*cough*

Last night I was choked in turns with a plastic bag, a leather jump rope, and a club. The plastic bag really stuck to my neck, making it difficult to get my fingers underneath it, but it made rustly noises, so it's not really a weapon of stealth. The leather jump rope was pretty awesome. It hugs the neck all the way around, cutting off both air and blood. Doesn't work well in a noose, though; there's too much friction to get a tight seal that way. The club was pretty rough on the trachea, (I kept feeling like I had to cough for a few hours afterwards), but it did nothing to my blood supply and, as a long, stiff object, was much more easily controlled than the flimsier devices. Best scenario: Lying on my back, someone sitting on me and choking me with the club. Very easy to get out of. Worst scenario: Lying on my stomach, arms pinned to my side, being choked with the jump rope. There's just not a lot you can do, and very little time to do it in.


Round Two comes tomorrow. I love self-defense week in karate.

Inspector Hellacious Crumsteen

My success has been noted on my record. I have 3 more cases to solve before I will receive my next promotion.

I have been having the best time playing old Carmen Sandiego games! I downloaded Where in the World, but then I realized I never actually played that one. So I downloaded Where in the USA and have been having a grand old time with all the nostalgia. It asks you to find the last bold-faced word on page x from the manual, though, in order to be promoted, so for my first promotion I just guessed and put peanut. It worked! I thought I was magical and psychic. Then for my second promotion, peanut also worked so I concluded that the game was just lenient. I've been using peanut for all my promotions since.

I tried downloading Where in Time, because that was my favorite, with the awesome Chronoskimmer and coffee machine, but I could only find a Commodore 64 version. I got the emulator and everything, and I could play the first part, but then it died when it told me to put in disk B. I'll have to figure that out.

I tried to find Gold Rush as well, but I haven't been successful yet. If anyone knows where I can get that, I will pay you in actual gold. That game is my childhood.

Don't walk on the grass, Jerrod!

Hello again

Wow, I haven't updated since August? Oh man, all sorts of cool things have happened since then! In Sep/Oct I went to Germany and Czech Republic.

Click for Prague joy-->


In November I hosted my very first Thanksgiving. In December I had a raging Christmas party. In January... hmm, well maybe January was dull. But in February, I got my ear pierced by a woman who had diamonds coming out of her cheekbones. I mean really, how does one do that? (Apparently, subdermal anchors.)

So I won't promise you that I'll write more, because yeah yeah, I say that and then I don't do it and everyone hates a liar. And I'd rather have you all hate me for being boring rather than for being deceptive.

But what's going on with me recently? I had a good karate class on Thursday. I went to the early and late class because I had to make one up. I pretty much sucked in the first class. I was doing things wrong, easy things, and I could tell my instructors were thinking, "What the hell is wrong with her? This is the easy class!" Every ten minutes one would come up to me saying, "Try this." "Slow down, try this." "Ok, just do this." With undertones of "For the love of god, chick, get it together." It was fairly humiliating. But I thought about everything that had been said to me, processed it in the fifteen minute break, and did much, much better in the second class. Night and day difference; I was really proud of what I accomplished. And you know what the kicker is? The woman giving me all the advice wasn't even there for the second class! So she went home thinking I was a total schmuck! But that's ok, because I know that I did well, and in the end, isn't that the most important thing? The answer is... no.

I was close

Twasn't my ACL, 'tis my MCL. (Medial as opposed to anterior) The doc said it didn't look serious so it should have healed up by now on its own. He said it may not have healed yet because it's being re-exacerbated. I said, "Hmmm, maybe by going to karate twice a week? After which it always feels even more sore?" (Hey doctor, it hurts when I move my arm like this.) So he told me what any schlub on the street could have told me for 5 cents. Take a break from karate! I'm going to stop going for about two weeks, and if my knee doesn't start to improve, they'll take a closer look. But the good news is that I can still start training for the triathlon with some gentle biking because it will keep my knee moving in a nice, straight plane. So I tried, Karen, but I guess I'm not backing out after all!

Well, maybe not...

So as some of you may or may not know, I threw my back out the other week. By coughing. (Lame!) Well, I was out for over a week, went to the doctor, got some meds, and slowly healed up. So now I'm all better, right?

Except... my stupid knee got injured in karate a month ago and it's still giving me trouble. So even though I just went to the doctor and just got attitude from a nurse for my "narcotic" meds, now I'm going back to the doctor to say, "Uhhh, yeah.... now my knee hurts this time." I'm so getting red-flagged.

Well, I wouldn't be too worried about my knee since it doesn't really hurt that much, but it seems to be in my ACL area. And according to WebMD, if I leave any ACL injury untreated, I'll be a cripple for life. So I figure it's worth the $20 copay to get it checked. I'm just worried... if this really is one of those nasty, slow-healing joint things, I could be out of karate for a long time, and forget the triathlon. :(

I just got an appt for this morning, so I'll report back and let you know if the doctor said, "Bed rest for six months" or "Walk it off, you attention grubbing wuss." I'm hoping for the last one, even if it does mean I won't get a lollipop....

What have I done??

Yesterday I promised Karen I would enter the Danskin Triathlon with her next July. Yes, me. Slugsly McGee. But I was intrigued because it sounded like something I could actually do. 5k run, 1/2 mile swim, 12 mile bike. I already know I can run 5k, though I might not enjoy it, and I can probably ride 12 miles, though I'll need a better bike. As for the swim, I've never tried that kind of distance before, but with gigantic feet like mine, how can I fail?

I suppose this means I have to start training now. Heh, training... cool. Makes me sound like an athlete. "Sorry, no refined sugar for me. I'm in training." "Excuse me while I hit the gym. I'm in training, you know."

I'll keep you posted on my progress. So far the only thing I know is I've run 2 miles in 20 minutes. Don't laugh... I can probably run it faster; I've just never tried. But now I suppose that time has come.

Pictures

Now that I'm back in the swing of things, I've finally got some pictures to show you all! In late April, I headed out to California for Natalie's wedding. It was a gorgeous affair and Natalie looked like a pretty, pretty princess:



I also got to see the San Jose crew and spent a beautiful day hiking in the hills:



and hearing a bobophone concert:



Very shortly afterwards, I went to Oahu with the Kennedy clan. It was fantastic; Matt and I loved it there more than any other trips we've taken recently. We preferred the windward side to crowded Honolulu, though. Next time we plan to stay in a little beach cottage on the North Shore rather than in the big city.

Here's the Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor:



And here's Matt on the Missouri shooting down enemy aircraft (i.e. seagulls):



The best pictures are the ones Matt took and uploaded to Flickr. Check them out, you can see flesh-eating bacteria beaches and the giant sea turtle that bloodied Matt's leg. Plus a fantastic price on fungus. Here's the first photo, then click on the picture of me in the brown shirt in the top row and proceed thusly. For some reason the slideshow goes backwards otherwise, and then the humorous captions don't make sense.

And finally, on Memorial Day weekend, my mom and I walked the Bolder Boulder. It's like a mountainous Bay To Breakers, so of course we went in costume. We were dainty Victorian ladies, and the people around us were very envious of our parasols!

Why I Hesitate

I haven't written in here for ages for one simple reason. There's just too much! How can I have a simple chat with you now when there's so much ground to cover? New houses, vacations, music, reunions to report on... There's too much pressure to provide details on everything that's happened since May, and it grows worse every day.

So, no updates. I'm just jumping back in. Maybe in time there will be news of the summer, but in the meantime I have only one thing to say. One no-pressure item, completely in passing, that will not set up a brick wall for future posts.

I spent $10 on a single vanilla bean today.

That's it! That's the update you've waited almost three months for. And though it was almost certainly not worth the wait, at least I can write again without that nagging obligation over my head.