The first pre-exam was mostly holds and grabs, sparring, and line drills, with only the most basic katas as warmup, so I expected the second to cover the advanced katas. No: it was mostly holds and grabs, and sparring, with only the most basic katas as warmup. Okay then!

Since I was the only DeWitt adult, Sensei Nolan didn’t think it’d make much sense to have me wait around until 1:30 to run with the juniors at the Erie Canal, so instead I ran at Onondaga Lake Park with candidates from another dojo. My time was nearly a minute better than the week before… which was over two minutes worse than my average. Running on snow, not my strong suit.

Tonight we found out who from DeWitt had passed and will be going to black belt graduation next month: About five or six juniors… and me.

YES!

Can I have a WOOT?

The two of you might be interested in this.

I decided in November to try making a couple of fruitcakes, my first efforts in that direction. One came out pretty good; the other was really good.

If you do think you don’t like fruitcake, and it’s because you’re averse to heavy, dense cakes, well, move on. This is heavy, dense, very moist. Maybe too moist.

If you think you don’t like fruitcake because you can’t stand the chewy, garish artificially colored candied fruit: Mine didn’t use any. All the fruit was dried.

If your objection is that you don’t like booze in your dessert… well, I suppose you could leave it out. I didn’t.

I worked from two recipes I found on the web, but the one I liked better and will return to was based on this one. I did make some changes. I used dried cherries and fresh orange peel instead of candied, and I sprinkled the cake with brandy before wrapping. And I didn’t have a tin large enough for the cake (I baked it in an 8 or 9 inch springform pan) so wrapped it in brandy-moistened cheesecloth, then parchment paper, then plastic wrap, and stuck the whole thing under a plastic bucket in the basement for about six weeks. The resulting cake was a little on the gooey side; maybe I should have baked it a little longer, or maybe cut back on the apple juice to compensate for the added brandy? But I was very happy with the result anyway.

It makes a lot. I didn’t weigh the cake but it was certainly several pounds’ worth. Should last until we finish eating it, though.

For this year’s Solstice Spice ale I generally followed the recipe from the 1995 version, with reduced orange zest as in 1996. Brewing technique was modified some, based on that recommended in Papazian’s Microbrewed Adventures. The 1995 recipe had 2 oz Cascade, α = 5.9%, but I didn’t have that so substituted the hops shown for a similar total α.

Steep in 2 gal water at 150°F for 30 min:

• 2 oz black patent malt (Munton’s)
• 8 oz crystal malt (64°L, Fawcett)

Add 3 qt hot water and

• 7.5 lb light dry malt extract (Munton’s)
• 1.5 lb light honey (Waid’s)
• 1 oz Cascade leaf, α = 8.9%
• ½ oz Fuggles leaf, α = 4.0%
• ½ oz Mt. Hood pellets, α = 4.7%

Boil 60 minutes. 10 minutes before the end add

• ½ oz Mt. Hood hops
• 1 t ground cinnamon
• 1 t ground allspice
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 2 oz grated ginger root
• zest of 2 orangess
• 16 whole cloves

Cool, add water to bring to 5 gal. Pitch

• Wyeast 1056 American Ale yeast (Direct Pitch)

I measured O.G. = 1.083, somewhat higher than previous batches for whatever reason.

Ferment 1 week, rack to secondary, let finish another week. I measured gravity 1.014 at the end of the first week — broke my hydrometer at end of second week so I didn’t measure it again, but it was probably about the same.

Bottle with

• ¾ c corn sugar

and let condition for 2 weeks.

This turned out well, though next time I might consider cutting back the cloves to about 8.

1. High red belt
2. Running: two fun runs; 2 mi 15:19; 3 mi 24:40
3. Climbed three Adirondack mountains including a high peak
4. Bought house and moved
5. Set up workshop (built work benches and tool board)
6. Built loft bed
7. Played ukulele and sang for an audience
8. Found or verified 16 “new” ancestors of mine plus another possible 13
9. Completed Compton polarimeter analysis
10. Completed first version of GEM detector digitization code

this will be the biggest news in the history of physics since the birth of the Theory of Relativity

Sheesh. Even by Internet standards of overhype this is way off base. If the rumors are true then what we’ll be told is: We’ve found some evidence that a particle most of us expected to find is there.

Whoopee.

The discovery of neutrino oscillations (which proved neutrinos are not massless) was as big if not bigger. So was the discovery of the weak force carriers, the W and Z particles. So was the discovery of weak neutral currents. Of proton substructure — that is, quarks. Of parity violation, and CP violation. Of antimatter. Of nuclear fission and fusion. And a dozen other discoveries that either upset the then prevailing theories, or confirmed theories that until then were still regarded as interesting but speculative. And that’s just in experimental nuclear and particle physics. On the theoretical side: Quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, the quark model, gauge theories of the weak and strong interactions, electroweak unification… and more. And then there have been big developments in other fields of physics too, many of which were at least as significant as a Higgs discovery. (High temperature superconductors? Dark matter and dark energy? Lasers?)

In addition to which, if the rumors are correct, we won’t even be getting a discovery. We’ll get some suggestive evidence, but far short of the statistical significance needed to claim a definite find.

So keep your pants on. If they’re starting to see a bump in the data, hey, great, but it’s not going to revolutionize anything.

Well, we’ve had candidate classes and runs every Saturday, except Nov. 12 (senseis out of town at conference). The Nov. 19 class was pre-check, meaning we banged through a lot of material and the senseis took note of how we did. We have one more class on Dec. 3 before the first pre-test on Dec. 10.

I feel like I’m doing all right. Some material is decidedly rusty (or was never quite as solid in the first place). But nothing seems disastrously so. Most of the criticism I’ve gotten on my kumite has been regarding details; the bones of it are apparently good. Though I’m now trying to get used to some minor changes I made recently to smooth out some awkward parts and sharpen it up.

On the four times we’ve done timed 2–mile runs, I’ve come in under 16:00 three times, so the running is definitely adequate. (The fourth time was this past Saturday, my time was over 16:00… but that was right after a class in which my left big toe got injured, so that’s my story and I’m sticking with it. Besides, it was really a 3–mile run with a time check at 2 miles, and my 3–mile time was more than a minute better than my previous best.)

So I’m feeling fairly optimistic about this cycle, which is good, because going through cycle multiple times is not something I want to do. We’re supposed to take four classes a week, run four times a week, and assist in teaching two classes a week, and we’re encouraged to do the Monday extra help class in addition. Add to that the three classes a week I take Kenny to, and it’s a lot of time I could be spending at home and/or with my wife. And a lot of car trips. That aspect of cycle is getting old already, and it’ll continue for two and a half more months. I look forward to the end of that.

The bare rafters of the room peak about 15 feet above the floor, and there are stringers across most of them about 2 feet lower. When we moved in there were two light fixtures in the room: a single bare bulb (incandescent, for now) near the kitchen door and a 2-tube, 8-foot fluorescent fixture screwed to a stringer. I contemplated what would have to be done if one wanted to replace the tubes or otherwise service the fixture. I did not look forward to it.

A few weeks after we moved in, the fluorescent fixture stopped working.

We have a folding ladder. In its stepladder configuration it’s about 8 feet high, which clearly is too short to reach the stringers. In its 3/4 length straight configuration it’s 12 feet long, also too short. In its full straight configuration it’s 16 feet long. Too long.

For a while we got along with the incandescent light, but it didn’t provide enough illumination for much more than not falling over stuff. Clearly we needed a ladder with smaller quanta of length.

Fortunately our friends Fred and Kate, who unfortunately for us are moving to Albany, own a 24 foot extension ladder and have no place to keep it at the apartment they’re renting, so when they came over for Thanksgiving they brought it along and loaned it to us. Thanks, Fred and Kate!

This weekend I took the fixture down, replaced the T12 tubes and magnetic ballast with T8 tubes and electronic ballast, hung a couple chains from hook screws in the stringers, and hung the fixture back up on the chains… about 10 feet off the floor.

It should serve until we redo the room. The fixture is not pretty. But the light is.

At the moment I follow:

• Cleopatra in Spaaaace! by Mike Maihack. This one’s on hiatus until January. After 78 pages it’s now at the break between Chapters 2 and 3, so really just getting going. Space opera about… well, Cleopatra in space. She’s been (for reasons as yet unexplained) brought as a teenager from ancient Egypt into the far future, and she’s fighting bad guys. And getting into trouble in school.
• Crimson Dark by David C. Simon. This one on the other hand is almost over: two pages from the end, 511 pages altogether. More space opera, somewhat more serious (though with some very funny moments). Ridiculously good art especially the planets-and-spaceships scenes. And the explosions. Simon is a fan of Firefly among other things, and the influence shows (even when he isn’t, for instance, putting a Blue Sun poster in the background of a scene).
• The Dreadful, by Matt Speroni. No spaceships! This one’s a western, with horses and guns. And centaurs. And a talking cow. And a magic ring with a curse. And one of the guns is magical. And the main character is a demon. There’s a rather jarring shift in the artwork style about 60 pages in, for which Speroni’s taken a lot of flak, but he was right: the original style was wrong for the story he’s telling. Now at page 74 and updating a couple times a week.
• Escape from Planet Nowhere, by Otis Frampton. Back to the space opera. This one only updates about once a week, and went dead entirely for about eight months. After more than a year it’s still only 24 pages in, and about all we know is there’s a guy on the run. I like the style, though, so if he can stay on track and deliver a good story I’ll be happy with it.
• The Non-Adventures of Wonderella, by Justin Pierce. Updated Saturdays. A superheroine deals with life, nemeses, and a daughter in 21st century America.
• Power Nap, by Maritza Campos and Bachan. This is the new to me one. Chapter 2, page 8 just posted. More than a bit of a Brazil vibe in this story about a man whose job it is to staple papers together (there’s another man whose job is to unstaple them); unlike nearly everyone else he’s unable to take the drug that enables one to go without sleep, permanently, so he’s a bit of a freak in his society. And he’s starting to see things that aren’t really there. Or so they tell him.
• Questionable Content, by Jeph Jacques. Jacques is one of those incredible people who makes a living writing a free webcomic. QC updates five days a week and is on strip 2054. It takes place in western Massachusetts in a rather odd alternate universe that seems pretty normal except when occasionally we encounter intelligent robots or a woman who grew up on her enterpreneur father’s space station. Mostly, though, it’s a bunch of twenty-to-thirty-somethings dealing with life centered around a coffee shop. Frequently very funny and often rather questionable. It’s rather amazing to compare the art in present strips with that in the early ones… the style has evolved (improved) enormously.
• Red’s Planet, by Eddie Pittman. Red is a 10 year old girl who’s been inadvertently kidnapped by aliens. At the end of Chapter 2, this one is also on hiatus; the site still says “Chapter Three begins Fall 2011″.
• Scenes From a Multiverse, by Jonathan Rosenberg. More or less back on track after a few months of Real Life had its effect. SFaM is supposed to update five times a week, with comics taking place in five different universes, one of which the fans vote to return to the following Friday. Funny, sometimes political, sometimes crude.
• Spacetrawler, by Christopher Baldwin. A story with an ending we’re working toward (I’m guessing that at roughly 200 pages we’re maybe three-quarters of the way through). More alien abduction action, this time a motley group of humans involuntarily recruited to help out an enslaved race. The artwork is rough but the story’s good and there are plenty of good jokes.
• Wondermark, by David Malki. This one is truly weird, and I do not mean “weird as a substitute for good, or funny”. The artwork is purely put together from vintage (mostly Victorian era) illustrations, paired with scripts that are very funny and sometimes brilliantly cockeyed. Excellent stuff.
• XKCD, by Randall Munroe. Do I have any readers who don’t know about XKCD? (Do I have any readers at all? Never mind.) Stick figures drawn by a former physics major with a brilliantly twisted (possibly sprained) way of looking at the Universe. Many of these comics have mouseover text, but XKCD’s is half the point.

(From this you might infer Brian was interested in military history, and you would be right. Then again, Brian was interested in everything. Well, no, not everything, but a lot of things.

(So, for example, along the way he suddenly stopped the car and backed up about a tenth of a mile on the shoulder — no, this was not on the Thruway; Brian was not an Interstate kind of guy — to get out and examine an ancient and disused gasoline pump standing near the road. I think he may have said it dated from the 1930s. He proceeded to regale me with all sorts of information about its manufacturer, their competitors, their rise, and their fall.

(For another example, the next day I had to work but I’d told him about the Landmark Theatre, the old restored movie palace in downtown Syracuse, and mentioned it was generally open so he could go in, see the murals in the lobby, and peek into the auditorium. That night he told me he’d parked at a meter, gone into the building, and met the manager who invited him to look around. About four hours later someone found him in the basement examining the furnace. He told them he had the manager’s permission to be there but decided maybe it was time to return to his car. He hadn’t been ticketed yet.

(He told me he once took a week to drive from Toronto to Buffalo, and I could believe it. Brian was a civilian employee of the Canadian Army; a truck driver, but only during the cold half of the year. They needed more truck drivers then, because some of them drove snowplows. Brian didn’t drive a snowplow, but nevertheless did have six months off in the warmer seasons, and that’s the sort of thing he spent his six months off doing.

(Anyway, that was Brian.)

The only times I’ve been to the Saratoga area since then have been a few times for the Dance Flurry, but this month Kenny has an assignment in social studies to write about Gen. Horatio Gates, and I said, “Field trip!” Off we went this morning, stopping at neither Johnstown nor gas pump, to visit Saratoga National Historical Park. I don’t offhand remember why Brian and I didn’t go on the tour drive back then — I don’t think we ended up going far from the visitors’ center — but Kenny and I did today. Finished up after the (early!) sunset and headed back home.

I don’t know what effect it’ll have on Kenny’s report, but he enjoyed it and I think he’ll remember it.