Chris Dwan

Category: Uncategorized

  • Car

    My car has now driven 100,000 miles. Hooray for the car, hooray for me. Interestingly, that makes it the same “age” as me (reading 100000 as a binary number rather than a decimal one).

    In other news, I went to an “open sparring” night at judo for the first time. They do open standing techniques on Tuesday, and open grappling on Wed. I threw and was thrown. Good times. I did about 9 3 minutes rounds … which seems like plenty to me.

    Afterwards, a couple of guys who had driven a long way asked if anyone wanted to do some grappling. “Why not?” says I. The first one asked “are you okay with arm locks?” I said “look, I watched a guy get his arm broken on Sunday. So ‘yes’, but when I tap, you stop … and I plan to tap way before my arm breaks. Cool?” He was cool with that, so off we went. There’s no shame in working up to these things … since one apparently can’t work back from “too much.”

    Oh yeah, and the last guy I grappled is apparently a Search and Rescue marine. Ow.

  • Competed in my first Judo tournament yesterday. Got second place in my weight class (out of three). It was a small, informal competition hosted by my school in Braintree.

    The very first thing that happened was that one of the competitors got his arm broken. That was an f-ing wake-up call, let me tell you.

    details

  • Dream. Debate.

  • Go team!

    Our newfound ability to gather web statistics on the corporate page has outed this as my blog to my employers. I got an “Is this you?” note from one of the owners. Well, that and the picture of myself that I posted there. That can’t have helped.

    After the shock wore off, I found myself somewhat dismayed that we beat spam by only two links. Come on people!

    - http://fdmts.livejournal.com 8 8
    - http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/ 8 8
    - http://www.bio-itworldexpo.com/exhibit_floorplan.asp 6 6
    - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Grid_Engine 6 6
    - http://www.linkedin.com/jobs 6 6
    - http://tvsetmp3.com 6 6
    - http://guide.apple.com/action.lasso 5 5
    - http://biojava.org/wiki/Main_Page 5 5
    - http://www.worldwidemoviesonline.info 4 4
    - http://www.apple.com/server/resources/ 4 4

  • Thanks jrtom:

    Please help! After two long years of being on a waiting list for a dog, we have been notified by breed rescue that, at long last, our number has come up and … WE ARE HAVING A PUPPY!

    We must get rid of our children IMMEDIATELY because we just know how time consuming our new little puppy is going to be and it just wouldn’t be fair to the children. Since our little puppy will be arriving on Monday we MUST place the children up for adoption this weekend!

  • Note the units, I’m more middle ground than anyone you know.

    67% Bill Richardson
    62% Mike Gravel
    62% Chris Dodd
    61% Barack Obama
    60% John Edwards
    59% Mike Huckabee
    58% Hillary Clinton
    57% Dennis Kucinich
    56% Ron Paul
    55% Joe Biden
    54% John McCain
    50% Rudy Giuliani
    46% Mitt Romney
    44% Tom Tancredo
    43% Fred Thompson

    2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

  • Job post

    Does the rock star life appeal to you? Ready to step up?

  • New year rituals

    The still, reflective sadness of carefully packing away the beautiful ornaments and decorations.

    It is balanced by the wonton wanton glee of steadily smashing and eating through the gingerbread house.

    Truly, the ancestors were wise.

    –UPDATE– Yes, yes, I misspelled the word. Sheesh.

  • Judo open workout

    On the first Friday of any given month, the Judo club I’ve been attending has an “open workout.” Anyone, from any school (or no school) is welcome to participate. Tonight was the first one of these I’ve been to. I learned a couple of valuable lessons:

    1) If someone has a big “USA” patch sewn to the back of their uniform, it’s an necessary (though not sufficient) indicator that they compete internationally. That patch might as well say “serious badass.” Fortunately, he worked with me rather than simply throwing me to the mat like he was doing to the black belts.

    2) Landing on one’s face hurts. Landing on the same spot because I made the same mistake twice in a row bruised the pride in addition to the flesh.

    3) I felt intimidated. I was in a room filled with guys who were (with only one exception) both stronger and more skilled than me. Frankly, I was way out of my depth. On reflection, that means that I’m going to learn fast. I think it’s good (for me, where I’m at right now, your milage may vary) to experience that sort of physical intimidation in a relatively safe and controlled environment. All the better to be ready for it and not panic when it’s neither safe nor controlled … and also to recognize that some people feel that same way when they interact with me.

    Oh yeah: “ow.” Holy hell I’m sore.

  • Rock Band

    I have just discovered the game “Rock Band.” It is the most stunningly awesome computer game ever, and I will own it tomorrow.

    That is all.