2012-04-28 16:55:00
It's not often that we go on holidays. Before we went to Japan last winter it'd been years since we'd traveled together for R&R. So it was clear that this summer we'd go out for another trip, to get out and to relax a little.
As was to be expected of me I kept postponing the preparations. Marli had gone through all manner of work, researching destinations and hotels, but when the time came to start actually booking stuff, I'd put it off. Partially because I'm forgetful, partially because I'm lazy, partially because of my anxieties. So it was already halfway March when we finally set down to finalize things. March, which is usually already way too late to book decent summer destinations. ( =_=)
In Marli's research materials we found many interesting locations, but those were either too far away, too expensive or at a second look weren't that good anyway. I'm very happy to have the modern-day Internet, with all of its resources like Trip Advisor. In the end we found one that was really interesting and that matched all our criteria: Hotel Waidmannsheil in Kaprun.
Of course, it being March the chances of us getting in there were low. The booking agent confirmed: all the rooms they reserved were already taken, but they could try and get an extra room, which would take a few days. Of course, we're not going to wait for that so I brushed off my german skills and phoned them. They had rooms available! /o/
The aparment we're getting is Fuchsbau, which to most standards is quite roomy. Certainly spacious enough for a family of three! It's certainly not cheap (roughly E1500 for two weeks), but it's cheaper than many of the other spots we found and it certainly is modern and looks comfortable.
So at least we have an apartment in Austria. Next up: sort out our schedule and think of all manner of cool things to do. It's a given that we'll visit both Innsbruck and Salzburg. Marli is also dying to visit Swarovski's Kristall Welten, a park/museum of the famous chrystal company. Maybe we'll wager the drive to Fiss, a town my family vacationed in during my childhood.
kilala.nl tags: travel,
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2012-04-26 19:52:00
You'd think I would have learned by now. After thirty-two years of living in this body, you'd reckon I know it's workings and how to care for it. But no, I still allow my fears to hold me back, thus worsening the matter at hand.
Case in point: my second wisdom tooth removal.
Last August I started getting signals that my upper-left wisdom tooth should get removed. I felt the same tension I had in 2009, before my lower-left tooth came out. I felt the same headaches and the same crookedness of the rest of my teeth. But I didn't do anything.
Then in September I got a referral from our dentist, for surgery. He indicated that thing really needed to come out. But I didn't do anything.
For the past two months I've been feeling more and more discomfort in my mouth. Dull aches, crookedness and food getting stuck between my last two molars. But I didn't do anything.
Because I'm a scaredy-cat. This wisdom tooth will require the same treatment as the other one: the nasty jab of the anasthetics, cut open my gums, shatter the tooth and pull out all the remains, then suture things up. And then the pain starts. Last time, the pain lasted for at least two weeks and messed with workdays completely.
It was a surreal experience, with plenty of pain afterwards. That's why I'm scared. I was already afraid, but my first operation made it worse. Despite the lessons I learned last time. So yes, I've been putting it off and off and off. And now I'm paying for it, because this week I've started getting aches. And I still postponed, hiding behind excuses like "I lost the referal" and "I'll phone tomorrow". Fscking idiot ( =_=)
On tonight's menu: pain. Huzzah! And there was much rejoicing! /o/
I've dug up the referal letter, Marli set up an appointment for 02/05 and I'll phone tomorrow to see if they can't help me before the weekend. And we're prepping as much as possible, to prevent a panic attack, by gathering as much of the required post-surgery materials. We're making ice cubes, we've got painkillers, I've got my hyperventilation bags and we've dug up the 3M hotcold pack.
There's no escaping now: this needs to be done.
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2012-04-26 19:30:00
So, after my previous order got axed because of copyright issues (and rightly so!) I got to work again.
On the one hand I fixed up a new shirt design: a kendo wordcloud. The process of making it was as follows:
On the other hand I chatted with the friendly folks at Spreadshirt's support department, who decided to reinstate one of my previous designs: the stylized Luna design. Of course that was on the condition that it was purely for personal use and that it would never make its way into the online store. Happy, happy! Joy, joy! ( ^_^)
kilala.nl tags: creative, geeky,
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2012-04-22 21:54:00
EDIT: Back to the drawing board... Spreadshirt has rightly pointed out the copyright problems that would arise from them creating these t-shirts for me. Thus I am now contacting both Hasbro and Toei to try and get permission to create these shirts for personal use only.
Original story:
For the past few weeks I've been looking around shops in Almere to find some new t-shirts for myself. I'm down to my last few presentable shirts, as I've lost quite some weight over the years and we got rid of a lot of old shirts over spring clearning. I'm having a hard time finding anything nice though, because most things are either overpriced (40-50 euros for a shirt?!) or just not that good looking.
So yet again I turn to Spreadshirt! The clothes are of good quality, I get to choose my own prints and the price isn't bad either!
Shown above is the whole set of shirts I've just ordered, sans the new Kuroneko sweater I've ordered for my sister.
I'm really curious how they turn out! I put a lot of work into the "Stickfight for life" shirt, with the grungy look of the lettering. If any of these turn out spectacularly well, I'll probably order a second one.
kilala.nl tags: creative, geeky,
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2012-04-22 21:07:00
Saturday's kendo class was a great one, though it was pretty out of the ordinary.
For starters, aside from Ton-sensei there were only four of us in bogu. Martijn, Jeroen, Felix and Aaron were all out of armor due to minor injuries, so that left us with a rather small group of folks actively fighting. While my small group was doing more advanced practice, Martijn and Jeroen took charge of the large group of newbies. There were three folks who'd never been with us before, to check it out. And there's one or two guys who've been tagging along for a few weeks.
So, what did we do? No footwork practice! After warmup we went straight into kirikaeshi, followed by kihon and waza practice. Most notably: men uchi, fast men uchi, fast kote, fast kote-men, harai men, harai kote, harai kote-men and maki waza. Each of these we did for 4x3 repetitions. The last fifteen to twenty minutes of class were spent on jigeiko, where I definitely felt that I was too tense in my arms. How? Because I couldn't stand through more than two geiko and had to be dragged through the third.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm very grateful for guys as Nick, Charel and Hudaifa who egg me on in a fight. When I pussy out, they tell me to keep going. "Attack just once more! Keep going! I'll let you go once you've scored a point!" Things like that ( ^_^)
The most important thing I'm taking away from this class is something I also realized after taking part in the NK: kendo is a dialogue. I should not just rush in and try to whack at targets. Wait it out. "Talk" to my opponent, so we can decide who gets to score which point. Ton-sensei specifically berated me for rushing in. And Charel-sempai suggested that I simply work towards the ikkyu grading: "It doesn't matter who attacks more, or even who wins! As long as you make good strikes and show good technique, then you'll make progress.".
kilala.nl tags: kendo, sports,
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2012-04-21 08:15:00
Yesterday was my sixth and last appointment with my therapist, to work on my anxiety issues. Having started guided self-help last July I've learnt a lot and the doc now deems me ready to hack it alone.
While my problems aren't nearly as heavy as some other GADS sufferers, he was incredibly pleased by the progress I've shown. That doesn't mean that my panic disorder is gone, that was proven no less than four weeks ago when I had a small panic attack in the dojo dressing room. But it does mean that I am now capable of preventing most panics and of dealing with those that -do- occur. And that was proven last month as well, because I quickly broke through the cycle.
To quickly summarize what happened then:
Afterwards I was 100% worn out and couldn't drive, but at least I never spiraled out of control.
So there you have it! I'm well on my way of dealing with my anxieties. Of course, the real test will follow on our next holiday.
kilala.nl tags: anxiety, awesome,
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2012-04-19 18:53:00
As I mentioned earlier today, I've designed a bunch of clothes for the Renshinjuku Kendo dojo. I originally started work on these designs sometime in january and gave it a fresh start with renewed vigour after designing the Renshinjuku Almere logo. My original goal was to have some RSJ-branded sports gear for my running practice, but after finishing the first designs I decided to set up a shop for all RSJ members. I've been dealing with Spreadshirt for a few years now and I've always been very happy with their work, so logically the shop's run by them.
For each design, there are four versions: one for Amstelveen, one for Almere, split into ladies' and gentlemen's fit. The full range of clothes consists of...
Shown above are the sports shirt (white) and the normal t-shirt (grey).
kilala.nl tags: creative, kendo,
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2012-04-19 17:28:00
Wow! Not content having made my daughter a beautiful Rarity, Vidjay's darling lady went on to made pixelated Apple Jack and Pinkie Pie as well! These are just too awesome! /o/ I'm so grateful for this beatiful work and Dana loves'm :)
Now that Rarity's hung on her bedroom door, I asked Dana where she wants the other two ponies to go.
So there you have it! Each door on our first floor will have a cool, pixelated pony ornament ( ^_^)
kilala.nl tags: geeky,
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2012-04-19 07:15:00
This morning I received an email from Heeren-sensei, the founder of our kendo dojo. A few weeks back I'd sent him the vector files I'd made for the Amstelveen and Almere dojo logos. After discussing the matter for weeks and months I designed the Almere logo, based on the Amstelveen original and after a few rounds with Heeren-sensei, Ton-sensei nd Peter and Zicarlo sempai we'd come to a design to everybody's liking.
Now... That email contained a sample of badges that Heeren-sensei is having sourced from Pakistan, based on the vector files I put together. I'd lie if I said I wasn't at least a little proud (^_^;) IMNSHO, the badges look awesome! If I can I'll order at least three badges: one for my gi, one for my next gi and one for a sweater.
Oddly, I seem to have forgotten to post photos of the clothing I've designed. I'll do that RSN. I've had some great compliments from students and teachers alike :) Bob and Nick were so darn happy last saturday, strutting their stuff in the dressing room. I have to admit, those vests really are soooo soft <3
kilala.nl tags: creative, kendo,
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2012-04-18 10:34:00
Over the past few days my mood had been getting increasingly bad. I was on edge, tired and just not relaxing. I think that a lot of that can be attributed to my recent interest in CC:TA. In my earlier blog post I wrote the game was addictive and it is: it'd become too easy to just waste a whole evening staring at that screen. "Let's raid a camp or two. Okay, I'm through my CP, so let's do base maintenance. Okay, now what? 45 minutes before I can anything else. Okay, let's read the forum and do some diplomacy!" And so on. All the reasons why I never got into WoW.
Then, last night I was this -> <- close to skipping kendo practice again, because of my foul mood. And as I sat there, watching the CC:TA screen, already five minutes late for leaving, I decided to quit the game. I'll set up my base so my alliance mates can raid it and then I'm out. Fsck that, I've got plenty of better things to do.It's a fun game, but nothing more than that.
Marli helped me greatly! "Do I need to push you to go?" And so she did. She quickly helped me pack all my gear and sent me on my way to Amstelveen. Gotta love that girl! ( ^_^)
Luckily I was only a few minutes late and I was just in time to join in with the warming up. After that followed kihon, followed by geiko and more geiko. The group was smaller than usual, but there were many high-level kendoka, including three from the dutch national team! I bowed out from the second round of geiko (the last twenty minutes of class) as I was feeling exhausted and was afraid I wouldn't make it back home.
Pointers I received from several of my sempai:
Thanks to Chung-sempai I now also know what a mouse feels like, when toyed with by a cat. During geiko, with every strike of mine, she darted aside and retaliated with two quick strikes and a giggle. I couldn't help but smile, while getting my ass handed to me.
Also, I don't think we've ever introduced ourselves so I don't know his name. One of the young guys who started in bogu only three weeks ago. He clocked me on my elbow with his tsuba. Twice. Hard. Man that hurt! ( ^_^) Arm's fine today, no worries.
kilala.nl tags: kendo, life, sports, meh, games,
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2012-04-16 18:39:00
A few days ago, my colleagues Kevin and Peter introduced me to Command and Conquer: Tiberium Alliances. CC:TA is a modern browser game, combining elements from a number of high profile titles. One could say that it's a mash-up of:
All of that together makes for an addicting formula. The game isn't without fault, but as it's still in open beta one should expect the game to be unfinished.
After I joined, we quickly got Vidjay and Johan to join. We immediately formed an allianced, named after our department: ITSA. Vidjay quickly came up with the monicker "It's Amazing!", and we're now known as ITSAA :) I'm told that even more of our colleagues will be joining by tonight. Welcome Wim and Marcel!
Given our team's name, I really couldn't pass up ol' Mike Levey up as our semi-official mascot. Who'd have thought that ol' Sweater Guy of Amazing Discoveries fame passed away a few years ago? To us children of the ninties he's an icon we'll probably never forget :)
The image above shows the map of the northwest sector of World 12 we're on. Every dot you see is a player's base, of which there are now roughly 20.000 (on World 12). The colored lines and dots show our migration pattern, where each of us is trying to move our base towards the rest of the crew, so we can join up on the front lines. You'll notice from the arc in my pink line that the convergence point shifted a few times and that I overshot :)
Now it's time to level up and start churning! ( ^_^)
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2012-04-16 09:18:00
Yesterday Marli and I had a rare day off :)
Kaijuu and his lovely lady Natalie came to babysit Dana, while we spent the day in Amsterdam. We had a crappy lunch, after which we went to Cirque du Soleil's "Corteo". The music was great, the show was a spectacle, but for some reason it didn't captivate me as much as Afrika! Afrika! did. It could be that A!A! was a more immersive experience, where the area outside the rink was also nicely dressed up. It could be that CdS's sound mixing is just too good. Whatever :)
Our favourite, as always, were the strap acrobats whose show was given all the more power by the wonderful music. The ladder walker, accompanied by the cute robots came in close second. Yep, money well spent! It was a nice afternoon!
The reason why I mentioned the sound mix being "too" good is because I frequently had trouble discerning which parts of the music were performed live and which came from CD (so to speak). So every time the fiddler gave a great show and it sounded crystal clear I just kept thinking "are you really this good, or are you syncing?". It's a stupid thing to get distracted by, but I did :p
kilala.nl tags: life, awesome,
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2012-04-16 09:10:00
My performance in Saturday's class was a disgrace. I can tell that I've been slacking off the past two weeks. I haven't run on a daily basis and I've skipped kendo for a week as well. All of that showed: not half an hour in class did I bow out and join the beginners' group. I couldn't push myself onward. Or is it "didn't" instead of "couldn't"? It could very well be ( =_=)
Right. Aside from my shitty performance, the biggest thing to note is that my timing on ki-ken-tai-ichi is off. Waaay off. My foot work is way ahead of my cutting. Ton-sensei specifically told me to practice this at home very frequently.
On the good side of things: Bob and Nick were so damn happy with their Renshinjuku clothes! You may recall that I started designing some clothes in January. Those garments have gone through a number of itterations and now they look great! A few people have ordered sets of shirts and sweaters from the Spreadshirt store and so far everyone's happy :)
kilala.nl tags: kendo, sports, meh,
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2012-04-14 19:11:00
Check out this totally awesome ornament, made by my colleague Vidjay's wife! Their kids are into MLP these days, and knowing that Dana and myself are total fans she made Dana Rarity, to put on her door. Wicked! ( ^_^)
The pixel effect is achieved by taking a picture, pixelixing it using Photoshop and then recreate it using melting beads ("smeltkralen").
kilala.nl tags: awesome, geeky,
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2012-04-14 19:09:00
It might not be the famed, Japanese cherry tree, but it still looks great. Our common, European cherry is in blossom right now showing its pretty, white flowers. I ought to drink a beer under its leaves tonight ( ^_^)
Let's just hope those darn ants (and their lice) leave it alone this year, so it'll stay healthy and actually grow some cherries for us.
kilala.nl tags: life, house, awesome,
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2012-04-13 08:13:00
Sometimes Dana just makes me laugh! ( ^_^)
Last night, as I was putting her to bed, the following chat happened. I tuck her in, give her the doll gramma knitted as well as her stuffed cat. Usually that's that and she goes quietly to sleep, but this time was different. In the following, SDV = Sqeaky Doll Voice, GCV = Growling Cat Voice.
kilala.nl tags: baby,
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2012-04-09 15:16:00
By now Dana is on her way home, with her grand parents. That means that 2012's spring cleaning has officially come to an end.
We finished just about everything we wanted to, with only two minor chores left to do.
The only two things left are re-applying kit in the kitchen and washing the car.
What a great weekend! But now I'm beat! Up next, fix a pancake dinner for five ( ^_^)
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2012-04-07 21:32:00
Last year we started a new tradition: a big spring cleaning weekend.
Like last year, Dana's gone to her grandparents in Friesland for a long weekend of fun. We dropped her off last night, after dinner. This morning we woke for breakfast at eight, starting our work around half past eight. All in all it was a very productive day!
It's interesting to see that we got rid of a lot less stuff this year. It's not that we decided to keep more, no, it's that we're still reaping the benefits of last year's spring cleaning ( ^_^)
The rest of our three-day weekend will also be a bit more relaxed. Tomorrow we'll do the living room and kitchen, followed by a nice dinner. On Monday we'll mostly be doing DIY stuff: fix up some drapes, install cable gutters in the living room, apply matte foil coating to the kitchen windows.
kilala.nl tags: family, life, house,
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2012-04-03 17:19:00
Last time I went to the Amstelveen dojo, I had an anxiety attack (only a slight one) after being thoroughly exhausted by the training. At the time it wasn't safe for me to drive myself home, so I was lucky to have Martijn with me. That one event has thrown up a barrier for me to go to Amstelveen alone.
Last week I had an excuse not to attend training in the form of my Standby Duty for $CLIENT. This week I was happy to have Peter-sempai come along, so he could be my proverbial savior if things went wrong again. But unfortunately Peter had to call off because of work, so now I am left to face my anxieties.
I do not want my anxieties to stop me from practicing kendo in Amstelveen. But I would lie if I said I wasn't a bit nervous about going tonight. I'm alone, with no alternative driver to take me home.
as I said: I don't want my anxiety to interfere with my training! I'm going tonight, come what may! I'll just have to be smart about it! If I feel that I've overexerted myself, I will stop for the night. And as always I am prepared for problems! I have enou fluids with me, I have dextrose and a snack with me, I always carry a bag for hyperventilation. I'm just as prepared as I could ever be! Nothing to stop me!
Thus ends the pep talk. :)
EDIT:
I went. It went fine. I was a bit tired at the end, but some dextrose helped out. I trained with the beginners' group and served as motodachi for harai-kote practice. Gave me a good chance to practice my posture and kamae. Roelof-sensei remarked that I was way too tense. He also showed me the proper technique for receiving blows in kirikaeshi.
kilala.nl tags: anxiety, sports, kendo,
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2012-04-01 13:28:00
When we paid to renovate our back yard and front garden there were only two things left from the previous owners' handiwork. Their jungle of a heavily architected yard was culled, leaving just the catalpa and the Japanese maple. Since then our gardens have evolved. Sure, there's been a few troubles, but we're very happy with how it is right now.
This week we started preparing the gardens for summer. Last Friday our good friend Michel visited, to help uproot the catalpa. I've certainly grown tired of it, so wanted it to go. It wasn't really pretty, it was blocking the maple and it also took up too much space on the grass lawn. With the catalpa gone, there's more space for playing and for practicing kendo kata. With Michel's expert help the tree was quickly dug out. Sawing the head and roots from the trunk too more time...
Today I spent some time filling potholes in the lawn and in spreading some fertilizer. I also planted some white and red berries to replace the dead raspberries. Hopefully we'll get a new cherry tree to replace the one we tore out on the left (died over a year ago) and maybe some other stuff :)
kilala.nl tags: house,
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All content, with exception of "borrowed" blogpost images, or unless otherwise indicated, is copyright of Thomas Sluyter. The character Kilala the cat-demon is copyright of Rumiko Takahashi and used here without permission.