Vacation
Needless to say, I've taken a break from the "geek stuff" (for the most part)
during my vacation. I wisely chose to take the last two weeks of December off
for holiday. I sincerely believe that developers need to take vacations on
quarterly basis to avoid burnout. Maybe this year I'll take my own advice
instead of waiting until December again. * sigh *
Last Night
Happy New Year! Well, I guess...
It's a good thing I ordered UFC
Ultimate New Years Eve last night because my wife was sick and coughing up a
storm keeping me awake. Yeah, it was a real party at our house. Around midnight
some of the fun folks in the neighborhood started in with the fireworks making
my 150lb rottweiller go completely nuts. My wife is "babysitting" her
grandmother's two dogs as well, so that was even more fun for the party when
they all started barking and running around. This set off a chain reaction of my
two-year-old daughter waking up to join the party. I think it was right about
that time that I got to see
Tank Abbott submit to Frank Mir. I don't know which looked more painful,
that submission hold or all three dogs trying to bolt out of the same dog door
at once! Anyway, that was a lot of fun...
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Some of you might be wondering why I was watching the UFC anyway. Well,
though it seems to disturb some of the uninformed, mixed martial arts is one of
the most amazing sports of our time. The athletes have to show an incredible mix
of talents in various martial arts in order to be successful (although there are
exceptions to the rule). Like boxing? Like kickboxing? Like wrestling? Like
Judo? How about a combination of all of them? That's the kind of sport that I
can appreciate. It has also proved to be much safer than boxing due to the quick
stoppages versus the constant pounding.
Anyway, some time in the late 90s, I became convinced after watching the
early UFCs that the traditional karate was pretty much unrealistic for
self-defense. A young man named
Royce Gracie fought
guys that were bigger, stronger, and more athletic and defeated them all
convincingly. In one case, his opponent had 10 different black belts in
traditional martial arts and Royce mopped the floor with him. Not by beating the
snot out of him, but by the art of submission. This was my introduction to "soft
style" martial arts. After a few months of Japanese JuJitsu, I met a Brazilian
Jiu-Jitsu practitioner who convinced me to join the Gracie association in Mesa,
AZ. That school broke up and I ended up learning my way to a
blue belt from Relson Gracie in
2000. A
few months later I got married and I haven't been serious about Jiu-Jitsu since.
Congratulations to Greg Holmes
One of my former Jiu-Jitsu instructors, Greg Holmes, finally earned his black
belt from Rigan Machado's
association. Getting a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu is beyond difficult, and it is
not uncommon for people to spend over a decade to get to get one. In fact, he is
the first person in Arizona that I've heard of earning one.
Doom III and Half-Life II
I own both of these games and a quality PC to play them...and they both bore
me to tears. I was going to play some on my two week vacation that I'm currently
still on; however, I'm just not into it. The graphics are great. So what.
BizTalk Book
I'm currently in the middle of reading
BizTalk Server 2004 Unleashed by
Scott Woodgate and
I will be looking forward to writing a book review when I am finished.
SLAR v2
I was among those chosen to review v2 of the .NET
Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference by
Brad Abrams. I
received the first set of samples and I'm looking forward to getting back into
geek mode to review them starting next week.
Tsunami Victims
I'd like to extend my condolences for the loss of
so
many people. RIP.
