And taekwondo is one of those sports where you can involve the family.

I’m dipping my toes into mobile blogging, now that I have a phone with reasonable text entry.

Now I can blog while hiking!

Testing from my phone. Way cool!

I spend over $200/mo so my family can have a common physical activity/sport we all do together (taekwondo). This in addition to the occasional mountain hikes or walks through the Biltmore estate we carry the children on. It’s the best money we can spend right now behind basic survival.

Some of the earlier epidemiological studies were done on the effect of exercise on heart attack rate in Britain. This was one of those results that passed the “interocular impact test” (smacks you between the eyes): no minuscule effect which has to be heavily powered to see.

Though done in the ’50s, those studies are as important today as ever. The Stats blog has the scoop.

The Catholic Key Blog: Atheists Need Better Liturgists.

Ok, I get the whole power of ritual thing. But I have to agree with the (presumably Catholic) author of this post. Does “de-baptism” frame your situation to make a better atheist?

Or is it all a big stupid joke like dress-like-a-pirate day?

Morons are terrifying in large numbers

Still going. Belt testing is in two weeks. I feel ready now, but then comes the first test: patience. Keep practicing what I know. Become intimate with the moves. Slow them down, and understand the technique very well. That kind of depth of knowledge is going to help at the higher belt ranks.

I did 5 hours of taekwondo this week, including 2 hours of sparring and even some jiujitsu. I also did an additional hour of running.

If I keep up this level of activity, I will have succeeded in my exercise goal beyond my wildest dreams.

I don’t recommend trying this.

Well, the third part of my new year’s resolution (yeah, remember those?!) — blogging — hasn’t gone so well. Neither this blog nor my professional blog over at Realizations has gone so well, at least in terms of frequency of updating. It’s not that I don’t have things to say, but, let’s just say that I’m out either doing the things I intended to journal about or paying the price of not getting laid off in a nasty economy. I’m thankful for that problem as opposed to the other side.

After kicking around the idea for a year, I decided to get back into taekwondo. (Ok, so pun intended.) As it turns out, my wife dropped by the local taekwondo studio a few weeks ago and really liked the place, so now 3 out of our 4 family members are going. About 28 years ago, I stuck with it long enough to get an orange belt, and now I’m starting over. This will give me a chance to refine technique and unlearn some bad habits established a while back (not necessarily as part of my childhood class). It also gives me a chance to practice beginner’s mind, which I can stand to practice far more often than I do, and if I get really creative I can figure out how to apply the principles of Anusara yoga to the practice. And the black uniforms rock.