Motivation- See video below

Pause my play list. Below is is the video that I watch a lot when I train my horse stance. It helps me to not be such a wuss when my leg starts to burn a little or some other minor pain. That kid is amazing.

Addendum- It was pointed out by to me by two savvy subscribers (Timpani and Liz) to my blog that the intro is written in Spanish. Translation as follow, "In 1980 at 8 months of age Robert suffered a grave infirmity. Diagnosis: Meningitis. Prognosis: Robert would not be able to talk and much less be able to walk some day... Twenty six years later Robert demonstrates how wrong science was. Robert Rivas Castillo is today a 3rd degree brown belt A. K. K. S. (American Kenpo Karate Systems) Chile."

So much to blog, so little time.

My wife suggests that I would get more comments if I posted more than once a week. Don't know that I can do that, but I wanted to post something. Thought I'd just blather about my week and go from there.

I played D & D Friday night at my friend Dave's house. We are playing the new 4th edition rules and it's different. This version, among other things, tries to bring the newer generation brought up on games like World of Warcraft- essentially inspired by D & D- back to the pen and paper- and laptop- sit down with a group of people live-and-in-person gaming. The raw mechanics are good, but the flavor is still bothering me. Essentially, the mechanics of everyone's abilities are the same, but it has different wording. Wizards of the Coast- the publisher- was trying to level all the basic classes (fighter, mage, thief, priest), so no one felt like they were not doing something. (Shaking head.)
Now, I always say that no matter what the rules, if someone spins a good yarn, I will play the game. My friend Dave spins a good yarn. D & D and other role playing games (RPGs) are basically sharing your idea of a fantasy world with some friends and making a story together.
Thursday night I did not go to my Kajukenbo class. :( Between Timpani's back and all of us being sick, September was just a wash for that. That's bad too because maybe turning 38 was working on my brain on some levels because I have been feeling very round shaped. Not good.
I decided to go back in October. I started stretching again this week at work and standing in a horse stance for a few minutes to begin getting back into it. (I also surprised Timpani by suggesting a walk one night.) Hope for the best.
I will try to find the youtube video that I watch when I am standing in a horse stance. In Kajukenbo and a lot of traditional martial arts, you stand in a horse stance for extended periods of time. To pace myself, I put on this video of a guy from Chile testing for his brown belt in Kenpo. (It is about a 5 minute video done to Breaking Benjamin's song "You.") I use that video 'cause the guy had meningitis when he was a baby and was told he would never walk. It's a good way to remind myself how much of a wuss I am standing still for 5 minutes when this guy is blessed to move at all.
Why the heck allow someone to indent while composing, if the indention will not appear in post? I guess I need to figure out the HTML for that. :P
I finally changed my play list back. I think that I was holding onto active remembering of 9/11 just a bit more.
I also added a reading list to my page.

More later....

9/11- Cathartic ramblings

Kudos to Bruce for starting this out. I meant to post never-the-less.

I made a special playlist. The Enya song usually really gets me, but the Flogging Mollys bagpipe Amazing Grace made me think of all the NYC Cops and Firemen.

I noted on Bruce's blog that when the first planes hit, I was running late to what was a 3 week old job for me. I did not really find out what was happening until I got in. I was mad and sad at the same time. Mostly almost crying sad. For the next few days after, it was strange not seeing the planes in the sky.

There was good that came out of that disaster. NYC lost its bad rep. People respected and loved the Police, the Firemen and the US armed forces again. Americans stood together first to help each other and then to work on making sure it would not happen again. People turned to God again. Families turned to one another.

After 9/11, taking the national radio host Glenn Beck's example, I always thank anyone I see or that I know who is or has been in the armed forces. I just walk up and say, "Thank you for your service." They always are grateful and unfortunately are sometimes surprised. (One time, I was coming out of an Arby's and I saw a motorcycle that had Marine decorations all over it. I waited a minute and a guy with a close cut hair came out. I asked, "You a marine?" He looked like he thought I was going to give him crap and said, "yeah." I put out my hand and said thanks for your service. He smiled and said, "no problem.")

I could note some negatives, but I just hope that we can remember the lesson to stand together for love and defense.

That's about it.

Pax via magno- peace through strength- Motto of the USS Ronald Reagan

Love-

Erik

Inspiration from Renae's blog

So I am off today, 'cause I have vacation and tomorrow is my b-day and I am blogging. I hit Renae's web site http://renylousworld.blogspot.com/. She had posted her very creative YMCA video, but noted that one should first pause her playlist. "Playlist," I thought, "Got to get me one of those."
It was pretty fun. Of course, I had a brain freeze about what to put. I mean Iron Maiden- of course- but there needed to be more. I finally just fired up the MP3 player to see what I had on it now. After much bumbling and some more time choosing with playlist.com, I found 10...20...21 songs that I would like to represent- peace out to my homeys on the west side- what goes on in my head.
Welcome to my world!