I’m looking forward to a long weekend, despite the fact it’s supposed to continue raining.  Having some time off is going to be quite a relief after this week, hopefully some relaxation will do me good.

I got to talking with one of the guys I met previously (named Mike) and headed downstairs to change.  Sensei Yaguchi must have just arrived because he was in street clothes.  He spotted me and said “No shoes!”, since I was wrapped up in conversation with Mike I walked right past the shoe rack on the way downstairs to the changing area.  Great first impression.  Excellent.

So I apologized and quickly made my way back upstairs to take off my shoes.  I went back around to Sensei Yaguchi’s office and introduced myself as a member of Sensei Brewer’s dojo, and that we were affiliated with Sensei Hassell’s organization.  He asked how Sensei Hassell has been, and said that I would be welcome to train with him.  He outlined the monthly costs and the registration fees with the ISKF and JKA and then I excused myself to suit up.

Quickly it was time for class to start, they went through a pretty standard warm-up that felt very much like ours.  Then Sensei Yaguchi took the floor to teach “some basic warmup combinations”.  The first combination was stepping backwards with a face level knifehand strike, then using hip action swing that same hand in a circular motion around into a face level ridgehand strike, then reverse punch.  And we did like 30 of those on each side.

After this, we immediately went into another combination: stepping back with downward block, front leg front kick, then two reverse punches with the same hand.  We did these in chains of three steps backwards, which is about all of the room we had to move forward and backward.  By this time, I was pouring sweat and practically panting… the elevation had set in!

Several times Sensei Yaguchi would stop in front of me to watch and would say “You’re a mile high!  Take it easy or you will fall over!” then he’s slap me on the shoulder and chuckle a little.  Graciously, he stopped us for a water break!

After this, we got into a partner drill.  One side attached with a face level punch, the other side stepped back and did two rapid succession rising blocks with the same hand using body vibration.  Sensei Yaguchi indicated that this might not be very effective, but it does disrupt the power of the attack and is a good timing drill.  This rising block combination was followed by a switch back reverse punch.  We did this about 30 times each side, and switched partners once.  My legs and lungs were burning at this point, and I’m afraid my technique was showing the strain… Sensei kept correcting me on my rear hip drifting out and my shoulders leaning forward.

After another short water break, we did three iterations of Tekki Shodan, focusing on the foundation of stance and hip movement.  Sensei Yaguchi had a few differences from the way we tend to do Tekki Shodan, the circular punching combination did not rely on pullback, in fact he corrected us to not let the elbow break the plane of the shoulders.  The power of the technique as he demonstrated it was due to body vibration and the snap of the wrist.

The last portion of the class involved doing your “own personal kata”.  I selected Sochin, since I was used to doing that kata while exhausted.  Sensei Yaguchi corrected me on the brushing block/backfist strike combination toward the end of the kata, taking special care to show me my mistake by putting a lunge punch right in my face.  Apparently I wasn’t moving my hands at the same time to provide protection for my face, an important detail for sure!  He told me that Sochin was a special favorite of his and the kata was very special to him so he looked forward to working with me on it.

That was all for the class, Sensei Yaguchi took the time to tell the class that I had come from Illinois and they should introduce themselves to me before they leave.  After class had bowed out, I thanked him for the opportunity and he thanked me for coming to his school.  I was very impressed by Sensei Yaguchi’s matter-of-fact teaching style and his demeanor during the class… I am sure training under him is going to positively impact my training!

One of Sensei Yaguchi’s head black belts told me that this was an unusually hard workout, altitude or not… so I don’t feel so bad about my performance.  That being said… I am TIRED and already starting to get sore from the workout.  I have a social function to attend Thursday night, but I plan to be back at it on Tuesday… and I’ll probably need at least that long to recover!

I officially started my Christmas shopping on 11/17… I think I might aim to do 90% of my Christmas shopping online this year, since hauling a big pile of presents to IL in December would be a pain.  I’ll probably order them and have them shipped to my parents house.

Finally with a break in the action, Tasha and I are going to listen to some classical music at the opening of a new exhibit at the Butterfly Pavilion near our house.  Not necessarily my cup of tea, but Tasha really wants to go so I’ll go look at some bugs and drink some complimentary wine.

The workday went slowly and was less effective than I would have liked… we still got some good work done but I think we were all hoping for just a little more out of Monday.  It didn’t help that I was busy for part of the day continuing to do battle with my relocation company over stupid little details that I thought we had worked out.  Nothing major there, luckily… just annoyances.

Found out that the car needs three sensors replaced (two of which would’ve been needed for the emissions requirements in CO anyway), the serpentine belt needed replaced, and the spark plugs and wires were all in need of replacing since they were original with the car.  That, and I needed an oil change.  Luckily, Tasha was able to not only talk them into a free oil change, but also delivering my car to the emissions facility for testing.  All of this will cost me just over $1100.  That one hurt in the wallet a little, however this car has needed almost no repairs in the 5+ years that I’ve had it, and it sure beats car payments.

As the work day wound to a close, my coworkers were kind enough to give me a lift home, but in all the excitement I forgot to inform Tasha that I didn’t need picked up and was therefore, as the ancients put it, “up Shit’s Creek” for awhile.

I came home and had some mild success hanging our new window treatments in the bedroom, which hopefully purchased me a very small paddle with which to row up said Creek.  So I decided to curb my losses for the day and play some World of Warcraft tonight.  Which, as a result, caused me to screw up my November blog posting goal.  Dammit!

Tasha’s a saint for handling furniture delivery (new tv cabinet!), document management for relocation, car repairs, and my stupid behind today!  I really, *really* hope that tomorrow is boring and mundane.

Things are generally unpacked, we’ve still got the basement and garage to deal with but those can get done in due time.  Tonight I’m going to attempt to hold down this couch, while playing some World of Warcraft!

Also, I’m generally surprised how little I miss TV.  That doesn’t mean I’m not going to enjoy the hell out of our new Samsung when it shows up Tuesday, but it does mean that I don’t appear to be a slave to it.  This is a good thing!

Tasha was very productive today too, unpacking our entire small bedroom and continuing on the operation to get the kitchen back in order.  She even went so far as to change out one of our internal doorknobs that was less than aesthetically appealing.  We’ve earned a break, so we’re going out to a place in Louisville with a few friends tonight.

Tomorrow, at long last painting!!

We get up to the counter, and I order my French Dip and Swiss combo.  The somewhat androgynous person behind the desk asked me whether I wanted curly  fries or potato cakes to go with that.  “Uhh… I think I’ll just go with regular fries,” I replied.  “We don’t have regular fries.”

Uh, WHAT?  I opted to go with potato cakes, which reminded me vaguely of standard fast-food fare hash browns.  It felt almost as if I was having half breakfast and half lunch.

Seriously, what kind of regional difference is that?  I can see the corporate decision-making process now: “Oh yeah… let’s pan that American classic and replace it with breakfast food.  I’m sure that’ll play great in the mountain states.”

For those of you that aren’t Arby’s buffs, allow me to present a slightly different scenario: imagine you go into McDonalds and order a double cheeseburger.  Then imagine, for a moment, that the counterjockey informs you that they don’t have cheese, but instead they put a pancake on top of each burger.  And you, consumer, are the crazy person in this whole scene.

I don’t think I would’ve been so upset about it had it not been one of the few places that I expected some consistency.  There, I feel better now.

Aside from the obvious taping of the trim and window areas, we had this lovely dark blue stripe with red edging around the top of the room.  Yesterday, I had checked the red edge and judged it as paint, so we got a quart of primer to cover it.  Upon getting up on the stepstool to tape the ceiling, I noticed a seam in the blue section… that part was wallpaper.

So Tasha headed back to Walmart to get some Diff wallpaper remover while I finished the spackling and taping procedures.  Taking off wallpaper when it has been painted on or near the edge is a pain in the butt, made even worse by the fact that I will still have to prime the bastard before I can actually paint.  I just got done scraping a three foot section and it took me awhile… I sprayed down another section and am waiting for it to soak in.

If I get one wall done tonight I’m going to consider it a wild success, and with light quickly fading out of that room I might not even get that much done.

And yes, for those of you keeping score… I could have just primed right overtop of the wallpaper, but the edge would’ve still been visible as it was somewhat thick, and I would always be dissatisfied by cutting the corner.

I just keep telling myself our bedroom is going to look cool when we’re done, so it’ll be worth it.

We decided to go for an overhaul of our bedroom for the new house, I’m sure there will be some photos soon enough.  We might just have to restrain Sarah when she sees it, I have a feeling that our collective hivemind was active when Tasha and I were picking stuff out.

We’re through most of the living room boxes and all of the kitchen boxes, we’ll move on to the guest bedrooms and master bedroom tomorrow and start unloading all of our stuff.  We might elect to paint the master bedroom before we unload everything, but I’m not sure if I’m that ambitious this week!

Right now I have Tasha curled up asleep on my chest, and the dog curled up asleep at my feet.  I feel like the King of my own little universe at the moment and that’s a pretty neat thing.  There is still boxes everywhere, items strewn all about my kitchen and living room… the surface hasn’t even been scratched upstairs or in the garage.  But it doesn’t matter… I have my wife and dog here now.

This doesn’t mean I don’t miss my other family and friends greatly… it just means I miss them less at this moment.  More tomorrow when my right arm is free!