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Last night Alex was awarded his second-degree black belt!

Normally there’s a ceremony where a group of students who are receiving new belt ranks are all presented together. However, since Alex will be leaving the country (and thus the dojo) in a couple of weeks, the instructors decided to test him a little early.

First he was run through the rigors of their fitness regimen, which consisted of a series of push-ups, planks, crunches, jumping jacks, mountain climbers, burpees, bicycles, and holding the “horse position” for a couple of minutes. It was grueling, but Alex never complained. He just said “Sir!” whenever the instructor ordered him to switch to a different exercise.

Then, sweating from that, he had to face three attackers who all went after him. They were all wearing pads, but he wasn’t. He had to demonstrate his self-defense skills as well as his black-belt moves, fending them off as they came at him from three directions.

Apparently that wasn’t enough– the instructor then called up two more people, and Alex fought five attackers at once. Of course he wasn’t going full-bore, since he could have potentially hurt someone, but he did manage to accidentally sneak in a punch against a teenage girl (also a black belt) to give her a black eye.

Afterward, he was exhausted, but the instructor jumped him and they wrestled a bit as Alex fought him off. The instructor is an ex-Marine who’s very skilled at self-defense, and he wasn’t giving Alex any breaks. I’ve participated in some of the classes with Alex, and I can attest that he’s good. He did a great job resisting the attack.

Finally, Alex demonstrated one of his kata. There are different ones for the various belt ranks, and he chose one of the hardest.

His moves were, as always, very crisp and sharp. He looked good out there.

At last the instructor was satisfied and there was a nice presentation ceremony. Alex received not only a second-degree black belt, but was also given the honor of the first advanced self-defense degree.

The instructors and several other black-belt students all congratulated him with brief speeches, talking about how dedicated Alex was and how much work he put into these classes. And here he is with his awards and new belt!

Following the ceremony, we had some cake and punch. Alex cut the cake with a katana (his weapon of choice).

All in all, this was a pretty big deal and certainly a big moment for Alex. He worked hard for six years to earn this, and he’s sad to leave the dojo. I’m really proud of the skills and discipline it taught him.

My friend Dave went to the bank the other day to deposit a check he’d received from a client for work his software company had done. The check was rather large– tens of thousands of dollars– and he said the teller looked like she was about eighteen. With wide eyes at the size of the deposit, she asked Dave what he did for a living.

Completely deadpan, he replied, “I play in a rock band called Thunk.”

He figures she probably decided then and there to change careers from bank teller to rock star.

It’s completely true, of course: he does play in a rock band called Thunk. In fact, they played to a huge crowd last weekend; here’s a shot. Dave’s on the keyboard on the far left.

About a week ago my friend Jason agreed to take some family pictures for us. He captured some really good ones.

Then there were these.

Maybe a year ago, Jason took family photos for our friends the von Niederhauserns, and [insert long story here] they decided to take a “pirate photo”. Here it is:

So we did the same, although I think Zack misunderstood “pirate pose” for “Stephen Hawking pose”.

Yep, what an awesome family.

Laralee was watching a friend’s kids the other day, and Zack took a turn with one of the babies.

He’s a natural.

It’s no secret that I abhor insurance companies and their ever-increasing rates, but I just opened a letter from The Hartford informing me about their latest rate increase:

Wow, they can’t even tell me how much it is? Thanks, The Hartford!

Seen on Slashdot:

You’d think 12 terabytes of storage would be enough for anyone.

Apparently not. My backup volume filled up last week:

So I bought a new eight-bay drive enclosure and eight 3TB hard drives. I just set them up and plugged into the computer. A few magic incantations with Parted and BTRFS, and now I have 24 terabytes ready to rock:

Next step: copying data from the old (full) array to the new (empty) one. Hoo boy– this might take a while.

As a follow-up to my post after seeing Jurassic World, I wanted to share this awesome list of questions someone had after watching the movie.

This evening my friend Amber shared a photo of an old poster on her Facebook page.

Amber is in the middle of the front row.

Here’s a story about that poster.

In high school, Amber’s brother Aron was one of my best friends, and I was at his house all the time for everything from a six-hour game of Axis and Allies to poker night to pinball tournaments. It was the party house. Amber was his gorgeous little sister, and as a joke I’d ask her out now and then when I happened to be over at the house. (Remember that in high school I was an acne-pocked nerd, not the handsome stud I am today.) She’d always have a reason why she couldn’t go out with me, so she’d turn me down and we’d laugh about it and I’d go play spades or whatever.

At some point during my senior year, she asked me if I’d go out with her. Apparently there was this group date or something, and she didn’t have anyone to go with, and I happened to be handy. I thought about it for a moment and turned her down. Hah! The tables were sure turned now!

Fast forward five years.

It was my senior (fifth) year of college, and my friend Andy went with a group of guys up to Mizzou to watch a basketball game. Mizzou was UMR’s big brother– the University of Missouri school everyone knows about– and they had a pretty good sports program. It was a little less than two hours to drive there, so now and again we’d head from Rolla to Columbia for something or other (to see the “big city”, that sort of thing). Anyway, he came back from the basketball game late that night with a poster of the Golden Girls.

What’s more, it was signed by a couple of the Golden Girls! I don’t know which ones– maybe half a dozen or so– but two of them were Amber and Jen (Jen is the brunette right behind Amber). Andy was going on and on about how hot those girls were, and how lucky he was to get their signatures, and wow Mizzou sure had gorgeous women, yada yada.

I casually mentioned that I knew Amber and Jen (Jen is Amber’s cousin and we’d crossed paths now and then in high school). Oh, and Amber had asked me out a few years ago and I’d turned her down.

Andy was flabbergasted. It was so funny to see how unbelievable he thought it was that I’d turned down this gorgeous girl for date… a girl he apparently would’ve taken out on the town without a moment’s hesitation. I explained the story and he deflated a little, but was still impressed.

That might have been the start of my nickname, “Big Dog”, but that’s a whole different story…

On my hike yesterday I had my camera in my jacket pocket, and after an hour of freezing rain and snow, my jacket was pretty much soaked. After returning to my car, I was alarmed to discover that the camera didn’t work. I suppose that wasn’t terribly surprising since it’s not made to be waterproof, so I left it out all day today to dry a bit.

Tonight I turned it on and was happy to see that the lens focused and it apparently took some pictures… but the screen didn’t work. A digital camera isn’t very useful without a screen, since all of the controls are there.

Figuring I had nothing to lose, I went to work tonight disassembling it. I removed a dozen tiny screws and pulled things apart, hoping that I could magically fix it. The interior was an amazing jumble of electronics squeezed into this little camera body.

With the parts strewn over my desk but still wired together, I inserted the battery and turned it on. The screen worked! I put everything back together, and now I’m back in business. Whew.