Sunburned back

I went to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk this past weekend with some friends. I decided to take my shirt off to try to even out my tan a bit. I got lazy and didn't bother asking someone to put sunscreen on my back. :-p I swear I only had it off for half an hour or an hour at most while playing cards, but now my back is sunburned. :-( Granted, I had my back to the sun the whole time, but still... Either the sun was that intense or my torso is that white. I think it's the later... -__-

P.S. I thought about posting a picture, but I don't think anyone would want to see that. LOL

Yay, everything has arrived!!

Like the subject says, everything has arrived!! :-) Even the car, for which I left work early today. ^_^ That was a rather interesting experience because the truck couldn't drive into residential areas, so I met the truck at the corner of Stelling and Stevens Creek at 2:40PM; I left work around 1:30 to get back in time. Then I got into the truck and we drove down Stevens Creek, all the way past San Thomas, looking for a spot where they can stop. I figure that's going to be the only time I get to ride in a huge truck, so it was a rather interesting experience. :-D

The couple, I assume they're a couple, has been doing this Illinois to California thing for 12 years now, apparently. We talked quite a bit about how big the truck is (~100 feet long, 13 1/2 feet tall, 80,000 pounds fully loaded, loads up to 10 cars, and like 3 inch clearance on the bottom) and how the commercial GPS systems don't know anything about bridge limits. Apparently the Army has a version that does though.

The household goods delivery was a lot less exciting, in comparison. :-p They tried last Friday w/o telling me while I was at kendo summer camp, so they came back Wednesday morning.

Getting old?

I must be getting old. Just a couple of days ago I spent an hour watching an 1 hour show on Van Gogh on PBS. Either that or the TV available over the airwaves contain only sucky reality shows... ^_^

First run

Went for a short jog this morning for my first run. I only did around 2 miles. :-p I've been feeling inactive so I went out yesterday, bought a pair of running shoes, and decided to hit the pavement.

I'm going to have to work out when to do my runs around work and kendo... Kendo is Tuesday and Thursday nights, so right now I'm thinking a run on Wednesday morning, and then a long run on the weekend.

First practice back at San Jose Dojo

Last night was my first practice back at San Jose Dojo. Went fairly well. I forgot my San Jose zekken though. :-p

Talking to Tanaka sensei after practice he told me that keiko is for practice and improvement. It's not shiai. And I should keep that in mind. I'm not exactly certain what he's trying to tell me. I think he's saying that I'm trying too hard to win, or maybe I'm looking not to loose. The other thing that went through my head was "Do I know what I am, or should be, practicing?" :-p Maybe I was spending too much time in tsubazeriai, looking for opportunities, and he would rather I not spend so much time on that. At least he said my kendo is straight. ^_^

昨日は私がサンホーセに帰った第一回の練習でした。いい稽古でしたと思うけど、ぜっけんが忘れちゃいました。:-p

田中先生のフィードバックは稽古は練習と上手になるのためです。試合じゃありません。そして、私はそれを覚えなければなりません。それはどういうことはよくわかりません。多分私が「負けいけない」の気持ちが強すぎると思います。または鍔ぜり合いの時間が長すぎると思います。少なくとも、先生が私の剣道は真っ直ぐと言いました。^_^

So... I guess I will continue to concentrate on the following 3 things for now:

1) Seme (攻め): I still need to be able to pressure my opponent better, and have a smoother transition into the attack. I want to also practice the backing-off to invite my opponent technique that Sugawara sensei suggested. I tried that last night on Kikunaga sensei with mixed results.

2) Zanshin (残心): My lack of zanshin after certain strikes and not being ready to strike at any time has been pointed out to me repeatedly. This is something I should be able to fix but have not done so. :-(

3) Hikiwaza (引き技): I want to improve my hikiwaza.

LCPC 2008

Wow, I just realized that I never posted that my LCPC paper got accepted. Hmm... I wonder if that says something... :-p

After some adjustments for reviewer comments and acknowledgments, with a good amount of work and ideas from Wen-mei, I got it to fit within the page limit. So a couple more passes for stupidity like the "the the" I found last time and I'll be done with this. Well, there's still the presentation... -_-;;

The title of the paper is "CUDA-lite: Reducing GPU Programming Complexity." Unfortunately Wen-mei kiboshed the one line I wanted, which I had at the beginning of the conclusion: "CUDA-lite performs great, with less coding requirement." Wonder if I should sneak it back in... ^_^

Empty apartment

Well, the movers came yesterday and packed my stuff into a vault to be delivered to California. Almost all of my material goods (minus the kendo bogu, some shinai, and one suitcase) into 34 boxes. It feels so weird seeing my apartment empty... 

So let the cleaning begin!! And see how soon Sain says "F**k it!" to his security deposit. :-p

Unfortunately the car shipping is not working out, so I have to arrange for someone else to hand it over next Tuesday. :-(