Recently, and quite by accident, I discovered what appeared to be a legitimate karate dojo just five minutes drive from my new office location. After conferring with a friend who had studied in the style himself, and learning that the association was well regarded, I decided to have a look.
The dojo facility is incredible, perhaps the nicest dojo I’ve seen. My tour left me impressed and so I made plans to return and try a workout or two or more. I’ve been rehabilitating a pulled groin injury and the lower back compensation injury for months now - my primary question was, “am I healthy enough to do this once again?”
After some scheduling delays, and some time screwing up my courage, I went for the first workout this past Tuesday at noon. It was very good. A surprising amount of what I had known intimately before came back from the recesses of my mind. The time passed quickly, and by the end of the workout I was pleasantly surprised to find I wasn’t in pain. I know that my motivations for starting karate again are far different from what they were when I originally started in 1990. Whether my new motivation is drive enough for me to continue the path back towards black belt rank remains to be seen.
You can read more about my adventures in karate at zanshin.wordpress.com.
To turn on inline autocomplete in the Firefox web browser…
Why this isn’t exposed in the preferences I’ll never know.
This morning I attended a piano pedagogy workshop that focused on 20th and 21st century music and the techniques for teaching these pieces. Even though I don’t play piano I find striking similarities between some of the body kinetics of proper posture and arm weight, and of energy flow from the hips to the hands that you find in martial arts with what your find in properly taught piano.
The single most interesting thought I got from the workshop today was the idea of starting with the ending, and working backwards. The difficulty in music is learning the notes at the same time as you are learning the rhythm at the same time you are learning the fingering or playing technique. To many things all at once and it becomes overwhelming. In martial arts we break complex (and even basic) techniques down into pieces so that the student can focus on one thing at a time. The maxim used is “you learn fast what you practice slow.”
The idea of starting with the goal is not unique to piano pedagogy or martial arts instruction. It can be found again and again in all facets of life. The newest software development techniques, known commonly as extreme programming, center around the idea of a user story that describes the goal for the software or interface. The test-driven development technique starts with a test for each function in the module. Once those are in place you code until all the tests run successfully. Steve Covey in 7 Habits of Highly Successful People talks about imagining the goal first and working backward from there. Even going so far as to have you imagine your funeral and what people will say about you there.
So much of our lives are centered around moving forward, around starting with number 1 on the list and working down. Perhaps we should step back and take note of the power of starting at the ending and working backwards more.
Last year, after getting all the necessary 1099 and W2 forms in the mail, I sat down and did my taxes. They are mildly complex since I live in one state and work in another and, at the time, worked for an employer who couldn’t be bothered to withhold the proper state’s taxes. So I file in my state of residence first to get a huge refund, and then take that money and file in the state of work to pay what I owe. I netted about $200 in the process so it wasn’t all bad.
Federally last year was a bit complicated too. Michele’s death during the year took me down a whole new path in TurboTax, and the sale at a loss of the house in Illinois made for interesting answers to questions too.
I know that I wasn’t thinking too clearly in early February last year, and my memory of that time is a bit hazy as well so I can’t say for certain if TurboTax offered to help me recalculate anything in preparation for this year. What I missed, and what no one told me, is that my W4 filling with my employer had the wrong exemption category checked. I was down as married and not single. This meant that not enough money was being withheld from each check. Oops.
I’ve not completed my return this year, but a quick and dirty run through the process indicates that I’ll owe a couple grand. Fortunately I’ve managed to save a couple of grand so I should be okay. I hate to have to start my savings all over again, but not adding to my IRS woes is a very good cause for the money.
Still, I wish someone had told me sooner about the need to re-file my W4 based on my change in status. You’d think that the IRS would note my change in status, after all it was prominent on my 1040 last year, and automatically trigger a notice to me to adjust my withholdings. You’d think that and you’d be disappointed.
In the world of software construction, refactoring is the activity whereby code is modified or enhanced. Perhaps you discovered that two separate pieces of code are performing the same function; you create a new home for the common code, remove it from the two original locations and replace it there with a call to the new, shared routine. You have refactored the code.
Some refactorings I am currently working on:
What are you refactoring in your life?
Over the weekend I shot about 5 hours of video using a borrowed Sony Handycam. This was my first entry into taking video and I have been anxious to see what the results were. Attempts to import the video stream from the camera to various computers using the included USB cord were unsuccessful and frustrating. After downloading a copy of the DCR-TRV17 manual from Sony I discovered that the USB cord is only intended to work with the Sony Memory Stick flash memory on the camera. If you want to stream video you either need to patch the camera to a VCR or television using the A/V patch cords, or get a “i.Link” or Firewire cable.
Last evening using a Firewire cable we were able to import video to iMovie. I had seen demonstrations that made this process look simple but I wasn’t quite prepared for how simple it was. With iMovie running I plugged the camera in and turned it to VCR (playback) mode. iMovie immediately told me that a camera was attached. I soon discovered that the software controls in iMovie operated the camera: I could play, pause, and stop the tape. I could fast forward and rewind; even cue the tape, all with the click of the mouse. Clicking the import button immediately started creating a clip of the material playing on the camera.
Amazing.
With a couple hundred minutes of footage to import we’ll be using an external drive to hold all the imported clips. This will allow us to edit and splice where we want, and also transport the imported clips from one machine to the next without having to re-import the video.
I am very impressed with the ease-of-use Apple has achieved with iMovie, I’ve yet to read the help file on iMovie and already I feel like I can be highly creative. It just works.
I soooooo want one of these….
When I was growing up my father occasionally served as photographer for weddings. I remember him saying that it was the worst possible situation for a photographer. As he put it, “It is the only day that those people are all there, dressed like that. One mistake and everything is ruined.”
This past weekend I served as photographer and video grip for a piano concerto competition. I am fairly handy with an automatic digital camera and wasn’t too worried about my ability to take good pictures of the performers and the awards ceremony afterwards. I’ve never (well only once about 12 years ago) used a video camera. The one I borrowed for this event was totally new to me. With ten minutes to go before the performance was too start I still hadn’t figured out how to put the tape in it for recording. (Turns out the access is through the bottom of the camera, you know, the bit screwed to the tripod.)
As the first performers were playing their concertos and I was dutifully starting and stopping the camera I couldn’t help by wonder if I was actually recording anything, or if the sound was working. Like a wedding and its attendant reception, there would be no second chance to take this footage. Eventually I convinced myself that that camera was designed to just work, and that I’d have to actively try to screw up the basic function of “put tape in and press record.” A preliminary glance at the recording through the camera today revealed that my hunch was correct. It seems that the video portion of my efforts worked perfectly.
Disaster averted. Hopefully, lesson learned.
Last night I was poking around in the Applications folder on the iMac and discovered, much to my astonishment, that I own a copy of Quicken. It’s the 2002 version, which neatly coincides with the age of the machine, making me think that it was an extra included when the machine was originally purchased four years ago. Somehow it has remained, lurking, in the Applications folder all this time without my noticing it.
Wanting to keep better track of my spending and funds I decided to give it a try. Within a few minutes I had accounts setup for my checking and savings accounts, and had imported the QIF file downloads from the credit union. I’ve been in the bad habit of not tracking receipts and expenses for some time now, using this will require that I start poking “yes” at the gas pump instead of “no” when it offers to print a receipt.
This morning I sat down and wrote out checks for a couple of monthly bills so I could mail them on my way to work. I entered them in to the register immediately. I understand that it takes three weeks to develop a new habit and make it part of your routine. One day down, twenty to go.
After working for two and a half years in a building that provided certain amenities, I am discovering that I have been conditioned, like Pavlov’s dogs, to expect some things to work a particular way. Flushing the toilet, for example, or washing my hands afterwards.
The building my previous engagement inhabits is equipped with automatic flush toilets and urinals. As soon as you move away from one it flushes automatically. My new employer’s building doesn’t have auto-flush technology, so every time I step away I have to return in order to flush. I’ve been conditioned to expect the toilet to react without my participation.
The faucets in the sinks were the same way. Each was equipped with a sensor that turned the water on or off based on whether your hands were under the spout or not. I find that even after nearly four weeks here I am still putting my hands under the faucet expecting the stream of water to appear as if by magic. I wonder how long it will take for me to stop expecting these automatic, proximity based events.