I try to not dwell on me being older, but the fact is that injuries these days take a lot longer to get over than they used to.

I've got two that I've been dealing with. About three years ago I started noticing sharp pains around my left big toe, but not all the time, only when I put some pressure on it-- like I had a piece of glass jammed in there. When you kick you put pressure your toes!

The nail seemed to be growing a bit too much on the right side, cutting into the soft tissue. So I clipped that mutha back and got some relief for a few weeks. It came back, I cut it back, repeat. After a while I was cutting it almost all the way back to end (or start) of the toenail.

Finally I brought it up to the doctor, who said it was basically an ingrown toenail, standard operating procedure is to remove half or all the nail and let it grow back... well hell, I'd already pretty much done that. So in February I decided to just let it grow back out and see what happens.

Owch, owch, owch. But finally, about the time I was in Santa Fe, it grew all the way out, and although it still hurts if I put pressure on it, but it has to be a LOT of pressure.

Item two, I started going back to taekwondo classes in January, being sure to stretch so I didn't hurt myself. Naturally, I hurt myself stretching! I did... something to my left thigh. Not sure if it was pull or a strain or what, but there it was. It also finally went away recently (two weeks of no taekwondo then only one class, then a week off for Santa Fe).

So right now I am, physically, as close to 100% as I can get for 42 years old.

Now I just wish that these taekwondo classes were better! Although I like all the people who teach there, and I think their hearts are in the right place, it's like keystone fucking cops in there. There is no real real "program" no consistancy, no plan. Worse, a bunch of my co-instructors like to do hapkido. Thing is, the students are NOT going to be tested on isn't hapkido, it's taekwondo. They half-ass both hapkido AND teakwondo and it's really wearing me thin.  When I teach classes I try to emphasize the same thing over the month. 

Right now I don't know what to do about this.  I don't want to be the new guy who comes in and tells everyone that they are doing it wrong, but they are doing it wrong! 

And, although I said I was done running my own school, I can't help thinking of how I did it better myself and how, should I ever fire up my own school again, I could do it better + 3.

No less than three "Teach the Contraversy" bills were defeated/died in OK congress so far in 2012. Hah! The tide of ignorance is held back for a bit longer.

http://ncse.com/news/2012/05/oklahoma-okay-at-last-007423

First, you people who recommended The Exotic Marigold Hotel film, two thumbs up! I went last night with some of my Jane Austen discussion group. We all loved it.

Tonight: Avengers with the family.

A juicy discussion of fanfiction and literature by alecaustin here.

Wow, was yesterday the day from Hell.

It could've been much, much worse. I know that. The whole thing was made less awful because a number of people stepped up to help. They deserve a lot of credit. It started the day before when my car was in the shop due to the slave cylinder on the clutch. Friday morning I woke with an awful headache, and before I had a chance to make coffee my husband called to tell me his car was having problems. He'd barely made it to work. Great. Okay. We'll work it out. I called the mechanic, made arrangements. I found out that my contacts didn't come in yet. I can't go to the eye doctor and get some temporaries. That's okay, I tell myself, I've a couple pairs of blue-tinted lenses left over from my old prescription. I can see to drive. Then Dane calls and tells me he's fixed his car and that he can come pick me up so we could get my car before the mechanic closed for the holiday weekend and long before my reading. No problem. We're on our way up to Round Rock when his car starts acting up again. We cross our fingers and hope to get to the mechanic before the car breaks down again. However, it's 5pm and traffic is stop and go the whole way. His car stretches its resources as far as just north of Pflugerville and dies. We barely made it to the break down lane. This is okay, I think. We've still got time. Automotive Specialists has a courtesy vehicle and a towing service they prefer. I've a phone. I can call the bookstore and warn them that I might be late. I can make this work. Dane and I laugh because sometimes there's nothing left to do but laugh. It'll work out one way or the other.

Except it's the holiday weekend. Everyone is slammed. There are wrecks up and down I-35 due to the sheer numbers of people heading up to DFW for the weekend. We end up waiting for over an hour. I finally pull the "I've got somewhere to be, y'all" card. And that's when things get pretty cool. The towing service sends one of their trucks which already has a wrecked vehicle on it. Tow truck driver says, "It's cool. I've got this." He pulls out some gear from the bumper and attaches Dane's car so that now the truck is pulling the Hyundai along behind. The driver then lets us crowd into the truck cab with him, and he takes us to my mechanic first. (Bless him. He certainly didn't have to.) The Automotive Specialist guys wait for us even though the shop has been closed since 6pm, and it's a holiday. We leave Dane's car, pay for mine and then haul ass to get back to the house, grab my stuff, brush my hair, get a jacket, and go to Bookwoman. I'm thirty minutes late, sweaty, windblown, I still feel like shit, and I can't see to read worth a damn because my old prescription is, in fact, bloody useless even with reading glasses. [sigh] I got through it as best I could. (People waited for me. I didn't want to let them down.) Dane said it wasn't bad. (I hope not.) I feel I've earned a new Professional Writer merit badge. LOL.

Thank goodness for the marvelous folks at Bookwoman and the wonderful, fabulous people who waited around for me. Seriously. Y'all freaking rock my world. (Kit and Sheilagh, we gotta have coffee soon.) Oh, and do drop by Bookwoman soon, if you're in Austin and have the chance. It's a marvelous little independent bookstore. I like it a lot. They deserve lots of business.

Yesterday was even more entertaining that Thursday. I cracked my happy ass out of bed extremely late by my own standards, hit the health club for some time on the stationary bike, then caught breakfast in the Green Room. After some bloggery and email time and whatnot, I had my massage — And how cool is it that World Steam Expo has a masseur on retainer for the pros!? — and then went exploring. This eventually involved use of the hot tub, among other things.

I spent a decent chunk of the day hanging out with the inestimable Howard Tayler, who created a truly impressive steampunk caricature of me. (When I get home, I shall scan and post this, but at the moment it is my badge art.) Howard is his own self hanging out in the Aegis room, which is basically a camp for combat geeks. Inside the Con hotel, these cats have a rappelling tower, weapons training with actual pointy objects, a bunch of Nerf weapons, and a Victorian encampment. They are pretty much a real life incarnation of the Black Briar group in J.A. Pitt's Black Blade Blues [ Powells | BN ]. The Aegis group helped me make a notable entrance to opening ceremonies.

Also spent a lot more time partying with The League of S.T.E.A.M. and a whole bunch of other folks, including briefly running across the few people besides Howard that I actually knew before I turned up here. Specifically, Gail Carriger, G.D. Falksen (who has an important planet named after him in the Sunspin universe) and Evelyn Kriete (who is responsible for me being invited to this convention). I caught the last part of the The Men That Will Not be Blamed for Nothing concert.

I even got a bit more work done on Going to Extremes.

Today I have lunch with Howard, a High Tea to host, and a plan to hear some more excellent performances. A bit more programming tomorrow.

Interestingly, I am way off my normal schedule here, even my normal convention schedule. I'm not sure what clock I'm living on, but it's neither Jay time nor Con time. I'm just going with the flow. Which it turns out is remarkably difficult for me to do. I feel twitchy about not being up at 5 am exercising (hard to do when you're going to bed at 2 am) and why I'm not writing more.

But I'm here to have fun, which I am decidedly doing; and to see and be seen, which I am decidedly doing.

Is this what time off feels like?

Your Saturday moment of zen.



Playground equipment, 2006. © 2006, 2012, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.

The current photo series is from my 'favorites' file, hence the dates jumping about



This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Book Review: Grants Pass, edited by Jennifer Brozek and Amanda Pillar — A review that includes an interesting comment on my story "Black Heart, White Mourning".

The Nebula Awards 2012: A Look Back And A Look Forward — James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel in HuffPo.

Calvin and Hobbes on unfettered creativity as a writer — Hahaha.

War of the Worlds: The True Story — A new indie flick coming out that looks pretty cool.

Star Wars Turns 35: How Time Covered the Film Phenomenon

Red Planet Becomes Blue In New Mars Image

Astronauts enter world’s first private supply ship

Impacts Spreading Life through the Cosmos?

Colonel Sanders resembles Confucius — Chicken, anyone?

?otd: Charles Darwin: Man or monkey?

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5/26/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.5 hours (Going to Extremes proposal)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.0 (solid)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: Shattering the Ley by Benjamin Tate; Of Blood and Honey by Stina Leicht

I've had knee surgery recently, if you're not in the loop, and I really can't do anything for a few months -- I miss my martial arts BADLY, especially Xingyiquan (Form of the Mind Fist), probably my favorite martial art.

Here is my kung fu big-brother David doing one of my favorite Xingyiquan forms, Ba Zi Gong Lian Huan (8 Word Skills Linking Form -- a combination of all of the "Word Skills", each skill being based on one word/theory/character in Chinese)

He's a little too relaxed here in my opinion, just cruising. He is missing the INTENTION that must be present in Xingyiquan -- literally "the eye of the tiger": when you look at your target, you think you must kill this person, that your fist must go through him.

My only reaction to this is, um, wow.

In pictures: