After the bouldering competition on Saturday, Sander, Viv, Darce, Shaun, and I returned to the House of Rock for some cookery under Viv’s direction. The menu included deilciously seasoned steak, mouthwatering potatoes, and kale chips.

Kale chips.

While I foolishly didn’t take any pictures, you can be certain that I will be making kale chips in the future. It was very simple: Kale, oil, salt, pepper, and an oven. They were like crunchy chips from heaven.

To counteract the health, Viv brought some of her famous dark chocolate cookies which we baked on my new cookie tray and silpat (courtesy of Tree D).

COOKIES

These cookies. These cookies are high class.

After dinner we sat around and talked for awhile and eventually moseyed upstairs to bring the epic day to a close with equally as epic rock band.

Extreme.

Personal favorites of the night included B.Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer, The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s I’ve got a date with the Night, and Darcy and my epic rendition of American Woman with Shaun on lead guitar and Viv rockin the bass.

Great events, great food, great rock. There is no better weekend.

The Bouldering Competition video has gone through!

I must say, I did a poor job with the file management and the movie ended up losing quality through compression. I’m going to have to figure out a new system of editing and saving movies so that they retain their super-crisp feel. All that aside, here’s the winner of the 2010 men’s bouldering competition at Prime Climb.

Bouldering Competition from mikedidonato on Vimeo.

I’m having a little trouble with Vimeo this morning, so I’m not sure if the Bouldering Competition video that I hinted at yesterday will appear today (or this week for that matter).

In the meantime, here are some quick tips for those of you who utilize Google Reader. If you have a wealth of unopened content, you can use keyboard shortcuts to improve the efficiency of your reading.

These are the ones I use most

j and k – will open the previous and next item in your list
v – will open up the original document. This is great if you read something awesome on
      mikedidonato.com and want to comment
g then u – will give you a text based quick search feature if you want to jump to a specific blog

These are my back ups

o – will open and close a particular post
n – will select the next post
p – will select the previous post

For those of you who aren’t using an RSS (really simple syndication) program like Google Reader, I strongly recommend it. RSS allows for more content to be read in a shorter amount of time. And when it comes down to it, internet random fact know-how is basically more important than college educations.

To subscribe to this blog with RSS, go here.

On Saturday, Sander, Shaun, Vivienne, Darcy, and I went to Prime Climb’s bouldering competition to watch the climbers in all their glory. It was a perfect way to get pumped about rock climbing. We arrived just in time for the finals. The finals consisted of three bouldering problems which each of three competitors would attempt to vanquish.

The ladies were up first.

Karen competing in the Women's final

Each competitor was given five minutes to take on each problem. Each time you fell, it would be noted on the scorecard. Whoever gets the furthest in the climb wins, if two people reach the same point than he or she who did it with fewer falls wins.

Jackie working through problem three.

The challengers are not allowed to watch each other climb. That way they won’t learn anything important about the route before their turn.

Christine, just a few moves from the top

I recognized two of the three women competing. The same was not the case with the men climbers. While one of the men in the finals is a student at local college Wesleyan, I believe the other two are sponsored climbers from out of state.

Men's final: Problem number two.

The top men climbers were ripped to an unholy degree. Their backs were extremely defined.

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang

I’m currently putting together a video (hopefully to be posted tomorrow) that shows the true ridiculousness of the third male climber (first place winner) cleaning the final route in the competition.

Stay tuned.

On Friday night Connecticut’s daughters of the derby revolution came together at the CT Sports Center to face up against their first international opponent: Montreal’s New Skids on the Block. Unlike their most recent bouts, which have focused on CT’s secondary team the Yankee Brutals, this match-up would require the furious skating skills of CT’s elite: The Stepford Sabotage. With their matching pink and green uniforms, the Connecticut girls presented themselves as a force to be reckoned with.

The Stepford Sabotage!

Let’s take at look at the line up for the home team

      Luciana Pulverotti 110R (Captain)
      Eleanor Bruisevelt 33 (Assitant Captain)
      Black Cherry C-4
      Chelsea Grin 777
      C. Mya Rage 86′d
      Doomcake 13
      Ether Bunny 2KO
      Girl Fawkes 5NOV
      Milla Lowlife 40oz.
      Miz ConsepJen 7
      Murphy’s OUTLAW 15
      Parker Poison 3
      Pearl Jammer GO
      Pepper Grind-Her 10
      Revengela 1-2-3-4
      Violet Riot 911

Montreal’s The New Skids on the Block, dressed in black, had driven for 8 hours for a weekend of derby. Their match with CT was the first of three, the second on Saturday against Washington DC, the last against New York’s Suburbia.

      Cheese Grater 289
      No Holds Bard 2X4
      Lyn-dah Kicks 75
      Beater Pan-Tease 1976
      Trash N’ Smash 118
      Romeo 222
      Wrath Poutine 30
      Georgia W. Tush 40
      Lady J 88
      Rae Volver 39
      Smack Daddy 3X
      Bone Machine 1111
      Izzy Skellington 182
      Jess Bandit 8
      Iron Wench 516
      Lil Mama 12
      Ewan Wotarmy 7734
      Beals on Wheels 89
      Karla Shnikov AK47
      Nameless Whorror 202

Standing Room Only

After introductions, the girls skated up to their starting positions. The first jam saw Chelsea Grin facing Iron Wench at the jammer line. The girls stood posed for speed, but at the first whistle the pace proceeded at an unusually slow clip. It appeared that Montreal was purposefully limiting the speed of the pack to give their fastest jammer the greatest opportunity to pull points.

The unexpected strategy seemed to catch the girls in green off guard. Iron Wench quickly sped through the pack getting lead jammer status and circled through the pack twice scoring nine points for her team before Chelsea could recover from an early hit by Canadian Nameless Whorror.

Eleanor Bruisevelt faced Ewan Wotarmy next and pulled in eight points for the Sabotage after Ewan found herself sent to the penalty box for cutting the track.

Eleanor is declared lead jammer

Stepford’s momentum was a bit erratic at the start. In part, their drive seemed to falter each time Iron Wench had the star on her helmet. Iron Wench followed her nine point first jam with fifteen points in her second and thirteen more in her fourth. Black Cherry and Pearl each stole lead jamming status from Iron Wench once during the first half (Pearl off a beautiful whip by Miz ConsepJen,) but Iron Wench still pulled in 49 points in the first half. Forty Nine Points!

Jammer Iron Wench dodging Pepper's powerful block

At half time the score was 78 to 40 with the New Skids on the Block in the lead. The girls from Montreal were proficiently keeping our jammers away from the lead jammer position. In the first half, the New Skids were awarded lead jamming status for 11 jams compared to just 8 for the Stepford.

The crowd had not given up on the hometown girls as they returned for the second half to fight back against the visitors. Eleanor brought some life to Connecticut after she returned from a penalty with a vengeance to outskate Ewan Wotarmy 14 to 10 in the fourth jam.

Eleanor Bruisevelt celebrates her successful jam!

Next up, Milla LowLife maintained Stepford’s momentum against Georgia W. Tush. She sprinted off the starting line holding hard along the inside of the track. Her speed let her sneak through the pack to quickly secure lead jamming status. She followed with two more laps, scoring eight unopposed points for Stepford.

The New Skids on the Block, however, were not to be outperformed. Iron Wench and Ewan Wotarmy followed with seven and six point jams respectively. The Connecticut blockers did their best to limit the damage, but the points continued to accumulate for Montreal.

The packs were playing especially hard in this bout. Collectively between the two teams, this bout saw 69 trips to the penalty box. All of the girls were taking a serious beating on the track. Their ability to keep skating hard after such jarring blows stands as testimony to their hard training.

Black Cherry on a crash course with Smack Daddy

As the final jam came to a close, the score showed the visitors ahead 151 to 93. This was a brutal bout that showcased the passion these women have for their sport.

Statistics!!

      Lead Scorers:
       The New Skids on the Block
            Iron Wench 77pts (9 leads in 13 jams)
            Ewan Wotarmy 32pts (5 leads in 7 jams)
            Georgia W. Tush 19pts (5 leads in 9 jams)

       The Stepford Sabotage
             Milla LowLife 39pts (5 leads in 9 jams)
             Eleanor Bruisevelt 34pts (2 lead in 9 jams)
             Black Cherry 13pts (3 lead in 5 jams)

      Penalty Queens:
       The New Skids on the Block
             Ewan Wotarmy: 6 Trips
       The Stepford Sabotage
             Chelsea Grin: 6 Trips

      MVPs!
            Iron Wench
            Luciana Pulverotti

Luciana and Iron Wench pose with their MVP metals

Special thanks to all those who help make these bouts a truly entertaining experience. Special kudos to the organizers, the refs, and the CT Roller Derby sponsors. If you’d like to learn more about roller derby I encourage you to visit the CTRG website located here.

Ring ring!

Mike D: “Hello, this is Mike D.”
Caller: “Hi, did you loose a sword?”
Mike D: “uh… geeze… Maybe? Where’d you find it?”
Caller: “I found it on Newfield St. in Middletown. It had your name and phone number on it”
Mike D: “oh no! I must have left it on my car’s roof after my martial arts class last night.”
Caller: “well, I think a car or two may have driven over it, but I have it now.”

Ugh so stupid of me! How Ninja-ly embarrassing!

Special thanks to Lenny from Middletown for finding my sword.

Nothing tastes as delicious as insomnia!

A delicious side-effect

Though honestly, last night doesn’t qualify as insomnia, just unexpected awakedness. At first, I love mornings like this one when I wake up 40 minutes early feeling fully refreshed regardless of what time my head first hit the pillow (in this instance, after midnight). While such circumstances often result in breakfasts of pancakes and bacon they are not preferred. My early morning case of alertness tends to last only a few hours, after which it quickly degrades into a wheelbarrow of hurt.

Well, not today friends. Today I will fight the languor of the afternoon. I will fight it with Kool-Aid.
40oz of delicious Tropical Punch Kool-Aid

I will prevail.

Fun fact: This is MikeDiDonato.com’s 4000th post.

During my recent visit to Tom and Mykal’s, I was reminded by Mykal’s beautiful new camera that even after months of deep consideration I still lacked a high quality digital camera. As Mykal noted in yesterday’s comments, I have finally procured said toy.

The quality of this shot suffered in part because it was taken through a complex array of mirrors.

I started the purchasing process by combing through internet forums and talking to camera enthusiasts. Once I settled into my decision, it was simply deciding to whom I should give my dollars. Originally, my plan was to purchase used from FredMiranda.com – but after days of frustrated refreshing and a seller cancellation, I abandoned the lure of tax-free shopping and visited a camera store so I could leave with something in my hands.

My final choice was a Canon Rebel T2i. The Rebel does a great job of providing photography options for typical (read: clueless) users like myself. It has both gentle idiot-proof auto settings and thorny manual modes. The T2i is noteworthy too in that it adds 1080p video to its ensemble.

As we wrestle with the uncomfortable newness of the new MikeDiDonato.com layout, take solace in the fact that the quality of my multimedia is on the rise.

Darcy’s deep within her pursuit of a medical degree, switching in and out of exhausting rotations. Yet on Saturday night she had a break in the madness so we got together to share some dinner and good times.

Darcy, having recently started receiving Cooking Light (the magazine), made an elaborate lamb sauce pasta dish with a salad side. Take a moment to appreciate the glory:

That’s ricotta cheese and mint garnish atop a heap of mouthwatering deliciousness. This hearty dinner replaced every bit of wanting hunger with satisfaction. Well done Darce!

We followed our meal with the movie Helvetica, a documentary exploring the origin and influence of the font Helvetica. This is pretty much the movie of choice for typography enthusiasts. For me, the movie very strongly presented the question: should a font act as a transparent messenger for the words it portrays, or should a font add emotion, color, and significance to the content?

Thanks to Darcy for a wonderful time.

So the previous website layout that we all know and love met its untimely doom in the midst of my wordpress updates. It’s been a few years since I changed the layout around here so I’ll be trying various layout this week and hopefully we’ll find one that can be easily navigated and feels comfortable on the eyes.

I’d love to hear your comments, so if you see a layout that you really like send me an e-mail. You’ll have to e-mail me because at least at this point… comments aren’t working.

UPDATE: Comments appear to be working.

Sigh.

We’ll get there. Thanks for your patience.

Whoa we’ve gone through a few changes here at MikeDiDonato.com. Namely, some very much needed Wordpress updates.

The good news: Great new technologies are on their way!

The bad news: GAH! the website is a disaster! comments don’t work, categories are temperamental, and database errors are aplenty.

Hang tight! we’ll get this baby running smoothly soon enough. Also, this website theme with the dark colors and odd contrast is temporary until I can get things running smoothly again.

Is anyone reading this in Hartford, CT right now?

Please e-mail me promptly if you’re willing to help me out!

mikedidonato AT gmail D0T com

Problem resolved! Thanks to those who offered their help.

Last night I made a most epic Broccoli dish. The recipe was taken from the highly revered everyday food magazine. I can’t speak highly enough about the quality of the recipes within this publication. For those of you who appreciate foodstuffs, I recommend giving Everyday Food a try.

So! Let’s talk broccoli.

When I make broccoli it usually comes out pretty blah. I usually make it for its healthy qualities and it’s certainly never the highlight of the meal. Last night’s broccoli, however, put all other broccoli to shame. Here’s what I did:

Preheat oven to 450

Two med heads of broccoli
Two Tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
5 garlic cloves, left whole and uncrushed
Coarse salt and pepper

Toss it all together onto a rimmed baking tray, bake for 20 minutes tossing once in the meantime

Results: Garlic Spicy Roasted Broccoli.

Try it and let me know if you agree!

Beautiful sculptures made from junk.

Pete Wilk had a really great comment about the rock-less nature of the solo that I posted yesterday.

“Sounds cool and mellow to me, but WHERE’S THE ROCK!”

It’s true. That solo was decidedly not rock.

Why focus on jazz? The plan here is for me to develop a mastery of the finer nuances of music theory and then crank the distortion and melt the faces of the world population.

At a recent Jazz show my roommate Kevin said it best regarding percussion styles, though the same holds true for guitar (paraphrased):

“I think the differences between rock and jazz drumming are similar to the differences between algebra and calculus.”

Once I get my jazz integral on, you can bet your natural exponent that I will determinant the crap out of your rocktangular matrix.

Patrick here. You may remember back in 2008, I counted medals a bit differently. (initial post, final tally). We’re about 75% of the way through Vancouver, so let’s see where we stand with the population and GDP metrics.

Medals per Population
1) Norway (1 per 286K)
2) Austria (1 per 837K)
3) Switzerland (1 per 972K)
–
11) Canada (1 per 3.1M)
21) USA (1 per 11.8M)

Medals per GDP
1) Latvia (1 per $12.1B)
2) Estonia (1 per $18.1B)
3) Norway (1 per $21.7B)
–
16) Canada (1 per $120B)
23) USA (1 per $549B)

Naps, wherever possible, whenever possible.

I’ve uploaded my latest recording of a solo that I wrote over the standard Rhythm Changes chord progression. While it may not sound like much to non-guitarists, there are a couple really cool things going on in this solo that I’m quite proud of. Most specifically, there are a handful of spots in the solo where I play over altered dominant chords (sharping or flatting the 5th or 9th of a chord).

The complexity of these altered dominant chords carries over into the soloing, providing much more opportunity for freedom and depth. I’m still working on which notes are considered acceptable and which unacceptable, so it’s even more of a challenge to have it all come together into something graceful.

Feel free to listen and let me know what you think.

rhythm-changes.mp3

Oh Sunday, I decided to spend some time in the kitchen. I recently received the latest edition of my Everyday Foods subscription and inside it had a recipe for a very hearty looking Beef Bourguignon. After my black belt pre-test on Saturday, I thought I might need some extra protein, so this seemed like an appropriate choice.

This recipe called for a dutch oven (or cocotte), so I went ahead and picked one up at Target. Mine is a 6 QT Lodge cast iron enamel coated beauty.

I love red.

The dish itself was heavy. It had mushrooms, carrots, 3 lbs beef, bacon, garlic, onions, tomato paste, flour, wine, and chicken broth. It cooked for nearly 3 hours and came out epic. (Similar recipe here)

Served with a side of mashed potatoes, it was the perfect meal for a Sunday feast.

I strongly recommend the recipe, the magazine, and the pot.

Recently my company switched to the CAD software Solid Works. In general, I enjoy using this software a bit more than our previous antiquated version of Solid Edge. But today I came across one of the most confusing error messages I’ve ever seen.

I was happily dimensioning a part within a model when I mistakenly over-constrained the model. For the non-mechanical amongst us, that means that I measured the same thing twice. This tends to confuse modeling programs because they don’t know which of my two dimensions is more important. If I change one of the two, which should it follow?

To fix this problem, the primary dimension is defined as the driven dimension. Once you set the driven dimension, the software knows which dimension gets the priority and acts accordingly.

But today, when I mistakenly placed an extra dimension, The software came back with this:

Should I “Make this dimension driven” or do I “Leave this dimension driving”?

Huh? These are all the same things.

This makes no sense.

Ryan Schenk got a new standing mixer. It’s a dramatic step above your standard Kitchen Aid 5Quart Mixer.

Feast your eyes on this monster.

Saturday afternoon I showed up to my Kung Fu academy about a half hour before my test was scheduled to start. Nervously pacing the hallways as the preceding class came to its conclusion, I stretched lightly with soft kicks and long arm techniques.

Heart racing, I walked into the classroom just after 2pm while the instructors busily rearranged the room, pulling the mats out of the way and arranging themselves behind an observing table. Clipboards, pencils, and formal attire helped establish a thick air of intimidation.

We began abruptly.

I worked the 10 performance forms first taking a short break in the middle for kicking sequences. After each activity, the table would pause, quietly conferring with one another, taking detailed notes on areas where I should focus my efforts before the final black-belt test. Mostly, I was proud of my performance with my forms. I screwed up a few parts here and there, and I’m certain that I have plenty of things to improve – but I didn’t freeze up and didn’t forget any major component. My speed and power felt appropriate. I even got a few nods of approval after my final sword form.

After the forms, we pulled the mats back out and I started in on my self-defenses. I feel very confident with my self-defenses so I approached them rigorously with targeted forceful attacks. As one instructor noted, I could have defended in a more direct, less artistic manner, as self-defense is far more results oriented than typical form work, but I’m still proud.

Then came the conditioning. I didn’t have too much difficulty with the 50 panther push-ups. My wrist rolled at one point (gah!), but I pulled it back in and kept going. The ab work went smoothly as expected. But that horse stance. Oh that dreaded horse stance! For the test, I was required to do 150 seconds of horse stance. Admittedly, during my regular practice I’ve never really been able to get over a minute and fifteen seconds. But this time was different. This time I had my instructors watching me intently.

I began strongly. I was in the game. I was mentally prepared.

Nay.

There was no amount of mental preparation that could have made me ready for the pain. I kept my form in check for a minute and a half. Then I began to falter. At two minutes the staff which rested across my quads rolled off. But I stayed down as low in my stance as I could, my quads burning with remarkable discomfort. Think Gom Jabbar, except for legs.

As the clock ticked off those final seconds I crumbled a bit, legs screaming for mercy.

The first thing my head instructor said:

“You were in pain, clearly trying as hard as you could. That’s what we’re looking for.”

The second thing my head instructor said:

“Can you walk?”

After a little recoup time, I got back up and continued with my test breaking some trial boards and passing my oral test. For the final test, I’m going to have to keep training hard so that I can outperform my pre-test and hopefully make that horse stance less crippling.

I’m very pleased this first step is complete.

Enjoy the design of this classy Minimalist Sauna House.

Right now it’s a few hours before my black belt pre-test. The worst part about today is the fact that the test is at 2:00pm. It’s a long wait this morning. I had some cracked rice and some eggs for breakfast and will be eating a small tuna sandwich around 11:30. I think that’ll put me in the right place from a nutrition standpoint.

The biggest challenges for me today will be the conditioning and the stress of performing in front of the kung fu big wigs. Because my pre-test needed to be rescheduled because of my China trip, I’ll be taking this test alone. And anytime I have a lot of watchful eyes focused on me I’m prone to error.

I’ll report back post-test.