December 31st, 2004

Fencing December 30th I had scheduling conflicts Wednesday night so I went to fencing classes on Thursday night instead. While nothing extraordinary occurred, I did talk to the coach for a few minutes after almost everyone else has left and I definitely want to go to the Nationals in Denver (March) and Sacramento (July). I would be fencing both in the low division mixed sabre and in the veterans over 50 sabre and what he said was, "Older fencers always get points." In other words, there are so few fencers in those catagories that I should score points, which would be one more person in the club with national points. While the goal is to improve, rather than to bring home points, I like the idea that I could do both. I also had a chance to fence with Tim, our associate coach, and thus gained a few pointers on things I need to work upon. For one thing, I keep taking bait when he throws it out in that I hit the blade, which turns it into a parry/repoiste rather than an attack. This takes longer and gives the opponent a chance to score. He also pointed out that when I begin advancing, my foot tends to drift inward. Thus, I'll be practicing moving up and down the hallway for the next few days and stop occasionally to check the positions of my feet. Another problem is still balance. Going low (but not into a squat), gives you the ability to move faster and thus that's another one to practice upon. Today, it's off to Cincinnati for the New Year's Party. Stimulating conversation is guaranteed and we're staying overnight with friends so we can drive back safely without worrying about the drunks on the road.

December 29th, 2004 - 06:59 pm - iMac and DSL Today, I took my mother shopping at the Apple Store and I've ordered an iMac for her. I'm also negotiating with the local rural phone company for DSL to be installed in her home. The trick now is to find a way for me to pay this bill without her knowing about it. If she saw how much it cost, she'd have sticker shock. The last few days have been rather... well... blonde. Or maybe a Lucy moment. First, I lost the remote control and complained to my husband that there were three remoted on the sofa and asked where he'd hidden the important one. It was under my knitting. Second, I finished knitting, sewed the pieces together,and realized I'd lost the knitting needle inside the sofa. I explained to Greg that I was trying to get the needle out of the sofa and he turned the sofa upside down and then sideways, and noted he could hear the needle rattling around inside. Thus, he proceeded to use a screwdriver to remove the staples holding the backing in place so he could reach it while I protested that this was a very bad idea and I'd just buy a new needle. I bet by now you can see the I Love Lucy moment coming, right? He found a double-point needle inside the sofa, which was NOT the needle I'd lost. I then glanced at the table and realized I'd left the needle there. Today was the third and hopefully final clueless moment. I lost a contact lens. Explicitly, I hadn't yet received my 6-month supply and all I had was the two contacts. As I was putting ithe right one into my eye, it fell off my fingertip and rolled down my cheek. I made the mistake of telling Greg I'd lost the contact and he insisted upon searching the floor with the flashlight, inspecting my clothing, etc. and insisting it HAD to be there somewhere. We have not yet found the contact. I actually hope we don't because I have a bad feeling that it would be discovered someplace silly that would make the last two incidents seem sensible by comparison.

December 20th, 2004 -12:51 pm - Dropping Weighty Issues After they announced we won the A76 and my job was as secure as a job could be in today's economy, I immediately lost 5 lbs, 1/2 inch around the waist, and a full inch from the hips. It's like I heaved a huge sigh of relief and lost 5 pounds of stress. I feel better than I have in a while and my clothes fit the way I want them to fit. I do not want to gain or lose any additional weight and while I'm skeptical that this is a permanent weight loss, I'm not looking this particular gift horse in the mouth.

December 19th, 2004 07:56 am - Fencing Decenber 19 Today was the first day I wore contact lenses while fencing and this was a definite improvement over wearing glasses. I could see clearly and didn't have the usual problems putting on/taking off the mask. Today, however, was a slow fencing day for me and I feel that I'm at a stand still. I need to improve and I'm not at all certain how to go about doing this now that I've reached the end of the classes. The coach is so overbooked that I'm hesitant to ask for additional lessons. I simply don't know how he could squeeze me into the schedule. More, I still have this communication problem where I have great difficulty following simple instructions.

December 11th, 2004 06:38 pm - Fencing practice December 11 2004 The coach and many of the younger fencers went to Louisville for a qualifying competition. Thus, it was a smaller and quieter group that gathered to practice this Saturday. Fortunately for me, Andrea took the time to answer many questions and help me work with a few problem areas. Some notes I've made for myself include: When you are retreating, you can get out of the way in a hurry by using crossover instead of the usual left foot first, then right, then left. IOW, you and walk/run backwards. Somehow, this important fact had not registered in my brain until Andrea discussed it. One of my problems is that my shoulder is too high and I keep making sweeping movements such that the opponent can see my intended action coming in time to react. The trick is to minimize and Andrea showed me how to pick up the saber from the floor and move into the en garde position with my shoulder down as it should be. I will be practicing this over the next few weeks until it becomes second nature to hold the sabre properly and stand en garde with that right shoulder DOWN! I should move the sabre out like I'm shifting gears in on a motor vehicle. Glide. You don't jerk up or swing wide. You guide it forward and you do NOT lock your arm. The sectional qualifications for my age group will be at the St. Valentine's Day Massacre competition. One thing that has been defeating me is the way the opponent can gain the right of way by extending his weapon arm during the advance such that I will -- if I'm not sufficiently quick -- run into it. This is called a Point in Line attack and while it's usually fairly easy for experienced fencers to defeat, I've been falling prey to this one almost every time I've encountereed it. Usually, one extends the weapon arm to bait the person to deflect it. An extended arm has right of way and the opponent must hit the sabre before hitting the body or it's not a hit. The problem with this, of course, is recovery time. When you deflect the other person's weapon, the can often recover or move that weapon and hit you before you can get out of the way. At least, that's how it works with me. Most people hit the blade UP to knock it out of the way and thus that's the expected counter and often easily countered. Attacking DOWN is less expected but gives you only one shot at a touch... on the upper arm. Andrea and I practiced the Point in Line attacks for most of the session which gave me a great opportunity to work on defeating that move. Unfortuantely, I still haven't got it. I will, however, overcome this obstacle. It's just a matter of time, learning, and practice.

December 9th, 2004 03:39 pm - A76 We won! I stay employed. This means I can now go Chrismas shopping and start making some phone calls about all those things I've wanted to have repaired the last few months. The down side is that this means I will be super busy as we've cut things to the bone to reduce costs. The up side is that I only have to last three years and then I'm out without penalties. Eight years and I would receive a full pension. Time and money seem to be mutually exclusive. If you have time, you don't have the money and if you have money, you don't have the time. I am spoiled. I like being able to walk into the grocery store and buy fresh fruit out of season. In fact, I like being able to walk into a store and buy food without having to worry furiously about whether or not I can afford meat this week. I've been poor. I prefer to be middle class. I get to stay middle class as long as Greg also stays employed. YIPPEE!!!!!!

December 8th, 2004 - 10:06 pm - Colorado Springs January 10-13 I am scheduled to be in Colorado Springs January 10-13 7 days and counting until the day they're supposed to compare the bids to determine if our jobs remain ours or are contracted out to private industry. (Leave a comment) 10:09 pm - Fencing Practice - Wednesday December 8 I felt happier with my skill set tonight in fencing than I had felt since beginning as some things are finally starting to come together. Although I have a long way to go, I can finally see progress. We began with the usual warm-up exercises and one of these requires you to reach backwards and try to touch the heel of your shoes. I am NOT flexible; however, as I was trying to do this and trading barbs about my inability to do it, I ALMOST made it. That was a great sensation. After our footwork exercises, Andrea and I paired off for the glove game. This time, we were supposed to jump twice and try to hit the opponent but the coach walked by and told us adults that we could do the usual two advance instead. The trick of the glove game is to learn how to keep your distance while advancing and retreating. Thus, you take the en garde position and move forward, see if you can hit your opponent with the glove (not hard!) and then it's the opponent's turn to advance two while you retreat two and try to avoid being hit. In fencing, part of the trick is to keep enough distance between yourself and your opponent that he cannot hit you with the sword and yet be close enough that when he misses, you can move in faster than he can retreat and thus score. Thus the glove game. Maybe I just felt more confident tonight, but I was managing to catch Andrea a few times, which is an improvement over the usual results of the glove game. Fencing practice was also a step up for me tonight. I'm not even close to being where I need to be and especially on defense. However, my mental attitude was better and I was definitely landing touches that I was having trouble landing earlier. I think competing is definitely helping me pull my skill level up to a higher level. It's also giving me a greater incentive to work harder during practice.

December 5th, 2004 -11:14 am - Fencing at Culver Yesterday, I went to a fencing competition at Culver Military Academy, which is about 3 hours away from home. I arrived with about five minutes left to register and I'll use the excuse that I just wasn't mentally prepared yet as my excuse for fencing badly. More, teenagers in a military academy that hosts at least three competitions per year can be expected to fence better than the average teenage competitor. I competed in two events: Women's sabre fencing and Men's sabre fencing (actually mixed fencing). In case anyone is interested about how this works, I'm including a little general information with my description of yesterday's events. Fencers are put into groups called pools. Each pool should have an equal number of fencers in them although the exact number of fencers may not fit equally on the number of pistes [I call them strips -- it's the area in which you compete] allocated by the organizers. The pools may contain 5-7 fencers, depending upon the number of strips available. Each strip has a director, which is the person who quite literally directs -- and also judges -- the competition. It's the director's responsibility to insure the competitors are ready to compete as they step forward after connecting to the electrical equipment and touch their blades against their competitor's mask. The scoring equipment should light up red and green for the competitors. If one does not light up, then that competitor needs to check the wiring to insure he or she is properly connected. On rare occasions -- and I saw it once yesterday -- the main box to which the fencer is connected will develop problems and the director will need to swap out a box. For more information on how fencing scoring works, you can go to How Fencing Works, an excellent web site whose home page takes you to links on how various things work. Competitors are allocated according to their ranking: the first pool gets the highes ranking fencer present; the second gets number 2 and so on until each pool has one high ranking fencer. The process then begins again with the first pool until all the competitors are allocated. Thus, there is an even spread of competitors across the pools although I caution that just because someone is unranked, doesn't mean he's not a skilled fencer. Some competition programs (yes, they have computer programs for this) arrange the fencers so that those in the same club are not fencing one another in a pool if the number and variety of competitors allows for this mix. This is most likely to occur at regional or national meets. The theory here is that you don't travel across the coutry to fence someone you fence with locally once or maybe multiple times per week. [I note that one of the other reasons given to do this is to decrease the likelihood of cheatin. Yes, horror of horrors -- some fencers have been known to cheat. And politics can impact the way a director conducts a bout. Fencing is fast and while electric equipment improves the ability to detect touches, there's still a matter of right of way, etc. such that the outcome can be influenced by a director just as some sports can be influenced by the calls of umpires, referees, etc.] In this part of the competition, the bouts are to 5 hits in 3 minutes. When every fencer in the pool has fought every other fencer, then each fencer views the results, signs off on the sheet, and the results are collated and an index is calculated for each fencer. Wins are counted first and they are a decimal fraction of total possible victories. 5 wins out of 5 = 1.0, 4 of 5 =0.8, 4 from 6 = 0.66, 2 from 7 = 0.28 and so on. Another factor is that the number of hits received is subtracted from those scored. Thus, if someone has 5, 3, 3, 5, 4, 5 hits for 25 and 0,5, 2, 4, 5, 3 hits for 19, they have + 6. My score at the end of the women's sabre pool was -13. This is not a good score. It was the lowest score in my pool. For the direct elimination round following, fencers are ranked according to index. If two fencers are equal, the tie breaker is their indicator. If they're still equal, they they are separated by how made the most hits. If still equal, then they computer picks one. DE = direct elimination. A tablue is formed based on the pool round ranking. One can also get a bye if one's score is sufficiently high. Note that my ranking was not sufficiently high. However, I did win my first elimination round and thus moved up in ranking. I lacked sufficient skill to do well in the second round of elimination and thus my final rank was either 5 or 7. At the end of the event, it was on the sheet as 5 but this is not the official result. I heard that later, the results were recompiled and two of the Culver Military Academy girls moved up while the rest of us moved down. Politics? GIGO computer error? Who knows. Since I'm doing this for fun versus competition, I didn't care. We then had a brief break as the eppe fencers were working on their portion. Note here that the term double stripping was noted by one of the parents who was confused by what it meant. I was equally confused, but thought it had something to do with the fact that there are a limited number of strips and some competitors were fencing in eppe, foil, and sabre. Thus, they'd be going back and forth across the strips. I started off better in men's fencing, winning my first bout against someone who can normally fence cirles around me. Since I hadn't a chance of winning against most of the high seed fencers, I concentrated upon scoring hits. One of the nice things about competiton is that everything disappears around me except the strip when I'm competiting. I don't think about what I have to do when I get home or what I must do in the morning. I'm totally focused upon the director saying FENCE! and once that happens, the only people in the world are me and the guy at the other end who is running towards me (usually) just as fast as I'm running towards him (or her). There are different styles of fencing. Since I'm new, I've learned my best bet is to be aggressive and try to get in a quick hit. I haven't yet mastered the skills of defense sufficiently to parry well and repoiste. The skilled fencers will often thus reel me in, let me try, parry my attack and score. For this pool, I finished 28th in the index. I neglected to note how many were competing, but I did score sufficiently high to get a bye and thus sit out for a long time waiting for my first elimination round. I was out quickly. On these, it's whoever reaches 15 touches first and there's a one-minute rest break at 8 touches. I lost 15-2, but I felt a little better about this when that competitor won his next 3 rounds. The higher up you go, the more the fencing turns from quick bouts into something that ressembles a swordfighting ballet confined to strips. Those who make it this far are very good and know exactly what they're doing. Our team has a coach and an assistant coach. Our assistant coach fenced and was taken out by the person who eventually won the competition. Ben -- who is our best teenage fencer -- also lost about 4 bouts before the end and that was a heartbreaker. I can see now why the coach keeps pushing them to get out there. When you win all your bouts against your teammates, you begin to think you don't really need the practice and you'll just wait for the nationals. It's far, far better to be defeated by your competition earlier in the year so you have a better idea what skills to work upon and how to build a better fight plan in your mind. As for me, I probably won't have a chance to compete again until February and I'm debating over whether I want to drive that twisty road during potential inclement weather. I'll have to think about this and see how far I can push myself to progress over the next few weeks.

November 27th, 2004 07:21 am - Writing I managed to accomplish a good patch of writing yesterday because I was all alone in the house by myself with no outside demands upon my time. Greg was gone. I had no obligations beyond going to the gym first thing in the morning. I confess to spending far too much time cleaning but that was a mental health issue where dealing with all the junk was driving me crazy and thus I needed to clean up some stuff. Now if I can just find someone to finish that room so I can unclutter my office, maybe I won't feel so depressed each time I step in here. I'm 500 words away from 30K. The goal is 80K. Thus far, it is not awful. It will need some work (of course) and I think the fog index is too high for YA but I can fix that in the revision. I'm still, unfortunately, uncertain how this is going. Every time I try to outline to the end, I don't get more than three chapters ahead before I run dry and have to write to that point before I can see what follows next. I'm leapfrogging my way through this story.

November 25th, 2004 08:51 am - Thanksgiving Happy Thanksgiving to everyone regardless of cultural backgrounds, religious beliefs, or family practices. It's a day on which most of us are not required to report to work and regardless or whether you're at home or at work, it's a day in which tradition has us giving thanks for life's bounty. Last week, Jane asked me about myself and noted that I'd lived two lives. I like that notation and I'm going to use it to explain why I am most thankful for my second life. In my first life -- married to my first husband -- I worked as a seamstress in a clothing factory. I am very grateful for my second life, in which I am still gainfully employeed in a mentally challenging occupation which allows me to accumulate savings for my later years. In my first life -- married to my first husband -- I was part of a large family which bickered constantly and which judged people by 1950 standards of inequality. I am very grateful for my second life, in which I can have friends of other races and cultures without being chastized. In my first life -- married to my first husband -- the most stimulating discussion I was likely to encounter concerned what celebrity was doing what with whom. In my second life, I am continuously exposed to individuals whose knowledge and intelligence overwhelm me. In my first life -- married to my first husband -- I was constantly told that I was already too educated and that I had no business trying to write. I was to sit quietly on the sofa while my husband watched television and get up only to respond to his commands. In my second life, I have the freedom to do whatever it is I desire to do be it writing, fencing, taking college courses, or even traveling without my husband. I even went off to Clarion for six weeks in 2000 and it never even occurred to Greg to voice a complaint. I have the freedom to be me and that was something totally beyond my ability to conceive as a possibility in my first life. I feel that I have gone from night to day or from a horrible storm to a beautiful clear day. Life is vastly superior to what it was twenty years ago and I am grateful to modern technology that I have this opportunity to live a second life just as vigorously as I could have lived the first one. I remember years and years ago when I had a conversation with a bank official and discovered my first husband had been cashing the checks I'd written for the mortgage payments and our home was about to go into foreclosure. The bank official was a woman and she said that she'd once been married to someone who'd done some similar things and now she was married to someone else and life was good. I remember thinking how nice for her but nothing like that could ever possibly happen to me. I was wrong. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

November 22nd, 2004 05:01 am - Lunging After weeks of trying to figure out what I've been doing wrong on lunging, I finally realized that the pictures I've seen of lunging show the back foot has moved forward while the videos and the animated gifs show that left foot staying flat on the ground. I've been pushing off into a jump from that left foot. Where did I ever get the idea that I was supposed to jump during a lunge? Also, lunging during exercise is different from lunging during fencing. During exercise, one should bend that back leg. During fencing, one goes from bent to straight (but not locked). I plan to do a great deal of lunging between now and Tuesday night's practice. Did I mention I'm thinking of competing as a veteran (anyone over 40) next spring and seeing how far I can go in the nationals? No, I do not expect to go far. I expect to learn. One thing that I learned during the last tournament was the importance of conditioning so you weren't exhausted by the end of those bouts. I'm actually doing fairly well on that but plan to shift my focus slightly at the gym. Weight and diet continue to be a problem. I've been drinking supplemental liquids at least three times a week in an effort to insure I'm getting meeting the minimum diet requirements. I plan to work on longer lunges tonight and form improvement. I also need to work on keeping my arm at a 90 degree angle from the floor versus tossing it ceiling-ward. The angle of the blade is determined by wrist movement and that is one of my biggest problem areas.

November 20th, 2004 03:19 am - Inventing a fairy tale I invented a fairy tale as a sub-plot of my current work in progress and then I went Googling to verify that I hadn't subconsciously remembered a real fairy tale. Thus far, it appears safe. The fairy tale I invented is a classic one (meaning trite). The king is killed and the king's falconer hides the true heir to the throne so the evil king who killed the true king cannot find him. The falconer is thrown into the dungeon and tortured but refuses to reveal the prince's whereabouts. The evil king has him scheduled for execution, hoping to extract a confession and a flock of falcons descend upon the gallows, giving the falconer an opportunity to escape. The falconer then makes his way to the true heir and helps him raise an army to regain the throne. From that day to modern times, the falcons have watched over the family and a falcon is always sighted in times of severe trouble. Thus, when the story begins, the protaganist notices a shadow on the wall that looks like a bird in flight, a falcon lands on the hood of their car (there are falcons in the area where the story takes place but it's rather bizarre to imagine one landing on a car), they spot a Ford Falcon in the parking lot, and a cast iron falcon paperweight mysteriously shows up in the boy's backpack that is identical to the one he reeived as a gift from his grandfather many long years ago. The protaganist's father is headed to Kuwait and the 12-year-old protaganist is going to live with his scatterbrained mom for a year. Falcons will not be mentioned again for another 3-4 chapters. There will be no recurrence of a living falcon sighting until near the end. There will, however, be a few dream sequences where the protaganist is not really certain if it was real or a dream. When I Googled, I found more than a few falcon stories including a story of the Scotting clan, Hay, where a farmer and his sons played an important role in turning a battle around and the king rewarded them with land as far as his falcon flew. However, the closest thing I have to the story I told is The Court Jester and there's no falcon involved in that story.

November 19th, 2004 05:45 am - Visiting with Jane Yolen I learned Jane Yolen would be in town this week for multiple appearances at libraries and bookstores so I contacted her to see if we could meet for lunch or dinner one day. As luck would have it, she had one free day in admist a busy schedule and it was a day I'd scheduled to be off work. Thus, we spent a pleasant day at the Children's Museum in Indianapolis and then White River Park, where we saw an exhibit of Japanese quilts and an IMAX viewing. The Japanese quilts were incredible. I cannot begin to imagine how they were pieced together to form many of the designs and pictures that were displayed. This is not you average grandmother's quilt and I highly recommend viewing this. One word of caution: It was a rather large and quite impressive collection. Allow at least an hour and possibly two to properly view these. I'd never experienced IMAX before and the Lewis and Clark expedition probably wasn't the best choice. The first time the view soared over the mountain top to show the land below, I had to shut my eyes. Vertigo. I was growing used to it by the movie's end. It was still startling. I should add that Jane is a marvelous person as well as an outstanding author and it was quite fun to spend the day with her.

November 17th, 2004 01:22 am - Circle City Open Competition Results The results for the Circle City Competition are here. Hopefully I input that link correctly. Scroll down far enough and you'll see my name. Note that there were some ranked competitors there and there were also some first-time competitors there and I liked that mix because I learn more from fencing someone just a little better than me than I learn from fencing someone who is so good that it's over before I know what happened. After we each fenced every person assigned to our strip and results were calculated, we then fenced elimination bouts. My first bout was with a child who was there for the experience, so I won. [Although I note that the child was doing all the right things but just didn't have the experience yet.] My second bout was with someone much, much better than me so I lost hard and fast.

November 14th, 2004 04:46 pm - Today, I was an oven mitt Yesterday, I received my ordered fencing knickers, etc. and thus it was suggested I should sign up for the Circle City open (a fencing tournament) today. I declined on the grounds that I wasn't good enough yet and was told that was not a factor. The idea is to dive into the swimming pool and swim. It would be a learning experience. So against my better judgment, I signed up and reported for my first tournament this morning. The following details (in very simplistic terms, because I'm a simplistic person) what was involved in this. Before competing, I put on socks, knickers, shoes, bust protector, and pastron (cloth that protects the weapon arm and that part of the body -- a little extra padding). The jacket goes over this and before putting the jacket on, I first held the body cord in one hand so that the cord would be inside my jacket sleeve with the connector and enough lead available to connect to my electric sabre when I was ready to compete. The rest of the body cord dangled down from the inside of the jacket and I'll get to how that's used shortly. After zipping up the jacket, I then put on the lame, which is an electronic covering that marks the hit zones. Since I was fencing sabre, this was a long-sleeved metallic fabric jacket that zipped up the front with a covering to conceal the jacket. I attached a clip from the body cord to the metallic portion of the jacket. The jacket dangles down between my legs with a thin strap that I connected to the back. Note that the metallic portion ends at the waist and from that portion forward, it's regular fabric. Why? Because the metallic jacket acts as an elecrical marker for when my opponent hit me and the scoreboard would only show a hit if the opponent's weapon connected with the metallic fabric. Once the jacket was on, I added the glove. Note that the glove has an opening for the body cord. I forget the name of the next item, but it's metallic fabric that goes on OVER the glove and you adjust it so it fits from wrist to the end of the glove. This is also to mark your target area. At this point, I was ready for the strip. Once it was my turn, I would connect the a short cord from helmet to a tab (there for exactly that purpose) on the back of my jacket. This insured the mask would also be marked as a target area. Then I connected the portion of my body cord that dangled from inside the jacket (not the sleeve portion) to a device that was at the corner of each strip. This connected me to the scoring equipment. The last step was to connect the body cord end that was at my glove hand to my sabre. Once done, I'd meet the competitor in the middle and we'd touch one another with the sabres to insure the scoreboard lit up appropriately. For the morning effort, we had groups of 8 on seven strips and everyone fenced in a fairly random order that insured everyone fenced everyone else on that strip once. I didn't get a single hit on two of the fencers (who went far in the competiton) and managed to win a couple of bouts. After a break, we started the elimination process. If you won on your strip, you had a bye and didn't have to compete in the first round. I did not -- naturally -- win on my strip and thus competed in the elimination rounds. My competitor was half my size so it's no credit to skill that I won my first elimination bout. The second bout score was 15-1 and I barely managed that one hit. I was way out of my league. It was a learning experience and I'll probably do it again as it gave me more opportunities to practice fencing at different skill levels. In the meantime, I've decided that I need to wear the lame at practice freqeuently until I'm used to it. Wearing this did feel very much like being stuffed into the oven mitt I mentioned earlier. My movements felt restricted and one member said that each time he unzipped the jacket, he heard a hissing sound from the steam escaping. I'm not entirely certain he was joking as it was very hot in that outfit. Some of the people I've been fencing with regularly are doing very well and I noticed that one person who started recently is a real natural for this sport. I beat her 5-4 in our bout and I very much suspect this will be the last time I can beat her. She's picking up everything so quickly that I feel I should be envious. Oddly enough, I'm just happy for her as she's obviously found a sport that is perfectly suited for her. I haven't, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop. I just have to work a little harder to become competent, that's all.

October 29th, 2004 05:13 am - My fencing focus of the moment is upon lunging, which is nothing like the lunging that I do on Fridays in the gym. To lunge properly, you first assume the en garde position. One of my mistakes is to put a little jump into the lunge rather than making a long step with the front foot. I tend to land with my forward foot facing slightly left and not straight, which means I'm off balance. The proper steps are: Preparation: Extend weapon arm at shoulder level Leave arm extended Execution: Kick out with the front foot, lifting toe first Push with rear leg while front leg is extended [See why it's difficult to do this slowly?] Front foot lands on heel and finishes flat. Rear leg is fully extended. Front knee stops over the shoelaces. Rear foot slides but the sole remains flat. Keep shoulders and hips parallel to the floor. Follow-up: Leave weapon arm softly extended briefly until legs are back in on guard position. Recover forward or backward into en garde position. When I was practicing this in front of the mirror Wednesday night, one of the instructors was practicing something else and asked what I was trying to do. Lunge properly. Go get a quarter. He then placed the quarter on the floor, put his right foot atop the quarter, and demonstrated how to lunge properly. If you lunge properly, the quarter slides forward across the floor. If you move the forward foot incorrectly, the quarter stays in position. My primary failure (imho) is that I'm leaping forward, which means the foot comes up and leaves the quarter in place. Thus, I've been practicing at home, in the kitchen, where we have a laminated floor. [Note that one should never do this while wearing socks only.] My form has gone all to hell, but the front foot is now going forward properly most of the time. Kicking off on the hell is counterintuitive for me and I suspect it's going to take weeks of this before I have the lunge perfected to my satisfaction. It would help if there were a full wall mirror n the kitchen. Learning fencing is even more difficult than I had suspected. Every time I think I've finally got it, I find that I'm doing something wrong. I keep asking myself why I'm doing this. I did not need another time sink. I hate being hurt and my right arm is covered with bruises where someone hit a little too energetically. I'm in a group that is 80% teenagers or younger at the moment and I'm the oldest beginner there. I haven't a clue why I'm still doing this.

October 25th, 2004- 06:39 pm - It had to happen eventually Greg calls himself a collector and I call him a pack rat. Whatever label you wish to assign, the bottom line is that we have a lot of... ahem... stuff and most of this stuff doesn't have a place where it belongs because you can only find a place for so much stuff before the house turns into a storage unit. One of the things I've complained about for a long time is that Greg has about 600 boxes of unassembled model airplanes. When we moved, we put them into boxes. The boxes degraded and had to be reboxed. We hired someone to install shelving units in the garage so we'd have a place to put all those boxes and I expressed the concern long ago that someday the shelves would collapse under the weight of all the boxes. Nonsense, he said. Couldn't possibly happen. [You can see what's coming, right?] And then he had to save all the empty computer equipment-related boxes and toss those up there because there was nowhere else to put those since the basement, the living room, and everywhere else overflows with all this stuff for which he has no purpose but the stuff must be kept regardless. So yes, exactly what you think would happen, happened. Avalanche would be an appropriate word. It buried my car under boxes. The support brackets bent double against the wall and the shelving units fell, with the boxes tumbling on top of them. I dug my car out and discovered that five of these heavy boxes were nothing more than empty boxes that had once contained computer-related items and this is the discovery that is making me most the annoyed. Why continue to save these boxes once the items they contained are out of warranty? Heavy sigh! I have been trying for two years to convince Greg that he needs to reduce the level of accumulation in the closet because the existing units simply were not intended to maintain the accumulation of weight that one finds in a closet with over 300 t-shirts. I hope this will persuade him that perhaps I'm correct. But just in case, I'm packing up some of the stuff on my side of the closet to go to Goodwill. I paid far too much money -- I thought -- for my daughter's clothing to give these items away and I've been trying to wear them whenever possible so I won't feel so wasteful. It is, imho, time to be wasteful. I don't want the closet shelves to collapse. I love my husband... most of the time... but I don't think I love him tonight. Current Mood: aggravated

October 20th, 2004 05:33 pm - Writing Short At last! I've finally written another short story after months of forcing myself to keep moving forward on a longer work. Words cannot express how liberating it felt to take off the shackles of long-term plotting and write a piece of silly fluff. If I sell this to the semi-closed anthology, the payment will be incredibly low and I WON'T CARE because it was an opportunity to take off the heavy armor and fly above the clouds with something I truly enjoyed. I really needed that change. Whew! I started thinking about the anthology premise last weekend. I committed a thousand words to electonic storage last night. I came home on annual leave at mid-day, started revising the first thousand words, and the story took off and wrote itself almost faster than I could follow. This is the first time in ages that I've been IN the story and able to see, feel and smell everything as it was happening. It was FUN and it hasn't been fun in a long, long time. Now I need to decide what I want to write next. I think for my next trick, I'll go through the list of finished stories and start sending them out again. I haven't attended to this particular housekeeping task in a long time. You can't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket and you can't sell stories if you don't mail them out to editors. Time to dig out that market guide again.

October 14th, 2004- 05:32 am - Poison Ivy This is the plant that fights back. I've been trying to kill off mutant poison ivy vines on the nearby lot since we moved to this house. Spraying causes them to eventually loosen their grip on the trees and fall free, but the process literally takes years of constant spraying and in the meantime, I endure summers of scratching. Thus, last weekend I took hatchet in hand and walked to the vacant lot to attack the source of the problem. I chopped near the root of each poison ivy vine that was choppable. Despite washing carefully and thoroughly afterwards, I have poison ivy in places that were covered by clothing as well as places that were not. It's going to be another two weeks of itching and I note the vines are laughing and applying bandages to their wounded roots. The vines will recover if I don't go out there to finish off the job and waiting until they are dormant will not be effective because poison ivy is poison regardless of weather and regardless of whether it's alive, dead, awake and growing, or sleeping through the winter. This is war and thus far, the poison ivy is winning. This year, I found at least twenty advance scout poison ivy plants taking position in my yard. They were all caught by the early warning detection system and nuked, but it's only a matter of time until those vicious vines take over unless I can successfully destroy the advancing army. The first day it doesn't rain, I'm going out there again with a hatchet. I'm already scratching. What's a few more bumps? (3 comments | Leave a comment) 10:50 am - Another Day Off I took today off because Greg is flying out to California to visit friends (rant about wasting money omitted), see an auto race (another rant tactfully omitted) and attend a concert (no rant here). Thus, this was the perfect opportunity to paint the last room without him complaining about the mess I'm making, the stench of paint, etc. Last time I painted (floor and ceiling) while he was at Dragoncon, he was sick for a week after returning and blamed the fumes. Thus, I have strict instructions to paint with the door closed and the window open. At 0600 this morning, I went to the gym and did my morning ellicipal trainer hourly duty and then returned home, noted the supplies needed, grabbed my billfold (which is why I didn't buy the items on the way home) and set to work. I cleaned the walls and sanded lightly and applied the first coat. It's 1100 hours here and the first coat is slowly drying. Two coats will do it. Unfortunately, this is just the beginning. I was unable to buy the single can of white paint that I wanted for the trim so I'll need to do that after work tomorrow and then paint the window trim, the closet door, and the interior of the closet. We had leftover off-white so the room will be off-white and the trim white. Maybe. The colors are so close that I'm still debating the wisdom of this but unless I change my mind tomorrow, the window sill and closet will be white. And now back to apply the second coat.

October 11th, 2004 11:18 am - My So-Called Day Off I thought I'd track what I do on a so-called day off just to see how much so-called free time I really have on a day off. Besides, reporting reporting what I'm doing will give me an incentive to keep going and not stop to rest. I missed accomplishing many tasks due to being sick and thus I've got a long list of things to do. I slept late, not getting up and going to the gym until 8. 8-915am: Gym. Explicitly, one hour on the ellipse. 930-10am: Kill Grass. Explicitly, use a 1/2 gallon concentrate container to mix with water and then kill the weeds and grass in the mulch next to the mini-barn and kill the grass and weeds around that particularly troublesom grass cutting area near the lake where I plan to later put out weed block, mulch, dirt, and hostas and lilies. 10-1130am: Clean kitchen. Two loads of dishes. Clean out and dispose of some old stuff in one cabinet. Clean countertops. Clean stove top. Empty some containers in refrigerator. Begin cleaning floor with wet paper towels. [Yes, this is how I usually do this.] Also vacuum the upstairs area and take one load out of the dryer & put another load in. Clean litter boxes. Start a load of white items in washer. Begin printing out full manuscript with error codes. 1130-1200: Vacuum living room and library. Vacuum kitchen floor. Shake out rugs and set aside to wash. Note that maybe it's time to replace those throw rugs. They may only be 3 years old but they've been in the kitchen and have had a hard life. Clean kitchen floor with wet paper towels. Move everything out. Begin cleaning countertop on west side. Start putting stuff away that doesn't belong in kitchen. [The hardest task, imho.] Take socks out of dryer and put in drawer. Put white load into dryer and put dark load in wash. Decide to go to nearby store for rugs and electric toothbrush and maybe go to the gym. I didn't do weight lifting this morning and I really, really should do that. 1200-1330: Went shopping for two rugs and one replacement electric toothbrush head and then went to the gym for 25 minutes of triceps and back workout and 20 minutes on the ellipse. 1330-1400: With saw and axe in hand, I tackled a couple of thick weeds/aspiring bushes that I hadn't been able to get with the electric hedge trimmer. Fortunately, there were only a couple. Unfortunately, they were under low-lying branches of the crabapple trees. They will not be there next Spring, when I shall venture forth with Round-Up to prevent their re-emergence. Finished cleaning off the kitchen countertop. Removed all stuff that needed to be put away and either put them away or moved them to the floor of my office (which explains much about the mess in my office). Discovered laundry was still damp and set the timer on the dryer for more time. Vacuumed eating area and family room. 1400-1500: Sorted laundry. Decided the white things needed bleach. Put dark items in dryer and started washer with towel. Next load is the white stuff that should have had bleach. Tackled the good rug in the family room and the black sofa with one of those lint removal things that with very slowly and painfully remove most of the cat hair -- but never all of the cat hair. This took a l-o-n-g time until I gave up. One never gets all the cat hair out; one merely eventually reaches the point of diminishing returns and abandons hope. At least the rug looks good. 1500-1600: Writing. Finally. I should have spackled the walls in the closet, but there has to be writing time SOMEWHERE. I have finished marking up the manuscript (excepting the last chapter) and have keyed in the changes through page 604 out of about 700. I'm closing in. 1600-1610: ENOUGH! I am drop dead tired. Greg is bringing home dinner and I just want to crawl into bed and sleep for the next hour. I've spackled the closet walls -- badly -- which indicates that I've done too much today and it's time to quit. Two more loads will go into the dryer after being bleached (because some of the whites should be dried separately) and I still need to put away a few purchases. Other than that, it's time to relax. You know what will happen next, right? I will go downstairs and collapse onto the sofa about ten minutes before Greg arrives. He will walk in and say, "Is this all you've been doing all day? Watching television?" Unfortunately, Indiana does not have a temporary insanity defense. I really shouldn't complain. Compared to about 90% of the people in the world, I'm rich and living a carefree lifestyle. I'm fortunate to have so much and I'm doubly fortunate to be ABLE to do this much work today. Christopher Reeve died today and while he had regained the ability to distinguish hot and cold and while he could make minor movements, he never walked after his accident. I am a very, very fortunate person.

October 10th, 2004 12:06 pm - Windycon and household chores Greg wants to go to Windycon and I do not. Why not? Because I don't want another migraine. I've barely recovered from the migraine I developed after Context and I fear going to Windycon would mean being ill for about a week afterwards with another migraine. In the meantime, I'm trying to catch up on all the things I would have done had I not been sick and then I can start on the long list of things I planned to do this weekend. Thus far, I spent yesterday evening and this morning working outside. The bulbs are planted. The bushes are trimmed. The dead stuff in the fowler gardens are removed. The weeds are history. I even hacked a little bit on some wrist-sized poison ivy vines that are wrapped around trees on a nearby lot in the hope that maybe next year they will stop sending scouting parties to our property. I took the electric hedge trimmer to the honeysuckle in back where it is threatening to take over and kill everything in its path. Now that Greg is awake, I've started on the laundry and I've thoroughly cleaned our bathroom. I've also spackled all the walls in the room that needs painting excepting the closet, which is the area most in need of spackling. My goal is to paint that room Thursday or Friday. Now if I can just stay well this week and manage to steal a day off for painting, I might actually catch up on some of the work ahead of me. Oh, yes. Writing. I'm at page 473.

October 8th, 2004 01:19 am - Migraines I had a mild headache late Monday/early Tuesday which I couldn't identify as a sinus headache or a stress headache. By Wednesday, it was beginning to show symptoms of being a migraine and by Thursday, it was a full-force migraine that didn't begin to abate until I dry heaved for a while. No light show this time, but absolutely all the other classic symptoms of a migraine. I'm on the downside of the migraine now, which means I'm unable to stay awake for more than a few minutes at a time and I'm using those few minutes to try to figure out what I did that triggered a migraine. Was it the overindulgence in potato chips at last weekend's convention that set off the attack since potatoes and candy have both triggered migraines in the past? I don't know, but I obviously have a strong incentive to avoid any form of potatoes for the forseeable future. The headache is now at the point where it jumps from one part of my head to another, like some alien moving around inside my head. Five minutes ago, it felt that I had a bullet wound between the eyes and now the pain has moved to the right side of my head. Thus far, I've avoided candy since April so I'm doing well in that department. Potatoes and other starchy food, however, are doing me in.

October 4th, 2004 - 04:54 am - Home Again I'm back from Context and far too exhausted to say more than the basics. I love going to convention partially because it leaves my head filled with ideas that I'm eager to execute and I hate going to conventions because I return home with a bad case of jet lag (never mind that we drove there). I never touched an M&M, but I did devour an entire LARGE bowl of potao chips and I'm feeling the side effects. My fingers are thick with water weight and my body feels very much like a sponge that has been used overmuch. While at the convention, I re-discovered Georgette Heyer novels. Yes, I know. Still, it's delicious mind candy and it's one of the few types of fiction that I can read without the reading interferring with my writing. I read through one novel almost to the end before recognizing I'd read it about 40 years ago. I've never had that happen before and I don't know whether to be glad that I can re-read books for the first time again or to feel depressed that I'm losing my memory for books I've enjoyed. Back at work this morning, I'm now at chapter 21, page 256 (double-spaced pages). I marked up copy last night and I'm keying in the changes and making additional changes as I go along. I'm eager to finish this, even if I don't think it's a particularly good novel, as it's at least one more learning experience out of the way once I've polished it sufficiently to hand to Greg for an impartial third party opinion. Once upon a time, Greg was a wonderful critiquer and very helpful. Now, he dreads these assignments and it's much easier to persuade him to do some house chore he detests. [Note that it's pulling teeth to get him to do any work around the house.] Yes, it's really that difficult to persuade him to offer constructive criticism. He usually just tosses the story back with misspelled words circled and nothing helpful scribbled anywhere on the manuscript. I'll ask what he thinks and he just shrugs. I miss that critical helpmate. My mind is still asleep and I'm not functioning at all well this morning. I need about 6 more hours of sleep and I also need to spend about 20 hours at the gym just to work off all those potato chips I ate over the weekend. I kid you not. I overindulged. Badly. (Leave a comment) 05:31 am - Scotland in 2005 I've been planning for Scotland for a few years and I've got my passport and sufficient funds set aside in bonds to pay for transportation there and back. However, my prospects of attending are fading. Glasgow is in August. The outsourcing contract has a start date of July 1st. If I lose my government job and I have a chance to work for the contractor -- even if it's only for a few weeks -- I need to grab that opportunity. Last time this happened, I went from three weeks of annual leave per year to no time off for at least six months and then one day earned per X number of weeks. Thus, I half-expect to be employed during Glasgow at the same old job with a new employer and no opportunity to take any vacation time for a few months. I am about two years short of having paid into social security for sufficient time to be able to keep $2 out of $3 dollars earned. [Double Dipping restrictions prohibit federal employees on the old pension system to collect social security benefits until/unless they pay in for X number of years. I can keep $1 out of $3 after paying into the system for 13 years. Another 2 years and I get to keep $2 out of every $3. Work for 20 years under social security and I get to keep it all -- but only if I earn what social security considers to be a substantial amount so part-time work at WalMart probbly won't be sufficient.] I have not yet given up on Scotland and if I don't make it in 2005, I will start planning a visit simply as a tourist.

September 26th, 2004 07:43 am - GenTours, Inc. I've been working on a novel for the last few months which I've given the working title of GenTours. It's a near future science fiction novel involving time travel and most of the action occurs in March, 1781, in what was then Guilford County, North Carolina. Yes, we will be visiting the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. The rough draft was finally finished Friday and I'm working my way through revisions. Since I've revised the beginning whenever I felt "stuck", the first hundred pages are fairly tight. The rest of the novel, however, has plotholes that need to be filled and other minor problems. Although I'd given outlining my best shot on this particular novel, I found that I just couldn't stay with an outline. I kept having what I considered to be better ideas and in some places, characters proved a little more interested than I'd originally anticipated and thus their roles grew larger than planned. I'm afraid I may have had more fun writing this story than the average reader would have reading it. I won't know, however, until I actually finish the novel and start trying to persuade my husband to read it. I have error codes that I've provided to make proofreading easier for him. Just in case anyone is curious or easily amused, I've reprinted my instruction sheet below: Instructions: When using the below errors, please include an error description where appropriate such as "The character's eyes were blue two paragraphs ago and now they are brown" or "The character wouldn't talk this way/behave this way." For spelling, please note the correct spelling if you know it. For grammar, please note appropriate punctuation and/or errors if you know it and hints if you don't. For technology, please provide helpful notes or "I can't believe this." E-1=Slow down, you're giving me whiplash. E-2=Speed up and get on with it. E-3=Zzzzzzz. You're putting me to sleep. E-4=Glaring plot hole. E-5=Character inconsistency. E-6=Spelling error. E-7=Grammar error. E-8=Impossible technology. For information: I-1=This character feels real. I can believe this. I-2 = This character is crap. I have to hold up my watch above my head to keep it clean. I-3 = I can see this place. You have an appropriate level of description. I-3 = I can't visualize anything like this. Please (a) add description or (b) correct inconsistency. For information, please add messages that will help the author debug the novel.

September 24th, 2004 03:19 pm - Limping and A76 Either I overdid it the other night at fencing classes (not likely) or those clearance sale fencing shoes I bought were worth what I paid for them. The TOP of my left foot hurts. Um.... isn't it supposed to be the ankle or the bottom of a foot that hurts after exercise? I think perhaps it was too tight across the top. I shall write 100 times: A sale prices isn't necessarily a bargain. Want to know something about the A76 process the proposes taking my job and giving it to a company that hires younger and cheaper labor or possibly outsources the contract? Take a look at the fox news link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,133378,00.html One way companies have been underbidding is by reducing/eliminating insurance costs from the labor calculations. Yes, people are desperate and will take anything at the moment but what happens if and when the economy improves and people are no longer desperate? The contractor requests a modification of the contract on the grounds that conditions have changed. I kid you not. Current Mood: annoyed Current Music: Sound of clothes thumping in the dryer (Leave a comment) 09:23 pm - Smoking Bans The local town is considering a ban on smoking in public buildings and vehicles and the town paper has published an editorial against smoking bans on the grounds of free choice. If you don't want to breathe smoke in a restaurant, you can leave or you can ask to be reseated further from smokers. Smoking bans -- according to the newspaper -- impend upon a business's right to determine how to conduct their businesses. I vehemently disagree. The only choice offered employees of businesses is to quit and try to find a job at a business that bans smoking on the premises (good luck in today's economy) or to continue breathing second hand smoke. While I realize that most people don't have any noticeable impairment when working in a smoke-filled environment, many of us are adversely affected. My father was asthmatic and being in a smoke filled room impaired his ability to breathe. I do not have asthma, but I've noticed that my own health reflects my environment. When I worked among smokers, I would be sick most of the winter. When the federal government banned smoking inside the work environment, my health suddenly soared in the winter and I seldom have more than one cold per winter now. I sincerely hope that smoking is banned in public places for the simple reason that it's the only way we can have a real choice. Smokers can still smoke... they just need to indulge their habit in an area where their smoking does not adversely impact others. Current Mood: disappointed

September 22nd, 2004 - 10:25 pm - Shopping and Fencing Tonight, I worked later than usual and decided that since there wasn't enough time to drive home before fencing and yet it was too early for fencing, I'd make a side trip to L.S. Ayres and the Ralph Lauren section. As luck would have it, they were having a sale. [Sigh!] Of course they were. One addition to the store that I like is a scanner in the aisle so you can check the price on your merchandise before buying it. I was somewhat annoyed that someone had put a sweatshirt I liked on the 80% off rack when it was only 50% off and I put it back where it belonged. I liked it, but I only liked it 20%. I did, however, buy 2 USA Olympic shirts for exercising at just under $4.00 and bought two good long-sleeve Ralph Lauren shirts at 50% off, a short-sleeved shirt at 50% off, and a pair of slacks that matched two of the shirts at 50% off. Fencing is becoming very expensive. I'll have to find something else to do with the time between work and fencing that does not tempt me. Alas, I hit a dud on the fencing shoes I'd bought as the instructor noticed it, shook his head, and told me that if I needed to save $20, to do it on something besides the mask, the sword, or the shoes. So I'll save these for exercising in the driveway and buy a better pair of fencing shoes. They weren't bad... but they were clearance shoes at $40 and $40 for fencing shoes is... well... it's what they would carry on the sale rack at WalMart if WalMart carried fencing shoes. Back to Thefencintpost.com for a pair of GOOD shoes to wear during lessons. Tonight's lesson was... well... I never got to the lesson. After a couple of bouts, I was trying to find someone else to fence and one of the better fencers offered. He spent the next hour and a half showing me how to do things, moving in slow motion so I could get the hang of things, explaining how some moves are made, etc. I am envious. I want to be able to fence that well and it's going to take time and a great deal of hard work to get there. Current Mood: tired

September 17th, 2004 03:48 pm - Home again I headed out to Cleveland last Tuesday at 5am. Actually, I started driving a little after 4, reached the office area about 430am, transferred my stuff into the fleet car (a.k.a. a GOV), and headed out about 5am. Note that this means I drove half an hour west on I-70 to change cars and drive back EAST on I-70. I waved at my house on the way east again. I-70 to I-270 to I-71 to I-271. Mostly simple. Unfortunately, I hit a patch of incredibly thick fog somewhere around Dayton and spent a half hour driving just far enough behind the other guy to see his tailights. I also stopped at every rest stop on the principle that getting out of the car and stretching my legs was a good idea. When I exited onto the mapquest-designated road, I quickly discovered road construction. Explicitly, one lane was closed and the other was broken up such that one had to detour through various parking lots before reaching the hotel. Still, I arrived just as everyone was going to lunch and thus had... an overpriced hamburger. We met the A76 MEO team and spent the next few days exchanging information. Picture me performing the ritual IT maneuver. Hold hand out with palm facing inward. Quickly smack forehead with palm of hand. Repeat as necessary. Amy arrived that night despite all attempts of highway crews to confuse her and divert her from the appointed meeting. We drove the OTHER direction and found a Red Robin restaurant. There was a red robin inside. It did not go bob-bob-bobbing along. The hotel had a hot tub. I indulged. Day two followed and we had difficulties breaking for lunch. We also realized that insufficient time was allotted as we were the first team to exchange information with the folks putting together our information and presenting options. I had an overpriced hamburger for lunch. [Do you see a trend here.] More talk. I didn't want another hamburger for dinner so I walked out to the nearest strip mall and finally decided on pizza. The hotel had a hot tub. I indulged. The next day was... intense. I proposed a sacrifice to the volcano. The volcano rumbled and spewed lava. We ate pizza for lunch. The volcano was not appeased, but it did agree to not erupt at this time and to advise us when it would demand one or more of us leap into the mouth of the volcano. Tom Hanks and/or Meg Ryan would not be available to assist. Amy rescued me for dinner again and I indulged myself with a steak. Protein! Yeah! Not a hamburger or a pizza. The hotel had a hot tub. I indulged. I woke up several times during the night, finally getting up at 4am Cleveland time (which was 3am Indiana time), showered, dressed, got everything out of the room, and headed home. It rained. Actually, it was a bit of a cloudburst. I began to wonder if Ivan had gone off course. At the Indiana border, the sun came out and I crossed over, delighted that the worst part of the drive was over. When I reached work, the parking lot was surrounded by military personnel wearing orange SECURITY jackets. There had been a bomb threat. No vehicles were allowed into the parking lot. Everyone had evacuated the building. Sigh! I did not go to the gym tonight. My home does not have a hot tub. I will mope.

September 13th, 2004 04:59 am - Advanced Fencing Classes I have now progressed from beginner to intermediate to advanced fencing. While this sounds good, I will point out that I feel much like the illiterate who has been advanced every year through school without learning. Wait! I don't know it yet! The up side is that I will be getting lessons. The down side is that I am not picking this up even one quarter as well or as fast as the younger students and while I know I should concentrate on progress made rather than look down the long, dark tunnel of what I can't do yet, I still feel klutzy and the only thing that's going to make me feel better is to master some of these moves that I haven't yet conquered. Parry 5 is particularly troublesome to me as it requires holding my arm up with elbow bent at a 90 degree angle and the saber blade out to stop the opponent's blade from crashing down on my head. Once contact is made, I then need to move my wrist such that my blade sweeps free from under the blade until it's properly aligned and THEN my arm is to come down in a straight line so my sabre crashes down on the opponent's head. I am doing so badly on this that I handed my husband a sabre and asked him to stand in the driveway with me and bring the blade down in slow motion while I (also in slow motion) practice twisting my wrist to get the sabre where it's supposed to be. I haven't got it yet. Not by a mile. I feel so klutzy. OTOH, I do think I've finally got the technique of the advance-cut after working on that all week and going up and down the driveway advance-cutting at a non-existent target. I'd do this in the house but the ceilings are too low and glass globes over ceiling lights shatter quite violently if you swing the sabre just right. I am toying with the idea of taking my sabre with me on an upcoming business trip so I can practice in the parking lot. My husband suggested this might not be a good idea and might lead to conversations with security personnel and possibly police officers. Maybe I won't take the sabre along. I can, however, still practice footwork in the parking lot.

September 5th, 2004 06:38 am - Ripping up the Floor While Greg is at Dragoncon, I've been working on his recently abandoned office, trying to empty it and make it fit for human occupation again. Actually, we're not entirely certain how we're going to use it other than putting the litter boxes and cat food in that room, but I have a funny feeling that it's going to become a catch-all junk room. I don't want that. I've now emptied the room of everything except one small piece of furniture that we're required to keep (family obligation) and ladders, paint supplies, etc. I've painted the ceiling and now I've started ripping up the carpet. Words cannot begin to describe how badly stained the carpet is in this room. It's been there since the house was built in 1990 and we had three cats with bladder problems. This is the last room that has not been restored from the cat damage and I quite literally need to sand cat urine stains off the walls before painting the walls. First, however, I'm going to rip the carpet, pad, and those stupid nail strips off the floor and paint it with Kiltz to seal in the cat urine stench. I figure that job alone will take a couple of weekends. At least. I can't smell anything anymore except cat urine. Old, dried, cat urine. The advantage of this -- if there is one -- is that I've lost my appetite. Brief pause at 1230 hours to note that I only need to rip up half a wall of carpet strips and then I can move on to removing the trim and then removing the remaining nails and all those staples that held the carpet padding in place. Great joy! You wouldn't believe the junk that's on the stairs from dragging pieces of carpet down it. Carpeting comes out much easier if one buys one of those box-cutter things to slice the carpet into manageable pieces. An update at 1300 hours: The carpet strips are gone! The next major chore is to get down on my hands and knees and pull up all those stupid staples, toss them someplace safe so I don't step on them later, and then prep the floor for cleaning. I WILL clean the floor before nightfall. I hope. It's 1330 hours and I've been very energetic for someone who's about to collapse from sheer exhaustion. I have now removed all the staples and swept the floor. The next item on the list is the removal of the rest of the trim. The item after that is the cleaning of the floor. Next up? Clean the walls. Yuck! Some of those walls have dried streaks of cat urine on them. I can see them from the hallway. Yuck! I bought cheap sponges and plan to throw them away when I'm finished. I also bought a sander. That dried stuff is like glue or dried molasses or... well... dried cat urine. That stuff is years old!

August 31st, 2004 05:36 am - Bunionette a.k.a. Tailor's Bunion Now that my foot is back in regular shoes and I'm able to ease back into my normal activities again, I've been informed that I have bunionettes on both feet. This will require some attention to avoid problems later and I now remember that my grandmother had holes cut in her shoes because she had this condition. Of course, she also had severe arthritis, which can cause bunionettes. However, I note that those narrow-toed shoes and tight-fitting shoes can cause the same problem(s). I will be seeing the doctor for my annual check-up this fall and when I do, I'll ask for a referral to a foot specialist and start being proactive. I do not like the idea of surgery and the required recuperation period.

August 29th, 2004 04:38 pm - Sabotaging Myself I had a dozen things that I wanted to accomplish today after going to the gym and I stopped at the grocery store first and sabotaged myself. Watermelons were on sale for less than $2. each and I hadn't had one in so long that I'd forgotten how tasteless these hybrids are. Thus, I bought one and took it home and ate the whole thing. [Yes, the whole thing... in about an hour.] I'd also forgotten the side effects of eating a watermelon in an hour. The fact that it did not taste as good as I'd hoped did not negate the side effects and I'm really bummed that I had to pay the price without getting the benefits. Some sales are not real bargains. So now I've sabotaged all my plans for the day because my stomach is bulged like I'm 4 months along, I need to go to the bathroom frequently, and I fell asleep and slept for four hours. Did I mention that eating a whole watermelon sometimes triggers a headache? And that I have a dull ache? Did I also mention that I'd forgotten my doctor's appt. tomorrow until after I ate the watermelon? This means I'll weigh in at about 5 pounds over my normal weight and that is certainly going to make me depressed. In fact, just thinking about it is enough to convince me that maybe I should go to the gym in the morning, before the appointment to check my foot, and use the ellipse until I sweat off all this water weight. I might as well sabotage the foot, too. Oops. I forgot to take my anti-inflammatory medicine. Where DID I put that? Oh, yes. This is the one with the warning not to take any aspirin or pain killers while taking the medication. If I get a headache from that watermelon, I'm on my own.

August 25th, 2004 05:55 am - Misc Stuff A scattering of uninteresting events follows: (1) The fraudulant charge was removed from our bankcard on the same date that we received forms to complete and return. We completed the forms and faxed them back. One can never be too paranoid. [grin] (2) I've found it almost impossible to find a post-op shoe (one of those sandals that will allow me to strap my foot flat) which was not designed for a professional basketball player. Most places offered to order a shoe for me and thus it would arrive -- hopefully -- just as I no longer needed it. Other places said, "If we had one it would be in aisle.." and thus I realized that I was doing far too much walking hunting for this item. A co-worker, however, volunteered that she had one and could loan it to me. Hurray! Hopefully, this will keep me from doing further stupid things to my foot. (3) On the subject of doing stupid things to my foot... I have discovered that I can use the ellipse to exercise and my foot won't leave the ground. While this is probably not the best thing to do, I just can't seem to not exercise. Part of this, of course, is because my clothes are getting tight again. (4) I plan to go to fencing tonight. While I can't do the footwork, I can at least practice parries... I hope.

August 24th, 2004 05:00 am - The Work in Progress I haven't mentioned the long work in progress lately and that's largely because it has a retreating ending. I advance two steps. It retreats one. I am always approaching, but never quite reaching the end. Still, I think I'm about 5K from the end of this first draft and I'm disappointed that it (1) deviated greatly from the original outline and (2) Is not as proofread-ready as most of my first drafts. On the plus side, I've picked up some interesting (to me) stories about the camp followers during the Revolutionary War and I've purchased a book that will (I hope) offer even more information about the role of camp followers in the war effort. I've also discovered that women -- contrary to what I learned in high school history classes -- participated in the war effort. There was Sybil Ludington, the 16-year-old girl who rode over 40 miles on dark, little-known roads to spread the alert that the British were burning the town of Danbury, Connecticut. Deborah Sampson, Rachel and Grace Martin, Anna Warner, Margaret Corbin all managed to serve in the military in one way or another until they were relieved of duties or various reasons. Lydia Barrington Darragh spied for the Americans, Ann Trotter Bailey carried messages across enemy territory in 1774, Sarah Bradlee Fulton delivered dispatches through enemy lines and Emily Geiger rode 50 miles through British and Tory enemy territory to deliver a message to General Sumter. In high school history classes, the focus was upon memorizing names, dates and places and analyzing battles and issues leading up to battles and focusing upon the well-known historical figures. In my personal research, I've been searching through books and web sites to accounts of average people who played a role in the war. In my opinion, their stories are much more interesting.

August 21st, 2004 - 11:46 am - Waiting on the X-Rays Ten days ago, I tripped and fell while I was at the fencing camp and while it hurt at the time and the left foot continued to hurt when I flexed it, put pressure on it, etc., I thought it was just one of those things where I needed to work it off and wait. Ten days is my limit for waiting. I went to the gym this morning and after I completed an hour, I drove to the walk-in prime care (or whatever it's called) place and saw a doctor. He gave me a diagnosis that I can't pronounce or spell and a prescription for an anti-inflamatory drug. [Hey, it didn't LOOK swollen to me.] He also sent me across the street for an X-ray just in case and I'll get the results on Tuesday. Once upon a time, I would have kept going but I figure this is why we pay hundreds a month for insurance (and are thankful to have insurance). I hurt. I go to a professional. I get a diagnosis. I follow his instructions and get better. Well, actually... I'm having a little trouble following instructions. Limited walking for a week? Does that mean I can't go to fencing classes this afternoon? On Monday -- when the store is open -- I'll buy one of those ugly-looking sandals that will render my foot impossible to flex. I know myself too well. If I CAN flex it, I WILL flex it.

August 19th, 2004 05:30 am - Fencing Intermediately I went to fencing classes last night despite my left foot still hurting when I walked upon it. Yes, it probably would have been wiser to stay off that foot rather than lunge, jump, etc. but I just couldn't tolerate the thought of missing out and thus this morning my foot is back to hurting as much as it did a couple of days after I stupidly tripped over my feet, bent the left one backwards and fell atop it. I plan to stay off of it as much as I can tolerate today (which, unfortunately, isn't a wise amount) and hope to make it through Saturday's fencing class without too much pain. If it still hurts by Sunday, then I call the doctor for an appointment on Monday. It is not swollen or even bruised. (Leave a comment) 04:06 pm - Just Kill 'Em All Today was one of those days when I left work feeling that I'd accomplished a great deal but it was also a day when I felt great frustration over the inability to have five minutes alone in a room with certain software professionals. No, this is not a rant about Microsoft. It's a complaint about people/companies who install malicious "helper" toolbars on your browser without your knowledge or consent. In this case, the employee received an e-mail from someone whose name he thought he recognized. He was web-jacked. Computer policies prevented some features from being implemented, but he still got some nifty buttons for dating services, porn, and other unwanted items in addition to pop-up windows that made him very glad he did not share his cubicle with someone else. Conventional tools did not remove it, but I did some Googling and found the answer on the PestPatrol web site. I've heard good things about this product and I'm now seriously considering buying the home version for the next time I get web-jacked. The solution was easy once I knew the answer: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER TOOLBAR Export registry and THEN delete that second line. No more nasty helper buttons on the IE toolbar and no more over-sized pop-up windows that you cannot close. But now I dearly want five minutes alone in a room with whoever is responsible for this kind of stuff on the internet.

August 16th, 2004 -- 05:24 am - Weekend Adventures On Friday the 13th, we assisted as my son loaded up a 28-foot moving van and filled both cars with all their worldly possessions to move just southeast of Nashville, TN to enter Vanderbilt's PhD program. We just heard that he arrived safely. On Saturday, we attended the CFG picnic in Nashville, TN and if I did this correctly, the links below will point to pictures wherein Mike Resnick and I and then Stephen Leigh and I had some fun playing with foils in the Mike's driveway. http://www.lindajdunn.com/pics/foil1.jpg Fencing picture #1 http://www.lindajdunn.com/pics/foil2.jpg Mike Resnick and I fencing http://www.lindajdunn.com/pics/foil3.jpg Stephen Leigh and I fencing http://www.lindajdunn.com/pics/defeat.jpg Mike Resnick standing over me after my defeat (Leave a comment) 06:00 am - Cats Something I forgot to mention about the fencing class is that I met someone there who raises blue point Siamese. I am in trouble. I am in very serious trouble and especially if my alpha cat, Boris, discovers I am seriously contemplating bringing another cat into the household. I love blue point Siamese and I've wanted one for about 20 years. They are beautiful and intelligent and I want one. I am in trouble.

August 15th, 2004 06:58 am - SprintPCS: Adventures in Fraud This month's Mastercard bill carried a charge of $242.66 from SpringPCS and -- of course -- neither Greg nor I had purchased anything from SprintPCS. As there was an 888 number listed beside the transaction, I contacted them to ask them to remove this charge. Yes, this was foolish optomism upon my part as I accessed a voice mail system that required me to input my sprint account number before it would further process the call. Of all the possible menu options I tried, there were no options available for anyone who did not possess or who had forgotten their SprintPCS account number. The robotic voice on the phone informed me that it had not received my entry and to input the ten digit number located on my invoice. [Invoice? What invoice? All I possess is a fraudulent charge upon my credit card bill.] My next step was to Google for SprintPCS, hoping to find their web site. It did not occur to me at that time to simply type in http://www.sprintpcs.com and see if a web site existed. Instead, I typed in sprintpcs and selected the first web site that I found, figuring eventually I'd find a link taking me to a customer service section that didn't require an account number. I saw a red pop-up window and instinctively closed it, thinking I'd hit a site with advertising. It popped up again and this time I looked a little closer. Holy Webcrawler, Batman! We've been hit with something called BLOODHOUND.EXPLOIT.10! My system went nuts and slowed to the speed of a snail with a quill pen writing each pixel on the screen. Norton reports -- when I finally reached them about 30 minutes later, said it had blocked this file from executing on my computer, but the computer was still running incredibly slow, one window wouldn't function, my background had disappeared, and I remembered that it had been at least three weeks since my last backup. Argh! I thus started a CD burn -- which took about an hour -- and then a Norton anti-virus scan just to insure that there was nothing residing on the hard drive. While the snail painted the pixels on the screen, I also edited the registry and checked some of he obvious places to insure there was nothing that was going to execute when I rebooted my computer. Two hours later, Greg and I left for Cincinnati to attend a CFG picnic at the Resnick's house and we will now dim the lights on the incident with my computer and mention how wonderful it was to get away for a while to talk to other intelligent folks, share good food and good fellowship, and to fence in the driveway with Mike Resnick while Greg took pictures. Photos of the death match will be posted online at a later time. We'd just spent the day before helping my son and daughter-in-law pack up a three bedroom house and garage filled with possessions and were both tired and sleepy. I was a little anxious about him driving from about 2am until whenever as he was driving a 28-footer and towing one car while his wife drove the other car with my only grandchild and grandog in the car with her. Thus, a distraction was a good thing and getting together with the CFG group is always fun as they are a great bunch of intelligent people who always have an interesting slant on whatever is going on in the world today. When the picnic was over, we returned home and I discovered Norton was still scanning my computer and was now up to the Student Data files. At this point in time, I decided that was good enough and rebooted. Ten minutes later, I checked back and selected END NOW on some processes and five minutes after that, the computer finally shut down and restarted. I left the room because I didn't want to watch the pot boil. Fifteen minutes later, I checked back and opened a document. Everything was back to normal speed and functional. Hurray! Now back to the original problem, which was Sprintpcs. At this point in time, I typed in http://www.sprintpcs.com and found a web site which did not appear initially to offer an unwilling customer an opportunity to contact anyone about fraudulent billing. However, I finally located a comment link and used that to send e-mail with my work phone number and my personal e-mail address included. I received a reply from their robot and now I'm waiting to find out if a real person will reply. I've also, however, prepared a letter and copy of my bill to send to the credit card company to dispute the unauthorized purchase. I hate SprintPCS. This is the second time in a year that we have been billed for phone services not purchased or received. We had to cancel the last credit card when it happened last time and it's the replacement card that was used this time. Our credit cards never left our possession and neither one of us have bought anything online lately. I haven't a clue how anyone got possession of our numbers but strongly suspect someone inside some company or agency with access to a database has stolen some numbers. I may have to purchase another credit report just to insure we're not victims of identity theft.

August 13th, 2004 11:11 pm - Fencing Camp: Day Five I did not fall on my sword today. Instead, I tripped over my own feet and bent the left foot nearly backwards before landing on it. It hurts like heck but is still functional and Greg is trying to convince me that it's not injured -- it's just dirty and needs to be washed. The day was cool and began with a brisk jog in the park followed by the usual stretch and warm-up exercises before the shelter house opened and then more stretch and warm-up exercises followed by footwork exercises and then various parries, attacks, etc. Once again, we paired off in two lines and rotated after each bout so that each of us was lined up again everyone in the class at some point or another. So how did I injure my foot? Stupidity. One of the warm-ups was essentially a game wherein each side lined up two sides of a mask and a glove. When your number was called, that person was to run and grab the glove and head back. On the second round, we were to advance, grab the glove, and get back while the other person pursued us. THAT is how I tripped over my own big feet. No matter how much I try to fight it, I am a competitive person by nature. This is particularly taxing because I lack the basic skills to be competitive. Still, any kind of a silly competition trips my knee-jerk reaction of trying to win. I'm lucky I didn't hurt myself worse than I did. Another Three Stooges worthy pratfall. After fencing, I stopped for a rare lunch with the gang that meets near the park on Fridays and then headed to my son's house to help him pack up to move. As always, things had not gone according to plans and he wasn't yet there. The problem this time was that their car's turn signals had stopped working and it was NOT because the bulb had burned out. As they were planning to drive for 5 hours, this was not something they could fix after arriving at their new home. Thus, the car had to go to the dealership (which is not near home) and they got a loaner so they could drive to the rental place to get the large moving van and then back to the house only to leave later to return the loaner car and pick up their car. I made two trips for bubble wrapping as I was certain we'd run out and foolishly thought one additional box would be sufficient. However, we didn't have many old blankets to use to protect furniture and thus inserting bubble wrapping at strategic places in the van proved to be the best alternative.

August 12th, 2004 01:21 pm - Fencing Camp: Day Four Today is the day in which I fell upon my own sword -- and my face, knees, etc. The day began as usual with three jogs around the park. This activity was followed by about a half hour of exercises which included such things as running backwards, running sideways, stretching, pairing up with someone and going into a squat and coming back up while leaning against their back (harder than it looks), goose-stepping forward, kicking yourself while running forward, moving forward and then backward in a squat position, etc.. After this, we moved to the shelter house (changed shoes first to avoid tracking grass, etc. onto the floor) and went into other stretch and warm-up exercises before starting to work on footwork. We began the footwork exercise with simple steps. En guard, advance; retreat; en gard, advance one step and lunge; retreat and lunge; en guard, three small steps and one large, and several other mixtures until we suited up and paired off to work on parries. A slight variation this time was that we lined up and after a few minutes of working with one partner, we would rotate clockwise and thus would have different partners. Note that while we're doing this lessons are going on with the two instructors. I got a lesson from the local coach again and my main problems are: (1) I can't seem to relax my shoulder and I instinctively tense up when I need to relax. I'm working against myself. (2) I haven't yet picked up all the "sign language" used in teaching fencing and thus we spent a little time on that and no, I still haven't got it yet. Better, but not there yet. I have a nasty habit of tensing up and when I do that, everything I know flies out the left ear. (3) I can do each step separately, but I haven't yet manged to put them together. In other words, I can do the parry three and I can do the hit to the head, and I can retreat, but I can't retreat, retreat, party three, hit the top of the mask. Not even in slow motion. I also need to do better on gripping the saber. It's thumb and forefinger with the other fingers flexing and supporting as needed so you can easily turn the saber. The mantra for today is: It's all in the wrist. Back out on the floor with the other attendees, Tim asks if I'm certain that I'm balanced and I'm not resting my weight on one foot. I FEEL balanced. So a few moments later, we rotate and it's my turn to advance, step, lunge and I advance, step, lunge, feel myself falling forward, make like Daffy Duck falling off a cliff, and go down on my knees, my elbows, and land on the saber. It was a pratfall worthy of The Three Stooges. Everyone asked if I was all right and of course the only thing damaged was my pride. I will probably have a few bruises later since the floor was hardwood, but I've already got a few and it will be hard to pick out the new ones. I told time it was a hard less on the importance of balance. A short time thereafter, we shifted into a "game" that we'd played yesterday wherein we form sides and have a dividing line and then have an elimination event. Explicitly, all 5 or so people on one side try to touch the people on the other side without being eliminated themselves and they cannot put more than one foot over the line. To make it a little more difficult, each time we played, someone selected the area of touch so that one time it might be only a touch to the head that counted and the next time, only a touch to the weapon arm. Note that the skill level of the attendees ranged from those who were competing nationally to those who were still novices. Note also that there was a support column at the end of our line of players. You need to remember this in order to appreciate what follows next. On the third or fourth game, I was out and I noticed one of the younger and less experienced players easing around that column. On the other side was a person who was a very, very good fencer and the younger fencer essentially slipped around while still staying on his side of the line but hidden by the column and he touched, taking him out. Maybe you had to be there to appreciate it, but everyone got a good laugh out of it. I can't really say I'm enjoying the camp but I certainly am glad that I did it/am doing it and would do it again. I'm learning and that's my objective. One of the significant things I learned today was during the lesson with the local coach, when he made an unexpected move and then explained to me what he'd just done. This comes down to right-of-way, which is driving me nuts in saber fencing. I parry, I try to touch, he parries. I touch. I do NOT score a point. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200. Why? Because I don't understand the rules yet and thus he used that opportunity to explain it, beginning with describing a game of throwing a ball back and forth. Mine. Yours. Mine. Yours. Saber fencing is the same way. You don't throw the ball in the air and say "mine". He attacks. If he succeeds, he scores. I parry and now I have the ball and I must try to score. He parries. Now it's his turn and by touching him, I've done nothing but give him an opening for a good touch and his point. This is, of course, a simplified explanation, but I'm still learning and I need simple terms. What I need is to be able to do this every day for about a month and be able to do it in SLOW MOTION.

August 11th, 2004 03:05 pm - Fencing Camp: Day Three Okay, I was wrong about the visiting instructor. Taking a lesson from him was not the equivalent of having Leonardo deVince teach fingerpainting to a Kindergarten student. It was a very brief lesson, as it was for all the beginners, but it was also helpful. Despite being certain I had the idea now on 3-4-5, I learned that I still don't quite have the positions right. I'm doing better but it's one of those things where practice, practice, practice is required to have it down to an act that feels natural and occurs spontaneously every time. I also worked with ... darn, forgot his name... who is another instructor there and thus got a good workout on saber holding, how to move from one position to another, and the old 3-4-5 routine. Explicitly, how to go from that position to an attack-point position. So is everyone totally bored with this yet? I also decided that I'd skip the afternoon in the park (which is not fencing) and both rest my big toe (I peeled the skin off the bottom of it three weeks ago and last night it decided that it still hurt) and to get some writing done. I am thus back at the keyboard, working forward on the novel-in-progress that I think has zero commercial possibilities. Still, I do not want to be someone who quits near the end so I'm going to finish it and then revise it and try to figure out where I went wrong. [I think it falls into the category of "bad plot device."]

August 10th, 2004 05:34 pm - Fencing Camp: Day Two Today's camp adventures were cut short by the need to return to work and lay my hands on some computers. I did, however, wait until after the fencing portion of the camp was over. I was one of the first up on individual lessons this morning and I think it's finally starting to sink in that I need to change the way I'm holding the saber. The thumb and forefinger should have a firm grip and the other fingers grip, relax as needed for proper maneuvering. The action is all in the wrist. I need to say that over and over and over again. The up side is that I think I'm really starting to get how to stand en guard, which means I lean a little more forward than I think I should. I've also got to turn my hand a little more to the right, which still feels awkward to me. This is much, much more complicated than one would ever believe from watching the movies. Another plus was that late in the morning they staged a mini-tournament for those wanting to participate in which the visiting instructor did the scoring. Right-of-way is part of what's driving me nuts about fencing and with each point, the instructor clearly listed each side's move or non-move and thus the logic of point-assignment. Example: Attack [pointing left] - parry [pointing right] - attack [pointing right] point, raising his right hand to clearly assign the point to the opponent to his right. Never mind that the person on the left scored first, the person on the right had right-of-way and scored as well. Confusing, isn't it? This morning's lessons went over some of the basic rules of lesson-giving which helped me quite a bit in understanding what the instructor wanted. I always hate to ask for repeats and questions -- which is counter-productive to learning -- and thus some clear guidelines helped quite a bit. I think it also helped that I knew nothing about this particular instructor and thus wasn't all tensed up about having a lesson from someone really, really good. [Not that the instructor wasn't necessarily really, really good; but rather that I didn't know and thus didn't get all worked up about it.] All in all, a productive day except for leaving after noon to go fix computers at three different locations. These were work stoppages and thus I felt an internal compulsion to get everything back operational before tomorrow morning. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day at work and I'll stay after lunch for a relaxing day of swimming, soccer, or whatever. The weather was certainly nice enough and we don't have many of those days left this year. I should take full advantage of them while I still can.

August 9th, 2004 - 10:49 pm - Fencing Camp: Day One Today, I left early to find my way to the fencing camp at Broad Ripple Park and the drive was so easy and uneventful that I arrived almost an hour early. I had fortunately taken along a manuscript to mark up so the time was not wasted. The day began with a short run and then warm-up and we moved into a building at 930am. From that point forward, we were working on techniques and I am really, really bad at this. Of course, the whole point of doing this is to improve but I am really, really bad and having difficulty following instructions. First, my hearing is bad and second, my short term memory took a long vacation long ago and hasn't returned yet. Did he say step-step lunge or step-jump-lunge? It does matter. I had a private lesson in which I impressed my instructor with my lack of skill, knowledge, and natural talent and finally... after several exasperating attempts, finally managed to complete one of the most basic steps correctly. I sound like a person taking dancing lessons, only instead of saying, "One-two, one-two", I'm going, "three, four, five, three, four, five" for the parries. I hae enough trouble remembering them in order and the instructors told us to mix them up. Argh! And then we put an advance step into it. Argh again! So we break at noon and I drive back to work to find out if I've missed anything important and I have and thus barely make it back before 2pm without having eaten properly. At this point, we played a game of soccer. Care to guess how many times I have played soccer in my life? Once. Today. I stopped on the way home to buy shoes as I should have had a second pair with me and that second pair should not have tracked dirt across the floor. Oops. As I don't have any shoes that wouldn't track dirt and most of my shoes are four years old or older, I decided to search for fencing shoes. Guess how many stores in town carry fencing shoes. That's right. Zero. I settled for shoes that are low and close to the floor and bought another pair to replace one of the shoes that is literally falling apart and then headed home. Thus far, I do not feel tired or sore. I may recant tomorrow, but I am generally feeling like today was a regular day. Well... one exception. I stayed up too late. I'm usually in bed by 8pm and I've been yawning since 8pm. That's my excuse for any grammatical and spelling errors. Logic ones, too.

August 1st, 2004 - 11:03 am - What were they thinking? This morning, I was at the gym on an elliptical trainer when I heard a woman screech "WOW!" so loudly that I could hear it clearly over the noise of the gym and the music playing through the gym's speakers. This was followed by "Cool!" and I began to wonder if this was going to be like the scene from When Harry Met Sally where Meg Ryan demonstrated her... ahem... ability to exhibit joy... so thoroughly that a woman at another table said, "I'll have whatever she's eating." A quick glance back revealed the woman was talking on the cell phone. For the next several minutes, I was the unwilling eavesdropper to a far-too-revealing conversation that ended with: "I love you too, baby." I see cell phone usage like this all the time. People in line at grocery stores, people getting into their cars and THEN putting the cell phone to their ears before driving off. People interrupting their dinners in restaurants to talk into a cell phone. I've even seen people heading towards the restrooms with cell phones clutched tightly against their ears. [And I have to wonder about what people think on the other end when they hear the flushing noise.] What is this addiction that so many people have developed to cell phones and what on earth are they thinking about to be engaging in cell phone conversations in so many inappropriate locations?

July 31st, 2004 05:24 pm - More Intermediate Fencing Today, fencing warm-up was basketball. Yes, basketball. Those of you who have actually met me: Stop laughing! So it's been 30 years. So what? I found that dribbling is something you never forget. Shooting a basket, however, is a skill I no longer possess. After basketball, we moved onto the warm-up and footwork which was an physically exhausting and mentally unwinding as always. I am still a very, very beginner fencer. I have pretty much gotten parries 3 and 4 down, but I keep missing 5. I don't go high enough and my elbow tends to jut out at an angle rather than go into a nice, 90 degree angle as it should. Someone named Dan was nice enough to stop the bout when he realized I hadn't a clue and just focus on helping me overcome some of those problems. He also showed me how I should be responding to some of these attacks. I'm also still off-balance when I lunge as I tend to lean forward and thus cannot recover properly. I'm also not bending the knees enough. What am I doing right? Well, as nearly as I can tell, I have finally learned to keep that left hand out of harm's way. Being smacked a few times and seeing my left finger swell up about twice its size after one whap has driven home the need to keep that hand BACK! The next class is next Wednesday.

July 31st, 2004 - 05:24 pm - More Intermediate Fencing Today, fencing warm-up was basketball. Yes, basketball. Those of you who have actually met me: Stop laughing! So it's been 30 years. So what? I found that dribbling is something you never forget. Shooting a basket, however, is a skill I no longer possess. After basketball, we moved onto the warm-up and footwork which was an physically exhausting and mentally unwinding as always. I am still a very, very beginner fencer. I have pretty much gotten parries 3 and 4 down, but I keep missing 5. I don't go high enough and my elbow tends to jut out at an angle rather than go into a nice, 90 degree angle as it should. Someone named Dan was nice enough to stop the bout when he realized I hadn't a clue and just focus on helping me overcome some of those problems. He also showed me how I should be responding to some of these attacks. I'm also still off-balance when I lunge as I tend to lean forward and thus cannot recover properly. I'm also not bending the knees enough. What am I doing right? Well, as nearly as I can tell, I have finally learned to keep that left hand out of harm's way. Being smacked a few times and seeing my left finger swell up about twice its size after one whap has driven home the need to keep that hand BACK! The next class is next Wednesday.

July 4th, 2004 -- 07:20 am - Murphy is Still Here In the continuing saga of anything that can go wrong going wrong, I rang up another $312 in car repairs yesterday. I was leaving a local convention to go to the Saturday fencing lesson when I noticed the brake light had come on and there was no reason for the brake light to be on. Since I didn't have a cell phone, I simply drove to the Saturn dealership and asked if someone could check it out. An hour or so later, I was advised it was the alternator and asked if I wanted it repaired. [No, I'll just drive it until the car dies completely or won't restart and then I'll walk 20 some miles home.] I take some comfort in the fact that I was able to obtain repairs quickly and without being stranded on the interstate, etc. However, this was another cha-ching to the budget and it had already been cha-chinged badly 6 weeks ago when everything began breaking. On the plus side, I am now wearing my hearing aids again and being a little more assertive about expressing what I need for clearer communication. I've also decided to continue with the fencing lessons for as long as I can tolerate the time sink. I just hate to quit anything when I'm failing.

June 29th, 2004 01:14 pm - Missed Opportunities Well, gosh-darn it all! I missed another one. There is a three week period during which I should not even ASK if I can take time off work due to PC deployment. So today I received an announcement of a family reunion that will take place in the middle of that timeframe. This is on top of receiving an invite from a historical society -- which is housed in a home build by my children's ancestors -- to their anniversary celebration. Sigh! The Drury Smith family reunion is only about twenty miles from that event and I could have gone to BOTH if they had only occurred in August instead of July. Drury Smith was a verified patriot as was my ancestor Valentine Allen and my ancestor Robert Means. Unfortunately, I've not yet had the opportunity to visit the area and I've been planning a trip for August. Drat! Fiddly sticks! Oh, FUDGE!

June 28th, 2004 04:15 am - Living Between Worlds I've decided not to continue fencing lessons for the simple reason that I don't want to face the truth: I cannot continue without everyone in the class taking extra time and making concessions for me due to my inability to deciper spoken words as human speech. When I put on that mask, I am functionally deaf. For as long as I can remember, I've played a careful game of pretending that I am normal. I went to a regular school, worked at a regular job, and generally didn't ever reveal to anyone that I had a hearing impairment unless I felt it was necessary to explain why I didn't hear something they'd just reported hearing. In short, I've been living a lie for many long years. I am not deaf and could never be a member of the deaf world because my understanding of sign language is marginal and these people's rapid hand gestures and finger movements is a dance that I cannot deciper. My few interactions with them have left me firmly convinced that their world and mine rare intersect and that I am forevermore an outsider. I have enough hearing to pass in the hearing world and trying to enter the deaf community when you have sufficient hearing to function in the hearing community is roughly equal to being blonde-haired and blue-eyed with a great-grandfather who was a slave and trying to join the black community. I do not belong. As long as I don't tell anyone and I'm carefuly to dismiss any awkwardness as a blonde moment, I can usually pass in the hearing world. I've been thought rude for failing to respond when someone spoke to me and I've been thought stupid for answering a different question than was asked, but I've usually managed to fake my way through academic and social situations without anyone guessing that my occasional inappropriate responses were the result of a physical malformity. Eventually, however, the truth always comes out and from the moment it becomes clear that I cannot track an individual conversation in a noisy environment or understand what someone is saying when their back is turned, I am different. I walk far closer to the hearing world than I do to the deaf one; but I live in a twilight world where I lack the hearing cues that everyone else takes for granted. I sometimes look up and realize I'm eating too noisily in a crowded restaurant. I keep my eyes wide open during times of prayer because otherwise I won't know when to sit down again. I sometimes drive several miles with the turn signal flashing if I don't see a flashing turn signal on the dashboard. I continue talking while people reach for their telephones because I seldom hear them ring. I struggle to deal with repair companies that require you to answer the phone to confirm you are there before they dispatch their drivers. With all of the above, I can usually fake it and dismiss any failures with an apology and a muttering about failing to pay adequate attention to what others were saying. With fencing, I cannot do this. More, it might endanger others if I tried. Forcing others to sacrifice their time and energy to accommodate my disability really, really bothers me and I'd rather not learn how to fence than do that. So I won't continue with lessons. I hate being hearing-impaired. I think I'd trade at least ten years of my life just to have normal hearing and the ability to do what everyone else takes for granted. But there are worst fates than to live between worlds. I could be living in the deaf world or the blind world or the mobility-limited world. And thus I end on a Pollyanna note that I am grateful to be living in my little twilight world between. Really I am. Honest. You know I'm faking this, right?

June 7th, 2004 11:22 am - Stand and Deliver! I find it somewhat ironic that while I've been waiting for news as to whether or not my job will be contracted out, almost everyone I know has lost his or her job. Another one just took a hit and when that happened, I looked around and started counting. The numbers are scary. The inability of anyone I know to find a job with comparable hours and pay is even scarier. Thus, I've developed a new plan. I'm going to become a highwayman. I'm taking fencing lessons at the Jewish Community Center and when I lose my job, I'll simply leap into traffic with my sabre extended, shouting, STAND AND DELIVER. No, I'm not 100% serious. I am taking lessons but this is partially to divert my attention into another time sink that will hopefully lead to less fretting about the job. Another good reason for doing this is the belated recognition that I have no friends except those online or at work. I've become so isolated that I don't think I could carry on a conversation with a Jehovah's Witness even if all I was required to do was to sit and listen. I need to get out into the world a little more. I need to relearn how to interact with people. What better way than to lunge at someone with a sabre? What? You don't think this is standard social behavior? Well, I have been out of the social stream for a while.