Focus, and the lack there of.

I had a secret goal of becoming a purple belt by this Christmas 2010. At first that goal didn't seem possible. Now it does, due to dedication and hard work. I put 10 hours a week into jiu jitsu physically and the same amount mentally.

I'm basically going to school full time, but I'm getting my undergrad in jiu jitsu. My focus there is sharp and constant.

My real BS degree is Radiologic Science. My old job was being a nuclear medicine technologist. To keep my professional license I need continuing education credit. I figured the easiest and fastest way to get them would be to attend a conference. One weekend and and I'd easily have the 24 credits I need for the next two years.

Just like most people who think they can just get off the couch and run a 8:00 mile I thought I could do the same with my CEUs. I mean, how hard do you think it is to run an eight minute mile?

Well my lack of focus on my old career came back to bite me. Hard. I registered for the wrong part of the conference and on the wrong days for what I need.

Major mistake. So now I can at best earn 3 of my needed credits. But I've wasted hundreds of dollars and worse a weekend of my time due totally to my lack of focus.

Yes, I am that stupid. I actually cried when I realized what I had done............

New Mexico update

Well I made it safe and sound to my destination. I even ran into someone from college at the airport. How odd to see someone from 8 years ago....

Albuquerque is ugly in the way most mid-size towns in the American west are, dull gray concrete sprawl. No beauty, no style. Visually it reminds me of SLC in many ways. But much worse. Their downtown is horrible, frankly. And I can't remember the last time I had to run down an alley at night. Oh wait, that was here last night.

The food here has only been barely passable. My hotel is nice but so large there is no hot tub or free breakfast. But it is close to where my meeting will be held.

I have now been snowboarding in 4 different states, Oregon, California, Utah and New Mexico. I have to agree with the commercials, Utah snow really is something special. Sandia Peak is a nice little area. As long as I don't have a TBI from my fall I will continue to think so. =)

I have also now been to my second museum devoted to nuclear science and thus atomic weapons. This one is nice and lets you get much closer to the exhibits but overall I like the one in Las Vegas better.

I think like Arizona, New Mexico has a lot of beautiful things to see and unique sights, but the main city is nothing special. I will be happy to be back in San Diego, Albuquerque is not making it easy to feel comfortable.

Now the US states I have been to, so far as I can remember, are:
Oregon
Montana
Washington
Idaho
Utah
Arizona
New Mexico
Georgia
Illinois
New York
Nevada
Texas
South Dakota

Trophy Case Update

and Loverboy has always sucked...

if I was an ATHF character I would be:Master Shake!!

OTC dreams

For you non medical people, that means "over the counter" or drugs and medications you can buy without a prescription.

I wish you could buy codeine

and testosterone gel

over the counter. My life would be ppprrreeettyyy good then.

When in Rome, er.... Albuquerque I mean...

I have a free evening Friday and all day Saturday this weekend while I am at the SNM meeting in Albuquerque New Mexico.

While there should I:

-train jiu jitsu Fri night at Saturday

-go snowboarding all day Saturday

-explore the town

-nothing, take a good book and just chill in the hotel

What do you think??? Any ideas, I'm clueless as I have never been there.

Kill or be killed.

I went to open mat tonight to get the obligatory medal photos with my instructors, Fabio Santos and Alex Brandao. I know it's only second place but I put in hard work and I'm only as good as the people I roll and train with. So I want to share my joy with them as well.

Me with my medal, smiling like a goofy fool.

Me and Alex.

Me and Fabio.

After my pics with Fabio he asked my age and weight and then reached down and untied my belt. Frankly, I paniced and started to tear up. I didn't want a purple belt. Thankfully as I followed him off the mat I saw that he was getting the tape to add a stripe. No wait, what? Stripes?!?!? Three of them??

Freak! Now I am a 4 stripe blue belt. Careful what you wish for...yah, you know the rest.

For those of you not in the know, ranking in brazilian jiu jitsu (bjj) is a mix of subjective and objective. While in other arts you put in your time and do the forms and break the boards you advance. In most traditional martial arts you can be a black belt in 3 years it seems.

Not so jiu jitsu. Many people are still a blue belt at 3 years. The belt system being in order white, blue, purple, brown and finally black. Within each belt is a system of 4 stripes to show your progress within the rank. It is commonly accepted that getting a black belt in jiu jitsu takes about 6 to 10 years. And even if you trained that long, unless you can do the techniques on someone who is actively resisting you, fighting you, you can't advance.

I was a white belt for 6 months and then became a blue belt. I've been a blue belt close to 17 months (a year and half almost) exactly. Now with 4 stripes I am close to purple. Yikes. This is significant. Training in BJJ is like crabs in a barrel. You only advance by taking out people better than you. I have now been marked as a top level blue belt. Which means that I went from being a surprise when I beat someone to now it being actually expected of me. Someone close to me told me I have a fear of success. I don't know....

Am I worthy of this? I don't know. Well, I expected a stripe after placing at the Pan Am's and I didn't. Then almost 9 months later I got one stripe just for my advancement in skill. Two months after that I had three heaped on me in one night! It is my thinking that I probably earned one for the Pan Am showing, one for skill level and then one for this latest tournament. So really I guess I am "heavy" only one stripe. Like Chuck D of Public Enemy said, "my Uzzi weighs a ton."

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is all about performance, and now I have to perform. Which leads to my new motto, stated in the title.(while still hopefully maintaining my goofy rowdy smile and nature)

Kill or be killed.

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Three frogs are on a log in the swamp.Two decide to jump in the water, how many are left?
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Three. Two just decided to jump in the water. Thinking about something means nothing till you actually start doing something about it.

The Golden Ticket

AKA my weekend in Santa Cruz at the ADCC West Coast Qualifier for the World Pro Jiu Jitsu Cup to be held this spring in Abu Dhabi.

Regular readers will know I had signed up for this tournament, trained for it and then got sick. While preparing I had disappointing results at other tournaments I considered easy warm ups to the big show.

So when the weather turned bad, I couldn't get anyone to go with me, I missed two weeks of training right before the tournament due to a severe cold, depression at recent poor jiu jitsu results and just not really giving the attention to my physical fitness I felt I should I wasn't sure if I even would go this weekend.

I didn't make hotel reservations and it really wasn't until Saturday morning that I knew I was going to go.

I could have taken the Porsche but I was concerned about gas mileage and I was to focused on just getting there, not "having fun" along the way. Though I did take cell phone pics of every Cayman I drove by, just to confuse them as I passed them, jealous inside but knowing I could be driving one if I wanted.

There was snow on the 5 going over the Grapevine.


The clouds in the San Juaquin Valley looked like the clouds in the opening of the Simpsons and the sky went from white at the horizon to dark blue overhead, going through the full gradient of color. It was odd and stunning. I had forgotten how the sky could look after being under the continual one shade of blue in San Diego.


Heading west on the 152 I was shocked by the hills, the verdant almost Middle Earth quality to the area.


The overpowering smell of garlic preceding me into Gilroy always takes me by surprise in-spite of having been there at least half a dozen times.

Having been brainwashed by the evil box, I mean television, I knew that if I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express I would have no excuse for a poor performance. The weather was super similar to home so my lingering cold symptoms gave me no relief.


The venue was only 2 miles from my hotel and was easy to find, I was even early enough to find free parking. A pet peeve of mine from when I moved outta the sticks and into real cities is that I hate to pay for parking. I will do all in my power and walk an extra half mile to avoid paying for parking.

I will be writing a general review for Tournament Review Tuesday at www.TheFightworksPodcast.com so if you want more specifics about that aspect you can check it out there this Tuesday.

The t-shirts were a cool design.

I got a first round bye. Won my first match. There was a DQ of my next opponent and I was suddenly in the finals!

Remember, the top 2 in each division then went on to fight each other for an all expenses paid trip to the WJJPC, so a free trip and then the chance to win $1,500 there were all on the line. People definitely brought their "A" games.

OK, now and admission. Or even confession. My nerves were out of control. I was anxious before I even left and was grasping at excuses not to go. Now I was here and the fight of flight kicked in huge. All I felt was FLIGHT! Not the best thing as I think fight would have been a more helpful urge. My mind and body were at total war and it was a zero sum battle, no one was going to win.

So I decided to erase it all. I stopped caring. I smiled. I joked. I laughed out loud. I made it all go away. And I felt soooo much better. I still think I have some mental issues that need to be worked out as far as my competing goes. I went to a sports psychologist before but I think I could stand to go again.

The battle for 1st place in my division was also the battle for 1st place in 'Boring Fight of the Day" award. A rough scrambling take down in the first few seconds and then him in my guard for the remaining 5 minutes and some. Final score 2-0. Or is it 0-2? He had a black gi, I had a blue gi... so which one of us was the yellow and green score? Neither of us were given the yellow/green belt...I remember looking at it and thinking it was me.

No disrespect to my competitor. As he never came close to passing my guard, but I also never came close to sweeping or submitting him. But I thought I was winning, so I kept him under control. Anyways, not a pretty match but it earned me a 2nd place medal and a chance to fight in the Absolute class and win the 'golden ticket' as it were.

On the podium we talked and compared training and ages. When they realized I was at least 10 years older than them they were blown away! Suddenly their demeanor changed. "Oh man, you are amazing" and "Wow, you are super strong, you totally broke my posture the whole time" and "Dang, you're my hero." It felt good to know I could hang with the young kids and impress them. And in some cases beat them. That is me on the far right, yeah, 2nd place again!



At this stage I was elated. I had my medal. I was advancing to the next round. I felt good. But you know what? I was satisfied. I had a medal. I fought good guys. I was staring at least a 7 hour drive home and the Absolute wasn't going to start until about 2pm. I didn't feel like fighting as the lightest person in the Absolute. I didn't feel like getting home at midnight.

I assessed what was important to me, if I had met a reasonable goal and if my current feelings and motives were legitimate or my earlier fear creeping back. I was happy with my medal and I just wanted to be home.

On the way home I stopped at a Barnes and Noble to get a new audio CD to listen to, as World War Z only lasted me the drive up there. To reward myself I bought a huge coffee table book about Universal Studios monsters. You know the classic black and white monsters like Dracula, Frankenstien, Wolfman and such. Man I love those movies and characters! I also got Steve Martin's "Born Standing Up" to listen to on the drive home.

Seven hours later, I'm home. Healthy, happy and content. I'd like to thank all my training partners, my friends and especially my family for their support down the amateur athletics path I am on.

PS-I'm gonna need a bigger medal case. The second place curse is still in effect evidently so I am gonna keep piling them up. (which I guess is better than no medal...)

heard in passing....

Parent: Did you read that book about how to race cars I gave you yet?

Child: No.

Parent: Well, why don't you read this book about gambling and poker strategy then?

Child: I don't want to right now.

Parent: What kind of kid doesn't want to read books about how to car race and gamble? Sheesh, kids these days!

100% rowdy rowdy

I seem to play guard quite a bit in jiu jitsu. So that means people are always trying to pass my guard. From that I normally am carrying half a dozen bruises up and down my legs.

To help with that and alleviate some soreness before my tournament Sunday I decided to taken an epsom salt bath.

I weighed myself and I was a little under so I thought I would have a snack while in the tubby. Now this is nothing new for me. In the summer I am constantly eating popsicles in the shower. Slurpees. Anything icy cool will make it into the shower with me during the summer.

Being the imaginative snack crazy guy I am, I was overjoyed to find that you can float a Tupperware bowl full of pretzels and M&Ms in the bath with myself!!

stormy

all the lights are off....

i'm under a blanket....

the heater is set at 72F.....

the wind is rattling the windows....

i'm tired from a fitful lack of sleep...

and i'm watching a black and white vincent price movie.

what your xmas gifts hath wrought

If you got me an Amazon or Borders gift card for xmas then this is what you ended up getting me:

Over the Edge of the World by L. Bergreen. I thought I knew about Magellan but I really didn't know a thing. Well written and engaging. I read it as quickly as possible.


Blood Meridian by C. McCarthy. Written in his unique style of prose with themes on violence, redemption and the making of "the West."

The Art of Deception by N. Capaldi. A good introduction into the critical thinking of how people try to prove a point. Just like its subtitle says, how to: win an arugement. defend a case. recognize a fallacy. see through deception. persuade a skeptic. turn defeat into victory. Sounds like some good things to know!

Wired for War. The robotics revolution and conflict in the 21st century. By P. Singer. Having seen some of this in Iraq and knowing people who work "in the business" I find this extremely eye opening.

The Physics of Super Heros 2nd edition by J. Kakalios. After reading this I can't think of a better way to learn physics!

Also various magazines about foreign policy, motorcycles and such.

fine. arts.

Saturday we went to the Museum of Contemporary Arts in La Jolla. Their credit card machine was down so I just flirted with the girl at the desk and we all got in for free.

This is where an entry sticker ended up on me:

I enjoyed all of the exhibits and everything was accessible. I especially liked the films.



Sunday we printed a map of all the outdoor sculptures on the UCSD campus and hiked around to all of them and took pictures. It seemed to be a popular Sunday activity as we saw many other people doing it.










And for not so fine art....

Drink too much cough syrup and this is how I feel

You've heard of a bear holding a shark. You've heard of the shark riding a rampaging elephant. Maybe you've even heard of bear cavalry. But have you ever heard of a monster so just absolutely bad a$$ he eats great white sharks like a grizzly eats salmon?
(photo to follow)
Now you have!!

And more just random silly photos I've taken lately.

curses

As the Fantastic Mr Fox would say, "Cuss my cussing genetics." From my biological father I inherited intestinal problems. He has had a colostomy and has "a bag".

I went to the doctor for my RTI and as a matter of course my PCP then ordered some blood work. Now guess who inherited high cholesterol from their maternal side?
Yep, my triglycerides are 240!!! Freaking A!!

Short, red head, skinny, Crohns disease jacked up gut and now high cholesterol!!! When it comes to the genetic lottery I am not sure I hold a winning ticket sometimes....

my Friday so far....

-breakfast burrito
-driving range
-driving the new car
-short trail run where i got tired very quickly
-finding the star wars/adidas shoes i want are not on sale in san diego
-getting sick from earlier breakfast burrito
-finding this response for all my job searches today "At present, no California Nuclear Medicine Technologist job listings were found."

what to i have ahead for the rest of the day?
-grocery shopping
-maybe bjj class
-going to the airport
-dinner

whatever type of day i'm having, i hope you are having an awesome one! it is friday after all.............

new things

quick pick in the changing room at the hair place. a new look, very textured. in keeping with my goal of not shaving my head this year.

the reason i can now join the PCA (porsche club of america)

and thanks to Crashdreas i now have a punching bag in the garage!! back in the day, i could hit a heavy bag over 200 times in a minute. i think i am gonna try that tomorrow and see what i get....