Danny's recipe for pumpkin pie

Inspired by Dave Barry

1. Go to a farmer's market and buy the most awesome pumpkin you can find. That means no blemishes, and perfectly round. It also needs to be big enough that you need two people to lift it up to put in your trunk. A good handle thingee on the top is also critically important.
   
2. Take it home and find the largest, sharpest cutting implement that you can find. Swords will do nicely. Slice off the top in a neat pattern by poking the blade through and then use a sawing motion that the sword was never designed for and try to avoid stabbing the floor your pumpkin is sitting on.
3. Pull out all the innards. Separate out the seeds, salt, and bake them since they are yummy that way. Take the rest of the innards, mix with cream, egg yolks, sugar, pumpkin spice, and vanilla and heat it up. Eventually it will turn into a custard that bears a faint resemblance to what you ate last year during the fall.
4. When no one else tries a bite, go in a sulk go to the super market and buy what people are expecting.
   

Second place in my second tournament

So I competed again. The tournament ended up competing with another event 150 miles away so attendance was low. The hosting school had people there, but the ones walking around had no apparent interest in running the event, much less coaching their own kids. I remember haranguing some of them to get involved.

Well, fortunately for them our head coach stepped up to the plate. He got the tournament running, organized it on the fly, and took care of business. Our parents stepped up as well, and thanks to Team OMAA the tournament seemed to end well. Also, our team did well. Some thoughts about our team:

• I was happy to see Bijan vindicate himself in sparring against the kid who got an inappropriate score in forms.
• Taylor did wonderfully in his first sparring match.
• I really thought Leila broke my finger with her jump spin kicks during breaks. The crowd erupted in very loud cheers during her breaks.
  
• Neil was on fire during his breaks.
• It was good to see Kathyrn step up to compete!
• Scott Sawicki FTW!
  

So my effort in competition... the video had problems, and so until I get photos from some of the other folks I've got nothing to show.

I can say that I know I did better, and observations of me by knowing parties seem to back that up. I did make two significant mistakes, and got some advice that will help me in the future. However, the guy who beat me deserved to win, and was a gracious competitor. He did a higher ranked form and did it very well. I'll work harder for next time, and do his form better than he did to boot. So my observations about myself:

• I got my competition uniform hemmed.
  
• My deep stances were deep. I nailed all my stances.
• My first two front stances were solid, which is hard to pull off during that particular combination.
  
• Three of side kicks were good, but one was off.
• My hand techniques were crisp.
• I did not finish where I started (big in Korean and some Japanese forms)
  
• People said my combination sets were good.
  

Steel jewelry is in!

What seems to be getting popular are apparently cheaper metal rings made from steel, tungsten, or titanium. I think this is awesome because I don't want to lose hundreds of dollars on a ring that might slip off my finger, and I don't think anyone else should worry either.

Kudos to Katie, Elizabeth, and Rebbecca for illuminating me.

Why I'm not competing in sparring right now

I keep getting asked this question. I really want to compete in sparring, but various reasons prevent me. Here is the list:

• I work a full time job that goes more than 40 hours a week sometimes.
• I do side consulting.
• I teach martial arts 10+ hours.
• When we do sparring practice, either I'm tasked with coaching or there is no one who is at my level.

On the last bullet, what I worry most about are hand and arm injuries. I can't afford to lose the use of what I type with, since that is what covers our mortgage. On the plus side, with the growing size of our adult class, I should be able to find good opponents.

Cat Vacuuming Society

What? Vacuuming a cat? Why would anyone do such a thing? And who would form a society for it?

Apparently, writers often find all sorts of excuses and side tasks to avoid actually writing. And cleaning felines with an electrical appliance is considered a choice method of avoiding putting words to paper. Hence the name my wife choose for the writing group she formed in January 2001 and continues to this day almost every Thursday night.

This is no mean feat. Most writer's groups, like any other hobby group, last about six months. As of this post, my wife has carried her group forward for nearly 8 years. A few people have stuck around since the beginning with her, others have come and gone, and the momentum of the group has continued it across several large book stores.

The structure of the group has changed over the years. Early on it was highly democratic, with everyone having pretty much the ability to veto anything. Rules crept in since this sort of democracy is crippling. Disruptive individuals entered the mix, forcing the group to adopt rules of order. Periodically people demanded contracts of behavior and delivery of content. And, to my wife's surprise, a lot of people just wanted her to take charge. These transitions were not easy and nearly saw the end of the group. Eventually she assumed a mantle for the group of being what we call in the Open Source world 'Benevolent Dictator for Life'.

And so my wife joined the esteemed ranks of Linus Torvalds (Linux), Guido Van Rossum (Python), Larry Wall (Python), and Yukihiro Matsumoto (Ruby). Her role, like theirs, is to gently guide the group forward, comfortable in her technical skills as a writer and her ability to lead a group of like minded individuals. She listens to opinions and makes calls based on what the group needs. Hence its amazing longevity and body of passionate devotees.

For me, this has been the place my wife disappeared to every Thursday night. For years she did not want me to be there, because she was afraid my presence would disrupt her ability to manage the group. By the time she had the skill and confidence to run the group with me present, I had found my own things to do (specifically martial arts) on Thursday nights. So even after many years and hundreds of CVS sessions, I had never actually been to a single session.

Last night that changed. I went to CVS after I got done teaching a class.

To get there I rode the metro to Clarendon, and walk the 4 blocks to Barnes and Nobles. The night was beautiful, but I was shocked to see the building that house the book store where we met was torn down and in ruins. Alas, life is transient, no?

I found CVS clustered in a circle on the second floor of the Barnes and Nobles. After a bit of fun introducing me to the group, I sat down and watched.

They critiquing someone's interesting horror story. Then discussed the various points of people's plots (known as plot noodling). As someone who until 1996 thought he was meant to be a person writing fiction and to someone familiar with best practices in application design, it came across as a friendly peer review. There was a nice sense of camaraderie, and the quality of what people said was rather distinctive. My wife's gentle hand of dictatorial benevolence was present, and people stayed on focus.

Almost 8 years working with people from all over the region and surviving the worst that creative intelligence could toss at my wife and her group.

Impressive really.

If you are interested in writing, and are in the DC Metropolitan area, check it out at cvswriters.com.

What I want to see in the next four years

Expectations of Barack Obama are outrageously high. And he has inherited the odd mess from his predecessor. Some quick thoughts of things I want him to do.

• Fight earmarks and pork in congress. I'm really worried about this one, and I expect Obama to utterly fail here.
• Leave in a responsible fashion from Iraq. And continue to support their government as needed. We shouldn't repeat the mistakes of our exits from Iran and Vietnam.
• Beef up NASA and/or provide more incentives for the commercial exploration of space. The US space budget is an embarrassing pittance and that needs to change.
• Push alternatives to oil and coal. That does not include use of Ethanol (fertilizer and third world destruction of jungles will soar) but rather methods like solar, wind, and even safe nuclear.
• Cut back on the military in the right way. There are any number of really pricey programs over budget that are already obsolescent. For example, why are we still dumping money into the manned JSF when UAVs are clearly the way to go?!?
• Put money into Education, and make damned sure the money goes to teacher salaries.
• Find a way to get colleges/universities to drop their increasing rates of tuition.
  

The first effort I made in a TKD competition

The final result? I tied for second in the over 35 category.

I had managed to catch a flu bug going into this effort, so had serious second thoughts. If my father had not shown, I'm sure I would have just forfeited. However, since my father was coming, I had no choice but to compete. Therefore I'm glad he came, because it was worth the experience.

My fellow competitors in my age group were a nice bunch of guys. We joked about our age and encouraged each other on. I certainly cheered when they did their forms. I hope to see them again in the future.

A few general things first before my form commentary: During the form my vision narrowed down amazingly. I could not hear a thing besides my own thoughts, which were loud.

And now the specific commentary:

• I need to get my uniform pants hemmed.
  
• My deep stances were shallow.
• My first two front stances had bent knees. Brandon Winegarden fixed this but I did not!
  
• My high side kicks at the beginning had poor extension and sucked.
• The high side kicks in the middle looked good, but the landing on one of them was iffy.
  
• My front kicks were good.
• My hand techniques were crisp.
• I leaned too far forward on the knee strikes.
• The last four stances were stepped through incorrectly. Scott Sawicki pointed this out to me 30 minues and while I thought I corrected it in the form, I obviously did not.
  
• I made a big mistake on the last hand technique and I was facing to the side. This might have cost my first place.
  
• In general my form could have used more energy. Watching the video I look like a robot.