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July 31, 2003

Grouting is COMPLETED

Yaaay! Wessiepooh has grouted like a champ. What a man.

I also found out that Grandmaster Choi's backflip has given him sore muscles today. I'm glad to know I'm not the ONLY one who pays for doing things she shouldn't be doing at her age :-).

July 30, 2003

A Crazy Wednesday

The Shocks has left us. We dropped him at DCA after a nice lunch at Legal Sea Food. Then off he went on United to Chicago enroute to Oshkosh. Hopefully he will have a wonderful time there.

Later, at Tae Kwon Do, the crazy Grandmaster Choi practiced back flips. Made me feel almost young again. Amazing!

July 29, 2003

Gettysburg and painting

The VH-Shocks was treated to a visit to Gettysburg by Wessiepooh. After which, they went to the Old Brogue Pub and Shockers had some Key Lime Pie for the very first time. He did not die, he liked the food, this is all good.

Meantime, I painted the bathroom. The bathroom is nearing completion a little more every day. This is great!

July 28, 2003

Wessiepooh Better

Dr. Wei has decided that Wessiepooh's fibromyalgia is better. He is in less pain and is less tender. This is, of course, wonderful news. In not so wonderful news, I have been prohibited from doing back handsprings anymore. *whine*

Bathroom Progress

Wessiepooh is working insanely on the bathroom now. The floor has been completed and grouted. He is currently working on the tiling around the new bathtub. Most of the holes in the walls are patched and ready for me to paint. It will be wonderful to get it finally finished. Updates to come.

Goodbye to Bob Hope

So sad that we've lost Bob Hope. He certainly did have a full and long life, however. Farewell and blessings to him and his family.

July 27, 2003

Steve and Sushi

Newsflash - Steve the Stuffy Australian ate SUSHI! Film at 11. Epiglottis, the lovely CFI with the lovely Cutlass took the VH-Shocks for a ride around the DC area that we're still allowed to ride around. Much fun was had by all.

Trimph Over Mail Merge

I have vanquished the utterly awful "help pages" of Microsloth Word and have indeed created a mail merge, printing out all of the letters and envelopes to solicit funds from people for Grandmaster Choi's annual fund raiser for the Blue Ridge Hospice.

If you'd like to make a donation, click here:









July 26, 2003

Meeting at Leesburg

It was great to see all of the crazy aviation people at Leesburg airport today. VH-Shocks, VH-Trev, and Aviatrix were the guests of the day as Sue flew into Leesburg and we all went off to P.F. Cheng's for lunch. It was fantastic to see everyone and it was a lot of fun. And while we were waiting for Trix's briefing at the FSS, in walked Bob Stratton, ex InterCon employee. It was great to see him.

Hopefully the pictures will be up soon. Watch this space :-)

Playing with MT

Well, of course I can't leave well enough alone, so I have to keep playing with this lovely weblog, and adding plug ins and otherwise causing trouble. This is quite interesting and fun. Unfortunately, I've run into a few that aren't quite working properly. I will keep trying. Ah the fun.

July 25, 2003

Welcome - First entry

After a lot of help from Chris Piggott and Brent, I finally got Movable Type working. I'm going to test it out to see if I can use it was a Weblog to replace the "What's New" portion of my Book of Shadows. If so, here it will be.

Now, you may have noticed that this is not really indeed the first entry. There are things that are marked older than this one. Well that's because I am moving my files over from my manual method of "blogging" over to this Movable Type system because it's so much easier.

July 23, 2003

Child gets Bo Black Belt

Morgan received her bo black belt today and was given the green light to test for her black belt in November! This is great! She's so happy to be the same belt as mommy. I am VERY proud of her. Hooray.

July 16, 2003

Tragic Death of AC

In tragic news today, the AC compressor died a sudden painful death. More painful will be the 3,000.00 to replace it. Film at 11.

July 07, 2003

Knee is improving

Knee is a bit better. Doc did an MRI and found out nothing was really bad, just more arthritis. I hate being arthritic at 43, but hell, what can I do?

July 04, 2003

Tae Kwon Do Nationals

Well, I've been stressing out insanely, waiting for Junior Olympics where my darling daughter was to compete. I stress MUCH more for her than for myself when I compete, and this was the national championships, so I was scared to pieces. Anyway, we carefully packed, went off to DCA to board the airplane, and expected not much problem. I hadn't encountered DCA (Washington National) security, however I had no clue that an UNDERWIRE BRA would set off the machine. Now remember how they used to wand you after setting off the detector? Not anymore. Now they drag you off, find a female TSA dweeb, and they have to FEEL your undergarments to make sure it really is an underwire bra and not something really dangerous like a pair of tweezers or nail clippers.

When we checked in, we found that there were two seats left on the entire plane, even though we were 2 hours early for the flight. Those two seats were on different ends of the airplane, both in the middle. So, me and 11 year old were to be separated. However, she was sitting next to one VA judge for the tournament, and I was sitting next to the other. They wanted to sit together. We changed seats. All fixed? Not quite. They'd double booked my seat and issued two boarding passes. *argh* While they were straightening that one out, the judge next to me told me what a wonderful idea it would be for me to take the judge's seminar and learn how to be a referee. Gee, well I had not much else to do hanging around waiting for her, so I tried to check it out when we arrived. I told them I had taken my black belt test, but hadn't yet received the actual black belt. They called over this Korean guy who said - "good enough" and next thing I know, I was in the Referee seminar, AND scheduled to ref the National Competition! Seems they were SO desperate for referees, that they would BEG for anyone with most of the credentials to just plain DO IT. And of course I found out why. It's a volunteer position that everyone loves to yell at and blame. Waaaaa. 5500 competitors made this the largest Tae Kwon Do event in the world (including Korea) and only 100 judges made life rather uh...difficult.

Ok, so the referee seminar was 8 hours worth of being yelled at by crazy Korean people and reading a crazy rule book. I learned many new Korean words, naughty hand signals, and other insanities. Only one problem. I didn't have the pre-requisite referee clothes. Black pants, white shirt, black jacket, and red tie. They provide the tie. Woo hoo.

Next day, Morgan was doing forms and sparring, so I decided to watch and cheer for her first. She did better than at least 1/2 of the division, and there were about 30 kids in the division. It was really difficult, and she did a great job. I was very proud of her. She didn't medal though, and she's a bit disappointed. However, I let her stew, and she said she'd work harder next year. A great idea. Then, during opening ceremonies, there I was, going to the insane outlet mall and buying clothes. Then I ran back to the arena to become "TA DA!!!! The Referee of DOOM!." Which really wasn't as easy as it sounds, and I was very nervous. There is a LOT to this job. So I was assigned to a ring, and next thing I know, kids are being brought in, and I'm supposed to judge them. Egads. So we judged them in both forms and sparring. I got to be center referee, corner referee, and all kinds of other things. Unfortunately for me, I ran around too much on hard concrete floor (it's tough chasing these kids, trust me) so the next day my knees hurt and I could only do corner reffing. From 8 am until 11 pm. Woo hoo. Second group in included - guess who - Morgan. Out of 20 rings, they have to put her in MINE. I had to recuse myself. But that's not all :-) During this time, I was run over by a sparring pair, further hurting my knee. But wait, there's more. I saw a nasty display of poor sportsmanship from at least 5 contestants, 10 coaches, and far more of the parents. One 17 year old heavyweight stomped off screaming "fucking bullshit!" in front of a bunch of children, various coaches screamed various things, and various parents did various other bad things. I was quite sad given the way that Tae Kwon Do is SUPPOSED to work. It's SUPPOSED to be about sportsmanship. Grrrr.

So today I go back and my technical administrator person, my boss essentially, tells me that I need to go to the medical tent and get it looked at. Doc there says there's all kinds of fluid on the knee and well, I wouldn't be center refereeing that day and I was told to sit down and take it easy. I did. Now I'm laying in bed until tomorrow. Maybe the ice will work.