Kitchen

We painted the kitchen this weekend. We tore down the trim (which was just Styrofoam), and haven't gotten new stuff yet, so it still looks a little off. Steve's black belt test is this Saturday, but the weekend after that we'll get the rest of the kitchen finished off...except for the electric work and getting a new microwave to go over the stove.

Steve has to travel this week, so he won't be making it to class, but I think he's ready for the test. His parents are coming down to see it. It will be the first time they've seen him doing tkd, so that should be fun.

Conferences are tomorrow. I have all slots except two filled, so it'll be a long night. Since Steve is out of town, I have to drive home and let the dog out before I go back. Long, long day...

The tournament in Dayton last Saturday went well. It was the best run tkd tournament outside of our school I've ever been to. We were done by 4:30. I won forms after tying for first with My Tien. We had to do our forms again at the same time and I ended up winning. Good that CTC people went 1 and 2. Sparing for most people didn't go that well. I didn't spar, but I was coaching. Most of us that went either didn't have much experience or hadn't been doing any serious sparing training recently. No one got hurt, and no one embarrassed themselves, though. Simply ran into some good competitors who were obviously training and going to lots of tournaments. I think it was kind of hard for a couple of the kids who hadn't been to a tournament before, but it was a good experience for them. All together it was a pretty good day.

Steve had his fast and meditation this week. He started the fast Wed. morning and meditated for two hours this morning. I know he's glad to have that over with. He did a good job (no cheating).

Only a few weeks until his test.

I'm going to a tournament next Saturday in Dayton. Just doing forms...I don't train enough to spar right now. Steve has his second pretest for his black belt test tonight. The focus is on sparing and breaking. I don't know if I'll be judging or not.

Last night I had my first class as the official Wednesday night teacher. I made it relatively hard since people show up to Wed nights to get a good workout. Everyone was sweating, so I guess I accomplished the goal.

Hopefully Max and I will get a chance to run through our two person staff form. We are going to try to get it on video so the next time we forget a piece we have something to look at. At one point this summer we forgot part, and since we've changed it from the original, no one else could help us out so we just had to keep doing it until one of us remembered.

Power outages

Today is my second day off school as a result of the power outages. On Sunday we had a huge wind storm. No rain, just wind...it was weird. Sustained winds of 40mph with gusts up to 76 mph. We were lucky and didn't have any significant damage. Some branches down in the yard, stuff on the deck was blown all over, but everything is back in order now. The power went out sometime on Sunday (I was at my parent's watching football). It came back on about 2:30 yesterday. My parent's power came back on at 4:30 this morning. Apparently 90% of the city lost electricity. Duke energy had sent some crew down to Huston to help out with things there, so they started out a bit shorthanded. They recalled some of those crews and brought in help from South Carolina. Almost all the schools in the area have been closed yesterday and today because they don't have power, or the power outage affected the food supply or the bus fuel.

I tried the 3 brick break again yesterday. It didn't go well. I just went into the parking lot to do it and I don't think I was really prepared. I thought maybe not thinking about it would help, but it didn't. I ended up hitting way off center. I have it on video though, so I can see the problem. I didn't try it more than once this time. I'll start actually spending some time practicing and then take care of it.

The counters are in and they look really good. Next up is painting, although it'll probably be a few weeks before we get around to that.

School started last week...so far so good. Week number 2 starts tomorrow. Olympics end tonight, so I can start getting to bed earlier.

The CTC school picnic went pretty well this weekend. The setup was good, food was good. I felt like we lost a little control when it came to the games with the kids. There was a lot of running around and yelling and shrieking. I'm not a big fan of people shrieking right next to me because they won a three leg race. Maybe if we had a more organized pregame plan for the games we may have been able to reign it in a bit more. For some reason I had envisioned more adults participating with their kids in the race type things, but game time turned into keeping the kids occupied while adults were eating. In the end it seemed to work. The sidewalk chalk we bought was the best idea. I think we can just give the kids chalk and water balloons and they'd be entertained.

The demos all looked good and everyone seemed to have fun, so I think it qualifies as a success.

We have the new cabinets in and they have measured for the counter tops. Those will be installed on the 15th. Then we just have to paint. We're going to wait on deciding anything about color until the counters are in.

School starts on the 18th, so I'm now in the process of planing everything and getting lessons ready to go. I'm getting all the notes for CP transferred into powerpoints since I now have the smart board to work with. I also have day by day plans for the first semester for AP and CP. Environmental science will have some advanced planning take place before school starts (probably).

The cabinets were delivered yesterday. They are now sitting the garage until they go up this weekend. I'll be taking everything out of the old ones over the next couple days so we can take them down.

The OMAC 3rd dan test was Sunday. It went long (even a little longer than expected) and we didn't get home until after 10. I think my technique was pretty good, but I had a lot of mental errors in some forms. And, I only broke one of the three bricks. I'm going to try the brick break again at the school picnic on August 23. Between now and then I'll figure out the technique flaw that is causing the problem.

The high today is only 79, so I think the dog and I will go for a run.

New plan for the kitchen...we're doing it all at once. We were going to order just the island and then do the rest later in the summer, but we can only get the discounted price on the counter top if we order at least 25 sq. feet. So, we had to finalize all the measurements this week and then we'll order everything on Saturday.

On Saturday Steve and I are doing a 4 mile run in hyde park (Hyde Park Blast). I don't know why it's 4 miles instead of the standard charity 5K, but at least it won't be too hot. It's at 8 in the morning.

I'm subbing for MyTien's TKD classes for the next month while she's out of town. That will keep my late afternoons and evenings busy. It also means a little extra summer money. And I'll get to see some students that I usually don't teach. In July I'll start going through lesson plans and PowerPoint's to make revisions.

Kitchen Work

The process of redoing the kitchen has started. We got the floor done today. We tore it up yesterday and finished putting the vinyl tiles down today. The tiles are pretty easy to work with. You just take the paper off the back and stick them to the floor. We used some called "EuroStone". It's suppose to look like slate. Although they in no way look like actual tiles, I think they look a lot better than what was down before, which wasn't held down by much more than gravity and the appliances and was sort of uneven and coming up in a few places. Of course, because of that it was very easy to remove, which was convenient. The top layer was on top of another layer of laminate and under that was tile (ugly tile). There was also evidence of another layer of laminate (very ugly) that had been torn up previously.

The main part of the floor was really easy and went fast. The problem was when we had to start cutting the tiles. The problem is that none of the walls in our house seem to be straight. We also had some issues with the various parts of the floor not being level. That's what you get with an old house, though. We seem to have it worked out though. Steve did most of the hard measuring stuff because when I tried to help it turned out I wasn't very good and it would have taken even longer if I had been more involved.

Step 2 in the kitchen is now to take care of the island and figure out the timeline on replacing the existing cabinets and counter tops.

OK, so again, it's been a while since an update. The test went well, other than the concrete break. I only broke two of the three. I'll get another chance at the OMAC test in July, though. I did get through my 4 board side kick without any trouble, which I was very happy about.

Today we started out big kitchen project. Part one is the floor. Then, an island and replacing the other counter tops and cabinets. We were going to do this in a couple different stages, but we might be able to get a counter top that we like on sale if we do it all before the end of the summer. We haven't decided what to do yet.

Today I ran a 5K with Steve, my dad, and Max. It ended up on the warning track inside the baseball stadium, so that was cool. The humidity was uncool. I was very sweaty.

It is likely that I will update more than once a month since track is now over and school is out.

Haven't updated for a while because things have been crazy with track and school and training for the test so I forgot. We have one more week of track and two more weeks of school. The test is tomorrow. I feel like I'm ready and well prepared. Steve ran the marathon two weeks ago and did well. He's taken a couple weeks off running to let his joints go back to normal. He has gone to a few TKD classes and came to work out with me last Sunday morning.

I'll update again after the test.

So, I forgot to do any updating after the fast and meditation. The meditation went well for the first 6 hours. The second 6 went by more slowly and by the end it was a struggle to sit still. But, I did it and now it's done.

The second pretest is this Thursday. I guess I'm ready but things have been busy with track, so I haven't made it to class much. I am still doing the Sunday morning workouts, though, so I feel I'm in pretty good shape as far as the forms go.

Steve only has a couple weeks until the marathon. He's already done his 20 mile run and is now backing off on mileage until the actual marathon. After the marathon he will start doing the sunday workouts with me to start getting caught up on TKD training. He'd like to be ready to test for his black belt in November. Considering he's training for a marathon, I don't think preparing for the test will be a problem.

My student teacher is done on Friday, so I actually have to start doing plans for CP again. Of more concern is the fact that the AP test is in less than 3 weeks. We finished the body systems today and we'll start the crash course on the kingdoms before we get into full review mode. We have started doing some review whenever we have some extra time and we're meeting after school at least one day during the week. Hopefully everyone will be ready and confident by the time May 12 rolls around.

I'm definitely feeling the effects of not eating today. Yesterday morning I felt pretty bad but once I had water I felt better. Standing out in the cold and rain at track meets two nights in a row probably didn't help, but I feel like it could have been worse. All in all the fast isn't going that bad. I haven't been moving around at all today. I find that I can deal with the occasional hunger (which hasn't been bad since Wed) but I just really enjoy eating. I miss tasting food. I like brushing my teeth because I get flavor in my mouth. Steve's cooking a simple dinner tomorrow. I don't want to eat anything too involved right away, as my system may not respond well to that. I foresee a long evening of grazing tomorrow.

The fast officially started today. It's one of those things that if you're doing it for "detoxifying" and all that, it's best to go water only. However, since I have to go to work and coach track, including a two day meet, I'm going to plan on starting the day out with a little juice and having some almonds since I'll need the energy. I'll try going water only on Saturday since I don't have to do anything that day. And, obviously Sunday I'll be meditating so that will only involve some water.

Spring break was this week. I cleaned the house, played with the dog, worked out, and worked on my paper for the test. The paper is mostly written. I have to finish the section on OMAC history and then do a lot of proofreading, but it's a good start. I actually managed to go for a jog with Rowlf. Usually he either walks or wants to sprint, so getting him at a jogging pace was a minor achievement.

Next week is the fast and meditation. Max and I are starting the fast at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday and starting the meditation at 4:00 a.m. on Sunday. The fast will then end at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, giving me a few hours to enjoy eating before Monday comes. During the fast I'm eating only almonds, miso soup, and a multi-vitamin and drinking water and some no sugar added fruit juice. The second day will probably be the worst, although we have a track meet Thursday and Friday nights, so those could be two very long days. For anyone wondering "why?", the fast and meditation are demonstrations of self-control and discipline.

And, even though I'm doing a five day fast and 12 hour meditation, I still think I'm more sane than Steve, who will be running 18 miles tomorrow and 20 miles next Sunday as part of marathon training. Steve has about a month left, and after next Sunday he starts the scaling back part of his training program. So he's almost through the worst of the training. His program doesn't have him run further than 20 miles during training. Go Steve!

Taebek video

Steve took a video of my form with the camera so I could see it. Good for analysis.

Good: Front kicks, most stances, in general I'm pretty happy with it.

Room for improvement: I rushed a little in the middle, I need to get my knee up and rechamber more on the side kicks. I also turned my back on the side kicks, which means I need to increase my side flexibility some (which I already knew and is a work in progress). Also need some more power on the blocks at the end.

I think I'll have Steve take video on some more things so that I can actually watch what I'm doing...it makes it easier to fix things.

The pretest went well. Nothing much to report there. Need to work on remembering self defence #'s 20-30.

Went to Battle of Columbus yesterday. I did forms...no sparing this year. I placed 1st in my division doing Taebek. Overall I thought the tournament ran better than it has the past few years. And of course, I had a better time because the day didn't end with a trip to the hospital.

I've been continuing the Sunday workouts. Today I worked on conditioning, the staff form, self defence, and some other assorted forms. I also thing I got my breaking routine worked out on Monday. I should probably look into starting the paper soon, since I haven't given it any thought at all.

The meditation has been set for April 6. Max and I decided to start at 4 a.m. which has up finishing at 4 p.m. This will give us at least part of the day Sunday to enjoy (= eat). The fast will begin at 4p.m. Tuesday night. It's probably going to seem like a long week. Fortunately, my student teaching is still doing just about everything for bio, so I only have to worry about AP and environmental.

The past two Sundays I have gone to the school to do some extra training. The first pretest is Tuesday. Last week I did some jump rope for conditioning, then ran through all the under black belt forms for more conditioning. Then I worked some Taebek for battle of Columbus prep and figured out that my back stance on the right side is not as good as on the left, so I've been fixing that. Today I did some more jump roping and then worked on all the black belt forms. I completely forgot the middle of one of the 1st dan forms, so I'll have to fix that in class tomorrow. Came home and lifted some weights so that I can be extra mighty. Track starts next week, although the conflicts with TKD don't really start until April when the meets start. Practices officially start on the 10th, but we have a meeting next week to get everything set up.

Steve is out running 13 miles today as part of marathon training. I have no idea how he does it (he's crazy), as the furthest I've ever run at once is 6 miles, and I wasn't particularly fond of that. I'm very proud of him for sticking with his running schedule through rain, snow, and aching joints. I think this week marks the half way point.

I'm officially signed up for the battle of columbus for forms. Returning to the site of last year's ACL incident. I anticipate this year being injury free. I don't forsee myself getting hurt doing one form, and Steve's not competing since he's getting ready for the flying pig.

The intraschool tournament was saturday and went well. Everything stayed close to on schedule and we were able to get everything cleaned up before we left. A group went to dinner afterwards, which was a good time. Steve was the "wrangler" which involves organizing the children and getting the divisions to their rings. He may be stuck with that job from now on though, becasue he was too good at it.

I will be starting the sunday workouts this comming sunday. Hopefully those will help me to get enough practice in even though track will start to conflict soon. I've been sick the past week, so I havn't been doing a whole lot of training at home recently, but that should pick up again this week.

Last night was the black belt test meeting. The test will actually be May 17. Best news of the night is that the fast and meditation will happen while my student teacher is still around. So, I can let her teach instead of trying to deal with many classes while hungry. To make up for track season, I will be going into the school sunday mornings to work out. I will also have to be juggling around my class schedule to work around the meets.

Memory

We had a teacher workday today. Over the course of the day, we had a memory tournament (the game you played when you were five). I won two games and made it to the "elite eight", but lost. Then, later in the day, we all gathered around a table in the library to watch the finals. Adults cheering on other adults in a memory game...teachers are weird. The art teacher took pictures to document the event.

In other news, I have been increasing the amount of flexibility work that I'm doing outside of TKD classes. I'm also working on jumping drills and the heavy bag on evenings when I'm not in class. I run a couple times a week.

3rd degree

Master K looked at the black belt cards tonight and the plan is for me to bo test in April and then test for 3rd degree in May. This is going to be a very busy spring. I will probably be going into the school on Sundays to do some extra working out since track will start interfering will class times about once a week starting in March. I also plan to be training for a national forms competition, but that isn't till summer and I'll be working forms that I also have to be practicing for the 3rd dan test, so that shouldn't necessarily be too much extra time on top of what I'm already putting in (which will become significant).

I'm trying to increase my upper body strength and get better with hand techniques. I've been working on the heavy bag I got Steve for Christmas and with weights down in the basement. I'm also trying to run more and increase ab work for general fitness type stuff. I have to try to get any running conditioning I want to do in now because ironically, once track starts it becomes hard for me to find time to run at all during the week.

A few recent dog pics

Rowlf and me with the tree





Snow Day!

less ACL more other randomness

Haven't written in a while. The ACL is pretty much recovered, so there isn't much to say about that. However, I may have some big tests comming up for TKD this spring (possibly 3rd dan and forms competitions). So this blog may become focused on me describing my progress in that area rather than rehab.