azazil.net

108 GTI TaeKwonDo students, including myself, fought 100 minute long rounds of sparring at the Crypt School in Gloucester, against different partners, to raise money for charity. 54 of the highest grades formed an outer circle, with 54 junior grades partnering us from a concentric inner circle. After each round a whistle blew and the inner ring moved 1 person to their right, bowed and started the next round. We got a 2 minute break to have a drink of water and towel down after 33 rounds, and again after 66 rounds.

I think I paced myself too slowly, because I wasn’t particularly out of breath by the end, even though I was drenched in sweat (no thanks to the blistering 30 degree heat outside). I did lose the skin off the pads of both big toes on the ceramic floor surface, as did many of the other participants, and my arms and legs feel like lead this evening.

I was pleased with the conduct of all who took part, with only a tiny minority of the lower grades trying to earn kudos by getting a punch through to a black belt. But that is to be expected really.

I should have driven the 100 miles to Coventry for JeetKuneDo immediately after the sparring, but with my main TaeKwonDo lesson tonight, I couldn’t quite subject myself to another gruelling 2 hours of training punctuated only by 3 hours of driving there and back to Worcester. I did have a good time, and the turn out was even better than last year.

Everyone has gone to Reading Festival this weekend. Not me. I’m at a bike rally (again)! Camping at a bike rally that’s only 5 minutes away from your house has its advantages. Last night’s band, Rich Dickinson’s Driving Force, were fantastic. Unfortunately, watching such a talented guitarist close up is almost enough to make a mere mortal such as myself wonder why I am bothering to play guitar at all :-/ As soon as my hang over had lifted this morning, I was able to ride back here and have a shower and a proper meal.

The Hamsters are playing tonight. I haven’t seen them since University, over 10 years ago now. They are a little bluesey for my personal taste, but as I recall they are a good live band. The weather so far has been glorious; almost too hot to sit in the tent, in fact. Starting to crave Guinness, so I’d better head on back…

I cracked, and bought another car: a 1998 2.5 V6 automatic 1998 Vauxhall Omega Reflection, in pearlescent black. My ropey 12 year old Cavalier is gonna cost a small fortune to keep on the road for another year by the time I’ve got it through its MOT in a couple of months, replacing the windscreen and all four tyres along the way. I wasn’t desperate yet, but it was the right car in the right place, and I had the money. :-)

Once I’ve put it through a service and it’s been running reliably for a month or so, I’ll probably put the Cavalier up for sale. It’s a real shame to let it go after it has bailed me out so often when the Mitsu was in the garage being repaired half a dozen times, invariably at enormous expense. But there is really little point in taxing and insuring two cars for any length of time in this country — Especially when I take the Raptor everywhere if possible…

blogimages/goat-n-geek.jpgBen Elliston, creator of Autoconf 2.13, and one of my co-authors for the goat book tipped me off that he had spotted our book in the movie ‘Blood Work’, I bought a copy on dvd yesterday, and after a careful watch on my iBook got a couple of screen captures, both from a few seconds over 30 minutes into the film.