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To all my Readers!
This is a heads up to you guys. Two web retailers with some great deals on gear that I want to make you aware of are below. Click the logos and Go check them out!

Things have solidified!

We are leaving for China in a couple of weeks! Wow. After 5 seemingly endless years of waiting we are on the verge of finally having the child we have been praying for. Julia and I are just over the moon. On another note, after we return from China, I am going to set about building a grappling dummy. The commercially available models are prohibitively expensive. I have found some designs for decent home-made models that don't sound terribly difficult or expensive to build. I will plan to build the dummy a little bit at a time, here and there. I think it will be a great training aid for myself and for Zach when the time comes.

On the Brink!

Things have been just crazy busy lately with final preparations underway for our journey to China to get our Zachary. Had to get all kinds of travel vaccinations, do final prep of Zach’s room, work our way through the final bit of paperwork jungle. We received our updated form I-171-H the other day, which is the final piece of the puzzle. Now we are just waiting for our agency to let us know when they have our consulate appointment scheduled. Our travel plans all hinge around that. We are hoping for a departure date of 3/24. The wild card in all of this is that, in mid-to-late April, the city of Guangzhou, where the US consulate is located, hosts a big trade show. During that span of time, there are no hotels to be had. Therefore, those are considered “blackout dates”. In essence, if we don’t travel by around April 1st, it will likely get bumped back to May. The thing about that is, our travel approval from China has a shelf-life and will expire on May 7th. Therefore, if we don’t travel by May 7th, we have to renew our travel approval which could delay things further. So, we are hoping for 3/24. Will keep you posted.



On the BJJ front, this weekend, I am going to a seminar being taught by Prof. Pedro Sauer and Andre’ Galvao, both of whom are very high-level BJJ black belts. My school is affiliated with Pedro Sauer. This will be my first time meeting and rolling with practitioners of that level. It will definitely be an honor. I will post about my experience and include pictures when I get back.

Building "The Dungeon"

I am on track to officially begin P90X this next Monday (2/21). In order to make it easier to stay consistent (I hope), I am in the process of turning part of the basement into a fitness area. I am nicknaming it “The Dungeon” in tribute to the Hart family’s infamous basement dojo. I hope to sweat buckets down there. The plan is to go through P90X probably twice and then move onto INSANITY. In between, maybe do some work with HIP HOP ABS and TURBO FIRE. I also have some other videos dealing with kettlebells as well as several martial arts training sets. I will take some pictures and post here soon.

New Logo and More!

I want to profusely thank Jimmy Bacon, one of my friends over at Lockflow.com for hooking me up with the new blog logo. He's a talented dude. If you need graphic design work, I recommend him highly. He can be reached at http://www.jrbaconproductions.com/

Weird news story of the day...the "Food Liberation Army" kidnapped and threatened to execute Ronald McDonald unless the company answered questions regarding their food quality. The statue of Ronald was taken from outside a McDonald's in Finland. Apparently, the company and the local constabulary took a dim view of the activity because the house of a local artist (and apparently the head of the FLA) was raided, Ronald was rescued unharmed and two people were arrested.

Comic Books and Hollywood

Growing up I was a fan of comic books. Between the "big 2" I was a Marvel guy. I always thought their characters and storylines were more compelling than those offered by DC. I loved Spiderman from earliest memory and grew to love the X-Men, the Avengers, Daredevil, and Iron Man. On the DC side, I did enjoy Batman and The Flash. Hollywood's attempts to bring comic books to life on the big screen have been largely hit-and-miss. Some notable hits have been BATMAN BEGINS and its sequel THE DARK KNIGHT, with its freakishly awesome portrayal of The Joker by the late Heath Ledger. Other well-done comic book adaptations have been both IRON MAN films. Robert Downey Jr. is perfectly cast as Tony Stark, in my opinion.

This summer brings 3 new Marvel offerings: CAPTAIN AMERICA, THOR, and X-MEN: FIRST CLASS. I was never a huge fan of Captain America or Thor, so I am likely to wait for video on both of those unless I just can’t resist. X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, however, I may have to go see in the theater. It is supposed to be the back story on the founding of Charles Xavier’s School for the “Gifted”. From the looks of the trailer, the Cuban Missile Crisis is heavily involved in the plotline. Hoping for good things.

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS


CAPTAIN AMERICA


THOR

Incorporating the Past, Moving to the Future

I just imported all posts from previous blog attempts into this blog. This just allows me to consolidate my blogosphere into one place. So, you can feel free to explore back if you wish, or just hang with me going forward.

I want to comment on the news of Kenny Florian making the decision to move to the featherweight division. Those of you who know me know that I am a big Kenny Florian fan. I think he is a talented and smart fighter. However, I think he finds himself in a very peculiar position. After losing to Gray Maynard, he would need to string together several wins in lightweight to get back in the title mix. Going to featherweight, if he can successfully make the cut to 145, he would likely have a quicker route to title contention. That being said, Jose Aldo, the current featherweight champion is just scary. I really think Florian would be a victim of yet another devastating knockout. There are some rumblings that Aldo may be considering moving up to lightweight, which could explain Florian's move.

If Aldo does depart featherweight, Kenny could do very well in the division. My first concern is whether he can successfully make the cut. Even at 155, he sometimes looks somewhat skeletal as he walks around at around 170.

Tonight is BJJ. Really looking forward to it. Been 2 weeks since I have been able to train. Been sick and had other stuff going on that has prevented me from getting there. Be good to get back on the mat. On the subject of fitness, I have decided to start P90X this coming Monday. I am going to really try to do this right, following the diet and everything. I played with a couple of the workouts not too long ago and they are quite demanding. The hardest part is going to be carving out the time to do it each day. But, I am determined to do it.