Synova

First of all I really didn't do anything significant to the holiday. I went to karate camp. I packed up four kids, a tent, and a van-load of gear and drove a bit less than 20 miles to unload it all again. My 9 and 11 year olds wanted to camp and this way we were close enough to bail out if they couldn't handle the reality of "out in a tent overnight." Camp was great. Primarily it seems to be about gathering upper level people from all over, who may have their own Kojosho Karate schools, so they have an opportunity to compare notes and get some instruction themselves. A handful of color belts who are local get to go too and it's just mind-blowing. The most fun thing was applying the wind element to self-defense holds. I'm talking about those "someone grabs you and ends up with their arm twisted behind their back" things. I hate those. It's not just that I forget how to do them, it's that I can never figure it out to start. ...

I'll admit it, disaster is not my genre. I prefer action-adventure. But I may just change my mind. If I do, you can blame Komodo vs. Cobra. I'm flipping along past the sci-fi channel and there's a huge komodo dragon and three scared people standing in a river and the old guy says... "Don't move! Whatever you do don't move!" Seeing as komodo dragons are big on eating carrion I find this rather confusing. Does dead stuff run away? Or do they just not want the big lizard to get tired before it eats? One guy runs and gets eaten. Cut to a scene with a guy in uniform with hair over his ears. So I go make dinner and come back to my puter for the next installment. A bunch of highly photogenic young people with backpacks along with an even more photogenic reporter and camera-man enter a huge house to find that no one is there. The camera man goes outside for a smoke (Don't do it! You're gonna get eaten!). An incredibly cute brunette wit...

For all of you wondering what to do about Murtha. It's just too bad I can't vote for her.

According to this article, 40% of us. I'm calling BS. Seriously folks, what is going on here? If I were a woman who *was* abused I'd be pissed. Well, okay, probably I wouldn't be angry at all. Probably I'd have such a poor concept of my own worth that it wouldn't occur to me to be angry on my own behalf. 13% of women reported that the abuse went on for 20 years. Now that makes more sense to me. I've known abused women, had co-workers who were abused... and most of them would stay for 20 years. The rest of us have arguments or bad days and exchange snotty, pouty, and hurtful remarks. Some of us grow past this and have our tear filled shout fests *without* the hurtful remarks. Most people have good times and bad times in their relationships. This is normal. Most of us can tell the difference between being abused and our partner (or ourself) having a bad day. Typically women who are abused stay with their abuser. The reason that this is *...

Nothing wrong with that. He's anti-war. Nothing wrong with that. But that doesn't give him the right to misrepresent either facts or information in the service of that agenda. In his interview of Sully from Godsmack (which was mostly about Jay, but nothing wrong with that) he talked about doing research on the issue and that he was right. A post to the comments section questioning his "facts" gets deleted. A post that points out how disrespectful of young people he's been gets deleted. A post suggesting that the military respects young people gets deleted. So someone posts a comment about how all the defenders of Godsmack use profanity and call people fags. Well I can explain that too... post a critical comment that *doesn't* use profanity or call Jay Babcock a fag and it will get deleted. Unlike most blog owners or forum administrators, rather than delete profane posts he leaves them, and deletes the non-profane rational arguments. Anyone who reads t...

The Kojosho Karate shaving team! Donations can be made for the next three months, though by that time they'll have HAIR. Who needs hair? It just gets in your face. (That's my husband in the back.) People with long hair sent it to Locks of Love. (I don't know who had the longest hair but I think that Taylor's was the prettiest. Some little girl with cancer will get a fantastic blond wig. I don't think she'll worry much about boy-cooties.) People with hair over two inches long put it in a baggie. I'm not sure what they did with it. The Klingon Princess. I'm not old enough to have a son who looks this grown up. (Actually, I am, some of my friends have kids out of the house already. EEep!) Prettier than Natalie Portman. :-) I'm told the donation pages will be active for the next three months. Donations can be made to the team or to individuals (scroll down and click on their pictures.) Hey, it's a good cause and it will really give the...

I find all the different sorts of bumble bees in my garden fascinating. Where I grew up in Minnesota we just had one sort... a big black and yellow bee. Here are two that were on my lilac today. The first is a tan bee about twice the size of a honey bee. The second is just huge, probably three quarters of an inch long and nearly as wide. The orange band around it's middle was absolutely vibrant in the sun. This is at 6800 feet in the Sandia mountains. I wish I knew the names of them.

Why do people not trust science or intellectuals? Maybe because this article never mentions anything at all about how infant mortality is counted in different countries. It's just too much fun to have a headline that shows the US in a bad light. This is the kind of stuff we get all the time from one source or another. Why do we not trust scientists who say the sky is falling or anything else? Because over and over and over again we see that *facts* don't matter. Who believes that medical care in the US and pre-natal care in the US is sooooo bad that we've got one of the very worst infant mortality rates in the 1st world? Hint... we count births differently .

I have a question, should anyone stop by who might know. I'm writing a scene where my SF/SF trainer guy takes off into the woods to find a missing Airman. I've given him a .45, one extra magazine and a knife and figure that he'd have brought water (canteens? camelpack?) and some sort of food bars. (He's got zero expectation of combat.) He is probably expecting to find the missing person suffering from some degree of exposure. What items might he be expected to have at hand and bring with him? His start point is a camp in the mountains where SF have been training. If he originally brings a pack of some sort he's going to lose it, so mostly I need to know what is tied to him or in his pockets. Help?