Monday, November 30, 2009

install going slow

So, I'm installing Windows XP on my laptop. As a VM. The XP Pro Disk I have is so old, that it doesn't even have service patch 1 on it. So the install has taken a while. 3 reboots later, I'm doing the current security patches. Up to SP3 right now.

Still have to get Anti-virus on it.

It was a useful night. For the most part. I should be able to take what I learned installing VirtualBox on my Sidux (debian based) system, and install it on my CentOS (redhat based) server tomorrow at work.

yet another virtualization system I've used

I've done virtual boxes using the following

Windows Virtual Server (came with 2003).
Xen
Citrix XenServer
VMWare

And now VirtualBox

Sunday, November 29, 2009

quick update

Still not working out much.

Had a 30+ hour day at work last week. (30 hours for one part. Started on Saturday 7:30am. Left Sunday 11:30 am. Called back in 2x during the day).

Trying to study for the Security+ exam. I'm not doing well. I started in October, got about 20 pages in, and other than carry the book around, didn't get any further. Re-read those 20 pages, up to page 23 now, this week. I'm understanding it, but I don't think I'd be able to recall it to pass the test. I'm taking notes while I'm reading and they're not helping.

I think the only day off in the Month of November, where I wasn't doing something work related during my awake time was Thanksgiving day. I've been in the office all Thanksgiving weekend.

I'm even dreaming of work every night. I need to get away, but doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

slip and burn

Woke up early (early for me), and worked out. I remember why I don't work out in the morning. body is slow, and things don't really work right.

I did The Furnace again. I like it. But my numbers were not as good as they were last time. I had my foot slide out from under me a few times. It's fun (sarcasm) having to drop back down in a TGU to reset your leg and hand because they're sliding across the carpet.

It was a nice workout though. I enjoyed it. Feel a little better for doing it.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Holy FRAK!

I haven't been working out much lately. Partly because I've been a slacker, partly because I had tons of other crap to do (12+ hours at work are not rare. Nor is working 6 to 7 days a week).

Earlier today Dave "The Iron Tamer" Whitley posted The Furnace to his blog.

I liked it. It was 12 minutes (plus because I messed up setting my Gym Boss right) of fun.

I said in twitter it sounded like the workout I needed to kick me back in to Kettlebell training... I don't think I was wrong on that one.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

it's been 8 days of disappointment

my laptop (only working computer at home) is still down. multiple installs, and still having problems with it. best I've been able to do so far, is use Gnome on Debian Testing, but having some issues with it dealing with my Laptop and the External Monitor.

KDE or Gnome, the mouse pointer disappears when using 1280x1024 resolution. At least with Gnome, I can get the pointer working after messing around for a few minutes.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

well it's decided

So for the last few weeks I've been thinking about rebuilding my laptop with Debian. I wanted to do a reinstall to make some chages.

While trying to upgrade the system today, I broke it. I'm at least backing up some important data by using this walk through to mount my encrypted hard drive.

After the back up is done I'll probably end up taking the thing to work, or waiting until tomorrow do the install.

Kind of sucks. But at least I'm not going to be losing data (like my Keypass password file so I can log into thing).

Saturday Morning

I went shopping today. I was out of soap, and low on toothpaste. Got a Cd case for my OS cds. In the same strip mall is a Dunham's Discount sports. I was going to get another dumb bell (but I forgot what weight I needed). While in the weights area, they had a couple of different kinds of kettlebells, even one that was 36lbs.

However, I was looking at plates. I picked up a 25 pound plate, and figured what the heck see how low I can go. I ended up doing a right leg pistol. Needless to say I was surprised. I tried the left leg but muscle across the front of the leg said no. Felt like it popped. Like a knuckle cracking, but in the muscle.

I've been having problems with my left side lately. For some reason, weights I can do on my right no problem, are huge problems on my left (that's what led to my left shoulder injury earlier this year while doing Turkish Get Ups). I've noticed problems with that muscle on the leg during my round house kicks. It doesn't hurt, but told me I need to strengthen it up some on the left.

I'm going to pick up the 25lbs plate in a few weeks, but more likely few months, just to do the pistols.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

not dead yet

lots of work stuff going on to move. trying to figure out moving again. lots of stress no time to blog.

Friday, September 11, 2009

More on thing 3

So I didn't actually have to wait long. The site manager called me around 3pm. I was eating alone at a restaurant. I know I was rather loud on the phone. I saved some of my best lines for the next meeting I get her at.

According to her, the city community director (the previous one) banned the management and resident employees (leasing, management, maintenance) from the meetings. They felt that with the Apartment company reps there that people wouldn't talk about freely about things.

I said it would be nice to see the people so we know who they are. She said she has events that we can go to, and has never seen me there. I've been to 2. because only 2 interested me. The jump in the lake, and the fireworks. They did have a single mixer earlier this year, but I was at work when it was going on. The other events they've had, Disc Golf Opening day, yard sale, bike safety, and etc, I've been either at work (bike safety) or didn't care about the event (DGO and YS).

I've already told her several of us want them there. At the LEAST once a quarter. She said I'll have to talk to the community director (city employee). I told her I'll take him on, and it's a fight I'll win.

Then she started going off on how the fire martial doesn't want to hear about peoples problems with the maintenance staff... I said Phil the FM might not, but I'm sure Phil the resident will be more than happy to listen to other resident's problems. How we find out we're not having the problems alone.

I have a feeling I've got a fight on my hands to make this program what I and a few others want it. But Fight I will.

time to be the change. :)

3 things

1) TGU with the 16kg, is suffering the same problems with stablity on the left as the 24kg. I used to be able to do these in my sleep. I might have to take a video and post it for the few RKCs I know to critique.

I did 5 rounds of warm up, 7 sets of left right TGU

2) I've been doing some light running lately. Yesterday was the latest bit. Ran from my parking lot to another one after work to see what was going on. Lots of cop cars (resident passed away). Ran from the golf course to my apartment and back last night. I had my telescope out, and ran back to get the moon filter. My buddy Tom was with the scope. Spent about 2 hours out side looking at the night sky, wish it was a little darker.

3) (this item cross posted)
I think I made some people mad last night. We had our community watch meeting at the Apartment last night. What was supposed to be a 45 to 60 minute meeting turned into an hour and a half complaint-fest. There were people there to sign up their kids for the after school program, and I dragged them into the complaints as well. They started to have them.

Also turns out the security service we're paying for, only has ONE "courtesy" officer at night and not all night, or every night. I basically tore into both management and security with problems and concerns. Both the owner of the security company and the operations manager gave me they're business cards last night. I also raised enough complaints that the site manager is supposed to contact me (not going to hold my breath).

I'm also taking over the coordinator position for the community watch. There are going to be some changes made to how it's ran, and availability of access to information. Right now, the only way we know anything is IF we're told anything. I'm going to pester people. I'm going to provide snacks. I'm going to set up a website with the data. Only thing that's going to really cost me anything is the snacks, and the new domain name.

Between now and the meeting next month I want to try to:
- Read Machiavelli's The Prince (half way done), Saul Alinsky Rules for Radicals and Reveille for Radicals, and Bruce Schneier's Beyond fear, and figure out a revised version of Robert's Rules of Order to run the meetings (Not a big fan of the RRO over all, but think it's a good frame work).

- Set up one of my spare computers (saved to use as cheap home servers anyway) to run word press with a domain name for the community watch.

- Figure out security related guests to have come and talk to people about things (instead of "body magic" sales people they tried to push off on us last night). I might just take the first one and do a small topic on Online Safety.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

I forgot

I forgot how good it felt. I forgot how much of an arse kicker it could be. I forgot how hard it was to do that.

None of the ITs is the same thing.

I restarted ETK this week (yesterday, so one day off) with 16kg.

I forgot how great it felt to work out and not be injured. I also forgot how much of an arse kicker 16kg could be. The last couple of tires through ETK I was using the 24kg bell. For everything but the halos. Which probably lead to my shoulder problems, it was just too much bell for me. Normally the 24kg left me gasping for air after I was done, and covered in sweat.

The 16kg took it further. Not only was I dripping sweat, my cloths were soaked all the way down to the skivvies.

7 rounds of swings, with 6 minutes of active rest. 5 rounds of warm up. I could have hit 6, but I forgot the Kettlebell in the other room, and ran over to get it during the first round of warm up.

Then I did push ups. 56 broken into 5 sets. I forgot how hard it was to do push-ups after ETK, and why I do them in the morning and ETK at night.

Now I remember.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

follow up

Passed the 1st gup test. Next test will be black belt. Not sure if I'm really that good though. I know I meet my school's requirements, but how would I do elsewhere?

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

what I did for my Death-Day.

Deathday - 6 years later. September 1st, around 1 am I drunk driver tried to kill me. I was too stubborn to die, although the paramedics wanted to call me dead at the scene. Ever since, the first of September I have called it my Death-Day.

Wasn't that bad a day really. Only ate a few of my cookies. they don't taste as good as pre-frozen fresh. oh well.

Took the 1st gup test tonight. it was hard. I messed some stuff up.

Kids class was a pain. End of the term, I like to do terminology and class rules. That way if they come back the following term, they can set a better example. (We do class rules the new student's first night, but I like to refresh the whole class together). Just my thing.

However one kid, been a problem all term, getting a little better and says he won't be back, was acting up in the circle everyone else in it (all kids) feed off him. At one point I threw my manual over my shoulder, and pushed them through 20 burpees. One of the problem kids (7th gup) goofed off and bashed his knee on the floor. As cold as it sounds, I hope he learned his lesson. This term the kid's class has most of the instructors at their limit for patients.

My hand hurts from the soo do (karate chop) and yuk soo (reverse karate chop) breaks from the board tonight.

Breaks were 2 inch (double board) shuffle side kick. My foot went through it like butter. Soo Do break with an elbow break (2 part multi-break), and then I requested the yuk soo. I don't think my thumb was tucked right, but I liked the break.

First attempt on the multi-break I wasn't focused (bad hand, the one I don't like to try and break with anymore, since I messed up the knuckle earlier this year), the holders were not ready. 3rd Dan told me to walk it off for a minute. I had the 2 switch holds (so I could break good / breaking hand, and off elbow).

I'll find out my scores and get my cert Thursday. I doubt I didn't pass. But I don't think I did as good as I could have. Had problems with a couple of forms. I was too tense, and forgot one. I lowered my head to think in stance and ended up doing the rest of the form with my head down (problem I've had since 1985).

I requested to the yuk soo break, extra break beyond what I needed. I kid of wish the Master in charge of the board would have allowed my other test request. A Dan with a real knife of my knife defense portion. He said no, because we don't train real knife much. I'll have to do a real knife on my Dan test in a few months though. (If I passed tonight, December or January). December would be fitting. That'll make 24 years to the month since I started this journey.

Monday, August 31, 2009

Ugh... I made a mistake.

I made a mistake.

I've got a lot of work related books to read, and the list is getting longer all the time. Over the weekend I picked up a book on speed reading. 2 actually, at the local library. 1 is a 10 day program, the other I'm not sure about.

Anyway... The NEW 3rd edition of Hacking for Dummies (something recommended at the Ethical Hacker Forums) is coming out soon. The other week, I asked if I should get 2nd ed for 15.00 via Amazon, or wait until December. They said if I could get it now, and read it now, I'd learn more by practicing now, than waiting for the new edition in December. Since I have so much to read, I figured I'd wait. Focus on things that need to get done at work. (Things like setting the networking graphs up (got the ones I needed done), setting up the server monitoring tools (large book), fixing the broken servers (waiting on parts) ).

For some reason between last week, and this week I started looking at the online 2nd edition of HfD on Safari. They won't let me download the whole book, I'm assuming because the new one is coming out. But other than speed reading, that's all I read today (book wise). I finished the preface, the introduction and the first 2 chapters (printed the chapters off for a car pool that did not happen). I've been using some of the tricks I'm picking up in the speed reading book.

Although my reading speed is still between 265 and 300 wpm, with a comp between 70 to 90 % right now.

I'm enjoying Hacking for Dummies, I can't wait to read chapter 3... but I really really should finish Firewalls and Internet Security. I'm about 2/3 of the way done with it so far. The furthest I ever made it. I'm still torn between buying 2nd or 3rd edition of HfD too. I have a feeling I'll end up buying both.

Lastly I should really, really, really be studying for a certification exam (and trying to find a way to pay for it (CCNA, LPI, wouldn't mind Sec+ but I have the books for the other ones)), or writing the essay that's due tomorrow for my 1st gup test in Tang Soo Do.

Lots to do at work too... I'd say I need a time management book, but I've already read Time Management for the System Administrator 2x, and how I'm finding time to do everything I need. I've got a block of time (ie lunch tomorrow) for the essay questions (note they're designed for kids).

Of course, the biggest question at this point is where do I want my career to go?

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Four lies and one martial arts fact

Jesse at The Martial Explorer has tagged me in a silly internet blogger chain-meme-thingie. (copying and pasting with minor edits the first 2 paragraphs and the question at the end). I don't have any regular Martial Arts readers that I can think of, so if you do Martial Arts, and read this, consider yourself tagged. I also don't normally do these (friends comment about me not doing them when they tag me elsewhere), but it could be fun.

The meme works as follows. You post five things about yourself. Four are untrue. One is true. All are so outlandish, implausible or ridiculous that no one would be inclined to believe that any of them are true. And despite the pleas from your readers, you never divulge which is true and which are fabrications. You then tag five other people (four seriously and one person you are pretty sure would never participate).

1) I threw up on my Grand Master at the club Christmas Dinner when I was a kid.

2) I broke my foot doing a kidnapping drill in the Kid's class.

3) I threw my partner through the judging table on my 4th gup test.

4) I once did 200 punishment push-ups.

5) I had my 2nd gup test canceled in the middle of it, so I could be rushed to the ER after having my hand cut open during the knife and club defense part.



Do you know which one is the truth?

Sunday, August 23, 2009

How I spent my Saturday Night...

I'm a geek. I know it. Being broke doesn't help matters much.

For fun tonight I played with the Network Forensics Puzzle that was on ISC.SANS.ORG earlier this week.

I'm no expert, some stuff was beyond my skills tonight before I started. In fact I only started playing, not doing the contest, because someone in a forum posted what tool to use to extract the data. Here is a quick walk through of what I did, without giving to much away I hope.

Downloaded the pcap file and checked the md5sum
They matched so I moved on.

I knew how to load a pcap file into 2 different programs, so I ran it in both, filtering on just the ip address I needed (the user's ip address).

I then looked through the data, using what I knew of layout to get the username of who the spy was talking too.

Then I found the first comment. Using the same method (reading), I found the name of the file being transferred.

Then I extracted the data that was transferred from the stream. If I knew the magic number, the only part I wasn't able to find, it might have been easier. I used tcpxtract for that bit of magic.

At fist I was thinking what was extracted was more like rar files you can find online. Where you unrar the first file, and the rest are used to build the first. While I was eating I realized that might not be the case, and there may have been 37 different files that were actually transferred. It was a case of having just learned to use tcpxtract.

Once I realized that, I found the files that would open with Ark, and which ones didn't. The ones that didn't I ignored. I then tried to extract the others. Only 2 extracted. Again the others I ignored. One was a manifest file, the other the file I wanted. I looked up the document in the file and got the recipe.

Then after bashing my head around some, I figured out, based on comments others had made and how the file is really stored, to change the un-extracted file's name to the right name, and tried opening it with Open Office. it worked. Grabbed the md5sum off that.

Out of the 6.5 requests in the challenge, I did 5 of them. I never found the magic number. :( and I didn't bother to try to script it (computer program) to do the work for me. Because I never found the magic number, and I don't think my programing skills are sharp enough. Although, I didn't think my computer forensics skills were sharp enough at the beginning either.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Another Open Letter to AT&T

Dear AT&T:

On occasion to support my position at work I have to use my home system. One of the things I do is run Nmap (network mapper) on work's Net-Block. I use it to find out what ports are open, and make sure that only the ones that should be are open. I usually do this via an SSH connection from work.

Each time, coming home. I've had problems using my home PC. Trying to access anything on the internet, anything that wasn't an active session when AT&T / 2WIRE did their magic, brings up a page an error page. Other things, like my mail monitoring tool don't have that problem and when I opened my web email, it worked. However going to other sites from there brings back up the error page, and sets off ABE (application boundaries enforcer).

The error page says it's detected "a router behind a router". Which isn't the case. To "FIX / Resolve" the issue, places my home system INTO A NON-PROTECTED DMZ is not an acceptable solution. While I don't have a lot of ports open, I'd still prefer if people didn't have easy access to them. Here is section saying that everything is open.

"Allow all applications (DMZplus mode) – Set the selected computer in DMZplus mode. All inbound traffic, except traffic which has been specifically assigned to another computer using the “Allow individual applications” feature, will automatically be directed to this computer. The DMZplus-enabled computer is less secure because all unassigned firewall ports are opened for that computer."

STOP PUTTING MY EQUIPMENT AT RISK TO BLACK HATS AT&T. FIX YOUR SYSTEM.

Monday, August 17, 2009

centos install

So I'm rebuilding my RedHat 4es based DNS boxes at work with CentOS 5.3. Partly because I don't have RH support anymore, partly to get the latest security fixes, and lastly because I've been wanting to rebuild them for a while.

CentOS had been giving me problems with installing since Saturday Night (note these are production systems and I had to create 2 new ones to cover the load, which went with no problem last week). Now I'm sure I could have stayed and got it working in an hour or so Saturday night, but 1) I was sick. 2) I didn't have any blank discs and the DVD I was using was scratched up pretty bad.

The load on this one server, kept getting to the point where it would try to install the drivers for the usb-storage. I'm assuming that means the CD-rom drive. And I'll explain why.

Looking around wasn't much use, I was looking for something along the lines of the knoppix cheat sheet. Something that told me all my boot options. But even googling the problem I was having wasn't much use. Until I used linux.google.com.

Someone else had a similar problem with their box, and turning off USB worked for them. However when I did that, my blade no longer saw my cd-rom drive. (The cd-rom drive is connected via ILO, and I've never had this problem before). Re-enable, and tell it to start without the storage driver worked. (linux nousbstorage). However, I was then left with having to do a net based install.

I had to do those for my virtual boxes last week, so no great problem there.

Once again I wonder why I'm doing CentOS installs, but meh. Personally I'd rather do Debian or Gentoo, but this is what the business told me to run.

My soap box on a public option

Word in the blogosphere tonight is saying the public option is dead.

Where to even start on this one. We need a public option.

Fear has been spread of Death Panels. The truth is, we already have them. On a regular basis people with "Insurance" are denied coverage for trumpet up reasons. You could say I'm being a Left wing nut job on this one, but when you have people testify to Congress that they're job was to find reasons to deny coverage (Public Record, go look it up) what else can you call it but a Death Panel? Maybe a Greed Panel is a better term for them. After all, they're not so much about killing the patient, as saving the company money. The patient dying is just a side-effect of protecting the bottom line. In other words they're saying a person's life is just part of doing business.

Between when I was hit by a car (2003) and my brother's recently broken knee (2009), I've seen it myself how the insurance companies stand between the Doctors and the patients.

I was hit by car while working, so workman's comp picked up "the bills" (just not all of them). The problems started before I even left the accident scene. Do I get life flighted or raced in the back of the ambulance? Life Flight was more expensive than the ambulance. The choice was the ambulance because they thought it would be better for me to die in that than in the air, and it'd free up the chopper for someone that might actually make it to the hospital. (I've always been stubborn, so I made it via ambulance).

While I was still in Surgical ICU the insurance company complained about the time I was spending in the hospital. After I was released, it continued to go down hill. Every time I saw a doctor, an insurance company nurse (an LPN if I remember right) was in the room. Her whole reason to be there was agree or disagree with the doctor on what treatments I needed. I HAD TO FIGHT FOR A PSYCH EVALUATION, because the personality shift I had wasn't worth them worrying about. Only reason I even got one was because I went and set it up myself. Then it became a race to see the doctor I selected vs their corporate whore / shrill of "Doctor". Then they refused to pay for it, even though they sent me to 2 of their whores (the first one agreed with the doctor I chose). I never got any of the counseling 2 of the 3 Doctors said I needed. Not once did I receive any physical therapy, and the cane I walked with for months, was paid for out of my own pocket. The PNMR guy was more interested in sucking up to the insurance company than treating the patient. Physical damage included my brain, my neck and my hip. (I had to learn to walk again, on my own).

My brother is Mental Handicapped, because of that he's on SSI (with medicare). I got him to take Tang Soo Do with me. The school I study at has a history with teaching the mentally handicapped. My brother is 5'9" and about 95lbs. When he was in jr high (in the 90s), he joined the wrestling team, and some how managed to break his knee. He had a healthier weight back then. In April or so this year (2009), he was working a kick drill, but not shifting his weight right. As a result, the knee that had the scar tissue and the like broke again. At first we thought it was a sprain, so I took him home, and our mom iced it. The next day, it was 2x the size. So I took him to the ER (he's afraid of hospitals). We had problems with one Doctor, but were able to get a second opinion. He got free crutches and a free brace for his knee (things my mom could not afford), physical therapy, x-rays at each follow up visit, and lots of great advice. Not once did someone from Medicare or the Government show up to tell the doctors what they could and could not do.

A health care co-op won't work. They won't have the power that the big companies have. They'll look good, but won't last. Not when Big Insurance can reward and punish the peasants.

During Open Enrollment last year at work, the Blue Cross rep they sent out, said we'll be punished for using our Insurance (not the exact wording but the gist of it). How? Our premiums will go up. We'll have to pay even more than we are now. But if we grit our teeth and bare it, our premium will go down, and we'll be rewarded for being good little peasants who don't upset their golden apple cart.

The "Tea-baggers" have been saying that they'd lose their current health care if there was a public option. Sadly they're probably right. Not because the United States Government would mandate it, but because Companies would see it would be cheaper to force their employees into it. The company saves money, and has a better bottom line. You think they'd pass the money on the employees? Please the employees are slaves. Most of the people with jobs are doing more work with less pay.

Most employees don't realize that though. They think that the company screwing them is in the employee's best interest. From a conversation with a guy from FedEx last week. Nutshell version "Yeah, FedEx cut my pay, I have more work to do, but I still have a job". Talking about Unions and UPS. He said UPS had better benefits and pay. But because of UPS being a union shop, UPS let people go instead of doing pay cuts. (Or so the FedEx guy claimed).

Glen Beck lately has been talking about how great the American Health Care system is. Go look up his news stories from January 2008. He said on the air (at cnn I believe) that the American Health system was crap. He didn't say it just once either. He said it in a video from home when he was recovering. He said it on the air multiple times.

Now he's saying that the US has the best Health Care in the world. If that's the case, why did Remote Area Medical start opening up around the country? Remote Area Medical is supposed to be for 3rd world countries to help the people there to have a fighting chance. Has the United States become a 3rd world country?

We, The People of the United States, need change. We need to stop having a 3rd world level health care system and actually start pretending to be an industrial country again. Why is it other countries, countries we're told we're better than, have free health care? If we're so much better why don't we have a health care system they want instead of one they criticize (go look up the news papers coming out of England this week, we're being laughed at. The Daily Mirror called the U.S. The "Land of the Fee").

Thursday, August 13, 2009

ugh this week

I've felt like crap this week. I've been popping Tums. If you know me, 1 roll will last me 3 years easy... They usually go bad before I can get through about 1/4 a roll. However I have 2 open rolls right now. one at work and one at home.

Only think I can think is different, is I'm eating more mixed nuts.

My weight went from 232 Sunday, to 238 Wednesday, and 235 today.

In the good news though. My diet and exercise goal worked. Even if I didn't make all 6 weeks like I had wanted to. The goal was to fit into a size 5 toe balk. The reason is because I have 2 or 3, with the club patches on it. Maybe someday I'll get a decent flag and put on it (have to find the right one first). Either a world citizen logo flag, a UN flag, or a black flag. That's a political discussion for another day.

Anyway, I wore a size five tonight. It was a little tight. Couldn't get my knees as high as usual in chamber, the top was a little tight around the stomach and sides.

I'm actually pretty geeked about it really.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Fun with grep

I got a copy of the Grep Pocket Reference back in early July via PDF format (from O'Reilly's Safari Bookshelf). I read through it but didn't really learn that much.

Last week the hard copy version arrived (2 weeks after I ordered it from Amazon). I've been reading it the last week. The parts I'm going through right now talks about Regular Expressions (regex). I've read about regex more times than I can count, in classes, in shell scripting books, on the web. This time it made sense.

My firewall log parsing for ip addresses has really improved. For example. I'd usually do "grep '< my ip address >' /external/logs/firewall1". The problem my address at work is .18, but it would pull .181 - .189 also. The first thing I did was back slash the . (dots) in the ip address. It cleaned up some stuff from the logs but not much. It's nicer to know that's not looking for any character and only matching what I want it too.

Which was a problem I was having when I wrote failed a few years ago.

Yesterday I read about word boundaries. I tested it this morning with my work IP address, and no longer am I getting the .181 - .189 addresses. Which is fun. It'll make looking for some things easier in the logs at work.

-------

Just for fun, here is what the finished version of Failed looked like (modified slightly):

#! /bin/sh
# checks for /var/log/auth.log for login failures.
# version 0.2
# < my email address removed >

# prints failed invalid users
echo "Failed Invalid User Attempts"
sudo grep "Failed" /var/log/auth.log | grep -i 'invalid' | grep -v '< work login id removed >' | awk '{print $1,$2,$3,$13,$11}' | sort -u

echo ' '
#prints failed vailid users, except for me.
echo "Failed Valid User Attempts"
sudo grep "Failed" /var/log/auth.log | grep -vi 'invalid' | grep -v '< work login id removed >' | grep -v '< home login id removed >' | awk '{print $1,$2,$3,$11,$9}' | sort -u
echo ' '

------

I sudo the 2 lines, because I need to be root to access that log file. I didn't want to setuid the script to run, nor did I want to be root when I ran it. It also requires me to type my password to run it, since sudo only remembers my password for 5 minutes.

To make this work on Redhat based systems, change auth.log to secure.log

Thursday, August 6, 2009

One thing I'd like to see..

There is one thing I'd like to see die out during this recession (besides the robber barons who own the banks and our government).

The hundreds of IT Contract firms.

I'll look at my daily email from Dice.com, and I'll see the same job posted 4 or 5 times for by different contract places. It's just as bad when a large company posts a job opening. I'll get emailed and called by about 5 to 10 (been closer to 5 lately which is a good thing in my book) head hunters who all want me to apply for the same position. Half the time, the position isn't where they were told it would be.

I had one Contract firm in the past tell me if I applied through them, I was only allowed to use them. I don't see them around much, nor did they ever have many positions listed. When the contact point I was "working with left" I got an email from the person who picked up her "assets". She asked what the person was working on with me. I said I hadn't heard from the person in over a year. I never heard back from her either.

The other thing that irked me. I had just passed the first part of the LPI level 1 exam (this was back when there were only 2 levels), and I had to take their test to prove I was "qualified" for a Linux admin position. Their test was easier than the LPI exam, and I know I did good on it, but I was told I failed it. But the first contact point never said by how bad, or gave me a % or told me were my weak areas were. Thinking about it now, I wonder why her replacement asked how I did on the exam, instead of looking it up herself.

Companies use the contract firms because it's cheaper (especially in MI where there is a new employee tax). Hopefully like out sourcing to India, I hope they realize this is a bad thing and start doing direct hires again. Because seriously with as high as the current unemployment rate is (15.2% according to my latest google search (for June 2009)), the contract firms aren't giving a good indicator of recovery by having the same job posted multiple times.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

used to be better.

69 push ups today.

week 1, day 2 of the 100 push-ups.
31 in the last round.

blood and burpees

Tang Soo Do last night was strange. I was told that the kids' class was off the hook. Must have been a full moon or something.

I walked into the adult class at 7:20. Class starts at 7pm, and I'm usually there for the kids class, but was stuck at work trying to get a server to build. (Still having problems with the server today).

First thing that happens, as soon as I set my water bottles down, one of the white belts turns and hits the another one. These are the new problem children we have. Spoiled if you ask me. They don't tend to listen very well, and will try to argue with the instructors, including the Master.

They were supposed to be in formation waiting to start forms, as Master Tom was telling Bran (3rd gup) what to go over( and they both came over to say hi, you're late). They were left in Chun Be, knowing that forms were coming, the one decided to show off that he knew how the form started. Doing so, caused him to hit the other white belt, who was holding his stance. Which lead the other white belt to using an open hand strike to the first one's arm. Smacked pretty loud.

I watched it happen. First words out of my mouth, were "down for push-ups" not the first time I've given push-ups before even having time to change (although this was the first time I got blank looks from the students, although Bran dropped quickly). When I said down, the one that started it dropped to the ground grabbed his arm and started crying. This was about 30 seconds after being hit. The Master took the crying kid out of the class, and talked to him. The other one started to do push-ups with us, and then stopped and stood back up. I held the 7th and 9th gups in a high plank (Bran was doing them with us too). I lost count telling the 10th gup we were waiting on him. So we started over. We did 20 more. (Bran said it worked out to 30+).

Then the Master took the other kid out into the hall and had a talk with him. Then I talked with the master, before running to the locker room to change.

Came back in training clothes (toe balk and belt), and Bran came over said they've been that way the whole night. The kids class got about a 10 minute talking to before being dismissed at the end.

The adult class got to work Bo form. I was told I'm testing for 1st gup on September 1st, and it's ok if I don't know bo, knife, or chilson E ru, I'll get those down before my 1st Dan test later (about 3 months after 1st gup). Just a little excited. Of course Saturday, the Master said he keeps thinking I'm a 1st gup already.

We spared some at the end of class. I got a little too predictable in fighting Jay (3rd gup). He's rather tall, so has reach. In the fights he'll back off and catch his breath. I've gotten into the habit of shuffling in to make my attacks against him. He backed off, and we both started moving towards each other at the same time. Me with a shuffle to jam, him with a back fist. His back fist got past my guard and nailed my nose. It felt like it was running but there was nothing coming out of it. Tested it a few times during the match. My eyes were watering. I was more mad at him stopping the fight than I was being hit.

I can understand wanting to stop and make sure I'm ok. He kept apologizing about it, but it happens, and I wasn't bothered by it. See Jay used to be one of the clubs better tournament fighters, so he'll get a couple hits in, maybe score a point and then backs off. He says he does that on the street too, and wants to break that habit. So after being hit, I checked my nose, and came right back at him. Teared up eyes and all. I try to base my fighting more on what I think the street style is, don't stop until someone can't get back up.

After the sparring was over, I checked my nose again, and it was bleeding quite well. Blood on the front of my Toe Balk, and both sleeves. The Master saw it, asked who was bleeding. I said it was mine (used the non-blood sleeve to prove it).

Then we got to do tradition. In class on or after your Birthday (rarely the day before), we do push-ups. 1 for every year. When Master P's bday comes around we all hate it, since the numbers are in the 70s. This year, to mix it up some. We did burpees, my request. My original goal was to do all 32 with out stopping at a slower pace for everyone to keep up. However with the bleeding nose (I figured I'd worry about it after class), it was a little hard to breath. So we did sets of 10, 10 and 12. Bran and I were the only 2 to do all 32, and he got done before me.

After the first step, I went to the sink and spit up the blood that ran down the back of my nose, while trying to breath) and found some paper towel to blow into. Repeat the blow after the second set. bowed out after the 3rd set to go home. While we were supposed to be meditating and getting comments on class from the master (the after class speech), I held my nose to get the bleeding to stop.

Last night was so much fun.

Monday, August 3, 2009

let's try this again.

push ups. week 1, day 1...

10
12
8 (should have been 7 but hit a groove).
7
20

Hard and out of breath. I'm just not used to it any more. It has been 3 weeks since I hurt my elbow. It still hurts to touch it, if the arm is out straight, bent doens't matter. At least it doesn't just hurt all the time anymore.

But taking 3 weeks off, and eating badly last week didn't help matters (fast food everyday for lunch).

body fat check

233.5 lbs (I've got the number right this time).

41 waist (at navel)
43 hips
13 forearm
8 wrist

You have 19.4% body fat.

You have 45.2 Pounds of fat and 187.8 Pounds of lean (muscle, bone, body water).

according to the body fat check site I've been using, anyway.

I weighed less a few weeks ago. Probably should have done it then. Still in the 2 months it's been since my last check, I'm 7 lbs lighter, with 1 inch gone from the wait and hips.

Saturday, August 1, 2009

I'm jumping on the band wagon...

...I'm just late that's all.

So I'm thinking about passwords lately. With Black Hat and Defcon this week, the report that some big name Infosec people had their accounts broke into, a friend's tweet on getting 400 followers, and me having to change my FB password today, I thought I'd share how I come up with passwords.

Now for fun the other night, driving back from Tang Soo Do on a long and lonesome highway east of Omaha... I came up with about 15 or so passwords based off a tv show I liked. They were between 8 to 10 characters each.

So there are a few ways I do it. There are 2 examples in each.

Method One:
I'll take a phrase, the longer the better, and modify it.
The quick red fox jumps over the lazy brown dog (a well known pangram , ie uses all the characters in the English language) or I'm here to chew bubble gum and kick arse and I'm all out of bubble gum (mainly because I'm fond of quotes).
I'll take the phrase, and use camel case (mixed case), with numbers, special characters (anything over the number keys), and letters. I'll then mix them up like below:

Th3Qu!ckBrownF0xJump3s_Over_the_L2zy_red_dog

I'm_h3r3_2ch3w_BubbleGum&kick@rse.&I'm@ll0ut_ofBubbleGum

I can mix them other ways too. For example, I swapped brown and red, just to make it a little different.

Method Two:
I'll take a song lyric or a line from a movie, tv show, or whatever and I'll modify it by using just the first letter of each word, and the some of the other steps above. Examples I'll uses are Seger's Turn the Page, and a line from Cool Hand Luke.

"On an long and lonesome highway east of Omaha" becomes:

0@L&lh3oO!

"What we've got here is... failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it... well, he gets it"

Wwgh!F2c.SmUjcr=SugWwhHlw,W!twhWi_whg!! (to be honest, I'd modify it a little more, and weighing in around 30 characters, I'd use that for a pass phrase for my encrypted hard drive).

There are some other rules I use, if you notice, I have 2 characters side by side, 1 will be cap, 1 will not be. I tend to use the 2 interchangeably at home and at work, so we have phrase on some boxes, and the vegitable soup on others.

Lastly Method 3, which I only use on rare occasions is:
pwgen (password generator) from the linux command line. I'll add options like at least 1 special character, 1 upper case, 1 number and set it to be 10 to 12 characters long.

and finally...
I tend to use password safes, with things divided in them. Keepass and Password Safe.

I have had a few users complain when I give them a 10 to 12 character password based on something they said in the conversation. 1 about being long, and 2 about being so random, but when I tell them I use 24 to 26 character passwords regularly they tend to think it's not that bad and they seem to remember what they got fairly well.

There are other ways to make passwords too, and if you google them, I suggest googling site:lifehacker.com

Have fun, be safe online and for extra credit, figure out why I think this is a bad password. BwDn$b! (there are 2 reasons I don't like it).

Sunday, July 26, 2009

eh, more injuries

Elbow still hurts, I bounced up to 235.5 this week, back down to 233 today. Ate way too much fast food this week.

Yesterday at Tang Soo Do, while sparing, I blocked and went for a grab on a kick. the guy kept throwing them, even though I was blocking each one. I was going to grab lift and pull, but my index finger on the left hand (what is it about jacking my left side) got jammed up. the palm side of the knuckle is purple. the finger is 2x the size of normal, and it's hard to bend it.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Just a short one today

231.5 lbs.

Considering that my meals over the weekend included pre-made toco chip dip (got at a store), 12 wings at buffalo wild wings, a water downed Guiness at Bdubs, and this really good Coffee beer a buddy brought to a party, I'm impressed.

More impressive, since I bounced up to 236 at one point last week, around Wednesday.

*edit: A friend pointed out that I typo'd the weights.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

it's been that long?

Wednesday:
5 sets of 3 rep pull ups.

push ups
10
12
8
8
25

Never made it to the fit deck, probably just as good.

Thursday:
Tang Soo Do, with lots of squats and lunges for good measure. The place is giving us a hard time about the space again. Not having anywhere to put us. Well gee... If you don't have space for us for us to start at 7pm like you said we would have, I don't think I have the $50.00 for 2 months to pay you... I'll give you 40 instead how does that sound?

Then came home and did ETK.
7 rounds

Friday:
5 sets of 3 rep pull ups.

push-ups:
11
15
9
9
30

ETK:
5 sets of warm up, 5 left right TGU. Dropped the 24kg bell on both sides in the last set. Hurt my elbow in the process. Bell was falling towards my face from the lunge position of the getup, used the left to deflect it, but that meant the left wasn't there to hold me up. Came down on the elbow with the weight still in hand. So my weight and the weight of the kettlebell. Today my elbow hurts for anything that puts pressure on it, like push-ups etc.

Saturday:
Tang Soo Do - Three red belts (highest color belt before Dan / Black Belt). 2 3rd gups, 1 2nd gup (me) so we spent the class on cleaning up our basic motions, then did one step fighting, not allowed to repeat any attack (left then right then no more use). I didn't even hit half of what I knew, against 3 people. Then Bassai, and Chilson Il Ru.

Walked around the area for a little bit. Tossed some Disc Golf frisbees around, checked out the pro-shop.

Forgot to use my HRM, Tuesday and today at TSD, it didn't start for ETK Thursday Night, and I didn't take it for the walk. But I'm probably between 5000 and 6000 (if not over the later) for this weeks calorie count. I'll have to do better next week for wearing it.

Walked around for a while. My legs are tight.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

After TSD

So after I got home from Tang Soo Do, I still had to do ETK for day 2. 10 min warm up. Got 5 rounds. First round was hard, my body didn't want to let me do anything. I could barely squat, the halos burned and the pumps... They made me want to cry.

The Get up Portion, my left side has lost all stabilization. It sucked. I'd be in the bent over part of the TGU, and my arm would be wobbling every which way. But only the left side. Right side was locked in great the whole time.

I was trying to pull the shoulder blade back and down (toward the opposite hip) but I think the pushing to the ceiling is what undid all that work. I think I'll try some windmills tonight when I get home with the 24kg bell. After the push-ups and pull-ups, but before the fit deck.

Forgot the HRM last night.

I was so excited to be back to Tang Soo Do, that I completely forgot to put on my Heart Rate Monitor. It was even in the bag.

The kid's class had 10 kids in it. 2 of them were new. Hoping that more show up soon. I did the kids class warm up, and the adults were all there by 7pm, which was nice and different. We got to go to the ICE RINK part of the community center to warm up. There was no ice on the rink.

Warm up was a killer. Jumping jacks, Plyometric jumps, push ups, V-ups, 2 laps around the ice rink along the boards. Stretching, more jumps, 1 lap around the boards backwards. Lower Block, Upper block, middle punch and horse back punch goal line to goal line.

I felt good and ready for the rest of the class. Back to the normal class room. Almost everyone was whining about it was supposed to be a warm up not a kill us. We did more basic motions, and my back started to cramp up. It was strange.

One steps, forms, and sparing. The only person who wasn't complaining about the kill us workout before class couldn't keep up with me. I was trowing slop against him. he was throwing slop back against me. I didn't care though. He's taller with a longer reach. I was moving faster, other people noticed I was moving faster than I was before the 6 week break. Anyway the guy's taller than me, and uses his reach as his best weapon. I closed in on him hard and jammed him up. I'm not used to fighting like that yet, so I have to throw slop.

Part way though the sparing round, he was doubled over sucking wind again, complaining that the workout took more out of him than he realized. I did the same workout, plus worked out with the kids, and I was still going. Maybe I'll let him in on the secret. eat some carbs before class.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Holy Wow

4 workouts today.

As I said, I've restarted all programs at week 1.

day 1 push up challenge. was rushed. I did bad, but passed the required.
10
12
7
7
10
The last 3 sets were in under a minute, instead of a minute rest between each.

ETK: 5 rounds warm up. 7 sets of swings.

Returned to Yoga tonight. Jogged to it, and from it. It was great, we tore though hard, and did some advanced stuff.

Something New:
Band Assisted pull-ups. I was going to do 5 sets of 3 reps, but messed up my count and did 6 sets. with 1 min rest between them.

ETK was hard. I'll say that. Back has been sore since I got up, yoga and the pumps helped to remind me of that fact. I did ETK last tonight, which I think is part of the reason I found it so hard to do.

Over all, I feel accomplished, and good.

Order of workouts:
push ups
pull ups
Yoga
ETK

20 mins between push and pull
30 mins between pull and yoga
2 hours between yoga and ETK.

Tomorrow... Tang Soo Do. and I'm lighter. I could fit into a size 5 uniform, but won't wear it just yet.

I'm a slacker

232 lbs

For the last 3 weeks I haven't been working out. It started because of my shoulder (which is still a little tender, or was when I was on the floor filling out the oversized calender, I chart my workouts on).

Last week I worked lots of long hours. mostly because the day was flying by, and I didn't realize how much time had passed. At one point I'd look at my watch and it'd be 9pm (12 hour day).

The thing is, that's just all excuses. I think I worked out 3 times last week. It should have been more.

I made the calander, something I didn't do the last 2 weeks, I just put it off.

today's list (restarting all programs at week 1):
100 push-up challenge
ETK
pull-ups 5 sets of 3 reps
Yoga

Thinking about it, I don't know what I'm going to do about it.

Monday, July 6, 2009

see if I can do better this week

233 lbs.

Last week I only made it to day 2 in ETK and push-ups. I'm just finding it hard to get back in to the grove of working out. Also had some other things that interfered with working out, like spending all night in the ER with a friend.

Going to set up the July calendar tonight after work. and start crossing it off again. That should help some.

Saturday I did Grease the Grove style workouts with band assisted pull ups and dips. Although the last set, I did with no bands. But could only do 2 each, and even those were struggles.

Yesterday, I showed off a 16 kg kettlebell to a friend from high school haven't seen him in a few years. We went to fireworks with another of our friends. Did a couple of snatches, and a couple of windmills. 1 1-arm push up on each side.

Today's push-ups, 100 push up challenge, week 2, day 1 (again):
14
14
10
10
35.

Oh and today starts the first week of 3 a days 3 to 4 days a week. :(

Thursday, July 2, 2009

push-ups

14
16
12
12
30

42 calories.
9 minutes. with 90 seconds between sets. First set to second set was longer, because I failed to start the timer. Hit the wrong button on my watch.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

It's been long

got home from work last night, did ETK week 2, day 2. (Remember I dropped back 1 week after injury). Still Holding at 5 per side on my Turkish Getups.

Ate bread on PB really quickly, since I only had 10 minutes to get to power core. Yes it was a bad idea.

I was going to take my 80lbs heavy bag in a fireman's carry, and jog. However I couldn't manage the bag, the water bottle and the yoga mat at the same time. I also ended up having to postpone my leaving. So I ended up driving to the class.

Worked hard, but now that my weight is going down, I don't seem to be burning as many calories. I did a HRM test just before I stopped working out because of my shoulder.

Power Core was a good class though. We even had a 4 minute cardio set. Oh so much fun.

Then I got home, im'd a friend to see how her doctor's appointment went. She called me, and basically moaned in pain. Turns out that she went back to the ER yesterday morning and they sent her home, but she was in pain again. Her doctor's office on-call told her to go back to the ER, and she wanted me to take her. Got there at 9pm. At almost 5am the doctor came in (this is after a bunch of tests) said that they can't find anything wrong. However this was the 4th trip to the ER for this problem since Friday Night. They finally agreed to admit her.

ER exam room chairs, and waiting room chairs, are not the best place to try to sleep. My back is really sore today. I only got about an hour's sleep at the hospital, and that was because my body was at the point where it said "you pass out now".

Monday, June 29, 2009

I missed that, but have not missed it.

Did ETK. 22 minutes of pain.

I missed that. Yet I didn't.

5 rounds of warm up in 10 minutes
wall squats
halos
and pumps

12 minutes of work
30 swings
1 min active rest.

completed through 6 times at 24kg.

Took a few minutes to get into the right mind set on the warm ups. When the timer chimed for the end of the warm-up, I grabbed the kettlebell and wondered what the hell I was doing. It was hard. lungs burnt.

max heart rate 178 (94%)
Min Heart rate 80 (42%)
avg heart rate 142 (75%)

290 Calories.

push-ups

Started back in today.

14
14
10
10
22.

5 minutes 51 seconds
26 calories.

today is going to be fun

234 lbs. this morning. Yesterday was 233.5 pounds. The receptionist said I don't look like I weigh more than 200.

Today I go back to training. My left shoulder is still a little stiff, but it's time to see what I can do.

100 push-ups and etk on dock for tonight.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Pidgin, Yahoo, and Debian Testing

So like lots of people, I've been having problems with Pidgin and Yahoo, after the upgrade. I followed several "work arounds". However every couple days it stopped working again.

If you followed the blog at all, you know I run Debian Testing right now. Currently, testing doesn't have the latest version of Pidgin that fixes the issue.

Instead of waiting, or changing my source lists, I went to the Debian Package pages and found the files I needed to get it to work.

If someone else wants to use DPKG to install just the files they need, here are the ones I needed:

libpurple0_2.5.7-1_i386.deb
libzephyr4_3.0~beta.2483-2_i386.deb
pidgin-data_2.5.7-1_all.deb
pidgin_2.5.7-1_i386.deb

Libpurple0 and pidgin-data were needed for pidgin. Libzephyr4 was needed for libpurple to install.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

840 cals

First workout this week, 840 calories, between running, power core, and walking home from it. 1 hour 33 minutes. Got some extra play time in after the class.

Shoulder is a little sore. Glad and sad that I'm not doing kettlebells.

Friday, June 19, 2009

not of the happy

I can only lift my left arm about 45 degrees before the pain kicks in. I can go higher if I really push it. That's going out to the side. Going forward, I can go higher, and it feels funny if I rotate it to the side but doesn't hurt until I try to put it down.

After talking with the way awesome Jen B, RKC and MD, I'm going to take the next 10 days or so off from things that need my arm. I'm not going to stop training completely, but I'll be taking from today, until NEXT week Sunday off from Kettlebells, burpees, push-ups, pull-ups, etc.

Not sure about the power core or boot camp classes, since they do require arm work.

Not really happy about that. I'll try to jump more rope, hike, roller blade, bike, jog and etc more. Lots of squats, maybe I'll work pistols... Going to practice kicks a lot too.

I'm not exactly happy about this, and I'll go back one week to week 2, when I go back to training. So that means week 2 of the 100 push-ups and week 2 of ETK (but 30 swings both swing days).

That throws my whole calendar out of whack for the rest of this month too.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Not of the good

Got home from work at 7pm. Mainly because I did some running around. Stopped at a dive shop, outdoor store (sun & snow in A^2), and then back to work to look for my house keys and pit-stop.

Ran and walked to "Boot Camp". Feeling saucy, kept asking for more at the end. Everyone was hating me, but it was because they were being quite. I'd say more please, they'd say nothing or groan, and the instructor would take that as group consent. Finally he asked if we wanted more, I asked for plyometrics he said that was the game. So I did some side ways leaping push-ups, Right then Left. Then front and back. Then thigh clap push-ups. Then plank to knuckle push-up.

Then jogged back, not much faster than walking but a little, to my apartment from the complex.

Just got done doing ETK. My back and shoulder have been bothering me. Left shoulder hurts in a strip, back about inch wide behind right shoulder blade.

Remember, I'm doing this at 24kgs (53lbs).

ETK practice round: 5 minutes.
5 r/l Clean & Press. Left hurt something bad, along the strip that hurt. Could hear grinding and cracking. (Think rice crispies).
5 r/l snatches. They were not much better.

Warm Up: 10 minutes
10 wall squats (no problems here).
10 r / l halos (shoulder didn't care for it, but it wasn't complaining. Actually started to feel good).
10 pumps (I had to do the last 2 sets from yoga child position).

I only made it 4 rounds, I wanted to cry during the pumps.

Work out: 12 minutes
40 swings
1 min jumping jacks
40 swings
1 minute kick backs
40 swings
1 min lunge to a slave head to floor
40 swings
1 min log
40 swings
1 min jumping jacks.

40 swings is still really nailing my grip. But I made it through. Tonight could have been better, but I haven't had anything to eat since 7pm, and that was 1 pb sandwich (on potato bread) and one extra slice of bread.

I know my tank is on empty right now.

Shower, and then corn flakes with silk. Then bed.

Undecided if I'll repeat week 3 next week. I'd rather not. I'm still making it to the second time through, so I probably won't.

I really am starting to think that my body is at it's limit, and wants more than just 1 to 2 days rest. But the schedule will not allow it. I'm already cutting back on some of what was on the list. not doing 3 a days, and yesterday (my light day) I cut one workout completely.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

just another step

Week 3, day 2 of 100 push-up challenge.

20
25
15
15
25+ (hit 30).

Hurt getting that far. It wasn't easy. 90 seconds rest was awesome. Not looking forward to Friday.

not much to say

Not much to say. ETK last night, 5 minutes practice (clean and press and snatches). 10 minute warm up, 5 minute turkish getups. 5 per side.

Think I was gripping the bell too tight on when dropping it from either the clean or the snatch. Hand blistered up. No tears. Still some blistering on the right hand.

Best TGUs I've ever done at that weight. everything felt stable, and could put hand flat on the ground on the way back down. Usually on the balls of the fingers / hand when going down from standing.

Power Core was fun. 10lbs weights. Hope I don't have to use those in boot camp. That'd kill me.

Re did my polar heart rate monitor like I said yesterday. Numbers from power core were lower than I'm used too. 450+ for an hour of work. Back hurt, really need to get and take an ab mat with me.

Feel sore in the shoulders today. Blew off push ups this morning. I'll do those when I get home tonight. Think I'll do combat sports deck for the fit deck / second workout of the day.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

remains of last night

I ended up skipping Providence. My grip is still noodley feeling today.

Got home, did 10 minutes of jump rope. Best streak I had was 50 in a row. It was ok, I was on the patio, I tried to start in the grass, but it just didn't happen. Kept getting tripped up on every twirl. the "rope" was all coiled too from being wrapped tight around the handles and sitting in my Tang Soo Do bag for so long. It's one of those plastic speed ropes that Everlast sells.

Then I had corn flakes with fresh strawberries in syrup. Quarter the strawberries, and sprinkle with sugar, syrupy the next day. Yummy good. had what was left with my corn flakes for breakfast today too.

About an hour after jumping rope, I started up ETK. While watching Star Trek: TNG. For some reason I like working out more when there is Sci-Fi on.

Week 3 starts with adding 5 more minutes to the workout. At least the version of ETK I'm doing (The AOS:ETK Workbook). The first five minutes are practice. Practice the Clean and Press and the Snatch. I did sets of 5 per side. 2 times through. First time through I did Dead Clean and Press, with long cycle snatches. Second time through I did long cycle C&P with dead snatches.

Then I did the Warm Up round. Made it through 5 times, just barely, I was rising from the last pump when the timer chimed.

Then I went after the 40 swing workout set. 40 swings at 24kg really really works the grip. Last set I had to break it up, never setting the bell down. I did 20 2 hand swings, switched to 5 right hand, 5 left hand, and 10 2 hand swings.

My legs and my forearms are sore today. Tonight it's ETK TGU day, and the core conditioning class.

Monday, June 15, 2009

what's left for today

adjust my heart rate monitor
10 minutes of jumping rope
ETK week 3, day 1
AOS: Providence

Oh and it's Monday, that means weight in day.
236lbs.

3 lbs down from the beginning of the month. 2.5 lbs from last week.

monday morning pushups

Slept fairly good last night. Woke up several times, but other than that, I enjoyed the sleep. If I didn't have to go to work today, I'd sleep some more. Was out cold before 11pm last night.

Morning Push-ups 100 Push-up challenge.
14
18
14
14
25.

I'm worried about Wednesday. I did 41 straight push ups yesterday. Which puts me in the third collumn, but every time I've gotten this far in the past, this is the week that cause me to fail and enter multiple repeat mode. Getting to 25 today on the last set was not easy. Needed to hit 20.

Although I've made it further than ever (week 3) in etk. Usually get stuck repeating weeks 1 and 2 for a month and then give up.

37 calories in 6.5 minutes.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

ouch

Walked around Ford Lake today. 1800+ calories in 4 hours and 20 minutes. No idea how far, google won't let me map it around.

My feet hurt. Legs are sore. Strangely I'm not that hungry.

Lastly, since I'm not going for anymore work outs this week... Here's my weekly total.

9 hours and 27 minutes of "working out"
4883 calories.

NICE!!! That's over a pound of Fat.

Friday, June 12, 2009

harder faster better stronger

Finished week 2.

Push-ups:
16
17
14
14
32
2 min rest between sets.

ETK Week 2 day 4 work book.
5 rounds warm up in 10 minutes
5 right / 5 left Turkish GetUps.

27 mins work, 213 calories.

Boot camp was 700+ in 1 hour. Won't tell what the week is yet. Moving one work out from today to tomorrow. FitDeck Body Weight moved. :(

Shoulders hurt. Don't have time before the hockey game.

Cant' wait to see what the cal count is this weekend. Missing the ETK workout from yesterday.

Scale said 335.5 this morning. Not a weight in day, so I hope I can keep it from coming back all weekend.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Ready... Hit it.

Title from Mythbusters last night. I liked how the pilot kept saying that before maneuvers. Used it as my slogan for working out today.

Did ETK (Work Book) week 2, day 3 today. 30 swings, minute active rest. The swings were killer on my grip. 24kg, not fun. But that's why I do it, to become better.

Then like last week, about 30 minutes later, I went to the Apartment Complex's "Boot Camp" class. Got 6lbs balls this week. Heaviest he has (toning balls). He asked if my Core was sore from the Power Core class. I answered truthfully. Back was sore after, but felt nothing yesterday or today. I looked at me like I was insane, and said he didn't want to see what my workouts at home were like. I suggested Turkish Get Ups at one point in class, showed it. Girls in the class whined and said no. Liked what he gave us even less. :-)

Rocked boot camp.

Then invited him over to see what my work outs looked like. Introduced him to the calendar, the 100 push up challenge, my heavier and heavy kettlebells (He's met the 16kg before). Loaned him my copy of Art Of Strength's Kettlebell Clinic volume 1. I'll get it back Tuesday. Showed off my Power Tower. I asked him how much he thought I weighted. He looked me up and down a few times, thought about it, and finally said 205. I laughed. Still floating at 240. He asked if my workouts were causing weight loss or gain. I said holding steady. Showed him a negative pull-ups (controlled lowering), since he asked what they were while looking at the FitDecks. He'll probably pick some of those up. he was really interested in them.

Now, if I could only get him to Joust Fitness to play with the kettlebells there. I think he'd enjoy it.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

messed up the push-ups

so I did my push-ups this morning. But I messed up the count. So I did about 8 extra in set 2.

14
started counting from 15, realized mistake at 23.
redid set no rest after finding mistake
16
12
12
31

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Power Core was interesting

Tried the power core class. It was interesting. All Core work. Mostly leg lifts related. My back did not like. And I started to wonder why I'm doing the calendar workout I am. Starting to think it might just be too much.

Then the wings Lost the game. Not surprised. I was expecting it. Would have been nice to finally shave though. I do at least have to clean the beard up for Thursday though.

5x5

Not letting this morning discourage me was over half the battle. Came home, got set up, and said you and me body. Fail again, I'll find a cloning company to replace you.

5 rounds of warm up in 10 minutes.

5 rounds of Right / Left Turkish Getups in 5 minutes.

168 Calories in 15 minutes. Not horrible, but meh.

I'll probbly re program the heart rate monitor this weekend.

Well that was a failure

Normally when I get up in the morning, I'm more about lumbering and staggering than I am about moving fluidly. My body is usually stiff, and a little sore. As the day wears on, I can work the kinks out. Which is part of the reason why I don't like working out in the morning.

The last 2 weeks, I've done ok with push ups in the morning before I shower, but doing more than that is usually off the table.

Since I have a class tonight, called power core, I thought I'd try and get ETK done this morning. When I did ETK followed by "Boot Camp" last Thursday I showed them up, but would have liked more time between the two to rest / relax.

Unfortuantly ETK this morning was a failure to launch. I couldn't get my body to move right. The wall squats were horrid. The halos, with 12kg bell were burning my shoulders and not that fun to do. The pumps, I had to do from child (yoga position) since I couldn't get into Downward facing dog.

After only getting 2.5 rounds finished in 8 minutes, I decided to call the work out. Wasn't really warmed up, and the body was fighting me. I didn't even want to try and lift 24kg over head and go through all the planes of motion. I knew it would be a bad idea.

So I'm going to go to work and grind through the day. Then when I get home I'll try ETK week 2 day 2 again. Maybe I'll be in a better body set.

I quesiton what I was thinking.

push-ups. Done. Did earlier see last post.

ETK. Done...
4 rounds of warm up in 10 minutes

work out...
7 sets of swings with 1+ minute breaks between. Only +min a couple of times. Captain freaked a few times. Once he landed on the fan. The fan going on High, which has a habbit of having the cover come off... Another time, I had to go find him. Kicked a door doing pushup to a squat thrust.

Then I went shopping and tried to rest up some. At 23:15 I started AOS: Providence. Once again it beat me. made it half way through round 9 though. new personal best.

I hear kettlebells get slippery when wet. Mine sticks to my hand like Spider-Man shot his web-fluid on it. Could not pass off on the tactical lunge. Nor was I getting in the right lunge. At one point I did figure 8s... sigh. Oh and the top of my legs were really red.

calorie counts
37
244
410
---
691 cals today, if I got the math right.

ETK in the morning. Power core class tomorrow night.

Monday, June 8, 2009

yey

Calories burnt last week: 1524
Time worked out last week: 2 hours 27 minutes.

Didn't wear my Heart Rate monitor for everything though, so I know there were more cals and time then the listed.

This morning's weight-in: 238.5

Over slept this morning. Went to bed at 2:30am. The alarm went off. I remember getting up and hitting snooze. Next thing I knew it was 9:30am.

Push ups only thing I got done. 60 Seconds rest between sets.
14
14
10
10
25
---
73 total: 37 calories in 6m38s.

I'm not sure I'm going to get everything in today. I'll have to find away though.

My workout calendar for the month of June.

Friday, June 5, 2009

Ow.

I need to figure out a better way to do this. Doing programs back to back like this is just too hard.

Morning Pre-Breakfast.
Week 1, Day 3 of 100 push-up challenge.
11 (2 minute rest)
15 (2 minute rest)
9 (2 minute rest)
9 (30 seconds rest)
31
---
75 Total

About 10 minutes later or so I did:

Enter the Kettlebell Week 1, Day 4:
Warm-up, 4 rounds in 10 minutes
10 wall squats
10 R/L Halos
10 pumps (really really had problems).

Workout 3 rounds in 5 minutes
1 R/L Turkish Getup.


I wore my heart rate monitor wrist unit for the first round of push-ups. It was causing problems my wrist hurt. So I took it off for the rest of the rounds.

Wore it on flipped around on the wrist (face on the inside of wrist) for ETK. But My shoulders and legs couldn't take the pumps in the warm up. Ended up doing them from the Child position in yoga.

Even after that, my body didn't want to do the Turkish Getups, but at least the left shoulder was more stable, even if I did get 2 less rounds in than last time.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Bring it

Tonight was hell. two workouts with 30 minutes rest between them.

Started ETK just after 6:30pm.
FIVE rounds of warm up in 10 minutes. Each round looked like this:
10 wall squats (but I messed up the first round, did 12).
10 Right Halos.
10 Left Halos
10 pumps.

Work out:
20 Swings
58 Jumping Jacks
20 Swings
kick backs (still can't do the mountain climbers)
20 Swings
Push-up to a squat thrust
20 Swings
Jog

20 Swings
59 Jumping Jacks
20 Swings
kick backs
20 Swings

Might have gotten a little further but I missed time in an active rest looking for Captain. He made a really strange squawk and then got real quiet. I was on the last swing at the time, dropped the bell and went running looking for him. Found him on top of his cage. Don't know what the deal with the strangled squawk was. He never makes that kind of noise.

Then I got dressed (did the ETK in a pair of shorts), ate quickly, and then ran off to the Apartment complex's club house for the Boot Camp class. Was given a 5lbs ankle weight, and 4 pound balls for the hand. I asked for and got 5lbs balls though. The trainer, only other guy in the room (lots of ladies though) was using 4lbs. Everyone was trying to talk me into lighter weights.

Hour work out later, I felt good. Warmed up, not really feeling worked out. Asked if we could do more. The class looked at me funny. The Kettlebell classes at Wate-man and Joust Fitness are harder than the boot camp class. I tore it up with the 5lbs weights.

My hips and shoulders are starting to feel it, but I don't feel like I was murdered, like I expect from a boot camp class. I was warned that he made the class harder when men show up to it, but I took what had to give me and asked for MORE! Yes there were some things I had problems with, and didn't get as many reps in as I would have liked on some sets.

I also learned, ETK in the morning on Tuesdays (power core days) Thursdays (Boot camp Days) and Fridays (Joust Fitness Kettlebell class days).

Lastly, everyone was in shock of my shoes at the Boot Camp Class. They didn't know what to make of them. Went and got pizza after wards, and a guy was blown away by them. Asked all kinds of questions, thoguht they'd cost way more than I paid.

And Paul Coffee is at the hockey game.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

I eat push-ups for breakfast

So this morning, before breakfast, I did Week 1, day 2 of the one hundered push-up challenge.

I kind of messed it up. I was supposed to have 90 seconds of rest between rounds. From round 1 - 3 90 seconds was done. it was hard though. Didn't like waiting that long. Round 3 to 4, was a 45 second wait. Round 4 to 5 was 20 seconds.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

ETK Day 2.

I got up this morning sore. I know it was from yesterday's workouts. I could barely lift my arms over my head in the shower. So no morning workout.

Went to work. Did the work thing. Left, and went to my Great Aunt's viewing at the funeral home.

After that I took my mom, brother and uncle out to eat. Ate way too much at Mongolian BBQ.

Ran from there, to the parking garage, maybe 200 meters.

Came home, watched the Red Wings lose. :-(

Was going to call it a night, and do ETK day 2 tomorrow, but I know where that road leads. I'd find a reason to not do it tomorrow, and next week I'd be starting all over again. Maybe. Got every thing set up, and did it.

4 round of warm up in 10 minutes. Same as yesterday.

5 R/L Turkish Getups in 5 minutes. Left side was like a limp noodle while trying to do them. Shoulder wouldn't activate regardless of what I tried to make it do so. Also the bell, 24kg, hurt my wrist and hand. Not banging or anything, just the pressure on the hand to hold the bell in that position.

But like I said yesterday, I can only get better, right?

My friend Sandy said, Sunday, "If you really want to do it, you'll find away to get it done". I think that was what pushed me to doing it tonight. Because I knew if I didn't, it wouldn't happen.


In the morning push-ups. Tomorrow Night, I think I'm going to try Providence see how far I can make it at 16kg now.

Monday, June 1, 2009

4 and 5

4th post today.

Yoga was a bit of a bust. The normal instructor is out of the country. The last Iheard was they had a sub. One of the other students was going to be certified and would fill in. 4 of us showed up, but no one showed up to teach the class or let us know what was going on.

I still stayed for 30 minutes and did some motions. Got a chance to talk to people too. They claimed interest in the self-defence class, but it was cancled before they moved in.

A few minutes ago. I decided to see how many straight sit-ups I could do at one time. I have to be able to do 45 non-stop for my next test. I accomplished that no problem. I probably could have made 50, but 45 was good enough.

3rd exercise

Yes, number 3 today...

ETK, Week 1, Day 1. Based off the AOS ETK workbook.

10 minute warm up.
------------------
10 wall squats (did 11 first round)
10 Halos counter-clockwise
10 Halos clockwise
10 pumps.

Did 3 sets.

12 minute workout:
20 swings
60 jumping jacks
20 swings
mountain climbers (I suck at these)
20 swings
8 push-up to a squat thrust. They were hard after this morning's push-up work out.
20 swings
1 hallway jog

20 swings
53 jumping jacks
20 swings
19 per leg, kick back, from all fours.
20 swings.

The exercises between the swings, were done in 60 seconds each.

-----

Could have been better, but it's a good start.

Now to get ready for yoga, in 20 minutes....

WHAT AM I THINKING TODAY?

Second exercise

A while back (early February) my brother broke his knee at martial arts. This was a knee that someone broke for him in wrestling in jr highschool. Someone on the same team as him. Broke the same way.

Since then I've taken him Downtown to Henry Ford Hospital, to get x-rays and follow ups. We have to go up the 12th floor every time. My mom and him take the elevator, I take the stairs. Up and down all 12 flights. It gets some doctors and other staffs attention.

Today I ran the first 6 flights, taking the stairs 2 or 3 at a time. I walked the last 6, but at 9 I was thinking of trying to run some more. It was hard to breath, the stairwell was hot and stuffy.

Felt good though.

Coming back down, medical staff (not sure if it was a doctor or not), got stuck behind my mom and brother (now that he's off crutches I make them walk down with me). I missed the conversation because I moved faster than they did, but my mom was telling the lady I make them take the stairs because I think it's good exercise.

Morning workout

Slept about 5 hours. Went to bed at 12:30, but it took a bit to fall asleep. So I'm thinking about 1am before I was out. Got up at 6am on the dot. Little surprised, I felt awake when I got up. Dreams were a little strange though.

Monday Morning Weight in: 239.0. lbs

The scale does weight in half pound, and rounds up, maybe I'll get a new better scale some day.

Workout, due to time or else I would have added ETK, was 100 push-up challenge. Week 1, day 1. 60 seconds rest. I can still do between 25 and 35.
10
12
7
7
21

Then I found out that I did 47, I did 3 more to round out 60.

Have to figure out when to get ETK week 1, day 1 mixed in. I'll try between when I get home and before Yoga. Haven't' been to that for 3 weeks.

And I got up at 6am, so I could get my brother to the hospital this morning. Should be his last x-ray for his knee.

Friday, May 29, 2009

Last night Tang Soo Do.

Last night was awesome. Got to class before it started. Took one of my 16kg kettlebells in with me. Changed in to my uniform, and then started my workout.

My goal was 100 continuous swings. No stopping.

I did all 100, I mixed it up starting and ending with two hand swings, right and left hand swings, and a couple of hand to hand swings when I changed hands.

By 70 my glutes and hammys were on fire. But I pushed through. Some of the kids in the kids class, about 2/3 of them were watching me, along with the masters.

Then I ran the kids class. Started with jumping jacks. The rule was be at the top when I'm at the top. Started at regular speed for the first 5, then the second 5 were at double speed, the last 20 were at triple speed. From there we went into buprees. They didn't keep count for the first half, about 8 or so. I kept cound for the last half. 8. So about 16 in all.

Then we did Range of Motion, look up and down a couple of times. left to right, rotate the neck around, windmill the arms forward and back, twist at the waist, circle the hips, rotate the knees, rotate the elbows and right ankle, rotate the wrists and left ankle.

After the windmills since our arms were straight out, I had them do static lunges. Right then left equals 1.

Then we did some stretching of the legs, toe touches and things. double wide legs (started at shoulder width), walked it out, we did our best to do 2 1-arm push ups. switch hands repeat. Then we did 20 twisting situps. and finally finished the warm up with 25 push ups.

While we were doing this, one kid was testing, and the other master got out the mats for break falls.

Demonstrated the front fall roll, helped the kids through it twice. Then we got three kick shields out, stacked them on top of each other, and let the colored belts (higher in rank than the white belt) jump and do the roll over them. Then I got out one of the community center's plastic high chairs, and cleared that without even trying. the parents were impressed.

Then we did side falls, and back falls. Then showed them how to do a take down, a simple one, and let them try 2x each. After that was one steps, then class ended.

8 kids got promoted last night. 4 white to orange, 3 orange to green, 1 green got a stripe. I think the last one messed himself out of a double promotion. There was talk before the test day that they were thinking about doubling him. He's had a slight attitude problem of late though. Not really putting effort into things, including his breaking. I think that's what kept him from getting doubled.

See he's in the front row, because of his rank and the class size. When we were doing the push-ups, when he thought I wasn't looking, he'd not do them. During the second set of burpees (10 more for punishment because people were talking), he wasn't jumping. Some of the others were not either. I said next person who doesn't jump, causes these to become harder (full body attack, deck squats instead of rock bottom squats). Everyone started to jump after that was said.

Then the adult class.
We didn't do a warm up. See the adult class is supposed to start at 7:00, but due to space we don't usually get started until 7:30, and have to waste even more time on the warm up, what 7-7:30 is supposed to be. At 7:10, I told the other 2nd gup (I've got time in rank and closer to my black belt than he is at this time) to warm the adults up. One adult came in at 7:30, and wasn't happy that we were already lined up and warmed up. The masters are trying to get us more space so we can start at 7:00 like we are supposed to.

Anyway we went straight into basic motions, combo motions and jump kicks. for the second time that night, I had sweat dripping off me heavily.

Then we did break falls, same as above, but 4 of us went over the high chair. :-) We also added 2, back roll to fighting stance, and front dead fall. I think only 2 of us can manage from a full stand on the dead fall.

Then we did forms. I kept messing up for some reason. Finished with some sparing. Then we had our the promotions for our class. 1 white to orange, 2 Green 2 stripe (4th gup) to red no stripe (3rd gup).

It'll be nice in the fall, to have 4 red belts up front. We're going into our 6 week break now, last class is tomorrow, we might have 4 red belts there, but probably not. I probably won't make it. I also know that T, the other 2nd gup won't be there for the summer.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

this morning the scale said

this morning the scale said 236.5 lbs. I've been eating less and working out harder. Although it might have had more to do with losing my water bottle last night.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

More laptop woes

Quick history of the laptop.

It's a Thinkpad T60. I bought it when Compusa was having their "going out of business" sale. When my desktop died, I switched over to the laptop as my main system. That was about 2 years ago. Some people have admitted surprise in not having a new desktop system to replace the old one, but truth is, I just can't afford it.

Things I've done to the laptop:
Replaced the maleware that is Windows, that came with it, with Linux
Upgraded the memory to 4gig
Replaced the CPU to have a chip that had VT technology
Replaced the hard drive, with a larger faster drive.

This week, the battery light started blinking orange. the battery itself said that it was nearly fully charged. I've had issues with the lights on the system before like the wireless indicator light not flashing while using wireless. The lack of a flashing light there had to do with the Linux Kernel.

Anyway, looking up the flashing battery light via Google, it looks like an issue with the battery's safety fuse being blown. It also sounds like a common problem. Lenovo replaced the batteries last year, but I didn't know about the problem, nor did I have problems with my battery. They're no longer offering the battery replacement program. Not sure if my battery qualified anyway.

So looks like I have to buy a new battery now. :-(

Monday, May 25, 2009

Body Fat Check

Weigh before my shower today, 240 lbs.

Measurements:
Waist 42 inches
hips 44 inches
forearm 13 inches
wrist 7 inches

Everything but the forearm went down in sized.

Still don't know if I'm doing the measurements right, but it's to give me a ball park figure not an exact one.

According to this site, I have:

You have 21.9% body fat.

You have 52.6 Pounds of fat and 187.4 Pounds of lean (muscle, bone, body water).

Saturday, May 23, 2009

History

I started Martial Arts, Tang Soo Do, in 1985. I refused to test out of my rank as 10th gup multiple times. It actually got to the point where the Grand Master said if I didn't test, don't bother coming back. The way I would refuse to test, is just not show up for it.

I finally tested February 1987. My average grade on the test for 8th gup was 3.0

Examiner's comments. Eyes down / weak not confident. Upper block poor (same). Needs to pay attention in class, one steps - bad stance extend kick.

The examiners... No one knows who one is, the other we know, and has a gift for bs.

When I was a kid I didn't want to be there, and was more interested in making friends my age than how good I did in the class. I left not too long after.

In the late 90s I wanted to go back, was told the school was not more, because the grand master had passed away. I actually went to another school and signed up, but it was something like a month wait to start. Afterward I felt nostalgic, and drove past the community center the old school was in. After all those years, I still knew where it was. It wasn't the first time I dove past either, but it was the first time I dove past at the right time, on the right day.

My next test was March of 2001. I returned in August of 2000. Grade average for 6th gup was 3.8. Comment on my one steps from this examiner was "good control".
Other comments were: keep back leg straight, good focus. Shrugging shoulders on punches. Test performed by my current head master. (not a grand master, took over the school when the grand master died). I did go from 8th to 6ht, but there is a little more to it than that. While I was gone, they did away with the 8th gup rank, so when I came back I was technically an 8th gup, but considered a 7th gup.

My next test, which was me going for 5th gup, was February of 2002. The losest grade I got, was on 1 form. The grade was a 3.8. It was on a form I had only done once or twice. It was a from for the rank I was testing for. Average grade was 4.1. It resulted in a Double Promotion.

that Summer, the community center closed the school, and I trained with Grand Master Drouillard and Master Rick Burns (the master whose funeral I went too).

A year later I was ran over by a drunk driver, and told I'd never walk again. They said if I was ever lucky enough to walk, I'd need a cane, and I'd never do the stuff I used to for fun. Things like rock climbing, scuba diving, roller blading, martial arts. It took six months to prove them wrong about the walking, but they were right about the martial arts. At the time it looked like I'd never do that again. I went, I tried, and I usually had to drop out crying from the pain. That was 2004. I tried several times. Every time, the same thing. I tried again in 2005, and still the same thing.

In 2006, I started where I work now. The Senior Engineer at the time was a big exercise freak. I was up to 260. The most I'd ever weighed before was 250. I was 180 when I got hit by the car. The guy I worked with talked me into joining the gym he went to. Even though I still walked with a slight limp, and on occasion would come to work with a cane.

At the gym, part of the membership package was a half hour for training. Part of it was asking what you background was, and why you joined the gym. My anwsers never varied. I'm a formal martial artist, I want to get back down to my fighting weight. Half the current weight.

The trainer kicked my butt. I couldn't walk the next day. But all he worked on were my legs. He didn't have any space for any more clients, but there was this new guy, a buddy of his from another gym that had a martial arts background too.

I worked with the guy for about 3 months. He got me into kettlebells. The guy I worked with, always said he'd be my trainer, he used to be the guy in the army they sent people to. The remedial PT instructor. I even worked out with him, but his work out style and my style are too different. He wants the body builder look. I want the fighter look. He used to give me crap about working with Don. Until he watched one of our workouts. Don loved it. I wasn't like most clients. I was there to be pushed. Not just have the trainer to show off. My buddy was impressed.

About 2 months of training with Don, and not having a limp anymore (Kettlebells rock), I went to the Martial Arts school. They were doing matt work. I had only gone to talk and hang out for a bit. I asked if I could play on the matts. They were doing break falls. When I got done, everyone was staring. The head master asked where else I had been training. I said no where. I've been working with a MMA fighter, which Don was, as a personal trainer at the gym. They asked if I'd be back, I said in the fall. I was just too busy at the time with work.

I went back that fall.

March 2008, I tested again. I was going for 3rd Gup. I put down my original start date of 1985. My average grade was 3.9. I was awarded my 2nd gup. this test form, and cert are a little different then my other 3. The other 3 are copies of the original test sheet. This test sheet is the Original that the master usually keeps. Bot the test sheet, and the certificate have the club seal (stamp) on them. Those certs are the rare ones. They can't get them any more from what I understand.

I'm told this summer I will test again. While talking about me to another master, while I was standing there, the comment was made I'll be up for my black belt by the end of the year.

It's been 23.5 years. I've gotten more injuries than I can remember from the class alone. Dislocated toe, a torn up knee (it's gotten better too, like the hip), broken heals. sprains, and twists.

I can't wait to see what history I'll be talking about in another 23.5 years.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Hurts to type

3rd post tonight, and some edits to it and the last one.

It hurts to type, but I feel good right now. Good is a retaliative term. Compared to earlier.

Tried to do the Workout tonight at Joust Fitness. Feng was running it.

I wrapped the wrist with a wrist wrap from ace. Brought in one of my 16kg Dragon Door kettlebells. Used that for the warm up. 45 seconds swing, figure 8, TGU Situp (just the sit up part of the TGU) right then left.

I tore that up. it felt good. didn't bother my wrist.

Then the WOD was 400m run. Those kill me. Any run does. I used to be good at running but that was a long time ago. Now if I run that's it, I'm hurting the rest of the time.

Dead snatches. Tried 24kg for those. Could do the Right, but controlling the bell was just too hard with the left. Regardless of what size weight I used.

Couldn't do the pushups (tricept pushups on the kettlebell). Wrist couldn't do it. first round I tried ring rows, but it started to hurt the hand and wrist too. second round I tried polly box knuckle pushups. third round, whole hand hurt so I put the forearm on one, and did all the work on the right side.

Goblet squats I couldn't even hold the bell, ended up doing rock bottom squats. tried right hand clean squats at 16kg, something I can do, but my shoulder was saying No Mas after the ring rows.

Add to it I was trying to jog the 400m run, usually ended up walking. I really can't run. I feel bad being so slow and taking forever, I try to go faster, but just suck. Feng called my workout after round 3. we were out of time, and they had another group coming in after me.

I don't think going and working out to day was a wise move, but I don't believe in letting an injury stop me. It'll slow me down, it'll prevent what I can do, but it will not stop me. If let it stop me, I would have let it stop me from walking again. it's what makes me, me. Wise probably not, not going to surrender... Damn the torpedoes.

--------
Watching the wings game. Lost track of the time and missed the huge hit. Friend called and asked me what was wrong with me. First I got to watch was the Wings killing the 5 minute power play against them. If Zetaburg would have got the breakaway short handed goal Chicago Blackhawks would be busted.

I'm a skeptic year round. But when it comes to hockey I suspend my skeptic ways, and buy in to the superstition. Grow a beard with my team. Wear the Jerseys. I have 4. Detroit was hurting. down 3 nothing about 1/2 through the second. I got out my Newest Jersey, bought it a few years ago. Red, winged wheel, number 9 on the sides and back. The only thing about it that's not right is it actually says Howe on the back. Gordie's didn't from what I can tell.

But as I put it on, Wings went on the power play. And got the first goal. Now they're tied going into the 3rd.

Only down side, Captain is trying to eat the jersey. I keep having to chase him off.

Thursday: Evening

Came home at 4:30, after the long day at the funeral. Washed my uniforms quickly. Still a little wet when I left. Glad my car was hot, but still didn't feel completely dry when I put it on.

Worked the shields when kids were kicking. Then worked with the students that were not testing. Did 1 steps, 3 steps, and Forms. Let 2 (3rd and 6th gups) do some light sparing at the end of the class.

Adult class was turned over to me for warm up. I was told to warm them up in under 10 minutes if I could. Started with jumping jacks, tossed in squats mid jack, squat thrust style push ups mid jack, jumping twists mid jack, and Range of Motion work. Then for fun, after... I tossed in some full body attacks. Think Deck Squat Brupees. When I was done, we were soaked and out of breath. Had a guy say he didn't think a person could be worked that hard in 10 minutes.

Master Clinton told us to get water and line up for one steps. After a few minutes of being in line and not having him come back to start us, I took full control of the class. We ended up having a visiting master.

One steps, three steps. Circled around the heavy bag, by rank. Rule was, lowest rank started, and it was 1 minute as hard as you could against the bag. Finish as hard or harder than you started. We went around 2 times. Second round we were harder than the first round. I think I hit the bag wrong and sprained my wrist. However at the end of my last minute (highest rank), after the timer buzzed, I collapsed. I was in the mid of sucking wind, trying to tell them to get water, and my legs both gave out, and I fell to the left. It's my left hand that's sprained. At first I thought I rebroke my middle knuckle, the whole had hurt.

At one point, after her second time through, one person asked if she could go get her inhaler, my only response was never ask. She asked using hand motions. I'll have to say something Tuesday to both classes about the things you don't ask for. Passing out, inhalers, and throwing up.

Then we did forms. Did lots of forms multiple times, then did all forms as 1 long form, drop out when you get to you finish your highest. The other guy the same rank as me (I'm higher in rank because I've got time in grade, been the rank longer) went through, 10 forms. No rest.

Then class ended.

Then I did 30 straight punishment push ups because I messed up the same form 6 times or so.

At one point yesterday, Master Clinton told another Master I trained under in the late 90s early 2000 that I'll probably get my black belt by the end of the year. That was at the funeral. I was told at one point during class, that I'll be testing the early part of the summer semester. 7 weeks or so. Too much to do in that time. I don't feel ready, said as much, and was told I will be told when I'm ready. :-( I have some goals I want to accomplish before my next test (should be 1st gup). Now I have less time to get them done in. And I'm nursing another injury.

One of the guys there, J the tall guy, trained there when I was kid with me. He's 10 years older than me, was in his teens back then. He used to take 1st or 2nd at the tournaments, his buddy would take the other (we've always put out the best). After the class last night, he and several other said great class. He said that I should become a Fighting Coach. Boxing or something. He would know, he used to be a "professional" tournement fighter. Only reason he trained was to go to tournies and clean house.

When I lead, I usually push harder than everyone else when I lead the class. I do it all too, because I want to be better than I am. Lots of Cardio and strength mixed together. Almost all body weight.