May is Killing Me. When's June Again?

May has been long and stressful. I need a break.

It all started a couple of weeks ago when I decided to help Sakaguchi san get his organization off the ground. Since he decided to take Gyokufukai independent (rather, Gosoke decided that for him), he's been trying to figure out a workable schedule for all of his helpers like me. In the meantime, I've been going to a lot of his keikoba to train and help out. I ended up teaching a whole class again two Saturdays ago, which I don't mind, but the following Sunday (the 20th) was my fourth dan test for which I was hoping to prepare. I ended up having to throw caution to the wind. Everyone said that I was more than ready, which was true to some extent, but it would have been nice to run through the kata for an hour or so beforehand!

The test was over in ten minutes, but the stress of watching the other tests while waiting your turn can be draining. Normally I don't care about things like tests. But it was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back for me. The following Saturday (the 26th) was the Zen Nihon Aikido Embu Taikai (All Japan Aikido Demonstration). I took ukemi for Suzuki Toshio, who royally beat the snot out of me. The demo itself was a great way to relieve the stress that had been build up in anticipation beforehand.

While waiting for Suzuki san to put the smack down on me, I was interviewed again about aikido, living in Japan, etc. A sports reporter from Reuters was on hand to witness the carnage, and as luck would (or would not) have it, pulled me aside to get a handle on the largest aikido event of the year since he normally only reported soccer games. Why me? I get interviewed or asked to write about something for the Aikikai annually. Goes with the territory I guess. At least last time my buddy Oscar was doing the interviewing. He at least isn't totally ignorant of the aikido world! Demo pics to come... I hope.

Urinal in Takadanobaba

Went to dinner with Sakaguchi and Kei on Friday. Saw this in the men's room urinal:

.... which reminded me of this (the last 50 seconds):

Putting My Mad Furniture Skillz to Use

Back in November, Kei and I bought a bunch of new furniture from a warehouse store called Ikea for ridiculously low prices. I could tell that most of the furniture was put together by monkeys and was expecting them to break - especially the sofa - after only a year or so of use. I overestimated by about 11 months. On Christmas eve, while taking a nap on my new sofa, I was awoken by a loud snapping sound. Fearing the worst, I looked under the sofa, and sure enough, the front board had popped along one of the many glue joints (see above). I should have known better. Recalling my apprenticeship at Hill Country Woodworks, I remembered that rule number one regarding load-baring furniture is ALWAYS USE SOLID STOCK! The morons at Ikea, in order to sell their products for a low price, glue small wood scraps together to make long boards. The load-baring integrity of the furniture is severely reduced.

Anyway, Kei's father got a board cut to size for us, and I spent this afternoon tinkering with the sofa (see pic). The new front board is just unfinished pine plywood, but at least it's one solid piece.

Incidentally, I went back to Ikea with Ross last weekend, and as we were walking around, I started to take a closer look at the other furniture sold there. I saw two girls looking at the same sofa and told them about what happened. The excitement on their faces (no doubt caused by the cheap price of such a large couch) turned to disappointment, and most of the customers who overheard us talking moved on to another area of the store. Ross didn't buy anything. After giving him my "professional" opinion, we both agreed that everything we saw was just cheap crap. What really pissed us off though was the fact that we had driven in circles around Makuhari for over an hour just trying to find the place!