As many of you know, I’ve beent taking Tae Kwon Do since I was about 26 years old… that’s almost 16 years. Tae Kwon Do is a Korean martial art and competitions are almost entirely kicks. In 2000, I got a black belt and in 2005 I got a 2nd degree black belt. I competed in two tournaments, got a gold medal both times, but was never really a complete ass kicker. My technique was very good in some areas and very poor in others. I was always a bit pudgy and my attendance waned over the years. For whatever reason, I hit a wall and was losing interest. Plus, I was doing triathlon training for the past two years and a guy only has so much time in their calendar. I’d like to one day return and get my 4th degree which is a big milestone where you’re considered a master, a title of considerable respect. But for now, me and Tae Kwon Do are taking a break.

In the meantime, I figured I’d try something new. While on a boat trip with my brothers and a few friends, my brother Tom’s friend Ken was talking about Judo. He said it would be an excellent martial art for Marco since if can compliment wrestling rather well. I was intrigued as well so I figure I’d take a couple classes myself and bring Marco in once I’d gotten familiar with the school. As it turns out, Marco has a very busy calendar since Football is keeping him pretty busy, and I’ve only been able to get him to one class. Sera and Antonio also took a class. Everyone liked it and I’m sure I’ll have them al-l going once a week once school starts.

As for me, I’m pretty hooked. Judo is taught on some days and Brazillian Jiu Jitsu on other days. The classes are far more brutal than I’m used to. I’ve been choked, stretched, and contorted in ways I didn’t know were possible. The classes are all over an hour and a half  and I typically stay for almost two hours for open mat. All of the technique is totally new and foreign to me. Its harder. It hurts. The other students are all strong and experienced and I’m basically getting my ass kicked ten times over.

But it’s a lot of fun and I’ve been feeling my flexibility come back and feeling my strength come back. For the past two years, I’ve been doing these crazy triathlons and while the training definitely helped improve my stamina, the training is not something I love to do. It’s not something I look forward to. Right now, I look forward to these classes and  they seem like the right thing for me to be doing right now.

On Wednesday night, my brother Tom took his boat out with me and our older brother and four of my cousins. Our destination? Zachs Bay. The special thing about Zachs Bay is that it’s right outside the Jones Beach Theatre in Wantagh. Tom parked the boat and we had a lot of laughs while listening to Journey and Foreigner songs. We could see the audience pretty clearly,  there were tons of lights shining on them and the music was pretty easily discerned. We saw a nice sunset, just to the right of the Theatre and watch the blood-red moon rise to the east around 9pm. I only had my cell phone on me so I don’t have a good picture of the moonrise.

To relieve ourselves, we peed in a canister about the size of a plastic pretzel barrel. The canister was, by the way, actually a plastic pretzel barrel. We had to do this because the boats that were parked around us were rather close. So we basically got down low, did what we needed to do into the plastic pretzel barrel, and dumped the yellow contents overboard. To be nice, we would wash out the canister (you remember, the plastic pretzel barrel) with sea water. When we did that, we noticed a wonderful glow that happened when we disturbed the water.

What was this?

We were fascinated. So, we went to the back of the boat and began to stir up the water by hand. What we found was a billion billion jelly creatures that glowed when you disturbed them. It was amazing. I thought at first they were jellyfish, but then we caught one in our hands and it didn’t sting. Recall why we were all peeing and you can imagine how we were seeing double rainbows in the water with these little fucking jellies.

Soon after, a group of sea birds (maybe swans) came by to greet us. They waddled along and just started at our boat, floating and waiting patiently. Now, I know you’re not supposed to feed these cute guys (they are actually kind of big and scary-looking) but I wanted to do it anyway. My cousin was like, NO DUDE DON’T DO THAT. I was like, LETS SEE WHAT HAPPENS MAN?! Then he went onto say how the goose would come on board and wreak havok. I can remember wanting to feed them more than ever after hearing that. In the end, it was toward the end of the night and we had EATEN EVERY BIT OF FOOD ON THE BOAT. So there was none left for the geese.

When we got back to Tom’s dock, we ordered a pizza and hung out for a while. We had a lot of laughs that night.

Years ago (2005!) I posted a picture that demonstrated probably my favorite optical illusion of all time, the same-shade-on-checkerboard-with-shadow-from-column illusion. Here is that post:

http://www.primordia.com/blog/archives/2005/03/it_cant_be_true.html

Now, someone went and did this in real life. The effect is even more profound and amazing.

For almost a year, my friend and ex-Liquidnetter Arif Huque has been traveling through Asia snapping photos, blogging, tweeting, and journaling his journey in wondrous detail. I met Arif in 2009 when we went to Rwanda together (some links). To date, Arif has traveled through Kyrgyzstan, Tajikstan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India, Hong Kong, and now China. He’s posted over 800 journal entries and taken thousands of photos. He’s met with many people on the way, and travels sometimes alone and sometimes in a group. I keep asking him when this trip will come to a close and he keeps telling me, I don’t know. This is simply amazing. I’m terribly jealous, but have resigned to live vicariously through my friend.

You can check out his main blog or subscribe to him on twitter. Below is a sampling of some of his recent images:

One of my fellow Ragnar teammates forwarded this great picture from the finish line:

The original link is here.