MadMup.com

Song Info (from Beatlesongs):"For You Blue" is on the Let It Be album and was 100% written by George Harrison. The song was inspired by Patti Harrison, and George said, "[It's] a simple twelve-bar song following all the normal twelve-bar principles, except it's happy-go-lucky!"

Back in September I started something I've been wanting to do for over (and you have no idea how weird it is to me to think it's been this long) twenty years. I couldn't exactly tell you what started the urge in me, but I suspect it was a combination of the Ninja Turtles and Bruce Lee that first got me interested in martial arts. There was something almost graceful and certainly beautiful about the way masters of the various arts could disarm, disable, and defeat their foes, and it appealed to me from the get-go. I have a vague recollection of borrowing a movie from a friend that was about a "Kung Fu Finger Book," (this is most likely it, but who knows?) a movie that had everyone fighting over some sort of book that apparently contained instructions on a deadly form of kung fu that apparently involved fingers. Pretty much the only thing I remember about the movie is that people were constantly asking other people if they knew where the kung fu finger book was, seconds before a fight broke out.

Regardless of where the interest sprouted, I never had the opportunity to study any of the arts. The closest I got was writing a paper on the rise in popularity of the martial arts in America, and borrowing The Tao of Jeet Kune Do from a friend's dad who studied karate. I didn't really understand the book back then, but I knew it was way awesome that Bruce Lee had invented his own martial art.

The more years that went by, the more any idea of studying a martial art seemed silly. Sure, I knew that old and older people still practiced, but they had started young and I, like Luke Skywalker, was too old to begin the training.

I met a fellow named Gary in the improv troupe, and found out pretty soon that he had a Tae Kwon Do studio, but it took me about three years to talk to him about it. We met for lunch early in September and talked about what all was involved with a fellow my age starting out, and he not only convinced me to give it a try, he pointed out that there was a class that was held at the Community Center at my very own church. Huh. I've never been one to notice things.

I checked on it, and sure enough, the next sessions were to begin in two weeks. I signed up, figuring the worst that would happen would be that I'd hate it and be done with it. I didn't figure anyone got beat up in their first couple of classes. When I showed up, I was given a white belt, which I soon figured out meant "guy who has paid for classes."

It was a little surreal, that first class. I was being taught things that I already knew, at least to some degree. I would never say that I learned a martial art by watching movies, of course, but I did learn some things about martial arts - terminology, philosophy, the fact that you bow to your sensei, that kind of thing. Actually doing those things, though? So weird.

Tae Kwon Do has the belt system, like many martial arts - White to Orange to Yellow and on up. My teacher explained it to me early on that the belts were kind of like grades in school, with a black belt being similar to graduating from high school. The degrees of black belt past that were analogous to college, grad school, and beyond. Each belt requires the learning of specific skills and these are incorporated in a form, a series of skills performed in sequence. The form we were studying in this session was 28 moves long.

Now, I felt I was understanding the moves themselves -not that I could perform them that well - but it turns out I was foiled by something I didn't know I'd have to deal with: memorization! I could not remember the sequence of moves for the life of me. If someone called them out, I could perform them semi-correctly, but left to my own devices I quickly became a statue, frustrated at my inability to remember the series.

It was when I learned that we were learning a form that I experienced what can only be described as rebellion. See, although I never met Bruce Lee, I had learned some things from watching his movies, reading his books, and reading about him. See, he wasn't just a movie star, he changed martial arts in a lot of ways. His philosphy, the aforementioned Tao, was that a fighter shouldn't memorize forms, a fighter should gather moves from whatever worked. So he might take a kick from karate, a grapple from judo, and a punch from boxing and mix them into his Jeet Kune Do (which means "Way of the Intercepting Fist"). He was very very adamantly against students learning forms. Even though I wasn't in Jeet Kune Do and never had Bruce Lee as a teacher, it was a tenet I had grown to accept over the years, a viewpoint that made a lot of sense to me. Yet here I was, learning a form. It was surprising to me how much that bothered me. I guess, though, in one sense, I shouldn't have let it bother me, what with the fact that I never really learned it...

I was the oldest white belt in the class, and only one of the two youngest people was a white belt. The other one was an orange belt, and the day he chose me to practice a move on, I was reminded of the episode of "Seinfeld" where Kramer was taking karate. Elaine discovered he was in a class of kids, which explained why he was "dominating the dojo."

The class ran for two months. On the last day we took our belt test, with the assurance that we had already earned our belts, this was just an exhibition. If our teacher didn't know we were capable, he wouldn't let us take the test, he said. Since I couldn't remember the 28-move sequence, I took some comfort in that. On the flip side, though, I also felt like I didn't deserve the belt upgrade because I couldn't perform the sequence.

The next session starts in January, and I am planning to sign back up. I enjoyed 90% of the classes, and didn't mind the workout I was getting while in the class. I think it could eventually be a thing I really like, but I'm also planning to take it a step at a time and see how it goes.

I'm still going to feel a little guilty when I watch Bruce Lee movies, though.

Labels: Beatles Week, Seinfeld, taekwondo

Song Info (from Beatlesongs):"Matchbox" is on the With the Beatles album and was written by Carl Perkins, who hadn't been able to make a hit of it. The Beatles' version got as high as 17 on the Top 40. Pete Best sang lead on it in concerts until 1962 when John Lennon took over. Sure sounds like Ringo on the recording, though.

I've been driving a 1999 Saturn Wagon for a while now and it's been a mostly reliable little car for me. It's only got 129,000 miles on it, so it should be good to go for quite some time -- keeping in mind that I drove an Oldsmobile Calais to 212,000 miles and it was ready to go a bunch more when I sold it. Sadly, though, I don't think the Saturn is going to make it as long as the Calais.

Two weeks ago I went to pick up Megan at her apartment so we could go work at our church's Community Center. When we got back down to the car, it wouldn't start. There were lights on the dash and the headlights came on, but it wouldn't turn over nor click. Not cool.

The first thing I do in these situations is call Dad. He knows most cars better than most people, and I can't tell you how many times he's been able to diagnose a problem over the phone, sometimes by hearing the car run and sometimes just by hearing a description of how the car runs. As far as I know, he's pretty much the best mechanic ever.

So I called him and told him what I knew and he gave me few suggestions, but none of them were working this rainy, chilly night. We were able to jump it using her car and I was able to drive it to the Auto Zone across the street from her place, but once there, it was unstartable and unjumpable. The fine folks there were able to test my battery and said it was bad, so I bought a new battery...and it didn't change a thing. Still no starting.

It should be mentioned that at this point I had called my friend Pete, who is the "car guy" in our immediate circles. He was able to wrangle the battery out and the new battery back in, a skill I did not possess. Alas, even Pete was stumped by the issue. I had no recourse but to call a tow truck and have it towed to Pep Boys (who I shan't be linking to for reasons that will become evident shortly).

They were closed by that time in the evening, so I bummed a ride from a coworker the next morning and got there soon after they opened. It's a short walk from there to Barnes & Noble, so I went there, got a hot chocolate, and bummed their free Internet until I heard from Pep Boys. Rather, that's what I intended. What actually happened was that I called them after three hours because I hadn't heard from them. This is what they said:

Well, we couldn't find the problem, but we were fiddling with some wires under the dash and now it's starting and we can't get it to not start anymore. We want to look at it a bit more and we'll let you know what we find.

So I guess that was good and bad - working is good, not knowing why is bad. Also, as it turns out, "we want to look at it a bit more" is good but "we'll let you know" means "when you call back after three more hours of not hearing from us." Sigh. In the end, though, they didn't charge me anything since they couldn't figure it out, so all I was out was one vacation day from work.

Fast forward to last night. Same deal: I spent the evening with Megan (it was Spaghetti Night!) and when I went to leave, my car didn't want to start. So I called Dad again. He'd been looking into it, figuring that since it wasn't technically fixed, it would probably stop working again at some point. He had me check a few more things, then said I needed to check a few connections with a tester.

Yeeeeeeeeeah. It was at this point that my Dad apparently started speaking in fluent Greek. I knew he was capable since I'd heard it before, always in conjunction with explaining car stuff. I was able to figure enough of it out to realize I didn't have what I needed with me at that moment, so I made plans to talk to him this morning when I was better prepared. Megan loaned me her car so I could get home and get back in the morning.

This morning I dutifully tested the things I was supposed to test and relayed to Dad what I was finding. Somehow he was able to figure out from what I was saying what the probable cause was, circuit-wise. Armed with this information, the following things happened today:

• Called the towing company, had to leave a message
• Called the towing company again, talked to a lady who said "The lines are crazy, I will hang up and call you right back!"
• Called the towing company again 15 minutes later after not hearing from them, talked to a different lady who said they'd be there in 20 minutes.
• 45 minutes the tow truck arrived
• Had the car towed to Pep Boys, got a ride from the towing guys
• Went inside, explained what was happening
• Was told "Uh... we can't really work on that sort of thing"
• Called secretary at church to see where was a good place to take cars
• Called CarX, they were willing to look at it
• Called towing company - "They'll be there soon and give you a ride"
• Called towing company 45 minutes later - "Hey, how soon will they be here?"
• Was told "Oh, they already towed your car there."
• Arghed
• Walked across State Road 52 to CarX, at great risk
• Talked to Mike, explained what I knew
• Walked back across 52 to McDonald's, then Best Buy, then Barnes & Noble
• Mike called me back! Like an hour and a half later!
• Walked back across 52 to CarX - I am a decent Frogger player

Labels: Beatles Week, car

I declare next week to be Beatles Week here on MadMup.com. Basically what that means is that my next week's worth of posts will be inspired by the titles of Beatles songs. This doesn't mean that the posts will be about The Beatles, just that the song title will guide the post.

Since I know I haven't been the most faithful of bloggers recently, I'm going to stretch the definition of "week" a bit and say that my next week's worth of blogging will follow this theme. Since the blogging week is like the work week, that means the next five entries will fall under the "Beatles Week" heading.

If you have a blog and are interested in joining in, here is a list of song titles (with lyrics) and there's also the Wikipedia version. Leave a link in the comments if you're planning to join in!

Labels: Beatles Week

Labels: Beatles Week

Labels: quirks

Labels: Chicago, concert

Expectations are premeditated disappointments.

-George Moore

Labels: it's been said

Labels: change, food

Labels: cats

Labels: Beatles, food, friends