Snowman Studios
Continuing with this weekend's festivities, tonight was the holiday party for the Aikido school. The entire thing was a gift by one of the students. The menu was possibly the finest menu I've ever seen. The appetizers included mini
Kobe burgers. The choices of entree included
John Dory. It was amazing and all that I hoped for. I'm actually glad that my lunch burned me and caused me to drop it and loose half of it: it left more room for dinner.
One of the other students brought her band and they played. The music is a Brazilian style that I am not familiar with, but find enjoyable. At one point the sensei (older woman) and one of the younger men were up there dancing. After no second couple joined, she came over to my table and commented to the others "Aikido students are good dancers... and greater lovers." Considering I had already been overwhelmed by the "we chose to not circumcise our child" discussion, this was to another level (it wasn't so much that topic, but when they started going into "a son has to have the same equipment as his father" and this was someone I had trained in Aikido with...).
I can't wait until next year.
All wheel drifts are fun.
So the class went very well, although my instructor had some trouble driving my car (AWD is very different from the RWD that he's used to). I got a decent time and was taking a better line than I had been. My new tires are making a big difference. Now I just need more practice.
When I rode with my instructor, it was crazy. He was sliding around and even drifted sideways a few times. I'd pulled some drifts in mine, but it's another thing in a tiny miata with the top down and you're struggling to keep all body parts in the car.
Pretty much all of the things that went wrong last week were resolved this week. It was a good week. My referal bonus came in too. More than half of it was taken away by taxes and 401k. Almost all of the balance has been written in a tithe check as I have fallen behind. Easy come, easy go.
Tomorrow I have another racing event. It's just a class, but there are supposed to be so many runs that I'll be dead tired when I'm done. Two weeks ago, 4 runs were as much as I could take. How will I handle 15?
Yesterday I went up to LA to visit Di and Esther. We had lunch and went Christmas shopping. Later, Di and I went and saw Syriana. The previews and other ads lasted for 40 minutes after the start time. It was confusing and incoherent; more political statement than plot. I started paying more attention to the other movie goers. One girl would say s*** every 3 minutes when nothing in particular was happening. It got to the point where I laughed because of her. When a bad thing happened, she'd cuss, and I'd laugh. Someone might have thought I was twisted.
What a week... so glad it's over. Something went wrong with three different bills (never had any problems like this), I had a flat tire, and I spent most of the week in a sleepy daze.
So this week has been insane.
Tuesday the landlords called up saying the rent hadn't arrived. After running around to get them a rent check, they call back saying it came in the mail that day.
Wednesday I got a flat tire.
Thursday I ran around to first get it fixed, then get new tires (the old ones might have been suspect to fail).
