9/11: Ten years later

The Towers

I can’t believe that it has been ten years since the 9/11 terrorist attack. So many things have changed since that day that I sometimes have a hard time remembering how things were prior to the attack. About four years ago, in one of the first posts I made on this blog, I spoke about my recollections of that day. In regards to that day, not much has changed for me since then. I am still uncomfortable in large crowds. I still don’t like traveling on public transportation. And I still worry whenever my children are out of my line of sight.

Norwegian Birthday?

I am not sure that Norwegians understand the whole concept of “birthdays”. Usually on birthdays people take it easy and relax. However my wife and mother-in-law got a real kick out of working me out on my day of rest.

DJ Offbeat on the one and two!

I seriously think that I am addicted to sites like Groupon and Zozi. Since the wife and kids left for summer camp I have been buying trial memberships to about half a dozen places like Bikram Yoga and City Wing Tsun. Well yesterday I indulged myself in yet another of my secret desires, to become a world class DJ by taking an Introduction to Digital DJ’ing class at the Dubspot with DJ Reborn and DJ Spictacular.

I have always Continue reading “DJ Offbeat on the one and two!”

Everybody have fun tonight…. everybody Wing Chun tonight!

City Wing TsunLately I have been eager to get back into the flow of training regularly in the martial arts.  Due to the ongoing physical therapy my knees have been feeling better. So yesterday I decided to visit the headquarters of City Wing Tsun to take a look at their curriculum. For those of you that are unfamiliar with Wing Chun, it is a highly dynamic fighting style that makes use of unconventional hand and foot strikes that are excellent for close quarter combat. It was originally designed by a woman and stresses speed and precision over pure brute force. The unorthodox hand and foot techniques, when applied properly, tend to cause fits for opponents during fights. I had trained in Wing Chun many years back under Sifu Rick and had been eager to try the style again. I have incorporated some of the basics of the system into my own fighting style with some limited success, but I always felt that I was missing some important components and wanted to expand my knowledge of Wing Chun further.

I had been looking for a decent school ever since Sifu Rick moved away and stopped teaching Continue reading “Everybody have fun tonight…. everybody Wing Chun tonight!”

Looking for a new family pet

It has been a little over a year since our cat passed away from old age, and as I mentioned in a previous post, the family is lobbying hard for a new family pet. The wife and kids want a dog but I am very hesitant. Of course this means that they are trying to make me out to be the bad guy because I refuse to budge on this issue. I love dogs and have wanted one since I was a little boy, but I am also well aware that canines are far more “high maintenance” than cats. No matter how much they tell me that they will take care of the dog, I know that I will be the one picking up poop with one of those little plastic bags at 6am in the morning. Not gonna happen. To quote the infamous Tony Montana, “say hello to ‘da bad guy”.

Giving thanks

After what has been one of worst couple of months in recent history for me it was good to sit back and reflect on how lucky I am to have certain people in my life. Regardless of life’s up and downs, I know that I am a lucky, lucky man. Plus it was a relatively mellow family gathering. Well as mellow as our family gatherings get.

They are not dolls! They are action figures damnit!!!

My wife continues to give me grief over the only things that I bought for myself at the 2010 NYC Comic Con. Contrary to her assessment, correct name for these items are “collectible action figures” and not “man dolls”. I have been wanting to try my hand at some advanced stop motion movies, so didn’t feel to bad about picking them up. My son and I did a basic lego Star Wars stop action a few years Continue reading “They are not dolls! They are action figures damnit!!!”

They really want a dog.

We babysat a good friend’s dog for a few days and now the kids and wife have been bugging me to get one when we get home. Personally I think that they are all just missing our pet cat who passed away a few months ago. Problem is that I am not a big animal lover. Plus having a dog in NY can be kinda unfair. But mostly, I just hate picking up crap. Still I have to admit that Trixie was pretty fun to have around.