

Hey there! It's Christmas Eve and I've already got one of my presents! Yup, it's a 3 hour battery for my camcorder. Which is nice, because the one that came with the camcorder is only a little bit over an hour, and I've missed several things because of running out of battery life. The only thing is that it looks kinda funny to have such a large battery on my small camera.

I'm downloading the new Trillian version right now. It's been years since we've updated it and I got tired of clicking "Ignore" every time I open it and the window pops up telling me that an update is available.

BonnieJean sent us a video file last night that the Kinmen team did for Christmas. It was a hoot. It also reminded me how much I wish we had DSL...it took 5 hours to download! BTW, BonnieJean seems to be the only one on the Kinmen team with any acting ability at all. She's quite good in fact.

Last Saturday we had a Christmas party at our house. It was a hoot. We had mostly people from either our home school group or karate show up. It was a nice sized crowd: not quite too many people, but enough to crowd the walk ways. We played a couple rounds of Mafia, which was a hoot. I was the mafia and Ethan figured it out and was loudly telling everybody about it, and I managed to turn it on him and get him lynched instead! Yea! Then the sheriff checked me out and declared I was a bad guy, and even though I was lynched because of it, I thought I managed to give a really good defense and even convinced one person to vote for me! (for those of you who don't know, the sheriff is not allowed to lie, so if he says somebody is the Mafia, they're dead.)

I got all the kids "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" for Christmas. Last night I installed it and played it some...I'm not sure if I like it or not. I still haven't figured out all of the commands yet.

I'm back to tele-marketing now. Made two sales yesterday. The annoying thing is you have to average about six a day to make commission. So I'm not making any more than $6.50/hr. There's one guy there who makes an average of 3 sales an hour...that's $21.50 an hour!

Black belt testing is being held in Bowie, TX this year. We're going to be going down on Thursday night, spend the night at Aunt 'Rie's trailer, visit relatives on Friday, spend the night at the trailer again and then go to the testing on Saturday. I've been to the last two and they are always really, REALLY fun to go to. You get to visit with a lot of karate friends from other dojos, you see some really good kata, some really good breaks and of course a lot of fighting. This time Mr. Murry is letting me actually help out with the fighting, which is really cool. I just hope I don't get killed! Mr. Henderson, one of our black belts, is going for his second degree black. Steven, Philip and Taylor, three of our brown belts, will all be going for their 1st degree brown (one level below black).

Well, I've got to go make lunch now. Talk to y'all later! God bless!

Here's a recent picture of me. I'm on the right. Notice the perfect low block.

Well, well, well. Why did I just write the word "well" three times in a row? Who knows. I don't even know, and I'm the one that did it!

However, I've got some really cool news. I am now a purple belt! Yay-who! We tested Monday night and I didn't score anything below a 4 (out of 5). My breaking went very well. I did three boards with a knife hand strike (the "karate chop") and broke them on my first try. I also did three boards with a side kick and broke on the first try. That means that I've made it all the way to purple without ever having to it a board twice during testing. Ethan tried breaking three boards with a ridge hand, but wasn't able to do it. I think that must have something to do with him being sick, because he has a ridge hand that would stop a bull. So he did a round elbow instead and broke them quite nicely. Anna, poor dear, ended up with some horrible boards (don't blame me, she picked them out herself!) She literally hit those baords for five minutes. She was able to break her foot boards with a front kick (after several tries), and finally broke her hand boards after we found some replacement boards for her. She bruised her hand up really good, but impressed everybody there by the way she wouldn't let anything stop her from breaking, no matter how much it hurt. She says her hand didn't actually start hurting until after the boards were broke!

Saturday was the ABKA Missions Tournament. I did Wansai Sho again, and took first! That was pretty cool. Then I was beat in fighting. :( But it was only by one point. And the guy who beat me went on to take first. Still, I think I could have beaten him if I had been a little looser and lighter on my feet. This was Isaac's first tournament and he took first in kata and in sparring! Yay! Because of that he got one of only six Outstanding competitor trophies. He was the youngest person and the lowest belt rank to get one of those!

It took us two weeks to re-roof our house. And it was not fun. But we've finally got it (almost) done. All that remains is to cut a few shingles so we have a strait line and to put the ridge caps on (something we haven't done because we still haven't got it totally figured out). We've got all the big piles of shingles picked up from off the ground, but it will be months before we really have it all up. Bits of shingle and tar paper and nails are everywhere.

I'm still trying to figure out what to do about my car while I'm gone. Any thoughts? I had a random idea that I might loan it to a ministry while I'm gone, but I really need to have a car when I get back and I'm not sure who I could trust not to run it into the ground.

I'm telling you, having a miniDV camcorder and a DVD burner is cool. I can burn high quality DVD's of our home movies right here and we won't have to worry about the tape wearing out. Pretty spiffy, huh?

Did you know that nail guns are some of the coolest things around? Can you imagine trying to put down 80 million shingles by hand nailing them? That would be tough.

I read an interesting article about walking on hot coals on HowStuffWorks.com. I'd never thought much about how that was done, but it's cool to know.

Am I the only one who gets really annoyed with people who don't want to know stuff unless they have to? People who don't see learning as a pleasure in and of itself? Like the Dreyfus Affair in France at the turn of the century (if you don't know what that is, look it up. Very interesting). Not exactly something you need to know, but it's interesting and fun to learn about non-the-less. And most people don't even want to use the mental enegry to learn about those types of things. They are mentally lazy! I just don't understand it.

What annoys me even more are people who refuse to learn about things that do affect you life. Like politics and economics. The number of people who simply don't care simply astound me. How can you not care about those things?
And as long as we on the topic of annoying things, how about brown belts that refuse to act their rank? We've got two of those at our dojo. One is a total know-it-all and a pretty poor martial artist. The other is a total wimp. She won't fight, she won't lead, she won't act like a brown belt.

And while we're at it, how about love songs that try to sound so sweet, but really they are totally self centered? Like "I want to be your everything". It's supposed to be such a sweet and moving love song, and it boils down to a guy telling his girlfriend "I want to be the center of your universe".

Oh, and then there's the "I'm sinning and I'm singing about it" type song. I hate those!

And on that wonderful note I shall leave you. Bye!

Ok, this will probably be boring for most of y'all and you don't have to read it. But I went to all the trouble of writing it down for an email: why not go ahead and post it on my blogger as well? That way it looks like my blogger is active, even though it isn't really!

Below is what BonnieJean wrote on her blogger. After that is the email that I wrote in reply.


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Ginger called Ben a little before lunch and got his permission for us to put on pants and do a little self-defense stuff in one of the empty classrooms here at the school! Of course, not all of the girls were interested, and Jo is currently under doctor's orders not to use her arms, but Ginger and I were pleasantly surprised to have 5 very enthusiastic students. We all did a lot of laughing and stuff, of course, but each one of them were serious about learning and would actually torque their hips, etc., and throw everything into their moves. It was so fun and refreshing! We had them all warm up and stretch first, and then we went over some choke-hold defenses, grab defenses, basic weak spots, rules of self-defense, how to make a good fist/punch, etc.. And then Ginger and I got to do some sparring on a nice wooden floor with no washer or hot water heater to watch out for. :-) We all loved it, and the five girls are hoping for a chance to do it again with us sometime this week. :-D

One girl in particular -- Sarah -- really surprised me. I had assumed until our karate time that she was anther girly-girl. Not so! She's pretty tall and got me from behind with her arm crushing my throat, (after warning me that she was going to do it, of course). She wanted to see if I could get out of it, and told me to honestly fight her. I was uncertain as to whether or not she was really willing to get hurt, but I managed to get my chin tucked and my fingers in between it and her arm. And then...I began to alternate between totally dropping my weight on her and shoving backwards as hard as I could, like Mr. Burnette taught us for breaking out of a bear-hug. She really did hold on, though, and didn't let go until I knocked her into the wall/floor with me partially on top of her. I was even more pleasantly surprised when she got back up and asked if we could do it again! She liked the technique and wanted to see it one more time. That next time she started to really crush down on my throat, and scared me for a second, but I broke out of it again and I'm sure now that she wouldn't have actually hurt me. Then, she wanted to try it, but I'm afraid that I didn't attack her as seriously as she'd wanted me to. I didn't want to be responsible for anyone or anything getting damaged, (and I also had some real trouble reaching her throat). Still, she was serious in her defense. Now I'm really curious about the best way to get out of a choke-hold like the one she used. I'll have to see if I can manage to get the idea across to the family on the phone, then if they can communicate it to a teacher at the dojo, then if they can learn a good defense from that teacher, and then if they can manage to get it back across to me on the phone. :-P


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Hey, sounds like you handled it really well. Obviously the most important thing is to keep your air, and tucking the chin and grabbing the arm are probably the best ways to do it. (NOTE: for the email below I assume that you have grabbed her arm with your opposite arm. For example, if she has her left arm choking you, then you grab with your right arm. If you've grabbed her differently, then your on your own!:) )


The problem is that you can't REALLY do anything to the girl that you might actually do on the street (breaking ribs, fingers, shoulder). You'll need to explain this to her next time, so that you can do something and then tell her to loosen her grib, because you just broke a rib (or whatever).


Dropping and throwing around your weight is good, but I've found that it works mostly with a bear hug and with somebody your size or smaller. (of course, the best thing to do with that you couldn't have done: dropping so her head comes down and then throwing your head backwards into her face). So while it worked, you wasted some time when you could have gotten out sooner.


First of all, if it's a guy, simply snake your hand behind your back and grab his groin, HARD. He WILL let go. Problem solved.


If it's a girl, you've got a couple options. The most simple one is to start ripping the fingers off the hand that is choking you. If she is double jointed and you can pull them all the way back to her watch, then grab the pinky and pull it down to the striking area for a shuto. Did you ever learn the pinky joint lock from Mr. Burnett? If not, don't worry about it: it's hard to describe and I can show you when I get there. At any rate, break a few fingers and she'll start to reconsider grabbing you.


If you can't get her fingers (it's possible she may be big enough that her arm goes around your throat and behind you again), then you've got your elbows. Clear the way with your hips (in other words, get your hips out of the way) and start having fun with her ribs. Once she has loosened up, you've got all sorts of stuff you can do. Personally, I like to duck underneath their arm (right arm going underneath her left armpit or left arm under right arm pit) and pull the arm that was choking me up on her back in a shoulder lock. From there it can be anything you want: elbow to the spine, shuto to the neck, knee to the tailbone (hey, they won't be able to chase you!) or whatever.


One final note about elbowing the ribs. If she's a lot taller than you this won't work, but when I did it to Ethan (who is just a tad bit taller than me) it worked very well. As you clear your hips, pull down with the arm that's saving your air and up with the shoulder that is connected to the elbow that's about to wreck havoc (am I making any sense?) What your doing is pressing your shoulder up into the soft underside of the arm that is choking you. If your lucky you'll get a nerve center: if your not lucky you simply cut off the blood flow to her arm. Either way it's a good thing. And once you've got that pressure on you can go ahead and start to elbow at the same time.


Anything from behind is harder than from in front, because you don't have all those basic week points of the body availible to you. Try to think creatively. Is she bare foot, or in sandles? Stomp on her toes. Heal kick to the shins, or put the bottom of your foot on her shin and rack down. Can you step to the side and throw her around your hip? Get together with Ginger and have her hold you loosely in the choke hold: just experiment some and come up with ideas.

Oh, good heaven, where to start? I'm mad, and tired and happy and excited and lonely and nervous and...and...and a complete basket case, I guess.
Ok, I'm mad at the author of the book I just finished reading, 'cause I hated the way she finished it. I'm mad at Dad for being so emotion-based and his seeming inability to get anything done these past few days. I'm tired from six days of re-roofing that seems to be getting nowhere. I'm happy because I finally got to talk to BonnieJean again today, although only for a short time. I'm excited about going to Kinmen. I'm lonely because Mom took Anna and the little boys down to Archer for the family reunion and we had to stay here and work on the roof. I haven't seen most of the relatives in...I don't know...a long time. And I'm nervous because I'm testing for my purple belt in less than two weeks and I have to break three boards with a knife hand strike, and I haven't had time to condition my hand, and I'm going to be doing the fighting for my purple belt in less than a week and I haven't been able to run since we started the re-roofing, so I'm probably going to loose my wind halfway through the fights...
Ah, yes, the re-roofing. We started on Friday. Getting the shingles off the back side of the house took about a day and a half...not great, but not bad. Then we started on repairing a couple places where the wood was rotten. It's a very strait forward thing to do. Yet between the rain and Dad's amazing slowness we still haven't laid a single peice of tar paper. We hope to start tomorrow, but we've still got some stuff to do first.
Do you realize that we had been remodeling our garrage for over three years? In that time we've had friend build entire houses for their families. Those of you who haven't worked with him do not really understand how mind-numbingly slow he is. He does good work, yes, but it takes him more than double (and often more than triple) the time it would take a normal handyman. I'm almost to the point of yelling at him when I see him staring at the work that needs to be done, spending over half his time figuring out exactly every little detail before he'll do anything. I want to scream "GET IT DONE! STOP WORRYING ABOUT MAKING IT LAST FOR THREE THOUSAND YEARS AND GET THE ROOF UP!" After supper today I tried to talked to him about it, but he kept changing the subject and when I finally nailed him down to it, he kept telling me "what I've found that works" and I'm telling him "It doens't work! I've never worked with somebody as slow as you!" but I don't think anything is going to change. Dad is expected back at work on Monday and we've only got the roll-away dumpster for a week and we are rapidly running out of time, but he just wants to keep doing everything like he's always done.
I need to go to bed now. Sorry this turned into a long rant against Dad...maybe I'll feel a little nicer tomorrow.

Why, hello there! How are you on this fine, cold and....ok, not so fine day? I'm doing pretty good. I've had a frog in my throat for over a week now and it's starting to drive me nuts. Other than that I'm doing pretty good.

Except for the fact that I spent $400 yesterday. I bought a brand new MiniDV camcorder. Very cool. But it really hurts to hand over that much money. It's a wonderful camera though. I'm very happy with it.

And of course the reason I bought it is that I have decided that I am going to Taiwan! WOW! I can't really beleive it. But yes, I will be leaving in Jan. for six months. There is a very good chance I'll be on Kinmen with BonnieJean.

Now I've been going nuts trying to think of everything to get ready. Tuesday I started the process of getting my passport ($95!!!!!!!!! $55 to the state department, $30 to our country court clerk and $10 to get the picture taken....ouch!!!!!) I also need to see about finding a couple very big suitcases.

We had a blast with Chera. I just wish she could have stayed longer. We went paint balling last Saturday. That was really fun. It was Joshua's first time to paint ball.

Last Saturday was also the first meet for our REC team at gymnastics. We hosted it here at our gym, which was nice, 'cause then our students weren't in a strange place for their first meet of the year. I coached bar the whole time. It was pretty fun. I had some trouble with wanting to spot the level 1's a little bit too much: I'm just so used to spotting them through everything. But on the whole I thought I did pretty well. Which is good. Because not only was this the first meet for many of the students, it was actually my first meet as well!

Dad and Ethan are out working on one of the cars right now. Some sort of electrical problem. The Honda is also having trouble...all of the dashboard sensors have gone haywire. I'm trying to figure out what to do with my car while I'm gone. I don't want it to set and rot. Dad won't be driving it enough to want to pay to insure it and I don't want to insure it. I don't want to sell it 'cause I'll need a car when I get home. I really am not sure what to do with it. Any thoughts?

Well I just won an auction on Ebay for a 128 MB SD memory card for my camera. For another $10 I probably could have gotten a 256...but 128 can store about 200 pictures anyway...why pay more?

Let's see...oh, Anna, Ethan and I will be testing for purple belt in three weeks. I'm feeling pretty good about it, just not certain about my wheel kick (it's very difficult...I can manage to throw it, but not with enough power to really do any damage).

I must say I was really supprised when Kerry conceded so early. Of course it was not nearly as close as in FL in 2000, but it still was close. Coburn won! YES!!!!! OH JOY! And Tad Jones won...by a landslide. So much for all that out of state money! *sticks out tongue are Harvey Swift*

I think I'm going to be going to Kinmen. For six months. And I have to decide if I'm going to do it by Monday.

Basically BonnieJean talked to me Wednesday morning and said that they were going to be having some new team members come and help them finish out the school year. And she wants me to come. Being her brother I've got a pretty good chance of being able to go. Anyway, I would leave in mid- to late-January and be gone for six months.

Now on to why I have to decide by Monday. I've got a new job. It's $9.50/hr rather than $6.50/hr. So if I go I won't be able to keep that job. And I don't feel good about going through paid training and then quitting on them. So I've got to make up my mind pretty soon. And I'm pretty sure I'll be going.

Chera is here! We've been having a blast. We're going paint balling tomorrow. Last night we took her to the ladies self defense class that Mr. Bolen was going...only to find out that it had been cancled and that they were doing regular class instead. But Mr. Gwin (an Akido black belt) took us and went over some wrist grab defenses. Then he had to leave so Anna and I put on a spur-of-the-moment self defense class. We did worked on five basic strikes (palm heal, hammer fist and elbow for the hands: knee strike and low front kick for the legs). We also went over the basic weekness of the body: eyes, throat, solar plex, groin and knees. And for a grand finish she broke some of the re-breakable boards. So that was really fun. And then Jay showed us possibly the coolest knife defense I have ever seen. Basically you can take the knife out of their hand with one extremely simple and fast move. It is SO cool!

I'm getting off now. Bye!

Hello there, how are you? I am walking on air.

Yesterday was Octoberfist. It was a hoot. Friday we met Jay (a brown belt friend of ours from Mr. Bolen's dojo) in Owasso and drove to Lawton. Anna, Ethan, Joshua and I went. There was also a 13 year old orange belt from Mr. Bolen's named David. He was cool. The drive into Lawton was about 3 hours and we arrived at about 9:20. Jay's dad lives in Lawton and we stayed the night at his place. He has a dark black poodle with toenails painted red. On his wall are several funny sayings. My fav. was "I love you more today than yesterday. Yesterday you really got on my nerves!" And "If you are seen smoking in this house we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate measures."

Saturday we got up, ate breakfest, packed up and left. We got to the tournament at about 10 (it started at 11). Josiah (a purple belt from our school who goes to most of the ABKA tournaments) was already there, as was Mr. Murry and his son Jason. We were supprised to see Mr. Murry: I had thought he wasn't going to be there. At about 11 they held the black belt meeting and then started with black belt kata. Then came under belt weapons (Josiah got 4th for his bo kata and got a compliment from Mr. H!) Then they sat all the under belts down, went over the sparring rules and assigned rings. Because they only had 5 rings everyone over 18 was told to simply hang until a ring was done. I told Jay that it was the sad truth that we were simply too old to be cute and not good enough to be impressive! :) But the good part of it was that I got to watch most of what Anna, Ethan and Joshua did! Ethan's kata was very good: however, he started a little too close to the judges, so his backfist with kia ended up a little close to hitting them. Not good. Josiah was in the same division as Ethan and did a really good kata as well, but he messed up a little bit and paused (which is not a good thing!). But he got first and Ethan was second, by only half a point! I was pretty happy with that. For one thing Josiah is a belt higher, and for another he goes to four classes a week (or sometimes three) and he's a very experianced tournament competator. Plus it was cool that BattleCreek took first and second in that division! Then Ethan did really well in fighting, once again winning second, once again beaten by Josiah. After two minutes they were tied, so they did "sudden death" for first place: the first clean point won. Josiah got it.

Joshua rocked. He took first in kata. Lots of kids in that age backet can do kata with power and intensity but almost none of have good stances. Joshua has power, intensity AND stances. Which is why he's won first in kata in both tournaments he's been in. I didn't get to see him fight, but he took first in fighting as well! Yea! I've been having him fight a lot of fighters who are bigger and older than him and it paid off.

Poor Anna did not place in kata. And there were only four people in her division. Mr. Murry was one of her judges though and he told her that her kata was in fact the better one. And her score was only one point below the winners score. So she was happy. She lost both of her fights. Mr. Murry says we need to have her fighting more tall guys.

And finally, at last, a ring opened up and I got to compete. Now, let me explain a little background. I have been working this kata for a year now. I have been seriously praparing it for about nine months (with a few months off in the summer). Most of that preparation has been done with Jason Murry, who is a kata freak. Jason always gives the lowest score when judging. I have also spent some time working on the kata with Mr. Murry. Mr. Murry has some of the best kata in ABKA and he holds his students to a much higher standard than most instructors do. So guess who are the judges for my ring? Mr. Murry, Jason Murry and another black belt. I about died. Having Mr. Murry wasn't nearly as bad as having Jason: I knew he was going to be EXTREMELY hard on me. I was the second last to perform. The whole time everybody else was going my heart was pounding wildly. Finally my turn came. And after all those words I just wrote leading up to the event, I don't have that much to write about the event. I performed the kata (it's amazing how short it seems after all those months of working on it!) and was scored. Mr. Murry gave me an 8, Jason a 7.5 and the other dude an 8. I won by half a point. Interestingly enough, the girl who won second also performed Wansai Sho.

So. I had won kata, which was the real reason I had gone to the tournament. I could have walked away after that and been happy, but we still had to fight. I didn't really expect to do well, but was hoping to. There were only three guys in my division and both were a good deal bigger than me (at least 220 pounds...I'm only 150). Since there were only three they had two guys fight. Then the winner would fight the other guy for first place. The loser from that fight would fight the loser from the first fight for second place. I ended up being the odd one out on the first fight. The cool thing was that I was able to watch how both men fought and figure out which way would be best to win. The guy who won was the guy I was hoping I didn't have to fight, because Jay had told me he didn't have any control. And when he's that much bigger than you, you want him to have control! But Anna and I both agreed that his ribs were weak and a quick reverse punch would win the fight. It was a hard fight. He didn't have control, but it wasn't very bad (he just knocked me to the floor a few times). The reverse punch worked very well. I scored 5 points on him: 4 with a reverse punch and one with a side kick. He made 4 points. So I won first in kata and first in fighting! Is that cool or what?

I wrote the following on Sunday, but was unable to post it because Blogger was having all sorts of trouble.

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Hello there. Yes, I do think I have reached a new record. And if I actually manage to cover everything that has happened since I last updated, I'll probably break the record for blog length.

As I said in the comments to the post below, I actually do have a good excuse this time. That last post was made around the time that I started doing night shifts. I'm not sure how many weeks I did night shifts: at least six, I think. Anyway, at first it wasn't that bad. I ended up sleeping through pretty much the entire weekend, and I wasn't able to get anything done, but at least I was staying awake and getting things done at work. I thought it would probably take a few weeks to adjust and then I'd be fine. A few weeks into it Mom and Dad (esp. Dad) starting really pushing me to look for another job, saying that the night shift was obviously not good for me. I made a few attempts at finding another job, but didn't spend much time at it: I figured there was no rush. About another two weeks though and I began to notice that I simply couldn't seem to function like I should. I was sleeping ten (or more!) hours a day and still had no energy. And because I spent so much time sleeping, I had no time for job hunting. Some evenings I would get on job sites and find some that looked good, but I never had the time to go apply. Anyway, I left a note for Debra (the manager) that I would need to have the night off Oct. the 9th, because I was going to Lawton for a karate tournament. I left it THREE WEEKS in advance. Well, Wednesday morning she comes in tells me that a. I can't have it off and b. she has now put me on permenant Sunday. I told her when I first started working that I would work the occasional Sunday when she simply couldn't get somebody else to work it, but I didn't want it to be part of my regular schedule. And then she said she was going to put me on Sunday. So I was driving home, wondering what to do, when I drove right by the place where Tamera (a co-worker of mine) had fallen asleep at the wheel and died. That was kinda the last straw. I worked one more night shift and then called her Thursday morning and gave my two weeks notice.

And here's the part that I find strange. We were underhanded at the time: each of the full time people had 40 hours a week and Debra was already doing three shifts herself simply because nobody else could do them without going into overtime (something the owner strongly dislikes). So I knew that she would need me until she got somebody else hired and trained. Yet she very quickly told me that I didn't need to come back: she already had somebody lined out. I find that very odd. Because either she was lieing through her teeth, or she was planning on firing me. I don't know which is true, but I'm glad to be out of there.

So I've been unemployed for a little over a week now. I've spent most of the days since then job-hunting in Tulsa. I've had two job offers so far. Tuesday I was offered a job at a fabric warehouse. I'd put out a lot of other applications and this one was kinda far away, so I said I'd rather wait until next Monday before I accepted. I expected them to agree...they didn't. So I didn't get it. I've had another one that I have to decide about by Monday: I don't think I'm going to take it either: it's about a 50 minute drive both aways and it would be through peek traffic both ways. I'm not sure that $7/hr is worth that.

Anyway, enough about job hunting. Yesterday Dad took us to the dollar theater to watch I, Robot. It was a blast. I love that movie. Some of my fav. quotes:
"Spoon, she just shot at you with her eyes closed!"
"Quit swearing, and go home!"
"Better be the last 'nothing.'"
"This is my face, it's not a look!"
"Sonny! Calvin's fine: save me!"
"Are you being funny?" "I guess not"
"You are the DUMBEST smart person I know!"
"How would cats do this to me?"
AUU-CHEW! "Sorry, I'm allegic to B. S."

Then we went to the Philbrook Art Museum. That was fun, although I'd already seen most of the stuff and it was kinda nerve wracking to have all the little guys running around. "Caleb, stay away from that 500 year old painting!"

This Saturday Anna, Ethan, Joshua and I will be going to Lawton for a karate tournament. I'm really excited about it. I really think I've improved my kata a good deal and hope to place. Also, it helps that it's a rather small tournament: better chance of winning! :) We're driving down on Friday night with a brown belt from a dojo in Owasso and staying at his dad's house that night. Then we'll drive back on Saturday night.

I wish I could write more, but I've got to plan out where I'm going tomorrow on my job hunt. Talk to y'all later! God bless!

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I do have a job now, as a tele-marketer. Yep, I going to be one of those hated people.

Hi there. I'm tired. The last couple days have been crazy.

I worked Wednesday night/Thursday morning shift (11 to 7). Then came home and tried to take the starter out of my car (it quit on me) and had a horrible time and didn't get anything done. Then I went to BattleCreek for Mr. Henderson's day class. I learned Godan! That was fun. But I left my gear bag there, because I was so flustered because the tire on the Honda was flat. One of the guys there at karate had a pump, so we pumped it up, drove down the road to a tire place and had it fixed. Then we came home and I went to sleep. Dad woke me up at about 5 and we got the starter out of my car. At six we leave for Owasso to go to Mr. Bolen's dojo for more karate. That was fun. Then we went home, I cleaned up real quick and then went and worked the night shift again. I got off work at 7, dropped my starter off at an auto place, went home and go my juggling stuff together. We then left for Tulsa, for a juggling show. I am very tired by this point. Now, instead of haivng just about 30 minutes of juggling, I've got THREE HOURS of juggling! I was juggling for a VBS and instead of getting everybody together to watch me, they made me part of the rotation, so I had a new group every 15 minutes! After that was over (and I'm about dead by now) we had to let Mom and BonnieJean finish their shopping. So we didn't get home until 3:30. I went strait to bed and slept for 16 hours. Then Saturday morning I had to get up and go to Oklahoma City for a gymnastics judging class. After we got home from that (4 o'clock) I put the starter back on my car.

Whew! So that's why I'm so tired! The juggling went very well (no credit to me: I was hardly awake the whole time).

Last week (or was it two weeks ago?) I took BonnieJean out on a date. We ate and then went into Tulsa and watched I, Robot. It was very good. I can't wait to see it again. You should go see it.

Two weeks ago I finished showing Jason my trick breaks. I did the half supported shuto, but had to hit it twice. Then I tried the unsupported ridge hand and got it the first time (he was impressed with it). Then I tried something I hadn't practiced before: two boards half supported hammerfist. The first time I hit it I broke the top board and cracked the bottom one. Before the top one hand a chance to slide off I hit it again and broke them both completely. That was pretty cool.

Anna's birthday was on the fourth. I was working the night of the 3/4 so I called her at midnight and wished her happy birthday. I then told her that I knew of a guy who really wanted to go out with her: did she want to? She said that as long as it's me or Dad then she wouldn't mind. So sometime this next week I'll probably be taking her out.

Going to Oklahoma City and back with Tammy and some of the other ladies from Gymnastics City was interesting. The gymnastics world in Oklahoma is rather small and everybody knows everybody. Apparently there is a large amount of politics involved as well, so it was interesting to listen to a few of Tammy's stories. (Yes, I know that was listening to gossip, but oh well.)

BonnieJean joined our church today. Everybody has accepted her so quickly. I love this church we're in. When we went to church in Owasso we had a TON more in common with everybody there, but we never really were accepted. It was an odd church. Here, we are completely different from everybody, but they all love us and want us there anyway. It's great. Our new pastor is cool too. He's not the best speaker but he's got a real heart for the people.

Man, I hate to think that BonnieJean will be leaving in three weeks. That really stinks.

This week we might be making a trip into Amarillo and Oklahoma CIty. Kinda depends on my work.

I have to get off now: time to take a shower!

YIPPEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

 

I can't believe it!  And you probably won't either.  But, in spite of that, last night I beat Brittany G, 5 to 4.  Yea!  Now, I must admit that she hasn't been fighting much for about the past two months, but it is still quite an feat to have beaten her.  To say the least I am extremely, extremely thrilled. 

 

BonnieJean is coming home on Friday!  I can't wait!  She was supposed to be home last Sunday, but they have really managed to mess up her ticket situation.  That means she'll only be home for five weeks instead of six.  Rats.  I'm trying to maintain a Christian attitude towards those people. 

 

Did I tell y'all that I'm now working at Microtel?  I'm working behind the front desk.  It's a pretty cool job.  Oh, yea, I just remembered...I did tell y'all. Anyway, I'm enjoying it.  Today we had training for our new computer system...as soon as I figured out the old one we're getting a new one!  Debra, the manager, is awesome. 

 

Here's something I wrote about a week and a half ago. 

 

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Hello there. I'm going to see how much I can get written in 12 minutes.
Monday I tested for my blue belt. It went very well. I messed up on one of the self defenses (front bear hug, arms pinned). And I had trouble with my 180 back spin crescent kick. And my three on one and four on one plural fights didn't go so well. But other than that it was pretty good. Breaking went very good. I broke four boards in three seconds! Yea! It's supposed to be in under five seconds, but few people actually do it that quick. So I was pretty happy with that.
Before the test I told Anna that I wanted to fight Mr. Murry, Steven and Brittany for my three one on one fights. Well, instead I got to fight Philip, Steven and Mr. Murry, which was just about as good. I did fairly good against Philip (he's been out of karate for a few months due to his wedding, but is still a much better fighter than me). I did ok against Steven (he wiped the ground with me, of course). He did kick me in the face pretty hard one time, and cut up my mouth a little bit, but it wasn't bad enough to stop the fight. I did pretty poorly fighting Mr. Murry. It was my third fight and I was started to get kinda tired and I had trouble closing the gap and being fast with my hands. Still, it went ok. Then I did my two on one plural fight: Josh and Brittany (both black belts) fought me for that. They beat me, 5 to 3. Three on one and four on one didn't go very good at all. I made one point in each fight and was hammered pretty good. Oh well. Mr. Murry said I passed though! Which is very cool!
After class I showed Jason some of the trick breaks I've been working on. I'm not sure if I told y'all, but I asked him about me being on the demo team a few weeks ago and he said I should work on trick breaks. So anyway I showed him the unsupported high round knife hand, half supported hammerfist and half supported palm heal. I'll be showing him the other breaks next Monday. He didn't give any indication of what he thought, so I guess I'll just wait and see.

 

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We've only got two more days of summer camps left at Gymnastics City.  I can't believe it's over so soon.  Ethan is taking the trampoline mini-camp this week and learning quite a bit.  Jamie (Miss Tucker's daughter) is teaching it and she is awesome.  Ethan's almost got his back drop into punch front.  He also started working on his back hand spring on trampoline and for the first time actually made some progress with it. 

 

Man, the little guys (read everybody but Anna and Naomi actually) have behaved very poorly tonight.  I've had to send them all to bed already!  When Mom get's home I'm going to have quite a report to give!  (Mom is at a mom's meeting with our home school group).  

 

Ok, I've got to get off now.  I'll try to update again soon.  Bye! 

Hello my rabid fans. I am here to satisfy your craving for that wonderful, charming, awesome presence known as Samuel.

Recently that awesome presence has had some cool stuff happen to him (which he, of course, deserved by nature of his wonderful, charming and awesome presence).

Ok, ok, anyway, a few weeks ago I was reading Prov. 3 and thinking about how it seems like my life is going nowhere at about nine-hundred forty-six mile an hour. And I read verse 6. Now it seems I've read that verse about eighty-million times "In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths." But this time it jumped out at me. "Direct thy paths." That's exactly what I need! I really, really, REALLY need to have my paths directed! So I started looking for ways to acknowledge God in all my ways...and came up pretty blank. How do you go about acknowledging God as you say "Crawl off the trampoline backwards"? How do you acknowledge God as you ask Ethan if he's seen your polo shirt? It sounds so easy until you start getting specific and practical. But I tried whatever I could think of...asking God for his protection and guidance whenever I went somewhere, spending more time meditating on Scripture rather than just reading it. That Sunday a girl at church mentioned a job opening at a hotel not far from here. I went in on Monday and talked to the lady about: it turns out she is VERY good friends with the girl who refered me and I got the job that night! She said that she had a whole stack of applications on her desk, but she hired me anyway! So I started training last week and I'm working tonight, tomorrow and fourty hours next week! God is so awesome!

Last night we watched Freaky Friday. It was ok. Not awesome, but ok.

I'm testing for my blue belt on Monday night! YEA! I'm so excited! Last Monday I was fighting Mr. Foster (purple belt of the killer backfist) and I wasn't wearing my mouthgaurd. I HATE mouthgaurds. You can't talk and you spend half your time taking it out and putting it back in. So anyway, I throw a reverse punch, and he deflects it and comes right back with a ridge hand...to my mouth. My upper lip got caught on my braces, so I went into the bathroom to get it untangled. Well, it was so mashed and mangled up that I couldn't get it loose, so I had to tear it off, which wasn't very fun. Now I've got a piece of skin hanging from my lip that's driving me nuts. I'm thinking we'll probably end up going to the Dr. to have it taken off.

Summer camps at Gymnastics have been a blast so far. Monday I got kicked in the jaw while spotting a back hand spring. It wasn't any big deal (getting kicked is just part of teaching back hand springs) but later that day it started to swell and really hurt. Mom sent me to the chiroprator (sp?) and he helped some, but it's still sore. Oh well, I'll live.

Got to go now! Bye, my rabid fans!

I wrote the following on Wednesday:

Well hello, it sure has been awhile since I last posted a real update. I'd like to say that I've been too busy to update, but in reality, I simply haven't made the time. I have been busy (very much so!) but not so busy that I couldn't update. I just didn't. Sorry.

Goodness, where to start? On the 5th we had a reception to celebrate my graduation. That was a blast. We did the whole living room in a tie-dye theme. I tie-dyed a sheet and some pillow cases the day before and we had the sheet over Mom's desk (like a table cloth) and the pillow cases on pillows on the couch. We put the tie-dyed towel on the dresser and put my juggling stuff on that. Everybody wore their tie-dye shirts: even Dad, who is embarrassed to wear tie-dye. (Man, after posting those last couple of sentences, what do you want to be that I get a bunch of tie-dye adds up top?)

We had a pretty good crowd come too. It was a little slow at the start, but as soon as a wedding that lots of our friends were going to let out, we had a huge bunch of people show up. Anna and Gunner, two of my very first gymnastics students, each colored a card for me. That was really touching. Several people from church showed up, my boss came, several people from karate, from the home school group and from our old church. It was supposed to be come and go from 2-6, but several families stayed until 8:30 and we had a blast.

After the reception I spent time getting ready for the ACT. I took it on the 12th. I think I did better in math, but I'm not sure how I did in Science Reasoning. Hopefully I raised my score. ACT finished about 11:40 and I rushed home and we (Anna, Ethan, Joshua and I) rushed into Tulsa to watch what was left of the black belt testing. As fate would have it, we got lost and so we were REALLY late, but we still got to see some cool stuff. But we missed watching the board breaking, which I was really wanting to see. Oh well, you can't have everything. We only had one person from our dojo testing: Alicia. We got there in time to see about the last thirty seconds of her twenty minutes of fighting, but from what I hear she fought very well, in spite of having a mild asthma attack in the middle of it! She always does well under pressure. She won her three on one plural fight and almost won her four on one fight (four points to five). There was a guy there testing for his second degree black belt who actually did win his four on one fight. That was very impressive! We also got to see Mr. H fight for the first time...WOW! His speed and control are just amazing. Totally, completely amazing.

Monday night I finally got up the nerve to ask Jason Murry if I could be on WanKan, our dojo's demonstration team. I was as nervous as all get out. He said that he'd pray about it, and also said that I would need to work on breaking. I asked him what kind (power, speed, trick, etc.) and he said mostly speed and trick breaks, since Mr. Garza already does power breaks. So Tuesday afternoon I went to the hardware store and bought twenty feet of board. I done some cool breaks so far: half supported hammerfist, unsupported high round knife hand (!!), unsupported punch (!!), half supported descending knife hand and half supported palm heal. I've also been working on an unsupported side kick (not making much progress) and an unsupported rising elbow simultaneous with a rear elbow. Hopefully that will be enough to impress him. He's going to Canada and so won't be at class next Monday, so I've got two weeks to try and come up with some more stuff that he might like. After yesterday my right hand is feeling pretty stiff and somewhat tender (I broke 10 boards yesterday!), but once it starts feeling good again I'm going to try and to two boards with a half supported palm heal. Yes, I know it's silly to even think of, but I'm going to try it.

Last Friday I started washing dishes at a restaurant here in town. It's not a fun job, but it's not bad either. It's a job, at least. But it's only two days a week. But they did seem happy with me, so maybe they'll consider giving me more hours.

Monday we started doing summer camps at work. I love summer camps. Most of our upper level team girls are in AR doing some sort of camp thing there, so we've only got one level four and several level 3's this week, plus class kids. The cool thing is that means I get to work with Tammy some, and have learned some interesting things already. It always amazes me how Tammy can pick up on the smallest little things in an instant.

Last week we watched Unbreakable. It was very interesting. I liked it right up to the very end...then it got bad. Samuel Jackson lends an amazing aura of coolness to any character he plays. And the scene with the boy and the pistol was very well done. It was also interesting to see the Biblical name theme...Joseph, the dreamer. David, the great hero of his nation. Elijah...I can't remember the correlation...have to ask Anna. The shots in the opening scene were interesting at first, but after a few minutes you got tired of looking between the seats...they should have cut to a different camera. It was interesting that they managed to have a sky scraper burn to the ground, a plane explode and a train wreck without any big budget effects.

Saturday the greatest leader of our life time went to be with the Lord. Our nation has suffered a great loss. I pray that we prove ourselves worthy of having had such a leader.

Urgent Prayer Request!

Please pray for Susie M, a 11 year old home school girl who fell into a pool today, hit her head (I'm guessing on the concrete edge) and is now bleeding in the brian. She has been air lifted into Tulsa and the doctors say they don't know if she'll make it. Please prayer for her!

UPDATE: She's out of surgery and in UCI. Keep praying!

Update 5-31-04 morning: They've put her in a 48 hour coma. The Dr. says she could go either way during that time, but he is hopeful. They removed "1 1/2 inches" of blood from her brain, which means the blood had put enough pressure on her brain to compress it an inch and a half.

My goodness, it's been a while since I updated. I've actually been wanting to update for a week, but have been so busy that I simply didn't have the time. But I do have some big news: I is a graduate!

Ok, ok, not actually yet. I still have one thing left to do: I have to recite Matt. 7 to Dad. But I've got it memorized and so it's only kinda a technicality that I haven't graduated...so I'm hoping to graduate this afternoon.

And I STILL don't have a job! I was trying to get a hold of a lady on Friday about a job I want, but she was already gone for the weekend. I'm going to be calling her again early Tuesday morning. Please pray that I get this job.

May 23rd was the last day of our winter classes at Gym. Now we have a three week break and then we start the summer camps. I love summer camps. During a normal class I only have about twenty minutes per rotation to teach the kids. And for most of the events we only get to do them every other week. So they get only twenty minutes on bar (for example) every two weeks. So sure they learn some stuff, but not really that much. During summer camps I have a full 45 minutes for each event, four days in a row! It's a blast. You really get a chance to work on things, improve old skills and learn new ones. In fact, if I had my way, we'd do nothing but camps all year long.

Sunday we had our ATI family coordinator and her sister for dinner. And since she wanted to meet some of the other ATI families from around here, we invited the H. family to come too. It was a blast. The H.'s are a blast. So we had a real good time.

Last Monday was the "fight night" at karate to raise money for a mission trip. It was a blast. First we did line sparring (which I love, 'cause you get to fight so many people, most of which you don't have a chance to fight very often) and then we broke off by belt rank and age and fought for "king of the ring". I fought about three fights and tied for king with a purple belt from another dojo. I did fight him, but it was a very even match and the black belt at our ring declared it a tie after a few minutes. So that was cool. Then we headed over to the brown belt ring to challenge their top two fighters. The purple belt fought a guy from another dojo and lost. Then I fought Alicia and lost (4 to 5...I was so close!) After that we all sat down and watched as various people fought. I got a chance to fight Christina G., who is the only black belt from our dojo that I hadn't had a chance to fight yet. And here's the really cool news: I beat her! Yea! After we bowed out I got another chance to fight Alicia and did pretty good. It was a more relaxed fight without judges or anything, but I do think I may have made more points than she did.

Dad and another guy from church have decided to take the College and Career Sunday school class. Next week is promotion Sunday. I'll miss being in the youth class, but it will be cool to have Dad for a teacher too.

Oh, something cool happened at karate two weeks ago. After class some of the black belts were playing around with boards, doing some various "trick breaks", as they call them. I was standing to the side, watching them, when Mr. G. held out a board and asked me if I wanted to break it. So I tried an unsupported rising elbow (the same break I posted pictures of a while ago). Well, the first time I hit it with my entire fore-arm, instead of my elbow and sent it flying, but still intact, across the room. I picked it up again real fast and tried again, this time hitting it exactly in the middle with my elbow. It was the best I've ever done with that break: the board broke in two and landed on either side of me, rather than flying across the room in two pieces. But the very coolest part was that Mr. G. told me he had never seen that break before and that he was impressed! Now, Mr. G is himself a very good breaker and to impress him is, well, impressive! So I am very happy with myself.

Man, I've been thinking lately about all the cool people that God has put in my life. It's really amazing when you start to list their names...there's a ton! So here's a list of AWESOME PEOPLE in my life.

BonnieJean: BJ is one of the most awesome-ist people around. She smart, spiritually minded, kind, productive, focused and just all round a blast. She's great to be serious with, and great to be silly with.

Mama: Mom probably shares the number one spot with BJ. It's hard to discribe how awesome Mom is. I love talking to her, on any subject. You'd think that after almost nineteen years, we'd run out of new things to say...no way! Mom has got interesting thoughts on just about everything.

David C: David is amazing. An amazing juggler, an amazing performer, an amazing mentor...just generally amazing. He's been a huge blessing.

JC: Wow, were do you start with JC? My first really good friend outside of my family, JC and I learned a ton together. He'll always listen to you when you have problems, but he doesn't always side with you...which can be good.

Mr. Murry: When you look up "humility" in the dictionary, there is a picture of Mr. Murry. I'm telling you, they don't come any cooler than him. An amazing instructor, an amazing Christian, an amazing martial artist, he's just awesome. Let me tell you a short story. Last year Mr. Murry was promoted from 3rd degree black belt to 5th degree. Now, if I was promoted to 5th degree, I would have jumped into my car right then and driven at highly illegal speeds to the hardware store and purchased the tape for putting those stripes on my belt. I would have run up and down the store, yelling at the top of my voice "I'm a 5th degree! YEA! I'm a 5th degree!" What did Mr. Murry do? Nothing. He didn't even get around to putting those extra stripes on his belt for two weeks!

Mrs. Murry: Man, hate to think how our dojo would run without Mrs. Murry. She is the lady behind the man. She's creative, fun and just generally cool.

Jen: I don't really know Jen all that well (a great loss for me, I know) but she still makes my awesome people list just because she's so cool. She's wacky and crazy and spiritual and thoughtful and a blast and I love her blogger.

Alicia: Another person I don't really know all that well, but she's awesome too. She's fun to hang around with, always ready to help you learn and a good teacher. And girls who enjoy sparring are always cool.

Chera: Another super cool person who I don't know all that well. Chera has an awesome blog and she's a dear.

Sneff: Sneff has got to be one of the coolest people I've ever known. In the last couple years she's really back slidden in her faith and I don't have much contact with her anymore, but I still treasure all those whacky times we had together.

Tammy: Tammy is the lady who trained me at work. She's so cool it's hard to describe. She's been through alot and has an amazing testimony of God giving you the power to forgive. She's an amazing teacher, both gymnastics and how to teach gymnastics. BTW, her daughter, Erin, is also really cool: she's the junior high level 9 gymnastics champion. Just watching her practice is amazing.

Samantha: One of my students, I call her my "Smilely Girl", 'cause she's always got such a huge grin on her face. She's a blast to teach.

Shelby: Another student, Shelby is my tumbler...she loves to tumble and stays a few minutes after each class so I can work with her on something. I love students who love learning!

Alison: Probably the cutest little student I have. She's 7 years old and the tinyist little thing around. She doesn't do gymnastics: she attacks it! Whenever she comes to the bar (which is were I end up working with her, most of the time) she has a hungry look in her eye: she's just waiting to get on that thing and show it who's boss. She's a blast!

Here's an some interesting things y'all might enjoy.



He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room temperature prime English beef.

He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze. (gross!)

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.

Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.

Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake.

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph

The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.

She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.

The red brick wall was the colour of a brick-red crayon.

Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do. (that's a bad metaphor?)

He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck either, but real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from "I Can'tBelieve It's Not Butter."

She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before.

The dandelion swayed in the gentle breeze like an oscillating electric fan set on medium.

It was a working class tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with their power tools.

He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a trash truck in reverse.

Her voice had that tense, grating quality, like a first-generation thermal paper fax machine that needed a band tightened.