I woke up to a house temperature of 54 degrees. It's the kind of temp that just screams "Get in the shower now, and don't spare the heat!"
A funny thing about my status as a somewhat-new homeowner with only my income to rely on. . . I try to keep costs down in a variety of inventive and somewhat insane ways.
For example, I'm trying to avoid firing up the furnace for as long as is humanly possible, hence the chilly home atmosphere of this morning. Last night, when I went to bed, the house was a nice 65 degrees. Through the miracle of convection, however, much of that warmth was sucked out of the house by 8 a.m.
It should be back to 65 degrees by the time I get off work. If not, I'll begrudgingly fire up the furnace. It's supposed to be back up to 79 degrees by Friday, so I hopefully will be able to fend off the gas bill at least through the month of October. We'll see.
-----------------------------
I'm in the midst of a new work out regimen. I gradually lost interest in running, thanks in no small part to an aching back. I now am doing a daily routine of half an hour to a full hour of working out on my heavy bag and jump roping.
I had forgotten how exhausting jump roping can be. As a child, I could jump rope into infinity and beyond. Nowadays, I'm good for five hard minutes before I have to stop and catch my breath. It's definitely good exercise, and it works muscles you may not even realize you have.
I'm also hoping to take my hapkido training to a different level. Ever since I got my black belt, my school has asked me to teach more and more, to the point that that's all I was doing. When I first started training there, the workouts were decent, but more and more the workouts became less strenuous, so I had to rely on working out at home on the heavy bag. Lately, that's all I've been doing. Which is fine. It's good to work out on the heavy bag, but I need to keep my person-to-person skills sharp.
So, I spoke with another hapkido black belt from California, transplanted to the cold terrain of Minnesota. He's interested in getting a club together of four or five fairly skilled hapkido practitioners, who can get together and work out. That is exactly what I'm interested in. Teaching is fine and all, but it's not where my interest lies. I'm interested in getting better as a martial artist and working with extremely skilled partners. I really hope this comes to fruition. We'll see, I guess.
Anyway, this was obviously a navel gazing post of extraordinary magnitude. Perhaps I'll have more profound commentary later in the day.
Or perhaps not.
Posted by Ryan at October 5, 2004 11:01 AMryan, from one BB to another, though my persuasion happens to be TKD, i cannot agree with you more. i taught at my school for about 3 years after my BB, in the "pursuit" of my second degree. i ended up teaching all the time and learning very little. stangely enough, the school added hapkido to the curriculum just as i was finishing my first degree—long story.
anway, i ditched the class altogether because i felt i wasn't getting anything out of it, except for an ability to dish-out a set of drill sergeant cal's that would make the best of men say "uncle"—try 1000 JJ's, and i was paying at the same time. since then, i haven't kicked anything with a pulse.
hope the fight club works out—i might have to work on something like that for the chi-town area. hmmmm.
Posted by: seed at October 5, 2004 11:18 AMJesus, how cold is it over there?
Then again, I do live in stupid Texas, where it's constantly 97 degrees year-round.
Posted by: Tammy at October 6, 2004 03:23 AMTammy, this is Minnesota, where temperature fluctuations are more commonplace than dust mites. Monday this week, the evening temps dipped down to 35 degrees F. By January, we can expect -15 F. with some degree of regularity. It tests the will, it does.
Posted by: Ryan at October 6, 2004 08:59 AM
Stumble It!
