May Day

It's been an exciting week in some respects.

In review: I got shot(s), my ticket punched, a new lens for my camera, taught lots of people at karate, found out that my instructor believes K is ready for Orange Belt, graded a test (only flunked a couple people), and spent a lot of time out last night.

So the lens first:







The first three are of a blue jay. They usually arrive on the scene a little later, but they're bullies to other birds when they're hungry, so we occasionally shoo them away. I swear no photoshopping was done to the third picture; his head really is turned all the way around.

The last two demonstrate the zoom of the lens. The wide-angle on this one is 55mm (around 70 in the usual 35mm format), which is the telephoto end of the kit lens that came with the D40. It zooms to 200mm (300 in 35mm; second picture demonstrates), which is 11x over the 18mm on the wide-angle of the kit lens. So it gets up pretty close. In some respects, I think this is a good thing for me since I am much better in the closeup world than in the wide-angle. It also represents the last likely customization I'm going to do for my camera for some time to come (though I may purchase additional storage for the trip.)

My travel preparations proceeded apace this week as R ordered my ticket and I was inoculated against several diseases: yellow fever, typhoid, and Hep A. I probably did not need the latter. They recommended rabies, polio, and passed on dengue fever. Polio is extremely expensive these days it seems (it would've cost me as much to get a polio vaccination as it did to get the other three). I'll also get an anti-malarial while I'm there.

The lady who administered the vaccinations was very nice, but I managed to accidentally stick my foot in my mouth while I was there; after the fact, I realized and apologized, and it's water under the bridge. But I did feel like a doofus. I'm not usually intentionally insulting, though I do appear to manage to do it on accident often.

In any case, these preparations required me to spend some time on work at home Wednesday, since it kept me out of the office for three hours Thursday.


Karate classes this week were jammin. We had so many people there it was ridiculous, a combination of the schedule change and the test we held Friday.

Since S was out Tuesday, I asked K to come out for training, and it went pretty well. We ate dinner with J afterward and qibbutzed about many things. It was a really good night, and I think we all had a good time. J fought several people and injured himself, but was almost never out of position. He's extremely tough to fight. I didn't get a chance to fight, which was disappointing, but probably for the best considering my ankle and that we have several people testing for varying degrees of black belt this year.

In any case, K seemed to enjoy herself, and my instructor felt like she was ready for a test. She ordered a uniform and called me expressly to say that it fit. Tuesday we'll discuss how to tie the belt and things.

Thursday was extremely busy, too, with at least twenty people in each class. We were having trouble finding space in the gym. But I think everyone is digging the new schedule and the increased class size, despite not having as much personalized attention. It was busy the whole time, and I'm pretty sure everyone was moving. G was helping me out quite a bit, which was great. The parents seemed pretty energized, too. Summer will be dog days, probably, which is normal, but we'll see things pick up again later.


Friday was the test, and it went okay. The underclassmen need some serious remediation, and that's what I'll be spending time on Fridays with them. Fixing things here and there, and hoping to do well with them.

I was a little hard on one guy the past couple weeks, so I'll have a short sit-down chat with him, and hopefully clear things up and ease my slightly guilty conscience. It's hard to know when to press harder and when to back off, and I may have pushed him a little too much. I had some discussion with the others about it afterward, and I think we arrived at a solution that's acceptable to all parties and may work to his benefit. Master C did tell me that if I became as proficient at teaching as I am at technique that I woudl be better at it than he is...which is difficult to believe, but nonetheless a worthy goal.


After the test, we grabbed some food (Chinese) and then I headed over to J's for a round of Carcassonne and Wii Sports with J(2) and T, who are living with him for a little while. Their lease ran out last week. T is moving back to VA, and J is getting married, so it seemed like a good plan to crash at J's for a couple weeks or so.

It was really good to hang out, though I didn't get back home until about three in the morning. J has had a relatively rough week, I think, and seemed a bit out of sorts; I expect it had something to do with work, as he seemed slightly PO'd at a few parents (he works with autistic kids). T was his usual lanky self—I am shorter than all of these guys by probably about a head. They're all of above average height.

There were some good laughs, and we more or less enjoyed ourselves, though I lost pretty badly at Carcassonne (as expected). This is probably because I am not a nice person.


I bought about five cards this week. A few different occasions prompted the purchase, some rather happier than others. I'll have to buy another soon for the latter category, unfortunately.

One guy at work got himself a new job, new baby, and new car all this week. He'll start his new job Monday. He's one of the originals that the boss brought on when he started to hire people five years ago. Of the developers, I'm now the BMOC. That's a kind of scary feeling, but I expect it'll lead to some different responsibilities and things, which is both good and bad. I'm not actively looking for a new job, but I don't expect I'm going to stay there for a super long time if I can get a graphics job elsewhere.


Today's a beautiful day, and I'm going to go abuse the new lens some outside, I think.