My dad recommended a site, 3B Tech.net, which I highly recommend if you can build your own computer. They have some incredible barebone deals, one of which I purchased. For about $170, I ordered an AMD  64 Athlon 4400+, Dual Core, 2 GB of DDR2 RAM, and so on. Those are the main specs that I cared about, but the other ones were good as well.

It arrived last night and to my pleasant surprise they had upgraded my CPU to a 5000+. I have no idea why, but it was definitely welcomed and won my favor.

Anyway, this was all very exciting and so on, but it brings me to my next point. When transferring an existing hard drive to a new computer, you can’t always keep the same operating system. I did it before, and it worked fine. So, I moved over my DVD/CD ROM (I could write a whole post about the troubles I had with this, getting down to completely taking it apart and almost to a point of soldering) and hard drive into my new computer.

The moment was coming… would it work?

The answer was, no. No, it would not work. Crap.

This means I have to reinstall my operating system, my plethora of programs, and the plugins with each one, and keep the data that was on it, as that was kind of vital. Lucky for me, I have another computer at another location  (writing on it right now…). So, I ordered a new nice SATA 250 GB hard drive. Yes, I am aware that it’s really small in our day and age, and I could have gotten a lot more.

I, however, don’t download music or videos. I have never filled up more than 150gbs of space, and I wasn’t getting rid of my old hard drive, so I still have however much space was on it as well.

To conclude the story, I wanted to get on the internet right then and there. This lead me searching for a bootable CD. I was going to use BartPE, but for various reasons I couldn’t create the CD. So, I tried a version of Linux. It didn’t work.

This lead me to Ubuntu! I had heard a lot about it through places like Digg, Reddit, Lifehacker, and so on. I am a coder at heart, and I get a kind of warm fuzzy feeling when I can control a computer through command console. So, I created an Ubuntu bootable CD, and worked off that.

I was very impressed, and lead me to the decision that I will be keeping a dual boot on my new hard drive of Ubuntu and Windows XP. I will use Ubuntu as much as I can, but I’m sure I will run into some things that I will feel a need for Windows.

So, looking forward to use my new pretty-frackin’-fast computer next week!

-Kerry

I had the brilliant idea of having Fondue for Christmas Eve with my mother. Well, that got postponed to New Year’s Eve, which seemed and even better celebratory occasion.

I had fondue about once before — two years back and was not involved in the cooking process in the least. My mother last had it about thirty years back.

So, I found an online recipe from Go Fondue for a classic Swiss cheese recipe.

I followed its recipe, put in two cups of wine, then started adding the cheese.

Stop. Stop right there. That’s where we went wrong.

As I mentioned before, we had no idea what we were doing. So, we added all of the two cups at once. You are supposed to add a little, heat it up, then add a little cheese, then more wine, more cheese, and so on.

We ended up pouring our entire pound of cheese into the pot, and it was still like liquid. I went out and bought another half pound of cheese. We added it to little avail, while it gained a bit of a thicker consistency it wasn’t much. The wine was also much too strong for both my mother’s, her friend’s and my taste.

We ate a little bit, but it was far too strong for me. All in all, it was a fun learning experience!

I’ll definitely be doing it again, I’ll probably report here. Hopefully it will be successful next time!

-Kerry

I was quite interested so I showed up at a lounge in Pomona — I had never been in a lounge before. It had a fairly large dance floor and all the girls and the other guy were there, sitting at the bar, chatting and stretching.

After a while, things got going. I was called up and asked if I could suppot a girl sitting on my leg. I had done much harder things and demonstrated it, and I was in! That was it!

After that, one of the girls introduced a new routine to the group where the men were needed. Since there was only two guys and six girls, me and the other guy each played a couple parts. So, more to hear from this end in the future!

The first event, I didn’t have my Ninja costume, and so literally 30 minutes before closing time of a party store, I rushed over and bought some make up as I decided to become a vampire. A friend did my makeup, and voila! I scared people to the point people couldn’t look at me in the face! This was a week prior to Halloween.

The night before, I wore my Ninja outfit dancing. It was great, I looked like a real ninja, with a Bokken and rubber shurikan. Many people had trouble knowing who I was and had to peer into my eyes to see. I also grabbed a friend and ran off with her.

I was trying to decide what I would do for actual Halloween, whether I would just be Ninja again or be something else. I remember my friend went emo a few years back, and I thought, why not?

So, I started contacting friends and asking what information they had if I wanted to go for an emo/scene look. One of my friends said “oh, emo/scene/goth?” And so I started adding that in. Finally, one friend of mine told me she had a lot of information on goths. She gave me a whole bunch of information, and what I planned on being a really cheap costume turned out to be pretty expensive.

I borrowed many of my friend’s clothes, including pants, shoes, gloves and some makeup. The pants were a bit tight (which could be expected, being a girl’s) but they did fit. I bought several things from Hot Topic, borrowed my mother’s trench coat, and became what is my all-time favorite costume.

I had what looked like two piercings, black eyeliner, a slightly paler face, arm fishnets, boots, checkered gloves, it was absolutely amazing.

So, I went to a friend’s house for a party. Lots of drinks as well as a dance floor, and while I don’t drink it definitely provided some entertainment. I had friends not even recognize me as they walked by. Many of my old friends freaked out when they saw the pictures, and go sooo many compliments on the costume.

As for the actual Halloween party, it was mainly just our friends hanging out and chatting. Though, a friend of ours nearly got into a fight, which would not have been fun, but was a little exciting. We did dance for a bit, but it was right next to the fog machine and bally hot, so we decided to stop.

And that was Halloween!

I wanted to be the real deal. So, I ordered a ninja uniform (thick material, actual hidden pockets for shurikans and weapons, and so on), that come with tabi boots and socks (ninja boots and socks), and a bokken (a type of wooden training sword).

Ok, well that’s pretty good for the look, also taken that I already own ninja climbing claws for the hands and feet, and an actual shurikan, wakazashi, tanto, etc. I am also partially trained in martial arts, but I wanted to really look cool. I wanted to do a wall flip. You know, the type where they run up a wall and flip.

So, I started researching. I found videos everywhere. How to spot, how to start learning, but the one they nearly all of them briefly mentioned was, “Once you have got your back flip down…”

I couldn’t do a backflip. I thought a wall flip would be easier. This was a little bit discouraging, but I decided I would learn a backflip and THEN a wall flip. Unfortunately it was a little over a week until Halloween. That’s not much time.

I started doing a few exercises to prepare myself for them. I then posted a status mentioning that I was trying to learn.

I got many responses very fast. One of them from a friend of mine who is a tumbler. He is also a swing aerials instructor, and so I thought he would be a good person to learn from.

We were talking and he decided to help me on Sunday. That brings us to yesterday.

Here are the basics of a backflip that I learned BEFORE meeting up with him:

1. Jump straight UP. Not backwards.
2. Raise your hand above your head and swing back in preparation to a jump, and swing them back when you go into it.
3. At the peak of your jump, tuck your legs to your chest.
4. Do NOT back out of it once you jump, you have to keep going.
5. Keep your head neutral, not looking back or looking forward.

So, once I was there, this was all great to know, but I had a few more things to learn.

1. When tucking your chest you’re using your abs to rotate yourself.
2. You should keep your head on something above a 90 degree angle and look for that on your way around.
3. The main thing it requires is GUTS to COMPLETELY throw yourself and HOPE you get back around. I’d say the hardest part is getting yourself to fully commit to your jump. The way I finally did it was by giving up any hope that I might be able to protect myself jumping, and just to jump and rotate as hard and fast as I can.

By the end of it, I could NEARLY do a backflip. I made it around, and hit my feet, but didn’t quite rotate enough for me to land it.

Oh, and if anyone is trying it. Get TWO spotters, one on each side. They should hold your back and rotate your legs until you can do it yourself.

Here is a good video on how to do a backflip:

Enjoy!

Yesterday was also somewhat appropriate as it was another friend’s birthday and a wedding of a couple other dancers. Both are friends, but not super close, and so it matched.

The wedding was probably the most creative wedding I have been to. I believe it is my 6th wedding.

The bride and groom are both gymnasts. The groom is actually an instructor, and I’ve heard a very, very good instructor. His groom men came out doing backflips (literally), and he did one himself.

They were also very good dancers, ballroom, swing, blues, everything. They had to dances with choreography they had been working on for months, and it looked so natural and so beautiful, it was great.

They also brought out a bunch of gym mats, the type you do tricks on. The groom had a team that he takes all over the world to perform, and the bride had made choreography for them to perform. It was absolutely amazing.

While we were watching and listening to toasts, a friend of mine brought to my attention that there were six tumbling coaches in front me. I had expressed a few days before that I wanted to learn how to do a back flip (back tuck). Just very interesting coincidence and helps express how unique of a wedding it was.

Finally, the garter toss came around. All the guys formed a circle and the groom made us cheer and yell for it. I had two guys in front of me, but I’m quite small. It’s pretty hard to vie, in the air, with someone is 30 pounds heavier than me. I usually just hold my ground and hope it falls through. Hadn’t worked to date.

So, he finally throws it backwards, but throws it about half the distance between him and the crowd of guys. The two guys in front of me literally leaped for it, they touched and rolled to the floor.

The garter had conveniently landed behind them. No body else moved and the two on the floor hadn’t found it yet, so I took a quick jump and grabbed it right before one of the guys on the floor found and tried to get it.

My first garter! Wasn’t caught, but apparently I’m getting married next?

Anyway, after that my friend and I took off. There was dancing at Downtown Disney (and Disneyland). We caught up with a bunch of our friends from SLO (San Luis Obispo), and danced the night away.

We had some amazing experiences, including getting caught trying to get tickets to go into Disneyland (at like 10 at night for the dancing, which we didn’t want to pay $60 per person). They simply told us to stop trying or buy a ticket.

Definitely a fun day and night.

I had decided to help my friend move some of her furniture. The funny thing was that I had 3 hours of sleep the night before, with a 45 min to 1 hour nap. My friend moving also had 3 hours of sleep the night before – we were at the same restaurant until 5:30AM.

I’m going to skip all the boring details of us eating and so on. The interesting part of the day was trying to move her bed to the third story of a townhouse. We got her mattress up with a little push and shove, no big deal.

While we were doing this, I had decided to make it a little bit more fun. We grabbed the mattress and sprinted across the road in a very funny fashion. We also took the foundation (box spring) and ran across the road army style. I’m hoping the cars got a good laugh.

Anyway, we decided to try to shove the foundation up the stairs. After 10 or so minutes, we decided it wasn’t possible. We had already ripped the bottom cloth (unimportant) and gotten some black marks on the wall. That’s when I decided to get creative.

I asked Heather (the one moving) if she had some rope. She didn’t, but our other friend, Catrina, did. I asked her to get it so we could see the length. Heather asked me what I was planning.

I told her that I planned on using the balcony to hoist her foundation up. She was like “not happening!” I talked a little more, so she went up to check if it was possible, and it was. She said that there was no railing that I could use though, so I’d be standing over the edge of the building. I told her fine by me!

So Catrina returend with two old and pretty frayed ropes. I, unfortunately, only remembered part of the knots I learned over a year ago for Sea Scouts (I never actually used them). I did remember one of the strongest knots’ the bowline. I also remembered one of the knots to combined to ropes together (I can’t even remember the type of knot!) So, I combined the ropes, and tied a bowline around the mattress.

I went up to the balcony, two floors up. I jumped the railing and got to the roof. Heather threw the rope up, and phew! There was plenty to spare. I decided to tie the rope to the railing about. Not entirely sure why. I wasn’t tied to it, and if the mattress slipped, it would still hit the ground, but hey, looked good!

Catrina, who is also a marine and has had firefighter training, was going to help me pull up the mattress. So we pulled and it started scraping and bending the gutter. That wasn’t good. So I had her stop for a second. I decided to concentrate on hold the rope out of the gutter (I had to lean a little bit over the edge). She started pulling again, and boy did she pull it up fast. I was also pulling, but had more strength going into making sure the rope neither frayed itself on the gutter nor bent the gutter in. As soon as the mattress left the ground, Heather came running up from below. We got it up so fast that by the time she got up to the balcony, we had the foundation on the roof!

Success! That completely made the whole moving of that day worth it.