Project Shade

My Xbox 360 died a few weeks ago. All was fine, we played Rock Band for a couple hours. shut er down and took a break. Came back a few hours later fired the ole girl up…and nothing aside from a bright red ring on the front greeted us. No hard rockin intros and flashing lights…just that dang red ring mixed with bitter silence.

/sigh

Being as we’re not known for being patient but more known for instant gratification I almost went out and replaced the old 360 with a shiny new 360 Elite. I even had it in my hand a few times, fondled a Playstation 3 one or twice and considered a Wii, but in the end went home empty handed. For once I decided to do what a responsible person would do and take advantage of Microsoft’s free repair program. Just contact them..they mail you a box..slap the included label on it and hand it back to UPS. All paid for by Mr. Gates. I mailed her off and largely forgot about it until today when I got a hankering to play some Assassins Creed.

Logging into xbox.com and checking my repair status what do I find? My 360 is already en route to my house via UPS. Wewt! Thanks Microsoft for the ease of the entire process. No matter how easy and painless this was Microsoft, it would have been even better if you had not released a buggy product in the first place. Either way I should be back to shanking evil doctors before the weekend is out!

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Well it’s official, I am headed to Las Vegas, Nevada. Some of you may not be to impressed with this but as a Southern Boy whose farthest travels west is Georgia this is big news for me. Not to mention this will also be my first foray onto an airplane that wasn’t part of a kiddie ride. Big stuff in my little world.

Why am I going to Las Vegas you ask? My boy James Slusher will be participating in the World Series of Poker and asked if I’d like to go. Well it’s Vegas…who wouldn’t? At first I was relunctant being the puss that I am when it comes to anything new in my life. Then as I thought about for awhile it was really hard to justify not going. I’ve caught a lot of flack the past few years about having not been out of the Southeast in my life. It didn’t bother me at first as I really didn’t care to “see the world”. As I get older it’s starting to seem like something I should do…almost something I need to do. I couldn’t explain it if I tried. Let’s just leave it at, if I didn’t go I’d feel like I let myself down, and I have to live with me for the rest of my life.

If James is playing in the World Series of Poker, what will you be doing you ask? Nosey bunch you all are! It just so happens I do have a few things planned for the trip that don’t involve alchohol or gambling. Here is the itenarary I’ve put together so far.

1. Don’t get arrested.
2. Don’t lose the house… a car maybe.
3. Meet my guildmates who live in Vegas.
4. Goto a Penn & Teller show.

Well that’s all I’ve got so far. If anyone else has a idea for items to be added to my list please leave them in the comments or mail them to me. Should the list stay at four items as long as I fulfill all four I’ll be a happy man. From what James has told me Las Vegas is a sight to behold in itself. Adding in booze, good friends, and a pair of the greatest magicians ever just might be to much for this sheltered kid to handle. Man I’m pumped, June seems so far away!

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This is a repost from Myspace from back in October. I decided to repost it over here for all the usefull BJJ links I put in it.

Having just worked six out of seven days, all of them the standard Bridgestone 13hr shift, one would think that today I’d try to take it easy a bit especially coming off nights. Unfortunantly that assumes I’m not mildly retarted, which I must be. For today not only did I get up at eleven for day class, but I also went back tonight at six. I’ve had better plans for sure.
My reasoning was that since I won’t get to go Monday or Wednesday due to work, I should go twice today. Sounded good eh? I’m wore out, but both classes were really good.
First class we went over escaping the arm bar, side takedowns after a missed or defended punch, spent time drilling each technique and then we rolled.
 Round one was against James Noland a friend from work. He quickly tried to pass my guard but I caught him in a half guard and was feeling pretty proud. That lasted about thirty seconds. I was so worried about keeping him in my half guard that I wasn’t paying attention to my arms and forgot to lock my hands together. Hello Kimura! After we reset I did much better and even managed to get side mount on him. No submission on him, but an overall improvement.
Round two was against Chris. He tried to push me over to gain mount but I sprawled and went for a guillotine choke. Not having it sunk well enough to actually choke him out I opted instead to go for rear mount. Once again my poor technique didn’t allow me to get what I wanted. We went back and forth for a bit with me actually pulling off a few sweeps but in the end his conditioning got the best of me and I had to stop due to being completely gassed. If you take out the whole not being able to breathe thing, I’d say I won that round.
Great day I ramble, let’s sum up the rest of the day a bit quicker eh. After class I came home showered, slept some, and went back to class at six. We went over arm bar escapes again, then worked on the butterfly guard some and ended with sparring as usual. Both rounds went well, without me getting submitted and even stalling out a blue belt. Taking into account his skill level, I’m pretty proud of that one.
Well that’s enough for now. If any of you read this and are going to Andrea’s party, I’ll see you there!

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Here is the original blog I wrote explaining a bit about BJJ. I wrote it back in the day on Myspace.

If you’ve watched any UFC or Pride you no doubt are familiar with the term. For those of you not in the know, it stands for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and is the martial art I’m currently taking.

A few months ago after deciding it was time to lose some(a lot) weight I started looking at ways to incorporate some cardio in with weight lifting. Tread mills suck, bikes suck, eliptical machines..well you get the picture. They’re all so boring! Understanding that any sort of cardio involving a stationary machine would in the long run be abondoned by me, I decided to look into sports to get my cardio.

My first choice was some sort of traditional activity as those were the ones I was familiar with the most. Unfortunantly, the VRA(Valley Rats Association) and any other group I could find, lack an adult division. Not really feeling a church softball league(to rough), I started looking at the non traditional types and thats when I came across martial arts. My buddy James told me about his BJJ class but I decided to go with a Karate class as the striking aspect of it intrigued me more. After a month and half of that I didn’t feel as if I had gained any practical knowledge for defending myself and I was going home feeling like I had only started a work out. Which is pretty sad if you take into how out of shape I am.

The entire time I was taking Karate, James was still taking the BJJ classes. He was always telling me about how he went home dead tired and hurting after each and every class. Also he felt as if he could defend himself with the skills he had gained.  It still seemed kinda boring to me since there was no striking, but I decided to try a class anyway if only for the workout.

Well here we are a month later and I’m hooked. The workout you get from rolling(sparring) in class is far greater than anything I did in Karate and the cardio….dear lord…I’m not even close to where I need to be for it. I’ve also gained a lot of practical knowledge for defending myself in a real fight, where no one is going to care about how pretty your kata is. We roll every class and really go at it. Check the bruises on my arm. I’ve never had so much fun in my life.

So if you’re looking to lose some weight and the traditional methods don’t appeal to you, come join us for a class. You won’t be sorry.

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Well I installed Wordpress today, noticed it was an old version and prompty upgrade to the latest version which is 2.5 as of 4/14/08. So far so good with the upgrade, now it’s time to find a theme I like and maybe a few widgets. I plan to update this blog far more frequently than I do Myspace as this isn’t blocked my the filters at work. So I’ll see you all soon.

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