Air time

OK, a few fun photos from the belt test...

I'm the one on the right...

A throw called ogoshi...in black is Professor Ken Eddy. On the right is my sensei, Jason Spencer.

First part of a throw...

Second part of the throw.

If anything, the test showed me how much I still have to learn about the stuff I already know. It's scary to think that I now need to learn a few dozen more moves for the next test.

As I've gotten older, belt rank has meant a lot less. But it's still an honor to get promoted. Jason doesn't move anybody ahead until they're ready. I think that drives away some younger folks who want to move up the ranks quickly, but it makes us all focus on where we need to improve.

If we move out east, it's unlikely that I'll be able to stick with this style of jujitsu. It has stayed mostly on the west coast. But hopefully I can find something that keeps me active and learning. I've talked about starting capoiera with Karen if we move, and I still might try it, but it's a little more physically intense than I think I'm ready for right now. But you never know.

Updates on job, massage, ninja training

It was a big weekend here in the Griner household. We had the Sierra Brewfest, one of the county's biggest annual events and definitely one of the most fun, and then headed to a friend's house for poker night. We each got $5 worth of chips at the beginning. Karen walked away with $10. I walked away with 30 cents. So in my book, we came out ahead.

But in bigger news:

1. I finally heard back from Virginia on the job, but there's nothing solid. The editor out there said she's still feeling strong about me, but they are going to post the job internally and nationally. Previously, they were saying it would just be internally. She said I got a 100 on the editing test, with the highest score ever being a 115. I'm not sure what the lowest score ever was, but my dear wife guessed it was 101.
2. Karen and I did well on our "practical exams" for the massage class. We drove up to Reno, to our instructor's instructor's school, and the two of them watched each person do parts of the massage. They pointed out some good things for us to work on but generally seemed pleased with how we were doing. In two weeks is the written exam, which is really going to be intense. We also have to rack up another 25 hours of practice (which means 25 massages in just a few weeks). That's going to be tough. Anybody want a free massage?
   
3. I passed my belt test in jujitsu, which means I'm now a yonkyu, or 4th rank. It's a blue belt with a black stripe, I think. Next come three brown belts, then black, so there's still a loooong way to go. Tough test, though. Karen got to watch, since it was at the same school as the massage test (it's all part of the same program). It was really the first time Karen got to see me doing jujitsu, so that was cool, too. We took lots of pictures and video.

That's about it, folks. Just wanted to keep you all up to date.

But wait...

OK, so after bemoaning the fact that I flitter like a butterfly from interest to interest without actually becoming great at anything, I read this interview with game designer Sid Meier.

It's not an amazing interview, but it does hit up that he was able to define his career in his own terms:

GameSpy: Still, for someone who's been as successful as you, it must be nice to be able to work on whatever interests you at the moment -- history, the Civil War, pirates…

Sid Meier: Oh, yeah. I've been very lucky. No one ever told me "You can't do a golf game," or "Nobody's interested in pirates." I really appreciate that creative freedom.

Then there's board game designer Klaus Teuber, who has stayed focused (mostly) on board games, but they've covered everything from clay sculpting to world domination.

One uplifting thing I heard at the Virginia interview was the editor saying, "I need an idea guy." I think too many people try to hire people who are the best at what they do, instead of finding folks like me, who just randomly throw out stuff and can still get it done. Plus, it's not like we're in a hospital. If an idea doesn't work at a newspaper, you stop running it and forget it ever happened.

On a different topic, I have two things I need to point out:

1. I had my first spam posting get through the registration feature on Blogger, so if it keeps up, I might have to add a security setting that makes you type in a wiggly word on your screen when you post. I'll try to put this off, though, because I know you people already don't like having to register.
2. Have you tried sudoku puzzles yet? These things are the next crosswords...amazingly addictive once you figure them out. We're working on a story about them for our Learning Page.

Take care.

Must...stay....focused

I've never been one to specialize, and I'm starting to wonder if that has been a bad approach to life.

When people first get to know me, they often refer to me as a "renaissance man," but it doesn't take long for folks to realize that it's really not that impressive to know a little of everything and a lot of nothing.

Right now, I'm studying massage, practicing jujitsu, and reading a book about modern dictators. But I doubt I'll ever move past the beginner massage, nor will I probably ever get a black belt in jujitsu (just like with my other two martial arts), and I seriously doubt I'll read another book about dictators. I might not even finish this one after I get past Idi Amin.

I majored in design, started my career as a writer, and quickly switched to editing. Now, looking at job opportunities around the country, I'm realizing that there are few people looking for "someone who can write, edit, design, review video games, critique bloody marys, etc." The only places looking for someone like that are papers even smaller than mine, and what they really mean is, "We're looking for one person to do everything, get paid nothing, and be found dead someday on the floor of the office."

Don't get me wrong, I take a lot of pride in the fact that Karen and I try a little of everything. We've done swing dancing, Thai boxing, and now massage together. We've gotten decently skilled in the kitchen, mildly savvy with wines, and relatively well-traveled.

But sometimes I get jealous of my friends who've really stayed focused in life. Because Bill is my most loyal blog reader, I'll use him as an example. He has two second-degree black belts and is amazingly skilled at ... um ... whatever computer stuff it is he does all day. Yet he also dabbles in hobbies like guitar, cooking, etc.

It's obvious I just don't have that level of focus. Perfect example: Just after writing that last sentence, I opened a new window to check how much we had left in the bank. I couldn't even stay focused on finishing a thought about being focused.

When I was interviewing in Virginia, one editor said he didn't think I'd move on to that level of a paper without deciding how I was going to focus my career. That left me thinking two things: One, I can't say I like the idea of focusing my career on one thing just yet. Two, how do you get good at one thing if a paper like that won't hire you to try it? This is why large newspapers end up with dozens of people who are great at the one thing they do, and that's about it. Meanwhile, small papers are filled with people who might be asked to do anything on any given day. I have to say I'll miss that level of freedom if I do bump up.

Don't hold out for a point here. I'm basically just trying to make sense of this doubt I've been feeling lately as weeks go by and I still haven't heard back on the job. I think the root of my frustration is the fact that I'm 28, and if I haven't figured out how to stay focused on something yet, I likely never will.

Oooh, look, a bird! Gotta go.

Attack of the elderly hypocrites

I was never much of an outdoorsy type growing up, which meant I had to put up with a lot of old folks saying: "You kids just sit around playing television. Try going outside so you don't rot your brain! In my day..."

You get the idea.

Well, every few years, my paper decides to punish its oldest, most loyal and crankiest readers by messing around with our TV listings. Yesterday was one of those times.

A while back, we killed the TV Book that appeared once a week. It saved us $60,000...and brought in a few hundred complaints. So we brought it back soon after, as a daily page of listings in the Features section. Once they got used to that, we killed it, moving all the listings into the weekly entertainment section and taking out the daytime info.

So all day yesterday, we got complaints from our senior readers who literally said things like, "What am I supposed to do, stay in bed all day waiting for prime time to roll around so I can know what's on TV?!"

No, I mean all day. Hundreds of these calls. "How DARE you remove the daytime listings?! How can I plan my day?!"

To be honest, I only took one of these calls, but I got to listen to our chosen punching bag respond all day. The one response she could never give was, "Stop watching so much damn television."

Yeah, I know, a lot of older folks don't have much to do. But come on, live a little. Waddle to the front porch and watch the deer and jackrabbits and such. This is Northern California, one of the most beautiful places on earth, and people are spending their last days in a dark room, pining to know whether it's "I married a midget" day on Jerry Springer.

To throw out a positive role model, may I present Karen's grandmother. At 92, she's one of the most alive people I know. She came out here the other day -- from Chicago, to a mountainous area where 20-year-olds get exhausted walking a block. She's in a book club, she's her church's historian, she plays Scrabble nightly, she uses e-mail, and she has sent me more cards and notes in recent years than most of my blood relatives. Since I've known Karen, her grandmother has visited Ireland, New York City and Maine (which was the 50th state she had visited in her lifetime).

So my bar for a senior lifestyle is set pretty high. I'm sure we'll hear more from disgruntled readers today, and I'm sure we'll still have to avoid the temptation to say, "How about you just go outside and enjoy the weather?!"

You see, in my day, TV only had 68 channels....

The rules of fame

Don't ask how, but I stumbled across this little bit of net sadness today. It's a fan forum for Morgan Webb, one of the hosts of the cable show X-Play. Karen and I have been addicted to the show for a while, but there are obviously people who are much more into it...or at least into Morgan, who is probably one of the few female geek icons out there.

If you read the first post on the link, you'll see about 742 rules for the forum (no racy pictures, no asking Morgan to marry you, etc). If these are the things already banned, it gives you a disturbing insight into the daily lives of even minor celebrities.

So just to get ahead of the curve, I've come up with my own rules for the future Griner fan forums that inevitably will arise:

1. NO pictures from Griner's poorly thought-out photo spread in SheepBreeder.
2. NO references to the Flying Lemurs show in Skokie that ended with Griner and Bill huddled in fear for their lives under the fifth wheel of a nearby semi.
3. NO quoting from Griner's college columns, like this.

And then, as if in return for giving it life, the beer repays us with the warmth of inebriation. With a tear in my eye, I pat the fermenter lovingly. "That'll do, beer."

4. NO posting Griner's picture from his college columns.
5. NO pointing out that Griner's first concert was M.C. Hammer.
6. NO pointing out that Darkie was right, and Griner should have snuck out of the house in high school to see that farewell-tour Dead Milkmen show in Huntsville.
7. NO use of direct quotes to show that Griner absolutely contradicts himself year to year on things like the newspaper industry, blogging or that Thrills album, which sounded really good at first but then got kinda boring but by then he had already told his friends about this great Thrills album. Yeah, no doing that.
8. NO talking about how much prettier his first wife was.
9. NO links to sound clips from Griner's "The future is DivX" speech.
10. NO references to his blog photo as "Homeless Griner Gets a Meal"
11. NO downer posts about wasted potential.
12. NO confusing Griner for a deceased phys ed professor, a highly regarded marathon runner, a boar hunter or a lawyer pioneering the use of "instant CDs." Griner feels a bit of personal shame when stacked against the people who, according to Google, share his name.
13. NO feet on the coffee table.
14. NO fifteenth rule.

Quick job update

OK, well, I heard back from the woman who brought me out to Norfolk, and she said she was "really high" on me. She said the big boss liked me, too, but some of the other managers thought I was *gasp* too young. Are you ever just the right age for a job? Even Hooters waitresses seem to run the age gamut.

Anyway, she said they're opening the job to internal candidates but not external candidates (other than me). That's good news, because it means there will be at least one more opening if an internal person gets it.

So I'm pretty stoked. And tomorrow's my birthday. And I'm going out for sushi with Karen in a few minutes. Life's not so bad today.

They like me, but I'm not hired yet

We just returned from our three-day trip to Norfolk, which was basically 12 hours of flying for every 2 hours of, you know, not flying.

But here's the skinny: The folks at the paper out there like me. There seems to be a general consensus that I would be a good fit. Of the 10 or so interviews I had, only one of the editors seemed a bit pessimistic about my age and the size of my paper (about 1/12th of their size).

The managing editor, however, is the big cheese, and we got along great. I gave him an honest critique of the paper, and he said he agreed completely. I stumped to get in the door as soon as possible so I can help with their planned redesign, which would be awesome.

So I fit in great, and I think I passed their amazingly intense editing test, but what's next? Hard to say. There's not really an opening for me yet. There might be, soon. Or maybe not. Or maybe in a few months. Or maybe not for a while. Yeah, it's that weird. I'm still not sure how to explain this to my coworkers here.

The problem is, I just assumed that a lot of people were flown out there to interview without a specific job in mind. Apparently not. Apparently no one understood what the hell I was doing out there. That's not necessarily bad, but it might embitter people who got their jobs the old-fashioned way. Or it might mean I have to fly back out later to interview again. And man, that's a tough trip.

But let's focus on the positive. I'll even use the flowery little icons:

• Housing prices are about $200,000 less than here. That puts them around $270,000, which is a bit more doable for us, and we might be able to get a place sooner than we thought.
• Downtown Norfolk is great. Tons of construction, new restaurants, young people. That's crazy. Every other city is watching its downtown die slowly and painfully.
• If they hire you, the newspaper moves you. I mean, a dude shows up and packs your stuff, loads it on a truck and sends it to Virginia. That would be nice.
• We already know a handful of friends out there, so there wouldn't be a lengthy friendship drought.
• The paper's staff has this great vibe of teamwork and mutual respect. It's hard to describe, but I can tell you it's rare in this industry. My bosses like to say, "This isn't a democracy," which I've always fought against. If staffers don't feel important and respected, they'll resent the manager and the paper. I'm sure that happens there, but a vibe is a hard thing to fake.

So that's about it for today. I'm still half-unconscious from the flying, but I'm excited. I wish things would move quickly, but there's nothing wrong with being a little patient for this kind of opportunity.

At least it's not meth

When I was in high school -- I think a sophomore, even -- I first played the PC game Civilization. And then, I'm pretty sure, that was all I did for the next few weeks.

I remained addicted through college and beyond as more and more sequels came out and kept up. But then I pretty much stopped after getting Civilization III, largely because I didn't want to end up isolating myself for months while Karen paced impatiently, had affairs with male models, etc.

Then one day, I had one of those moments that reminds me, "I married the perfect woman." I mentioned Civilization, and Karen asked me teach her how to play. Pretty soon after, she said, "Why have you never shown me this?"

That was a few years back, and we've been struggling through this addiction together, especially after they released the great Conquests expansion. Sure, it's a little challenging to play a one-player strategy game as a twosome, but every marriage has its battles. Ours are just against the Spanish and Germans.

So it's with excitement and a bit of fear that we look forward to Civilization IV coming out this fall/winter/whenever. It sounds like they've made some great improvements on the game, or at least not screwed anything up. But as we turn into responsible adults with management jobs and such, it's getting a bit harder to devote 12 hours of a day to a video game. But some sacrifices are worth making for the sake of your marriage, am I right?

If you haven't seen it yet, check out this teaser video for Civ IV. The old lady's line makes me laugh every time.

Mmm....berries

It's blackberry season out here in Northern California.

For those of you who haven't spent much time here, I should explain that blackberries are actually a weed. A highly flammable weed that's thorny and difficult to remove.

The nice thing is that when there actually are berries, you can find them EVERYWHERE. They're all over downtown Nevada City and pretty much anywhere else. Karen recently picked a batch of them from the dog park -- "You have to get the ones from the higher branches." That took me a minute to get. -- and she requested a cobbler be made to honor this rite of summer.

So if you've never gotten my top-secret family recipe for cobbler, here tis:

Fill a metal bowl (dog dish will work, but I usually just use a cast-iron pan) 2/3 of the way with fruit....can be anything. Peaches, blueberries, strawberries, it all works great.

Cook the fruit for 10 minutes. If the fruit is tart, throw a few tablespoons of sugar. You can also add some vanilla extract. If you're doing apple, add cinnamon.

In a separate bowl, mix 1 cup self-rising flour (I'll give a recipe for that below, in case you're not in the South), 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk. Whisk together and pour over the hot fruit. Don't be discouraged if the fruit is liquidy. That will work out great. If you're using a pan, you might want to pour the fruit into a ceramic dish and then pour the batter over. The other night, I made mini-cobblers in medium sized ramkins.

Dot the top with butter. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 to 60 minutes. Check occasionally near the end for a golden brown crust. The end product should be firm.

So give it a shot this summer and let me know how it goes. This recipe has never failed me.

Oh yeah, the footnote:

1 cup self-rising flour = 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 tsp. baking powder, 1/2 tsp. salt.