I just finished video taping the fist show I have produced. I also was also technical directing for the first time. This has been taking all my time for the last three days. Now I need to do the post production. It will probably take me six to ten hours of editing to make a one hour show from the two hours of tape I have. At least I know what I'm doing in post production, since I have been doing it for a choral group for a few months now.

It is a performance by young marimba players for community cable. The kids were great. It will probably air on at least three community access stations. We also had the kids do a PSA while they were in the studio.

Every year I put together a list of about a dozzen books I plan t read that your. I read lots of other books, but these are books that will be sure to read. This year the list is:

• The Feynman Lectures on Physics
• Fuzzy Sets and Fuzzy Logic Theory and Application
• Brain-Wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy
• The Hypnotic Brain: Hypnotherapy and Social Communication
• Tensors, Differential Forms, and Variational Principles
• Acupuncture: A Comprehensive Text
• The Art Of Everyday Ecstasy: The Seven Tantric Keys For Bringing Pasion, Spirit, and Joy into Every Part of Your Life
• Types and Programming Languages
• Model Checking
• Verification of Sequential and Concurrent Programs
• 'Subtle is the Lord . . .' : The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein
• Zen and the Brain

 

 

 

 

For personal reasons I always make my New Years resolutions on January 10th. This year I am resolving to do the following exercises every day.

• Sun Salutation (yoga)
• Cat/Cow (yoga)
• Cobra (yoga)
• Uddyiana Bandha (yoga)
• Psoas Stretch (PT)
• Cloud hands (tai chi)
• Circle Walking (ba gua)
• Marriage of Heaven and Earth (Qi Gong)
• Testicle Lifts (Qi Gong)
• Ki Breathing (Shin Shin Toitsu)
• Roll Ups (Pilates)
• the hundred (Pilates)
• Pelvic Curl (Pilates)
• Seal (Pilates)
• Spine Undulations (Belly Dance)
• Juggling
• Drawing
• Harmonica
• Programming with a language, library or technique that I am not fluent with
• Math Puzzles
• Memory Games

I'm visiting my father in VA. I left Arlington, MA Friday afternoon and spent the week end in Arlington, VA. Now I am in Charlottesville, VA.

 

Dad seems to be doing well. We will be spending Thanksgiving at my sisters home with her family.

While I was teaching my class at the Y this evening someone smashed my locker and took my wallet.

They got my drivers license,  my library cards, my YMCA membership card, a prepaid public transit pass with $13.75 credit on it, ~$30 in cash, two scunci's, a few band aids, and a handful of grocery receipts. They left me my change purse, and did not find my reserve cash. They went through my backpack, but I do not think they took anything. It could have been a lot worse.

In recent years Nestle Quick has become the only chocolate milk powder available, and it is not very good, so I switched to Syrup. Now the selection of syrups is becoming restricted, and the price going up, so I have started making my own. It is easy, and tastes better too.
I mix 2 cups each sugar, water, and cocoa powder. Add 1/4 tsp. salt, 1/8 tsp. cinnamon, and 1/16 tsp. very finely ground black pepper. Boil for three minutes. Then add 2 tsp. Vanilla Extract.
It is good in milk, over ice cream, etc.

Just back from taichi push hands practice.
My liuhebafa teacher was there and gave me a lot of pointers on my form. All in all a very productive evening.

I just made a double batch of waffles. I ate one with Cinnamon syrup (which I made last week), and will freeze the rest.

I just got back from tango class. The teacher is one of my aikido students.

We frequently quote each other in our respective classes. He has been telling me for years that he thinks aikido and tango are really the same. I'm not convinced. I admit that there are enough similarities that he can quote me in his class and I can quote him in my class. But there are many significant differences. For starters aikido rarely, if ever, uses dragon body, but it is used almost all the time in tango.

In the past I found that swing dance is much like aikido, but belly dance is more like ba gua. So far tango seems to be somewhere between the two, or maybe something different.

Just got back from filming an aikido show at the local community cable station.

There are three black belts, from three different aikido schools involved.  It is fun to see the differences in styles.