On Saturday 2 of us showed up for testing, the third injured her back earlier in the week and was not able to test. I’m still not sure how long we were in the Dojo on saturday, but I know that we held a horse stance for 1 hour. That part is still vividly fresh in my mind (and legs). As always happens when you test, you find areas where you know you can use more work than you thought. Even if you work out in front of mirrors almost every day (so that you can see and fix your movements), during testing those flaws that you didn’t notice during your normal workout jump out at you. “I should have my knee up slightly higher on my side snap kicks,” “My hip is turning over too late on my round house kicks, and not enough on my rising round house kicks,” “i’m turning my hip over too far on my thrust kicks,” just to name a few mistakes that I noticed.

Last night, June 2nd, Sensei used the advanced class to talk about the test. Doug was promoted to the rank of 2 Kyu (2nd Brown) from 3kyu. I was Promoted to the rank of 1 Kyu (1st Brown), and given the title Sihin. This is a title reserved for people that have shown a love and dedication for the school, and is usually given to the highest ranking student that has not yet attainted the rank of Black Belt. 

Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about this title. Sensei tells me that I should be very proud, but I am not. I don’t FEEL like i deserve this title. When I look at my knowledge and skill compared to Senpai Kennedy, I feel that my skills are lacking. He has been a black belt for almost 3 years now, having tested for black at the same time i tested for my yellow. Obviously he SHOULD be much better than I, but I still choose him as a basis for comparison of my own skills. I wish I could see what his blocks and strikes and sparring looked like 3 years ago.

I also don’t know how I feel about having an actual title. I feel that it might give other students, especially the younger kids, the impression that I am better than the other students. I am not! I still have many flaws in my technique that need corrected, just like every other student. 

I thought a lot about this while I was drifting off to sleep. I can’t give him any more than I already am, and won’t sacrifice everything else in my life to do that. I’ve decided that i’m going to keep doing exactly what i’ve been doing while in the dojo and hope that is what sensei expects of me. 

If you are trying to lose weight though, don’t buy into the hype. Fitness drinks, all of them, have calories. 1 Bottle of gatorade is between 100 and 200 calories. Depending on your weight you need to jog an extra 10 to 20 minutes to burn those calories you just put into your body to quench your thirst (http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc). Then, your thirsty again …

Do yourself a favor and just drink water after your 20 to 60 minute workout. It will save you money, it will save you calories (you’ll get all those things back when you eat!). Fitness drinks like gatorade have their place: running a marathon, playing in a sporting event, testing in martial arts, or other activities where you are trying to maintain peak physical performance throughout the activity for hours on end. In those situations you need the calories to continue functioning properly, as well as all those things. But if you are just working out, you’ll find that you get much more out of your workout if you don’t drink fitness drinks.

Truth is, I just learned about portion sizes. I did it the old fashion way, i ate less food and I exercised more. Thats it. Eat less, Move more.

“But i’ve tried that and it doesn’t work” the people say. Well, that’s because people believe all those diets and nutritionists that say you shouldn’t be hungry while you are trying to lose weight, because you’ ll starve yourself and actually gain weight. That’s a load of crap. Yes, if you don’t eat enough you will end up starving yourself, which will in turn make your body store fat. But that is easy to avoid. Here is what i eat monday through friday for those months, approximately 1000 calories a day:

Breakfast: Danon light and fit yogurt. 1 serving @ 60 calories

Lunch: Snickers Marathon Mutrition Bar. 1 serving @ 150 calories

Dinner: Whatever I wanted. Steak, potatoes, BBQ Chicken, Fried Chicken, Nachos, Burger, whatever. The trick is that I read the side of the box, looked at what a portion was and STUCK to that. Did you know that 1 serving of beef is 4oz. That’s right, 4oz of uncooked meat. After the fat is drained you’ll get about 3oz. Did you know that a serving of nacho chips is 12 chips? Yup. those 12 chips is all you get.

Did you know that in the 1980’s a begal was 1/3 to 1/4 the size it is today? People expect bigger portions of food today, which is a huge part of our problem.

Want to lose weight? Learn to eat portion sizes closer to what you should be eating for your level of activity. After you hit your target weight, increase your calorie intake to what it should be (don’t listen to anyone but your own body. add food back in slowly and find the correct amount of food that will maintain your weight. that is what you should be eating!).If you become less active, you have to eat less food. Simple and easy to understand.

Don’t fall into the trap of over eating ‘good for you foods.’ Eating 1 pound of apples may be healthier than eating 1 pound of beef and make you feel full, but that isn’t going to help. You have to learn to eat less food, which is going to make you hungry and uncomfortable for a week or so.Your stomach will make noises and you will be very uncomfortable and hungry. Just fight through the urge to get a snack. After a week or so, you’ll find that you are no longer uncomfortable and eating less will fill you up.

“What about holiday’s and vacations? Can’t i pig out once in a while?” … Absolutely, just once in a while though. I’ve found that even overeating mildly for just one meal makes it more difficult to say no to the second helping of food at the next meal. You need to learn to say NO to more food when you’ve had enough.

And don’t forget the exercise. Diet alone is useless. Yeah, you’ll lose some weight, but if you don’t tone and build some muscle it will just come back. Muscle burns more calories at rest than fat does, so if you tone some muscle it will help.

I work out at least twice a week at the local dojo (email me for info, its a GREAT workout), usually 3 times a week. Then at home I bike (at least 20 to 30 miles), jog a couple miles, use the Ski Machine, use weights, etc … I try to get in approximately 10 to 20 hours a week of quality workout. Yeah, thats a part time job … but its hard work to lose weight and keep weight off. Once you’ve had that weight you have to remain diligant about keeping it off.

To give you an idea: I love red robin cheese burgers. When Katherine and I visit her sister we usually end up at red robin. I usually get the 5 alarm burger, a shake, and fries. That food there puts 5 solid pounds on me (if i get on the scale before and after the meal i learn that i’ve added 7 pounds, 2~ish must be water weight because it comes off by the next morning) … and it takes me about 2 days to work it back off. Thats 2 days of an hour or more of exercise each day, plus my normal daily activities.

I should also note that over the past couple of years i’ve given up ALL Soda, Tea, and Coffee (i drink mostly water now, with the occassional juice(But remember, juice adds calories ). I no longer use Ketchup or Syrup to flavor foods. I’ve also learned to eat whole grain, wheat, and rye breads instead of white. It takes a while to get used to not reaching for the ketchup to put on a burger or fries, but once you do you learn that those foods actually have flavor of their own and its pretty good.

- Flying first class is better than flying coach.

- Flying left seat in a Cessna is better than flying first class

- Where my pocket knife has been for 3 months

- Its really easy to get a pocket knife through security at a major airport

- I care about my girlfriend much more than I realized

- I get cranky when I’m tired

- Working out of state from a hotel network isn’t fun

- Colorado is brown, mostly flat, and boring. Looking at the Rocky Mountains was kinda neat though.

Two year contract with DirecTV for HD programming: $1440

Calling Comcast Cable to tell them that your DirecTV Satellite is working during a storm, but the cable is out: Priceless

10am, I had my oral exam. The examiner told me he would meet me out at the plane. I passed the oral.

11am, we were in the air. My practical test was going well so far.

11:50am, I walked back into the terminal. Fast test. Very fast. I was worried.

by 12:00 noon I had my temporary pilot certificate in my hand, and a huge smile on my face.

Been waiting to hold one of those in my hand for very nearly all my life. Gonna fly around for a couple months, practicing everything i’ve learned and making it perfect. Then I’ll begin my instrument training sometime this winter.

If you are in or around the Morgantown, WV area and have a plane or are looking for a co-owner in a plane contact me. I’m very interested in working with someone to fly their plane or own so that i can stop renting planes from flight schools.

At 9:10am I was about half way through my test (2.5 hours is the allotted time). At 9:30am I was done, and started over. There were only 3 questions I wasn’t sure about, but I wanted to redo the whole test since I had time and I’ve been known to make stupid mistakes during testing. At 9:50am I stood up and proclaimed to the world that I was finished. The test proctor told me that I finished very fast, I told her that I did the test twice. She went to her desk, graded the test and handed me the print out in that “See, you shouldn’t have rushed” kinda of way that teachers hand papers back to students.

My heart dropped as I reached for the results print out and glanced at it knowing that I failed. My eyes got big and I smiled wide. 98%. I only missed 1 question on the test. Hot Damn.

2 months of studying for several hours a day payed off. I was happy, but suddenly upset with myself that my grade wasn’t a perfect 100%. I rushed to get to the Office after the test, logged into the FAAs testing website and looked up the code for the question I got wrong (the information on where to find it was provided on the printout). I put 122.5Mhz as the frequency for Flight Watch instead of 122.0Mhz. Damn-it. I knew that. Stupid mistake.

I’m still upset about missing only 1 question, but, its back to studying. I have 2 more tests to go before I get my license. The Oral Exam and the Check Ride. Both will occur on the same day.

All my requirements are met for me to take the check ride. Now, its just a matter of convincing myself that I’m ready and tightening up some of my maneuvers. There are 5 blank entries on the current page of my log book. I’d like that 5th one to be my check ride.

When I was 14 I began taking flying lessons (the earliest age you are allowed). When I turned 16 I solo’d for the first time. About a year later I took my FAA written test and failed. The last flight in my log book is a cross country solo from Somerset Airport to Atlantic City.

I missed flying and being around an airport. a lot.

May 1st 2007, I walked into flight source at the Morgantown airport and signed up for lessons. Three weeks later I got my solo endorsement, on June 15th I did my first Solo cross country in 10 years. 1.5 hours of night, 1.5 hours of simulated instrument, and 1.2 hours of solo cross country is left to do (and probably a little more practice on my steep turns).

That, and pass my FAA written test. I’ve been reminded why I hate school so much … I REALLY hate studying. I want to be up in the air, not at home in front of the computer taking practice tests or reading about weather and airspaces in my book. I think I’m almost ready to take the written test, I have a list of ground school items I want my CFI to go over with me. After that I just have to do it.

One of the programs to come out of this weeks heist is called 1Passwd. At its roots it is a password manager, but includes things like auto complete on web forms and .Mac sync between multiple computers. Give it a try.

(This message has been brought to you by a possible mini-heist. I don’t endorse or use 1Passwd myself, and i feel really dirty about mentioning something that I don’t use, but it MIGHT get me some free software … everyone has their price, apparently mine is free software –Mike)

UPDATE: Hubert visited and left a link to http://whoishubert.com/ It appears that different people are getting different clues left in their blog comments for the next heist (mini-heist?).

Flickr Set Halloween 2006

Not very many props this year, especially for such a big room, but we don’t need them. Half the people coming through probably don’t even see the props. This year our scene is a complete assault on your senses, then confusing the hell out of them to get the scare.

We’ve gotten more screams and caused more people to cry in terror this year (of ALL ages!) then ever before.

Wanna know more? Come see the show in the Stepping Stones building at Mylan Park every Friday and Saturday during October. Only $6 a person to get in, and it all goes to Stepping Stones.