Training Log - Week of 22 JUL 12

23 JUL 12 - Review for Krav Maga and Muay Thai.  Stripe test next week already!  Felt good with the Krav.  Muay Thai still felt a bit off.

Worked on taking the back in BJJ.  Felt really good while sparring.  Learning a lot.  I'm not always tapping out, nor am I tapping out my partners.

26 JUL 12 - Second class of review for stripe testing.  Feeling really good with the moves.  Practiced clinching for sparring.

29 JUL 12 - Ran this morning.  4.5 miles in 1 hour.  Not bad.  Felt ok throughout.  There were a couple of points where I thought I'd have to call it quits.  According to my Nike+, today also had my fastest mile of 11:44 at the start.  So, I'll take it.

Next week, prep for and execution of stripe test in ABD, more Brazillian Jiu Jitsu fun!

Training Log - Week of 15 JUL 12

16 JUL 12 - Yay for more new material!  More ground defense in Krav Maga.  For Muay Thai, the next chunk of our form for the cycle.  Felt good tonight, with one exception during a conditioning drill.  Could not get my kicks right.  Side note: medicine balls suck.  BJJ was awesome.  Worked butterfly sweeps, which I felt really strong about, at least during drilling.  Sparring was a different matter of course.  But, I did manage to land a foot lock on my instructor.  Apparently I set it up with a somewhat advanced move.  Well, it was a great class either way, and as always I learned alot.

19 JUL 12 - Great class tonight.  Felt really good throughout, even with the medicine balls.  Also, sparred tonight.  Good as always.  Need to work on my left hook.

Not much more this week, unless you count walking around Sesame Place.

An Old Pic of myself - 2/12

Around 2001ish

Training Log - Week of 8 JUL 12

9 JUL 12 - New material tonight with ABD.  Ground defense for Krav Maga.  Some crazy stuff that's going to take a bit of getting used to.  BJJ was all about escaping side mounts.  Still don't feel like I'm very good at it, but I look at BJJ as an additional work out.  I know I will learn something and gain skills, it will just take time.


12 JUL 12 - Second day of new material.  Did some work with sparring.  That was fun.  Sparring gear is hard to move in, especially the ab protector, but that will get easier with time I think.

EuroTrip (2004)

To the summary!
Scott Thomas races across Europe to reconcile with his German  pen-pal Mieke after (whilst drunk) telling her to never speak to him again.  Accompanied by his pal Cooper and their best friends Jenny and Jamie, they have a series of mad cap adventures.


To the cast!
Scott Mechlowicz - Scotty Thomas
Jacob Pitts - Cooper Harris
Michelle Trachtenberg - Jenny
Travis Wester - Jamie
Jessica Boehrs - Mieke Schmidt
Kristin Kreuk - Fiona
Vinnie Jones - Mad Maynard
Matt Damon - Donny
Jucy Lawless - Madame Vandersexxx


To the deeper thoughts!
I first saw this movie while in college when my roomate basically sat me down and told me to watch it.  We watched it every night for the next week.  Hands down one of the funniest movies I have seen.


I spent a couple of days trying to write a decent review of this, but it kept degrading into a quote fest.  And if you haven't seen the movie, the quotes would have no relevance and appear to be less funny than they are.  Trust me when I say this is a fantastically funny film, with many hilarious moments strung together by a typical plot.  See it.  You'll like it. And they you will know what I mean when I say 'That is not a robot move.'


And don't forget that Scotty doesn't know.

Training Log - Week of 1 JUL 12

2 JUL 12 - While the regular instructors were on vacation, we had guest instructors in the form of senior student.s  The Krav/Muay Thai class was led by a 2nd degree black belt.  Nothing too crazy.  Started with a warm up, then went into a crazy obstacle course.  Fun fact:  I learned tonight that I can do a forward roll after jumping over a stack of pads as high as my chest.

A stack of these

BJJ was also guest led.  Just covered basic stuff.  I rolled with a gentleman with the nickname of Old Dirty (brown belt) and Sensei McShane showed up and I rolled with him as well.  Plus a slew of students my own...level.  It was good.  Learned a lot.  Best part was when I was being taken once again to Arm Bar City by Old Dirty, and Sensei McShane tells me to 'not let him do that'.  Right, easier said then done.  But, it was all learning.

4 JUL 12 - Went for a run after eating way too much.  About 45 min.  Felt pretty good.  No complaints.

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

I'm going to get something out of the way right off the bat.  There will be no comparison to Spider-Man (2002).  As far as I am concerned the two films have nothing to do with each other.  Also, give Marvel's propensity for multiple universes, I choose to believe that these two Spider-Men movies exist along side each other, never to interact.


Savvy?  Then lets proceed.


To the summary!
Peter Parker moves in with his Aunt May and Uncle Ben after Peter's parents discover that his dad's office has been ransacked.  We fast forward to a Peter who is attending Midtown Science High School.  He takes photos, gets picked on, and is an all around nice guy.  He learns a bit about his parents past, and sneaks into Oscorp's (yes as in Norman Osborn) headquarters.  He goes where he shouldn't and gets bit by a super spider.  Que transformation montage.  He gives a bit of help to Dr. Curt Connors, a former co-worker of his father's.  Dr. Connors now has the keys he needs to create the serum required to grow back his arm.  Pressured into human trials, Dr. Connors tries the serum on his own arm and finds it works.  But, it turns him into The Lizard.  Peter learns of this, and since he helped created The Lizard, he feels the responsibility to stop him.  He does, but not without losses along the way.  Movie ends with promises of a sequel.


To the cast!
Andrew Garfield - Peter Parker aka Spider-Man
Emma Stone - Gwen Stacy
Rhys Ifans - Dr. Curt Connors aka The Lizard
Martin Sheen - Ben Parker aka Uncle Ben
Sally Field - May Parker aka Aunt May
Dennis Leary - Captain Stacy


To the deeper thoughts!
I liked this movie quite a bit more than I was expecting.  Andrew Garfield was a great choice to play Peter Parker.  I thought he nailed the uncomfortable, geeky, nerdy aspects of Peter.  Once he was transformed Garfield nailed the snark of Spider-Man.  I also enjoyed how they seemed to include all of Spider-Man's abilities with the webbing.  Speaking of the webbing.  I know in the comics he creates his own shooters.  Which he does here, and was a really neat sequence of the film.  But this was one thing that always bugged me.  He gets ALL the powers of a spider, except web generation?  But I got over it quickly.


Emma Stone was great as Gwen Stacy.  I must admit, I'm not all to familiar with her source material, other than she came before Mary Jane Watson.  And as far as her father.  Played perfectly by Dennis Leary, they are drawn into Spider-Man's world rather quickly, and both of them come to accept and help Peter/Spider-Man in their own time and way.


Of course there was a Stan Lee cameo.  Lets just say this was one of my favorites.


Short aside about Aunt May and Uncle Ben.  I've always been a fan of Martin Sheen and I thought he and Sally Field were great choices for Aunt May and Uncle Ben.  There is the obligatory Uncle Ben power speech and death.  Both of which were done differently than we've seen before.  And done well.


I have no doubt that there will be a follow up.  I'd like to think that they won't go straight to Green Goblin, but the end of the film seems to point that way.  I would like to see Kraven the hunter myself.  A very different villain for the new films.  Heck, I'd throw The Rock in as my choice to play him.  I'd also like to see Venom brought back and done better (ok, so I made one reference to the other films)  Its clear that they will have some old favorites in the next film as well.  I think this is a great start to a new series of films, and I look forward to the next installment.

Mission of the Shark: The Saga of the USS Indianapolis (1991)

Having recently finished the book 'In Harm's Way', I fired up the made for TV movie, Mission of the Shark.

This tells the story of the USS Indianapolis.  The importance of the USS Indianapolis is this: it delivered components of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan to close the War in the Pacific.  What happened to this ship next is the real story.

Many of you could already have a general idea of the sinking of the Indianapolis and the aftermath.  How many of you have seen Jaws?  Quint's story is a fairly accurate to the real events.

En route to Letye, the Indianapolis is sunk by a Japanese submarine.  Lucky strikes were made, as the torpedoes cause massive destruction to the Indianapolis.  The order to abandon was given moments after the strikes; and the Indianapolis went down moments later.

Now, under normal(?) circumstances, being relatively close major commands, rescue should have been quick.  Through various mis-communications and different interpretations of orders, the survivors of the Indianapolis were left to float in the Pacific Ocean for three and a half days.  With the speed of the sinking, supplies were sparse, leaving many of the men without water and food.

To make matters worse, sharks begin to attack the survivors, leading to what has been called the largest number of shark attacks in history.

Eventually, the crew is rescued.  Sadly though, the captain, Charles McVay is brought up on charges for the loss of his ship.  The Navy blames McVay for not zig zagging (a maneuver designed to throw off targeting).  McVay is initially found guilty, but in 2001, McVay's record was cleared of all wrongdoing as the only officer to be court martialed for the loss of their ship during WWII.

Now to the movie itself.

The movie stars Stacey Keach as Capt. McVay.  Overall the movie was accurate to the original incident.  There were a few mistakes such as how the Indianapolis sank and the first appearance of the sharks.  I also get the impression the movie compressed the timeline a bit.  Also, the movie states they were in the water for five days, when it was only three and a half.

I liked it.  It brings to light a piece of history not all of us are familiar with, outside of Quint's speech in Jaws.  Worth a watch, IMO.