Monday, July 28, 2008

Seminar, sushi, seafood.

Friday at work I was antsy as hell. I was excited about the seminar, and feeling the slack coming on. I was doing nobody any favors by staying at work, so I left a little early. I headed down to the academy. I was just going to sit in the local coffee shop with my laptop and do a little work after imbibing a smoothie. Plans changed when I ran into D on the way to the smoothie shop. I snagged a smoothie and cruised over to the school. I b.s.’d with D and Micah for a while. Cleaned up a bit. Got a smoothie for D and some coffee. By the time I’d gotten back and downed my supplemental caffeine, normal folks were turning up for the seminar. I rolled a little bit with Paul and met some folks from other schools. There was a big presence from our school (no surprise since it was on our home turf so to speak) but I was glad to see a bunch of folks from Foster BJJ had come up. They’re a good group of guys, and if I was still working in Kent I’d probably train there from time to time. Charuto strolled in. He’s a fairly unassuming guy. Shook a few hands and stretched out a bit. About 5 after he put on his gi. By quarter after the seminar was started. The whole thing was done at a good pace. We learned a few guard passes (2 spider guard passes, 2 butterfly, and 1 de la Riva), a couple of chokes, and a sweet sweep. The pace for the seminar was fast, to put that many moves in a 2 hour seminar was.. well it was a lot. Charuto walked around and helped everyone with the details. Very cool dude, I learned a ton. Afterwards we all got a signed seminar poster, and Paul, Michelle and I went out for sushi. I was starving.
Saturday was one of the last rowing classes for the summer. The students got a lot better, one guy still has a terrible attitude, but he paid his money if he doesn’t want instruction far be it for me to force it on him. After that class I headed to class. The Ballard Seafood fest was this weekend so parking was a bit dodgy. I managed ok. Paul decided to wear his weight vest whilst rolling. Normally my rolls with Paul are very technical, but for some reason the audacity of wearing that vest put a bit of a burr under my saddle. I pushed the pace pretty hard, tried some of the moves from the night before, and generally had a good time. It was a pretty limited group. I was hoping to get a roll with Micah. It didn’t happen.
Afterwards, met up with the wife for some coffee and a stroll around the seafood fest. We didn’t buy anything, but we did decide to go to the market and buy some shrimp and scallops. I grilled them with some garlic, and lime zest. They were tasty. Sunday was the last rowing class of the summer. From there I went into work for a couple of hours. Staged a laptop, and config’d a router while listening to Eddie Izzard stand-up. That night we celebrated the brother-in-laws birthday. We went out to the in-laws on Whidbey island. The J.P. (the guest of honor) brought his girlfriend. I’ve met her, but my father-in-law hadn’t. She’s nice and held her own pretty well. J.P. seems happy. Who knows what may yet come of this.
No lifting this weekend, but a ton of mat time.
Hope you had a good weekend too.
Mahalo.

2 comments:

Christine said...

I heart Eddie Izzard. I saw him in Philly in March-- bumblebees fly by the power of their own arrogance. :)

J.B. said...

He's great. I've never seen him live, but I have watched a number of his stand-up "specials" for lack of a better. He's a very witty dude.. er.. yeah.