Adam’s Cerebral Spillage

It’s about time I updated I think. I had the week off last week and spend 5 days of it up with the in-laws on holiday in Somerset. It was a nice relaxing time and I got to spend lots of time with my extended family, especially my niece who insisted I went on as many rides as possible at the nearby theme park! I visited Longleat for the first time too which was awesome, there’s so much to see and do and feeding the deer through the car window while we went through the safari area was hysterical.

But now it’s back to normality and back to work. Luckily the unseasonably hot, sunny weather is still with us and I’m loving it. I’ve already managed to get a couple of barbecues under my belt (literally, with the amount of meat I ate), and it’s when I’ve been sat in the back garden in shorts and a t-shirt, relaxing with a beer in the sunshine that I have to remind myself it’s still only April! Long may it continue I say.

I’ve got loads lined up over the next few weeks, starting with a rock night before too long. It’s been AGES since we had a good club night out. I’m looking forward to hopefully having a few(!) beers this time and getting my mosh on! I’m feeling in the need for some excessively loud metal and a lot of leaping around with like-minded folk . With a bit of luck we’ll entice some rock night virgins up too and get them well and truly initiated (and inebriated). After that I’m off up to the bright lights of London for a weekend with my mates. It’s smack-bang in the middle of birthday season, so we’re going up to watch a night of boxing at West Ham’s Upton Park ground, featuring some of our latest Olympic stars such as James DeGale and Frankie Gavin. It’s on the same Saturday as the FA Cup Final, so it’s going to be a great day. Football, boxing, then back to the hotel to watch Amir Khan’s fight in the States on the same night – good times! Finally, the end of May sees our long-awaited holiday. Twelve of us are packing our bags and heading to sunny Spain (volcanoes permitting…) for a week of lounging in the pool and relaxing. Despite the fact that it’s Seni that weekend (noooooo) and the Eurovision Song Contest final on the same day (double-noooooooooo), it’s going to be great. I’ll just have to buy more pointless weapons and awesome Muay Thai shorts another time .

Training’s great at the moment, the change of each class to be focused on a specific grade has meant I’ve revisited a lot of the very basic stuff I take for granted now, and taken them apart only to rebuild them incorporating concepts I wasn’t introduced to the first time I learned. I can already see just how powerful those simple techniques are with proper use of shin chook applied, not to mention just how much better they look when done that way. I’ve always thought you can tell how accomplished a martial artist is by how natural and easy they make things look, and I’m hoping this is just the start of working towards that. I’m still struggling with the recurring hip injury I’ve been carrying for literally years now, and it’s really painful (not to mention annoying) at the moment. I ought to go back to the doctor again but they just seem to shrug it off, the most I’ve ever had done is some simple exercises from the self-referral physio. Ho-hum, maybe I should just take a leaf out of Bill Wallace’s book and only kick left-sided .

Technorati Tags barbecue, boxing, holiday, tang soo do, training

After a fairly busy few days of training, including getting back to BJJ on Saturday and some pretty heavy sparring on Sunday night, I went to BJJ last night after an hour of Dog Agility first. Murphy was overjoyed, you should’ve heard him squeaking with excitement when he realised which way we’re driving (his sense of direction is awesome, I think I should have called him TomTom), and surprisingly he hadn’t forgotten any of his training.

I motored over to training afterwards and we did some technical work, quickly switching from open guard to a kind of spider/half-guard hybrid for a sweep, and some other sweeps working from a spider pass attempt. I love the technical stuff, it’s enormously satisfying when you get it right and barely use any power. We went on from there to putting the higher grades through their paces in a series of ten minute pressure tests. As soon as a point was scored either way, the junior grades jumped off and someone took their place, continuously, for ten minutes. I jumped in to roll with my instructor and he was really gunning for it. I was determined not to let him sweep me, but an attempted sweep quickly turned into a strange locking of arms as we both rolled sideways. The next thing I knew I was on the other side of the mat in enormous pain, holding my arm, which had made a pretty sickening ‘pop’ noise.

I’m not sure now what I’ve done to it, but about an inch below my elbow is very tender and I have no strength in it at all. I was told after that what I’d described as feeling like ‘a bizarre kimura’ was in fact a Mir lock. I have no intention of ever being caught in one again, let alone resisting it. Still, I’m not there for a nice cup of tea and a site down, and I’ve learned a good lesson.

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Over the last week the weather has been absolutely gorgeous down here, as if trying to make amends for the rubbish summer we had. Determined to make the most of it, a group of us headed down to the beach on Saturday afternoon in an inpromptu celebration for a friend’s wife’s birthday. We arrived early, and for once I didn’t mind waiting for the (habitual) latecomers. I grabbed a nice spot on the grass at the top of the cliffs and had a lie-down in the sunshine, which was the perfect tonic after being mauled earlier that day at training.

The view from the cliffs looking over Gwithian beach

The afternoon rolled on and everyone turned up eventually, so we all headed down and grabbed a sheltered spot under the cliffs. A few of us decided to brave the Atlantic and get wet, and I’m so glad I did. I haven’t been in the sea since Christmas, and September is when the water’s at its warmest, so we spent a while bobbing about and body-surfing. We sprang back over the beach like something out of Baywatch and got settled for some barbecue action. Barbecues on the beach always taste good, especially after being in the sea and working up a proper appetite. Stuffed, worn out (after a game of what was meant to be Rounders after the food), and sipping some cold beers we sat around and chatted while the sun went down…

The sun sets over the sea while we eat barbecued meat

As the evening wore on we were joined by one more who came bearing gifts from the East (including Soju!), so we drank a bit more, celebrated her return and then a few brave souls (I say brave, better prepared might be more accurate, I didn’t bring enough dry clothing) headed back down for a last dip in the water as it got darker and darker. We made the decision to head a couple of miles down the road to the Sandsifter, a bar which has been done up for the middle-class surfing wannabes – and has the prices to match. A great night, and worth all the clambering about over rocks while tipsy in near darkness, if just for the sunset and twilight.

The last light of the day...

Technorati Tags barbecue, beach, BJJ, injury

Over the weekend I help a friend to put a pond in his garden. ‘Help’ is probably a strong word, as he had already dug the hole before I got there after stopping off to buy some more sand to cushion the bottom of it, and he’d filled a one-tonne bag in the process. We were left with the task of fitting the liner and filling it with about 250 litres of water. Fitting the liner was interesting; the only thing I can compare it to is fitting a duvet into a cover. Except the duvet is 16’ x 16’ and the cover is much, much smaller. Once you get the liner in the pond, it really needs some water in it to weigh it down and get it to fill into the corners. It also helps to hold the pleats in the corners tight. This is where we ran into the first snag.

He had bought a hose, top marks there, but the connector was too small to fit over the kitchen tap. The only option was to take the end of it up through the bathroom window – where it still wouldn’t fit. No problem, we’re smart chaps, I’m sure we can think of a way to overcome this trifling problem! Then there was what can only be described as quite literally a ‘Eureka!’ moment and an idea; fill the bath with water and siphon it down! Then we noticed the end of the hose in the garden, which was now about 20’ away from the pond…

Plan B then; let’s get some buckets and run a kind of relay, emptying one while another fills. With the hose precariously expertly fitted through the bathroom window, my cohort made sure the end of the hose was in the water and the bath wasn’t overflowing while I got on with trying to get the siphoning started. Unsurprisingly, it takes quite a bit of suckage to get water through a 30’ hose over two stories. I mean, this was harder than trying to suck one of those beastly thick-shakes through a straw, and anyone who’s found themselves drunk outside the Wimpy in Camborne (this is going back a few years, but yeah, Wimpy!) on a Friday night knows what I’m talking about. I found myself fighting the laws of physics as various pressures tried to suck my cheeks and lungs up the hose, but I’m nothing if not perseverant. After a little while I felt what should have been my first warning, as the sucking became less difficult and a slight rush of air came back down the hose. Me being me, I just thought it was the end of the hose coming out of the water, but no, a few seconds later and I was on my knees on the lawn trying to empty my lungs of water. What an embarrassing way to go that would have been: “Man Kills Self With Elaborate Drowning Device”. Once the flow started all was well, the bucket-chain system worked well, and some thirty buckets later we’d created a pond!

In celebration we got everyone around for an impromptu barbecue to make the most of the lovely weather. My BBQ sauce arsenal so far this year is consists of:

• Jack Daniels Barbecue Sauce (Smoky)
• Reggae Reggae Jerk/BBQ
• Nando’s Peri-Peri Barbecue

I’ve started with the traditional favourites this year, but the Nando’s one is new to me. It’s absolutely gorgeous, spicy and smoky at the same time and lovely and thick. For now it’s going to have to do, at least until I have a kitchen and can start crafting my own again. Speaking of which, I got home yesterday to find the long-absent builders just leaving. It turns out the floor has set, passed the crush test, and as of today they’re going to start on the blockwork! This is momentous news to me as it means I should get home today to find some semblance of walls. Maybe I’m really going to have a home by summer. Maybe.

Technorati Tags barbecue, pond

British Summer Time. The three greatest words in the English language to me at the moment, I am unbelievably pleased that the clocks have gone. Our American neighbours might call it Daylight Savings, but to me it’s British Summer. Unfortunately that can mean months of damp, grey weather (which reminds me of an appalling joke – What’s Snoop Dogg’s favourite weather? Drizzle! ….. sorry), but I’m holding out hope that this year will be better, even though sometimes it feels like nothing ever changes. If you ask me there’s no greater gift for lifting your spirits and making you feel wholly better than being given an extra hour in the evening. I’ve already made the most of it; Murphy’s agility class moved to a Monday evening yesterday so I spent the whole evening outside running around a field after a very busy ginger dog and his friends.

Those that know me know I live for barbecues and the summer, and so it’ll probably come as no surprise to learn that I’ve already got one eye on charcoal and grills. In a way I feel a bit jealous of most people and am not looking forward to the big stores setting out their displays of barbecues and associated paraphernalia, just because I’m going to be very jealous of everybody with a house capable of hosting one. Work has ground to a halt on our place for the time being while nine inches of concrete goes off to create what will be our kitchen floor. I’ve still got one eye on the goal, but for the time being it still feels like I’m stood at the other end of the pitch. An uphill pitch. Once the walls start going up I think I’m going to start feeling much happier.

Today sees the official end of the company I work for, but not in as drastic a fashion as that might suggest. As the local councils merge, our old parent company changes to a new one, but it’s essentially just a change of name. I’ll still be sat at my desk, doing the same things tomorrow. In celebration of the ten years of its existence, and the leaving of our MD, we’ve booked a bar out in town and are all off there for a few drinks in the afternoon (with some of us staying on for a few hours for a few more drinks ). Not too many drinks mind, it’s a school night after all, but it’s a nice way to welcome in midweek – the official start of my weekends.

This place has gone quiet lately in terms of games talk, and it’s just because I’m in a bit of a lull at the moment. A few big games have been released, most notably Resident Evil 5, but I’m not really interested in it. When I can pick it up for under twenty quid I’ll be more interested, but not before. If anything I’ve been concentrating on making sure I can play the ones I have properly after a slight mishap a couple of weeks ago. I took some beers, games and pads around to a friend’s house for an evening in and had a great time. The next day I woke up and found a puddle of beer in the bottom of the bag which had my pads and games in. Not only did it ruin the inlay and instruction manual of one of the games, one of the pads was soaked in beer! I let it dry out and ignored it until last week when someone tried to use my recently infused gamepad, and found that half the buttons and triggers were either stuck or sticking. I bought myself the screwdriver needed to open the thing – or at least I thought I had, it turns out I’d bought a T10 driver and not the T8 necessary (360 pads use nuisance anti-tamper Torx screws). With enough pressure you can get the screws out with a T10, which I have done twice now. No matter how clean I’m sure everything is, the damn thing still has a sticky trigger and d-pad! It’s payday today so I might invest in a T8 and have a proper go soon. It’s nice to know that like its owner, its capable of absorbing a beer or two, but if you too have suffered similar misfortune there’s only two things you really need to remember: 1) get a T8 screwdriver and don’t try to make do with something else unless you want to wreck the screws, and 2) the seventh screw is under the battery compartment, directly behind the barcode on the sticker.

Technorati Tags barbecue, dog agility, resident evil 5, sticky 360 pad, summer

I just made a very long-winded, opinionated, rambling post in reply to one on my club’s forum. It was nothing exceptional, just a discussion on the importance of forms in continuation of traditional styles, but writing it made me realise just how much I’m missing training already. It’s a week today since I was able to train, and while in some ways that week has flown by, it feels like an absolute age since I pulled my dobok on and tied my belt. I’ve had all sorts of thoughts over the last two days as my knee has been slowly healing – “If I went and was really careful…”, “I could just use narrow stances” – all things which I know are just asking for trouble.

I haven’t slept properly for a week now, at first it was just from the pain of moving in my sleep but lately (thanks to ibuprofen and thai oil) it’s not been hurting as much in bed, so I can only assume my body is crying out to actually do something. I made the mistake of helping to carry a heavy box at work yesterday, which left me very sore and upset, thinking that I’d put the best part of a week’s healing back, but by the evening it was feeling much better again. Not great, just better than it has been. I was able to distract myself for the evening luckily, catching up with some friends from my now-defunct rock/metal night at the cinema. Ok, so I watched the new Indiana Jones film for the second time in two weeks, but I like it! The good company was very welcome, and what do you know – my ex-paramedic friend was spot on with her diagnosis of the cause of my limping.

On Saturday morning I’m going to take my niece and nephew swimming. This has multiple benefits for me, because not only can I get some swimming in (even if it’s just with my arms if it hurts too much), but being there with kids means I can act like an 8 year-old myself, splashing and flapping around at the shallow end. I don’t need an excuse to do that I suppose, but it looks decidedly less ‘dodgy’ to have the excuse of taking the kids there. Then later in the day, in my continued efforts to make the most of being outside in the sunshine this year, I’ll be lighting the barbecue yet again. In previous years it’d only get lit perhaps 3 or 4 times over the summer, this year however is a different story, it’s already been used 4 or 5 times and it’s only just June.

I’ve got a package to pick up this afternoon, I’m not sure what it is yet but I have a sneaking suspicion… Normally if I miss a delivery I get up ten minutes earlier the next day, head to the sorting office/collection point behind the Post Office before 8, pick it up and get to work on time. When I got there this morning though I was told that I can’t pick this one up from there, and that I need to go to the actual Post Office itself, which doesn’t open until 9 – how useful. It means I have to take an extra hour off work this afternoon to head in and pick it up. It’s a good job I’ve been racking the flexi time this week. And to just top my week off perfectly I had a letter the other morning telling me that my pension company had (in their infinite wisdom) decided to stop my pension. I was quite surprised to say the least, and ended up feeling very stressed about it, additional money worries are the last thing I need right now. I’ve since managed to get it sorted out, but honestly, some kind of break would be really good about now.

Deep breath…. it’s nearly the weekend.

Technorati Tags barbecue, frustration, post office annoyance, swimming

The famous words of Killian from The Running Man. That was as clever a title as I could come up with at this time in the morning, because last night you see, I was the running man! Ok, I was a running man. I took to the gym as intended with my running mates in an attempt to step up my training for the run in October. I’m not the greatest runner in the world but I’ve slowly been getting better, and last night I was determined to push myself a bit harder.

I had no specific goal when I pushed ‘Quick Start’ on the treadmill, but the last time I ran on one I remember feeling really bad after only a mile or so, and having done more than that on the road since I was determined to do better. I won’t give you a blow-by-blow account of every last step, but in order to track my own progress I can record that I completed 3.5 miles in 37 minutes, which includes a 2 minute fast walk to get my legs moving and a minute walking at about 2 miles to take a drink. I’m quite pleased with it, it puts me on course for around a 2h 30m half marathon, which isn’t great, but I’m sure as it ramps up over the next few weeks I can take the pace up and go longer. I think the plan is to go for around 2h 15 on the day, but I think I’ll just be pleased to survive it at the moment.

Tonight I’m back in the dojang again (although my legs really wish I wasn’t!). The last time I trained was on my birthday, and it’s traditional in our club to get a birthday punishment to remind you how old you are. We ended the class with a few rounds of sparring and then got told to form a circle around the floor. I was called into the middle and everyone was given the command to bow. It suddenly dawned on me that this was going to be my punishment…. I had to fight the eight others training that night in continuous style, and seemingly everyone wanted a little contact too! I ended up absolutely gasping, my headguard half-way round my head and pouring with sweat, but it was worth it for my card from the guys.

Straight after training tonight I’m heading to Plymouth for a much needed night out! It’s my friend’s girlfriend’s birthday so a few of us are headed up for a bit of an outing to a rock/metal night up there. I used to go there every other week in my younger days (I can say things like that now ) and I went back a few months ago, unsure what to expect and not knowing how much it had changed. I was so glad that it was almost exactly the same as ever! So I shall be throwing myself around the dance floor like some kind of bearded Dervish into the small hours of Saturday morning before a day of utter relaxation with any luck. After this last week my plan is for a lie-in, shopping for some meat, then spending the afternoon and evening in the garden with a lazy barbecue and couple of nice drinks – maybe the little bottle of bubbly I was given for my birthday. I’ll definitely be cracking the BBQ cookbook out and getting creative again. Sunday is going to be an utter sweat session, a two hour seminar in the afternoon followed by normal training and then sparring training. It’s really hot work in a 14oz dobok, but very rewarding.

Whatever you’re doing this weekend, I hope the forecast is as good as it is for here and you manage to get out and enjoy it.

Technorati Tags barbecue, c103, rock night, running man, sore legs, sparring, tang soo do, training

Those are the lyrics just before the amazing Pendulum remix of Voodoo People kicks off into my favourite bit of the song, the bit that’s guaranteed to get me dancing like an idiot if I’m out, or fire me up for training (which is what it’ll be doing tonight). I’ve been knackered all week, but feel a bit more energetic today for some reason, so I’m looking forward to going along and getting thoroughly worn-out . Tomorrow morning I’m going for a swim too, it should help ease my back up a bit and also help me burn off a few more Calories, something I’m especially keen on right now.

Having not checked my weight for a couple of weeks now – I have no idea why, it just didn’t occur to me – I finally jumped back on the scales this morning fearing the worst. Imagine my pleasant surprise when not only had I not put on a little (the Seni weekend saw some huge breakfasts!) but had in fact lost another 6lbs! I’m so close to a major milestone in my campaign to get skinny (well, skinnier), once I hit it there’ll be no stopping me. It’s been a long old race, but I can see the finish line now . I have a deadline in mind, let’s just see if I can come first.

It’s my birthday this month, which has really snuck up on me. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest I’m happy to say, I feel no different than I did a year or two again. In fact quite the opposite, I feel better than I did back then. It’ll be June and good summer times before I know it now! I think it’s going to be a barbecue this weekend if the rain holds off long enough, which it doesn’t look like is going to be the case is the forecast is to be believed. I love barbecues, but when it’s raining I’d much rather be tucked away somewhere warm and dry enjoying a meal, like a good Chinese or a Thai meal or something. Mmmm I think one of those will have to be had soon now that I think about it.

So yeah – stronger, thinner, feeling good and it’s only going to get better. And I’ll even try to update this more often too!

Technorati Tags barbecue, birthday, pendulum, thinner, voodoo people