Which wolf are you feeding?

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Journal highlights to date:
The entries you should read if you're only going to read two:
The best entry ever
My favorite entry

And one link because I love this exercise, and I don't want it buried: Ask me anything

( Here's the rest )

Yesterday, I went to kickboxing class solely on the strength of this entry from a friend, someone I admire a lot:

"Sometimes I go to the gym and I'm just kicking so much ass, every rep is a joy, I feel like I'm just tearing the place apart. Those days are great when they happen, but they aren't typically the norm for me.

Today was definitely not one of those days. I didn't want to go, and I just basically gutted out a workout. But I did it, and if I gotta do another one the next time, I will. The mark of you as an athlete is not your best day, at least that isn't how I think of it. No, the mark of an athlete is going and doing the work every time you need to, over and over again, rain, shine, happy, sad, whatever. You just friggin' go and do it.

And so, today, that is what I did. I checked the box."

I think a lot about entitlement and desire. Everybody wants stuff - a nice house, a loving partner, a black belt, fantastic abs, a bazooka filled with gummy bears. In my case, I'm happy where I live, I have a loving spouse, I've come to terms with the fact that I have fantastic abs which are hidden beneath a blanket of sad, and the judge was pretty clear about the bazooka thing. The black belt...well, I want the thing, but the question is whether I'm willing to do what it takes to get it. The process is a long series of "Show up. Check the Box". Every night is not Abu Dhabi night at the gym.

Desire is often bound up in self-identity. I want a thing not just because of it's inherent joys, but because I also like being the kind of person who has this thing. The sheer inherent joy of grappling is a delight, but having a belt means that I'm the person who did what it takes to get a belt. "Affliction t-shirt douchebags" is kind of a joke, but there's some truth to it. Acquiring the shibboleths of being an athlete is much easier than actually being an athlete. A belt means that you actually did it, that you actually are the kind of person who can do it, that you showed up day after day, constantly training with humility about your progress, constantly doing unpleasant things because the achievement is something that is integral to who you want to be. Wanting every practice to be stellar is wanting the belt without putting in the work. The achievement IMPLIES a long series of terrible workouts that you showed up for despite the aversion to suffering and the desire to be a star.

"Checking the box" is a great catch phrase for deciding what you want, then also deciding that you're willing to do what it takes to get it.

1) Muay Thai competition? Crap! I thought they said Pad Thai competition.

2) It dawns on me that for some people at my gym, martial arts practice is a socially acceptable substitute for cutting.

( The first rule about Paint Shop Pro errors... )

Wow, the Internet is just having it's way with me today. Best bit is around 3:20

( Also, for MMA fans )

Because you've all been waiting to hear my opinions on the upcoming SCOTUS pick, here goes. I'd love to read Elena Kagan's opinions for the next 30 years. She makes the language fetch and roll over and jump on command. Read "Private Speech, Public Purpose" if you can get hold of it - it's a brilliant statement about how Federal interests are smuggled into the reading of the first amendment. Also, she's on the side of angels with respect to executive power. On the other hand, she's supposed to be a great administrator, so she wont be completely wasted as Solicitor General.

Granholm shouldn't be on the list, Napolitano may get her chance if Ginsberg retires, and I wouldn't be unhappy about that. Napolitano is, I think, another administrator who may not get her chance at the SCOTUS because she's so badly needed where she is. Moreno won't get past the GOP.

I like Wood - she's good on UCC and seems very very smart. She may be another good choice as Obama's second or third pick. Sotomayor is a wolf in sheeps clothing, IMO. Southern Dems were pushing her as a palatable choice to W, and my read is that she's out with Thomas on executive power. My concern is that she'll be Obama's Souter except where it counts - on RKBA. She was also on Morgenthau's staff in NYC, Morgenthau not a man known for being unduly attached to the details of due process.

I would love to see Kathleen Sullivan and am disappointed but not surprised to see that she's not on the short list. a) She's gay, so if she were on the SCOTUS, we'd all have to start being gay, if I belive what I'm told. b) [real reason] She's an ACTUAL constitutional scholar. I really don't see a Justice who's seemingly as devoted to the 14th as she is being a big friend of this administration.

Category: Things I'd pay $49.95 for the PPV of:

Jesse Ventura: Yes, and I was waterboarded [in training] so I know... It is torture...I'll put it to you this way: You give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.

( Also, not hot at all... )

I've derived far more entertainment from the xkcd comic strip about Firefly than I ever did from the actual TV series.

So I've been thinking hard about what it will take to get a BJJ belt starting as a 44 year old. I will need to:

- Keep my intensity up with respect to number of days training per week and focus during my training.
- Try not to get injured. If I do get injured I need to handle it gracefully, neither disregarding nor using them as an excuse to slack. Be appropriately aggressive in my approach to both treating and rehabbing injuries.
- Pay attention to nutrition.
- Pay attention to sleep.
- No shame in needing knee wraps, foot supports, etc.

Note carefully how much different this list is than one made for a 20 year old.

[edit: It may just be easier to get an Affliction t-shirt and a beer belly.]

Competing seems very far away.

Conversations with the lawyer
Attorney: "So if you both pass away, who would you like your estate to go to?"
Miriam: "Amnesty International"
Michael: "...or 4chan"

It was a good weekend. "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo" on Friday night, watching the Florida Grappling State qualifiers on Saturday afternoon, Bar and Rock Band with friends on Saturday night, chilling Sunday half shopping for a new kitchen table and making some improvised kettlebells by filling empty laundry detergent containers with sand and water. The balance is wonky, but they'll do.

H&K was good. The grappling was really fun to watch. I got to catch up with a few people from the gym that I hadn't seen in a while. I will grapple there next year if it kills me. I have to dig through the pics to see if there are any good ones, but mostly I was struggling with the low light and the f4.5 lens. I just can't justify the money to buy new camera glass right now.

My poi class has been canceled indefinitely because some chucklehead set his dumb ass on fire and got lawyer happy. I don't know the details, so maybe there really was some negligence on the part of the instructors, but my inclination is that if you really want to avoid being set on fire, don't take poi classes.

I'm going through and donating a bunch of the clothes I wore when I did PL'ing and weighed 230. Watching the grappling makes me think that if I want to compete, I'll have to get down to 185 or below. Time will tell. Right now my fitness goal is 200 burpees in sets of 10 with 30 second pauses between. I'm at 80 now.

http://www.fightmetric.com/index.html

A great combination of UFC and Tufte style data presentation.

[edit: It's interesting to me that Tufte hasn't had more to say about the power of the web in information design. It seems that the value of Flash is the ability to present repeated small multiples or time series in a very small footprint. http://www.fightmetric.com/fights/Griffin-Rampage.html is a case in point. Even if you're not interested in MMA per say, look at the amount of data presented for the event. http://www.fightmetric.com/Fedor.html is a joke for the fans, particularly if you look at, say, the Zuluzinho or Sylvia fights.]

On moviemaking...
michael orb: hey, did you ever see the last Resident Evil movie?
JRS: ugh... yeah
michael orb: remember that scene where Milla Jovovich went into the one lab and found her clone?
JRS: yes
michael orb: how come they didn't start making out?
michael orb: what????
JRS: it wasnt your birthday
michael orb: DAMMIT!!!!
michael orb: Thanks for the clarification, tho.
JRS: it was AIGs fault
michael orb: Stupid Credit Default Swaps standing in the way of a perfect movie

Why the Internet is the best.

Christopher Walken's twitter, or a twitter that purports to be such a thing. [edit: hoax, but still funny.]

Former Morgan Stanley Vice Chair and present head of AIG's derivatives dept Gary Pasciucco:

Why K-1 will always be better than UFC
Because ( these two guys ) are fighting eachother.

Yay! John Stewart. I can't wait for next week when he does the same thing with Barney Frank. Only he'll probably do it DOUBLE because I can opt out of taking financial advice from Cramer, but I can't opt out of supporting Fannie/Freddie policies. oohhhhhh I can't wait.

...but I guess I'll have to.

This chimp is my new hero.