Category: Life

Not an awful lot has happened since last night, but I’m feeling good so I’ll make a note. First off, my toe. It was throbbing last night, I thought I might have got some crap into it, but it’s been OK today. As you can see, not pretty but not infected. I was practising some punches and kicks earlier and found that although I can still kick to the top of my head height to the front, my round kicks and side kicks were poor through lack of flexibility. I went online to see if there were any good stretching drills. Is stumbled across this on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1421914688&v=waxr-Ex5Zgw&x-yt-cl=84503534 “How to do middle splits in one day!” Yeah, that was happening. “I did it in one day when I was a six year old girl” You were six, love. And a girl. I’m a fat, stiff, 48 year old bloke. Anyway, that part aside, it is a real breakthrough in training. I’ve read that Russian gymnasts increase flexibility by tensing against the stretch then relaxing further into it. This technique is precisely that but in a simplified form. The girl/ young woman teaching it looks like a pleasant enough sort, if severely undernourished (5 stone, piss wet) but it turns out she is actually the spawn of Satan. MY LEGS! But I must have gained at least three inches on my stretch in one session. Even if I could carry on and stretch down to a full splits in one day I think I’d have to tear something in the process. I can’t see your tendons having an extra foot of ‘give’ in them. It think it will be a steady progression but I can really see it working. If I can loosen my hips up and stretch to full-on side splits my kicks will be awesome! After my initial lukewarm appraisal of this Karate class I am now properly excited (after the second class) and itching for my toe to heal so I can get back to it. This could be good. If I can just stick to it. My perennial problem of fading interest. And I’ve started meditating. Or tried. You’d think I’d have a head start when it comes to clearing your mind of thoughts, but no, bloody hard work. I’ve ordered a book on it. And a badge with the Chinese symbols for Serenity. That’s more to do with the film Serenity (and the series Firefly) than the meditation, but what the hey. Couldn’t find one that said “Serenity My Arse”.  Thought of that as martial arts version of the old thug knuckle tattoos: ‘love’ and ‘hate’. Have the Chinese symbols for “Serenity” on one foot, and ‘My Arse’ on the other. Filled with flaws as a plan. Having to take my shoes and socks off to intimidate people, then having to translate, it’s just a nightmare. Right, off again. Just setting a date for starting my stretching really. Arbitrarily going to say ‘this time next month, […]

I’m back! Back to Karate. Of sorts. The first lesson I was hugely disappointed. I chose this club because it’s run on 6 nights out of 7, so I can fit it in around my shifts. Originally I was looking for Lau Gar Kung Fu, it’s one of the original Shaolin temple styles of Kung Fu. Massively impractical but *so* cool! There are no classes in Warrington, nor any in the North West that run often enough for my hit and miss days off. I think Wing Chun Kung Fu is probably the most practical, but that needs constant practice with a skilled partner. So I went back to Karate. Set drills (kata) proper gym (dojo) discipline, rigid learning routines. Perfect for me as that is how I learn, constant repetition of the same moves and being able to practice them at home. I went to the first lesson and one of the instructors (sensei) gave me one-on-one instruction for the whole hour, giving me a taste of what’s involved in this school of Karate. First off, it’s not kata based. That is something you learn but only as a sideline. Secondly, they have taken on the modern trend towards Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). There was a section on stand up wrestling, some drills doing kick-boxing’s ‘flying knee’ and some boxing punches! So not impressed. One thing in particular, the knee drills, we were stood inches apart, hand around each other’s head, straining against the other’s grip. This gave you great purchase so you could pull down and knee up that same time. My concern was if you do that the other person is just going to butt you down. I consoled myself by thinking that it’s the only game in town for me (that fits my shifts at the minute), and by thinking of the adage “There are no bad martial arts, just bad martial artists.” Any black belt martial artist should be able to knock the shit out of a street brawler. I wasn’t best pleased though. I went again today and it was ‘all change’. The club is a family affair. The black belt sons took the first lesson I attended, the 8th Dan black belt dad took today’s. More like it! The lesson was all about putting your hip into different punches, smacking the punch out and instantly returning your hands to nearly touching either side of your head. Then on to kicks to pads and the knee again. This time, in a more natural scenario the drill from yesterday made sense. You are not standing face to face, as you do the move in a proper environment you’re grabbing their head and pulling it down, they have no chance to butt you. That was reassuring, I’ve been put on my arse, fight over, twice by sneaky headbutts, I didn’t want to train in a way that would leave me open to it again. The last time I did Karate I think the sensei had been […]

I’ve just managed to drag myself away from a German website devoted to cafe racer-ing W650’s. Now that tax discs are no longer being issued you can buy vintage ones for decoration if you want. I’ve bought a May ‘66 one, registered in Hinckley (home of Triumph Bonneville, hehehehe), which got me thinking. You can buy very cheap (£12) custom pre 1973 black and silver number plates. Not road legal, of course. Just for *cough* ‘show’. *cough* I’ve bought one! When I replace the seat there will only be the tank badges (which apparently will pull off) left conspicuously saying Kawasaki. I’m going to run it like a 650 Bonneville cafe racer. I don’t care that it’s not, you have to trade authenticity for reliability. It’s going to be very hard to tell it apart from the real thing, so hopefully the coppers will let the ‘plate slide. Should I forget and ride it with old style ‘plate on. M’lud. So after buying the plate and the tax disc I wanted to ditch the long mudguard and replace the seat. With a tail tidy I could transform it in one hit. It just means instead of the seat and back end looking like this: they look like this: The shape and the general tidiness, not necessarily the colour or that exact seat. In fact, that seems to be a BMW engine (curse you, Google images!), so not like that at all. But that’s what a tail tidy and cafe racer seat (with a black and silver number plate by coincidence) can look like. Anyway, I was looking. And window shopping. And tracking down different styles. I found that German site again (all my saved links were lost when I had to reinstall Windows form scratch). It’s all to fit the W650 on that site, so no fannying around trying to make it fit. Short mudguard €130 Seat €290 Nice new (louder) exhaust system €469 Progressive fork springs and oil (which is next on my list even thought it won’t alter the look. It will sharpen up the handling so no bouncing around on rough corners, less chance of crashing.)  € 150 Stiffer rear shocks € 240 Plus postage and package from Germany.. There’s £976 before P&P.   I want it all, and I want it now! In the end I closed the site down and set to blogging instead. We’ve just bought a washing machine, tumble dryer and soundbar for the telly, we still have £2.5K outstanding on the card, the car is having work done for the MOT, and we are fast approaching February, when work is supposed to drop off. So I resisted. Reluctantly and begrudgingly. I hate being a grown up. *sigh*   Work has had an event, as well. The procedure when coupling up to a trailer, by the book, is to reverse to just before the trailer, stop, get out, check the trailer brake is on (it always is) check the unit is level with […]

Well, what fun. I’ve been having tech issues of my own devising. I read a post by Anonymous (the loosely affiliated hacker collective) on how to set up an encrypted, hidden partition in your computer and use an external Operating System (OS) boot on a USB. In other words, if you start the computer normally it will go to Windows as usual. If you plug the USB in you can start it in the sneaky encrypted bit. And unlike,say, a clever password, if you destroy the USB no amount of torture could make the encrypted part work. It’s totally pointless for me, really. I’ve got bugger all in which the security gestapo of the NSA or UK equivalent would be interested, it was just a token gesture to Stick It To The Man. So, the scene is set. Me (muppet) read an article by Anonymous (clever buggers) which was a step by step guide for beginners and eejits, decided to be down with the cool kids and set it up. Can you see where this is going yet? I was halfway through the install, I’d formatted and encrypted the 500 GB of memory, it took 16 hours just to wipe it all (I don’t know, something about being able to infer stuff off the overwritten memory otherwise) then I realised the guide was saying there were 2 options. Install most of the OS on the PC and just the boot on the USB, or put everything on the the USB. The latter being the easy option. I’d been setting it up in the former mode. Balls. I decided to cut my losses, pull the USB, restart the PC and wipe the USB and start again. Now can you see where this is going? I pulled the USB out, restarted the computer, black screen. Errrr, what? Turns out I’d somehow destroyed the Windows boot and possibly OS, but hadn’t completed the OS or boot on the USB. Nothing. Nada. Not an electronic sausage. In the end I had to reinstall Windows from the ground up. I reloaded the recovery discs you get with the PC but couldn’t connect to the internet as the disc didn’t include the drivers. These seem to be the software programmes that make the hardware work. Anyway, whatever they actually are I couldn’t connect to the internet without them. The wifi and such was still working so I tried to download the drivers on my ‘phone and transfer them across. Not knowing which drivers I needed that proved impossible. I wanted to let the PC find it’s own and update (their is a free download called Driver Booster 2 that will scan an auto update all your drivers) but no internet, ‘cos no drivers, no drivers ‘cos no internet. I finally worked out that I could use a wifi dongle to connect to the internet to get the PC to do it’s thing. I put it to Luke and he suggested tethering my ‘phone and using that […]

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