Nah not really. I've got seven regular students for Aikido now and I'm really enjoying it.  There's another Shodan in the class now, he learned: Nihon Goshin Aikido founded by Shodo Morita.  So it's similar, just smaller, up-close movements.  He's been helping out a lot.

I'm travelling again tomorrow.  Yay.  I know, I know, I sound really enthusiastic.  Not.  It's just that, the last time I went to this site, I got stuck there for three days.  I don't want that to happen again so I've been reluctant to go back.  I LIKE sleeping in my own bed every nite.  Especially since I can't feel the lumps any more because of the foam mattress topper I got for Christmas.

I also splurged and got a new laptop.  The Toshiba Netbook I have is nice - to a point.  Watching movies sucks because the screen is tiny and I have to connect the external CD drive to watch the movie.  The same goes for using my Bamboo drawing tablet.  Have you ever tried drawing a picture 1/4 at a time?  That's what I've been doing the last four months.  It's really annoying.  Add to that, if I open more than a couple applications, it pukes, well, I decided I needed something a little better for daily use.  I'll still use the Netbook for travelling, but, the HP G60-533CL Notebook will do me just fine for now.  Eric wanted to get me a ToughBook, but those things are $3,700.  Yeah, not just no.... The HP has Windows 7 64-bit on it.  So far, so good.  Nothing like the craptacular mess that Vista is.

Oh and I got a $25 discount because it was the "floor" model.  It had never been plugged in or turned on - only touched.  Well I could handle that.  Forgive the pun.  The clerk (who is a third country national and gets paid beans) rang me up for a 25% discount.  I couldn't, in any good conscience, let him continue with that, even though I wanted $150 bucks off the laptop.  So, I had him ring it up again with just the $25 discount.  I mean, c'mon, you would have done the same, right?  They would have taken it out of this guy's paltry pay....

Humph.  Anyway... Sleepies early... Got some moving and shaking to do tomorrow...