Pete's Log: I'm still alive
Entry #1373, (Life in General)(posted when I was 26 years old.)
Tony Hagale is in the DC area for work. Or at least he was a couple weeks ago. Meg and I had dinner with him at a great place near Tysons Corner. I think it was called Cafe Deluxe. Mr Hagale was as entertaining as always.
I did try to figure out the origin of the name "Tysons Corner" (and it is "Tysons," not "Tyson's"), but with little luck. The google search "Tysons Corner history" brings up a lot of pages with corporate histories of companies located around Tysons; lots of pages for hotels around Tysons; and several pages that claim the original Fairfax County Courthouse was built near the present Tysons Corner. Searching for "Tysons Corner" and "origin of name" or "origin of the name" don't reveal anything either. Wikipedia says "Tysons Corner is an unincorporated place located in Fairfax County, Virginia," but not much else. So sorry, Tony, I failed to answer that question.
Concord bought out Aprisma Management Technologies. So I spent last week in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, at Aprisma (now known as Concord SPECTRUM) learning their SPECTRUM product and talking with engineers up there. I missed my exit when I drove up there from Boston, so now I can say that I've been to New Hampshire and Maine! The hotel I stayed at had the lamest hotel fitness room ever.
And speaking of fitness, today was my first day back at Jiu Jitsu in two weeks. Last week I was in NH, and the week before I had a strained wrist. So I feared for the worst tonight, but actually did alright. One of my buddies there got promoted to a blue belt tonight, so kudos to him.
There's a tournament coming up on April 9 in Rockville. It's hosted by Yamasaki Academy, so there's some pressure to participate. Arguments against participating:
- it's $65 to enroll
- I'm scared of getting eliminated in less than a minute.
- scoring points with Yamasaki's black belts
- it's a great learning opportunity
- I won a fight the last time we had a mock tournament in class
But if I decide to enroll, the real question becomes what weight class do I target. I would do better in the middle class than in the medium heavy class. But I've been bad lately and my weight is up to 187 or so again. The cut between middle and medium heavy is at 181 pounds. So I'd have two and a half weeks to drop at least 6 pounds. I'd rather drop 7 or 8, because if you don't make weigh in, you're disqualified. They won't let you change classes on the tournament day. This is the first time in my life I've even considered worrying about a weigh in. Oh, and you're weighed wearing your Gi, so I'll have to consider that, too.
So I've got that to think about. It's going to be a good tournament. They've got some big prizes for colored belts: ranging from $300 for the blue belt winner to $2000 for black belts. So it should be fun just to watch, since some big names are supposed to show up. White belts won't be getting any money, but I think you get a medal if you finish in the top three.
Moving away from Jiu Jitsu... (should I rename this to "Pete's Jiu Jitsu Log"?) ... Meg and I signed a lease on another house on Sunday. We're going to be leaving Kensington behind and are moving to Rockville. The new place is within walking distance of the Rockville Metro station, is probably twice the size of our current place, and is a bit more modern. So we're very excited. We'll be moving in another month.