Medieval Nerdpress
This is just SO COOL.
Me and the nerds sometimes hear murmurings about being featured in the Thisthing or the Thatthing, but when a li'l gal and her cameraman came out to training one day, we dressed in our finest, as we always do.
Then, she put together THIS.
Paul, Bill and Cheryl all interview really well. Bill and GoodScott get a chance to fight a bit for the camera and the two groups clashing shows nice shots of Sam and Andrew right in front and then GoodScott slicing up our ol' Roman Tom.
They got some sort of long-distance, candid shot of me getting armoured up with the help of Juanita, and all I can think is that the different coloured codpiece really makes my junk look impressive. Camera adds 10 pounds. That fella around the 2:00 mark that's facedown and seems to be muttering something about the compressed nerve in his spine? Yeah, that's me too.
Great video though, really proud to be in such a kickass piece from such a great club.
K, done gushing now about my awesome nerds and swords and such.
Smooches.
Posted by JuddHole
This blog was the one that changed everything in my life, so it stands to reason that it continue to do so. I hope it starts with my underwear.Fixed throat or fixed truck. LUCK pls.
It's winter here, though the only discontent I have is in my throat.
It rains quite a bit and is pushing this lawn's growth to the unmanageable stage. The old mower won't start and I STILL can't get the lawndudes to ring me/message me back. I suppose that's a certain level of discontent, but the neighbour cats think it's friggin' sweet playing in a jungle. I happen to agree, even if wife and I like catching them and turning them loose in the outback.
My throat is full of gross things right now. Though I'm not actually retarded, wifeage looks at me as if I am when I choke on just about everything. EVERYTHING. Yikes.
I choke on stuff. I snore. And I've got a gag reflex that would get me kicked out of Pr0nstar School faster'n you can say "Holy Galloping Crotchrot Ron Jeremy!"
I'm only recently learning that this may or may not have something to do with the GINORMIHUGE tonsils I have living in the back of my mouth. I've always had them and they've always been an issue. Anybody that's ever buckled my helmet for me at Grey Company knows that I can't have stuff touching my throat or I start making Bill The Cat noises.
It's only this week that my doctor-in-law finally looked in there, in a healthy and non-coldy mouth, and said, "Yeah, them suckers're huge, go see this guy."
I'm stoked that something might get fixed in my face that causes me such grief.
I mean really, I started writing this post 20 minutes ago, when I was first choking on leftover sausage roll and after a SKYPE convo with my BFF and a phone convo with my Sparkymate who wants to help me fix my burnt truck, I'm still clearing my throat like a pothead.
DISAPPOINT.
That said, BFF wants me and smallsprogs to go down to Waroona so our wives can be awesome friends and girls while he and I stand in the shed drinking beer and being awesome friends and girls too. He wears my size cocktail dress, you see.
Totally kidding. You know that though right?
Yeah, he's a size smaller. Bitch.
Sparkymate is too efficient, he tells me, and has run out of jobs for the day, so he's ready to load up in his 4WD, drive down to South Jesus, and help me rewire my burnt truck.
How'd I burn the truck? A story that will have to wait.
Smooches.
Posted by JuddHole
This blog was the one that changed everything in my life, so it stands to reason that it continue to do so. I hope it starts with my underwear.Simple Self-Derived Change
As I sit here in the pre-dawn hours of a sleepless morning, I find that I embrace the simpler things much more naturally and easily than I do in my normal waking day. Colours, though muted in the faint light, seem sharper, and the steam from a mug of hot tea entrances me for just long enough of a moment that I only stir when I hear the piercing call of a morning bird, announcing to all of his friends that he is awake and starting his day. The thought of his hapless obnoxiousness brings a slow smile to my sleep-flattened face.
My big fluffy bathrobe is a bit clunky for a morning like this and a worn and ill-fitting flannel shirt greets me like an old friend. Despite the chill in the air and my slightly itchy eyes, I'm happy to be here now, in this moment, experiencing the simpler things and almost nothing else. It's… very centering.
It seems like it should be monumental that today I take one of the first steps along the path of changing my life in yet another major way. So monumental that I'm awake when I shouldn't be and feeling so simple and real that I just had to write. It actually doesn't feel monumental though.
Maybe that's because I've been through this before, and in way that is both cynical and warmly comforting, I know now that monumental moments only happen in retrospect and in movies. The clarity of thought to recognise when you might be in a Monumental Moment though, that is the kind of thing that is rare enough to want to sit and stare at tea steam, listen to birds, and write.
**************
By the time that I rounded the high-sided corner sidewalk in front of the IGA, my black Chuck Taylor's would already be dry. This fact always amazed me regardless of the number of times that I'd experienced it during my formative years. I never wore socks in them, due in part to the fact that I never really had very many socks but mostly because no one ever told me I should. And because it was more comfortable, though I don't think I ever consciously thought that.
My pre-teen brain could hardly comprehend much beyond the next task in front of me and I spent a good majority of my mental energies making sure I wasn't short on something I might need later, or unprepared in some way for something that was likely to happen. Having dry shoes always lifted some worry off of me just in case I needed to go somewhere where wet shoes would be frowned upon. I think the only reason I never compulsively carried an umbrella is because it never rained.
Only as an adult do I realise the kind of compulsive, anxiety-ridden behaviours that I had while growing up. I suppose that never having any real victories in my life taught me that utter failures were always a distinct possibility. The lessons and Good Things to be taken from any given experience were only something that I learned about after finishing High School and was out in College living on my own. In fact it was only in moments like the one this morning, where I have the time and gathered thoughts to write, that I ever truly learned from the more subtle experiences in my life.
Bumbling along hapless and happy, for the most part, I've always been just me. Being me isn't something I remember making a conscious decision to do either, it's just something I've always done. I wandered around the first half of my life not trying to win, but definitely making a concerted effort not to lose. This meant that risk was, for the most part, managed and life's direction was left largely up to other, more trusted, sources and rarely to myself.
It was only in the Spring of 1997 that I decided to make a change in my life that was purely derived from me, and I left Texas after 4 years of school with everything I owned packed into my shitty '88 Ford Ranger and my dog Mazzy hanging out the window. I moved into my mom's basement and started school again because I knew that I needed a degree to almost guarantee Not Losing at a job during the course of my life. For the most part, I bumbled along with everything else, just being me.
In Spring '99 I made the second self-derived change in my life and selected a major, a degree path, a relative career. It worked, and I found something I was suited for, and though I still had many hoops to jump through for that degree, I was satisfied. And for the most part, I still bumbled along with everything else, just being me.
Too much bumbling and Not Losing meant that life offered little in the way of reward and conversely the little failures started to stack up into big ones. True Risk finally started to become something very real in my life, as real as True Reward, and I probably appeared to be making an ass of myself to many that were close to me. The truth is, is that I was actually being more me than I ever had. Self-derived change #3 found me purchasing a plane ticket to a point on the planet that was almost the exact polar and geographical opposite to where I was. The rest of that story, as they say, is history.
And an amazing history it is too. Though much like Monumental Moments and their reality, the reality of any story is that it really doesn't have an ending, and the next chapter in life found me with more to lose than I ever had before. I worked extra hard in my life at Not Losing then, so much so that I lost sight of Winning.
The impetus of the next self-derived change came from my wife, and newborn baby daughter, and an honest and sincere look at my life as it was. Just as Love was a huge motivator to chuck it all and start a new life in a faraway land, it took the same to call a halt to Racing Rats and Working for The Man. With $60 in my pocket and a family to feed, I started my own company, and promptly lived in poverty for the next 8 months.
Living within the bounds of a series of Self-Derived Changes, all the while still being as me as ever, has actually opened Life up for me. Playing to Win, and not just playing to Not Lose anymore, has meant that the risks are as big as they ever have been, and truthfully always have been, but the rewards are finally clearer than they ever were, simply by virtue of the fact that I'm finally consciously striving for them.
My life is made up of pleasures from the simpler things. I wanted to love with all that I am and be loved for all that I am, and I wanted it more than anything, and I got it. It wasn't grand and it wasn't extreme, though these descriptions get bandied about when people refer to My Love Story, it was actually as simple as it gets.
I wanted to raise my children. I wanted them to know who I am and I wanted to know who they are, every day. I didn't want a big house and a big car, a boat, or overseas holidays anywhere near as much as I wanted to spend as much time as possible with those that I love. Again, nothing grand or extreme, though it's told that way, my leaving that world behind to attempt to earn a penny in a new one was really quite simple.
Now I'm faced with something else that's really quite simple to me, though in the telling it is made quite grand and extreme. The simple story is that I want to raise my children in the semi-rural country and earn a living doing something I love on a farm that I love in a place that I love with the people that I love.
What makes it a grand thought, is that I've got the place all picked out, and it's going to take 1.5 million dollars to do it. One-and-a-half million dollars will get me a large and nice house on 8 acres with a fully-functioning horticultural business operating on it. A business that I'll have to study, and learn, and work in, and experience, and fail at a little bit, just to figure out how to make it all go. A house whose mortgage will undoubtedly stretch our budget to its farthest reaches and surely take all of our combined resources to cover. A life that will include hard work, sometimes back-breaking labour, and responsibilities far greater than any I've ever had.
While it's been in the works for quite some time, I take the first of the Very Important Steps towards this today, and will approach a bank with the intention of asking them to help me make this all work. Within the next few days, I will walk in with paperwork in hand and tell them that, while I have virtually nothing to offer financially, I am not going to quit until I have made this mine.
Simple as that.
Posted by JuddHole
This blog was the one that changed everything in my life, so it stands to reason that it continue to do so. I hope it starts with my underwear.2010 has had it’s way with me…
Another year comes and goes and I fondly remember some of the goals I set when 2010 started.
- Have a draft for a book by my birthday.
- Have at least some clue as to whether or not we're going to be able to get a $1.5 million loan for 8-acres in the semi-rural down South.
Alrighty, while I'm typically not one to ever have New Year's Resolutions or Set Life Goals or any of that cheesiness, I'm also typically not one to set goals and then fall so woefully and pitifully short.
2010 is disappearing like morning mist in the sunlight and certain parts of my life are just as up-in-the-air as ever.
Still don't have a book, though have some killer ideas for two or five, and even have a proper outline for one. But I haven't actually written anything, so that doesn't count for much.
Still don't have much of an idea on Hillview, our dream property down in Oakford, and we're coming up on almost 2 years since initially talking with the old bloke about buying it. FRUSTRATED.
I'm also not one to typically make excuses for things, but I can say that 2010 did actually walk right up and kick me squarely in the jewels like few other years before it. 1997 wasn't my favourite, but it wasn't brutal. 2004 didn't do me any favours, but it certainly opened doors that changed my life for the better.
Nup, none of 'em have smacked me so brutally in the face like 2010.
It started slow with a heartbreak and suitable recovery (more details on that in the future maybe), then led in with my back injury and a screaming trip to the hospital. While I thought it quite neat to be shooting a .44 Magnum from a wheelchair for wife's birthday, I do remember thinking, "You know, I really miss walking..."
I'd barely recovered in time to watch Mother Nature try to drown me by hurting my roof and putting water all in my house. It wasn't devastating, like some of this week's flood over East have been, but I'm here to tell you that 6 months on cold concrete floors do little to elevate your mood. All 3 kids sleeping in the same room and 2 rooms being unused is frustrating for them as well, I'm sure. The contractors that the insurance company hired STILL HAVEN'T SHOWN UP YET. 6 months later... what the hell is bloody insurance for anyway? Next time I'm sticking a $5 bill in a coffee can every week and we'll just use that. Screw insurance companies, seriously.
We barely got a few weeks peace before my son's classmate was killed on a busy road near here. That'll leave you feeling gut-kicked, no question. Puts floods and concrete floors into perspective too.
Mother's Day came and went with some nice, long and drawn out dramas in wife's family. Silliness abounds when people either say too much or nothing at all. I try to only speak when spoken to unless I'm drinking, in a new group of people, or both. Ha, I'm kidding, I shoot my mouth off as much as the next guy, but I rarely, if ever, say something I don't mean.
The ensuing 2 months proved one of those flat dips, where a small businessman knows he's been working his ass off and sending out invoices, but no one is paying. Hard to know how to feel about bad luck like that, but when the folks that usually pay early are paying late, and the folks that usually pay late are paying later than ever (or not at all), then you get real broke, real quick.
We ate noodles, lots of 'em. For a while.
End of July and 2010 decided that it wasn't quite done with me yet. A Biff, Baff, Bowee came in the form of a friend of mine from High School dying in a river accident. There are those moments in life that seem to last forever even though you know that the days are actually coming faster than ever, and in only a couple of days I had to figure out if I was even going to make it back for his funeral, if I was going alone, and how I was getting there.
I made it. Every penny we had and a rather sizable loan from my brother-in-law to put us further in debt, but I made it. I got back in time to send him off in a style befitting his wishes, which was good. And I got to see lots of folks again, which was good too. There are many stories from that short trip, but another time perhaps. I think I'll put 'em into a book.
Back to reality just in time to land in the Invoice Dip again and here we are. 2010 isn't done with me yet, but I have a feeling that the rest of it is going to be quite good.
In fact, I have it on very high authority that it's going to be Quite Good, IF you know what I mean. Heh heh. Oh SHOOSH, I don't know what I'm talking about, just play along though m'kay?
If things change, and even if they don't, I'll keep you posted. Until then, I hope you put on your Gorilla-coloured glasses and read sticker books full of kite-dancing pigs.
Mad Loves All.
Posted by JuddHole
This blog was the one that changed everything in my life, so it stands to reason that it continue to do so. I hope it starts with my underwear.Ketchup
You know how you've got that friend that you meetup with at the same coffee place whenever you're in that part of town? And how you don't really ever have them over for drinks, nor do you make it to their kid's birthday parties, but the invite is always there, and you always mean to but never really break that friend out of the box labelled "have a coffee at that place when I'm in that part of town"?
Yeah, this blog is like that.
I'm too old and not fiery enough to get ranty about shit on here, and when I try I fail because I just don't mean it enough. If I'm feeling passionate about something, I post a link on here and then get off my ass and go and do something about it.
Or I build some armour. Or I write a song. Or I sit and play guitar all morning in the backyard sun.
When I write, I write in a place that really isn't read by anybody, and won't be until it's ready to all be tied together.
When I want to communicate something, anything, with the outside world, I use Facebook. If I want to share pictures of my kids, I use my other site.
What do I do on here then? I think I may have lost the plot a bit.
It just seems like too much work to try and get a piece of my writing polished and ready for public consumption. Then, there's always the subject matter. When you're anonymous and use codenames, you can write pretty candidly about just about anyone. In today's web, there IS NO ANONYMITY and it makes it harder to do this.
What's all that mean? It means that I can't talk about how funny it is that your boobs turn red so easily Nic. Because then you'll read that and know that I'm talking about you. Kind of ruins it. Heh.
How's life in general then?
Pretty good. I work too much, but if I don't then these weird pieces of paper I get in the mail keep coming and coming but turn redder and redder. Crazy how that works.
My office has bare concrete floors because a lot of water messed them up and we haven't fixed them.
My toddler bounces around in this office a lot and loves The Wiggles. We watch a fair bit of kid's shows around here. We play a whole bunch too.
I play my guitars at least once a day. I love it and I'm getting a lot better. I can even write and perform an entire song all on my own. Sometimes they kind of suck though.
I ride my bike, with the little trailer in the back for the Bug, around my shitty little suburb and I wave to my shirtless, tattooed, drunk-in-the-middle-of-the-day neighbours. I actually love it here. Home is where you make it.
My house is messy. Kids and pets will do that unless you dedicate a fair bit of your day to cleaning up after them. Answer this next question honestly: Who in the hell wants to do that? Not me nor wife, I can tell you that. We'd rather laugh and sing to music we like and make nice meals and talk about things in life that please us. At the end of the day, that's a far more useful lesson to pass on to my children, I believe.
I play swords. Every weekend. It's actually at the point where I've accepted that I'm a carny, as in carnival folk, and what I do can pretty much be considered "theatre". Oh dear. Seeing it in writing makes me think that I'm not actually that accepting yet. Especially considering the pain in my right hand I'm experiencing while typing that's a result of a sword blow. I still like to think about the fact that we smash the fuck out of each other with swords, pretend play-acting or not. I think I've always been meant for theatre, and while there are many that know me that would nod their heads in an obvious way right now, I don't think I actually knew this until recently.
My kid's can make life difficult, but I love them and wouldn't trade them.
Despite too much work, I love what I do and am going to actually change the world with what I am doing. This excites me.
I miss some folks back in America, but not as much as I once did. I miss some of them much more now than I once did.
My favourite radio station is the classical music station with the boring and stuffy sounding DJs. Some of my favourite friends here in town are metalheads and blast music that makes my colon spastic, but I like it.
After almost 5 years of marriage, I still kiss my wife with passion at least once a day, I still look at her with genuine respect and appreciation once a day, and she still gives me wood at least once a day.
If nothing else, I enjoy dropping in and being completely candid on here, listing out sentences that need to be next to each other for a full picture yet in and of themselves they are all good indicators of my state of life and mind and happiness.
Now go find someone you love and tell them you love them for no reason other than it is a good thing to do.