As I mentioned yesterday, I am camping.  With any luck (and weather cooperation) I have done karate on a mountain.  Woot!

Today was one of those days that go by quickly.  We hit some problems with the work we were doing, but with a little effort and labor we overcame them!  I am now headed up near Estes Park to camp, so don’t expect to see much from me for the next few days!

I’m just minutes away from new episodes of Futurama, one of my favorite shows.  This show has a lot of great science and Philip J. Fry is one of my favorite characters.  Oh yeah, and Bender.  They got the entire original voice cast back and I can’t wait!

Let the Feast of a Thousand Hands Begin!

Tonight is D&D Encounters #3, so I’m headed over to the game shop after my burgers are done grilling!  That’s all for now!

Tonight’s workout was interesting, it started out with five Heian Shodan kata followed quickly by a combination extracted from Unsu.  The combination was the ridgehand strike, rear leg front kick, twisting behind with the leg still raised and inward block to the face, then stepping back and reverse punch.

We did about 50 of these combinations, and then did some semi-free kumite drills with one side attacking and the other side being a target.  We did only hands, only legs, and then the partner attempted to counterattack while we were attacking.  After that, it was kata time.  We did Jion two times, our individual kata once, and then Sensei Tarrant asked me to do Unsu with him while the rest of the dojo traded katas.  I got through it pretty well.  Then PB and I did Bassai Dai and then the entire class did Tekki Shodan a few times before class was over.

It seems there’s a big Summer Camp near here, with a tournament included and PB and I are thinking of getting ready for it.  We’ll see based on cost and timing!

I’m downloading iOS 4 for my iPod touch!  It’s restoring my library at the moment, I can’t wait for the multitasking.  My high school buddy Joe has reported that its slow on his iPhone 3G, so my expectations are low but I’m still very excited.

More fun soon!

Tasha and I went out to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch today, deciding it was far too much effort to cook lunch for ourselves.  We both suffered from extreme laziness this morning.  However, the three cheeseburger slammers that I had for lunch energized me so I came home and mowed the back yard, scooped dog business, trimmed and edged the landscaping, and watered the lawn.

Speaking of the lawn, I am very happy that I was able to get my sprinkler system operational again but I have noticed that several of the sprinkler heads are either not popping up all the way and a couple of them don’t seem to be spraying.  I think I might call out the sprinkler repairman and see about having him repair those broken heads, and then get on their maintenance program so I don’t have to worry about this stuff any more.

After my productive yardwork, I proceeded to dent the couch for the rest of the evening.  About an hour ago I picked up my ukulele and was playing with it, and I’m thinking about adding these tuners and these strings.  I think I might have to put an order in soon.

Today I slept in, got chiropracted, ate at Qdoba, did some research for a prop replica contest I’m going to enter, and then had D&D with my friends!

I had particular success at D&D tonight, really taxing our adventuring party reducing one of our characters below 0 hit points.  This made her very unhappy, as evidenced by this new Facebook group.  I’m looking forward to another relaxing day tomorrow, hopefully without as much running around.

That’s all for now!

Tonight’s karate started out with 5 Heian Nidans.  After that, we did a combination from free sparring stance.  Jab with the front hand, rear leg front kick at the same time, then a reverse punch when landing.  Then we slid the front leg back with another jab, a front kick with the opposite leg and landing with a reverse punch.

After that we did two sweeping combinations, followed by the same drills with partners.  It evolved into the same drill we used to do in Pekin where you’d punch across their body, then drive in hard to attempt to sweep the rear leg and it quickly turns into a throw.  After having some fun with that we wrapped up the official part of class with some kata.  We did Jion, Kanku Dai, and then our individual kata (mine is Sochin).

When class was over, PB and I did some free sparring.  It was a great stress relief and we had a LOT of fun.

Tasha and I began our rededication to fitness this week.  On Monday and Thursday, we visited the gym.  I was sore most of the day Tuesday, but it began to abate yesterday.  I ran a mile on Monday in 9:56.  Today, I ran it in 9:49.  The best part was my first four laps (out of 10) felt pretty good, as if I could do it forever but I hit a sharp downturn around lap 7.

We did weights, which felt pretty good.  The assisted chinup machine is fun, but that’s about all I look forward to during the weight portion of the workout.  We ended up the night with an ab workout on the big rubber exercise balls.  Tomorrow night is karate again, and that’ll make four workouts this week.