From the desk of Mr. Walters

Though, I am a complete newbie at the art, I consider myself an aikidōka, or Aikido practitioner.  Every Tuesday, Thursday, & Saturday, barring illness or family emergency, I go to "our" dojo and subject myself to the teaching of the Sensei. I enter the dojo, and remove my shoes at the door.  After changing into my Gi, I make a standing bow to enter the mat.   A few minutes before class time my classmates and I warm up and formally seat ourselves ( seiza ) along the Shimoza in quiet meditation to rid our minds of the day's problems and prepare for study. As I sit, practicing deep abdominal breathing, and taking in the smells, sounds, and sights of the moment, My peripheral vision notes my my instructor as he makes his way onto the mat.  He seats himself facing the Kamiza , slapping back his hakama as he does so. We formally bow in, a process which ends with our saying "Onegai shimasu," Loosely translated "Please give me your instruction." Al...

My Quest This last October, Lanette and I had a discussion about my increasing lack of physical activity. I used to work out somewhat regularly at a local health club that shut down suddenly amid much controversy . Though I am not in the worst shape, walking into a gym or fitness club feels like giving a speech in my underwear to me. It doesn't matter whether anyone is looking at me or not, I feel like an impostor when I walk into a health club. The new place my wife works out just wasn't doing it for me, and I felt ever more awkward when I went there. In the midst of our discussion, a light went on in my head. I've dreamed for most of my adult life of taking a Japanese martial art, at least one on this incredibly broad and inclusive list ( note: broad and inclusive used sarcastically here) . Kenjitsu Iaido Kendo You see the unifying theme here? Basically, I wanted to "play Samurai", and this workout deal was my "in". I shared this list with L...

A little background.. . More often than not, over the last year, when I go online looking for a book, I seem to perpetually find myself facing no options to buy it new from the company I went to in the first place.  Typically, I'm using Amazon, and I get the message that I can buy it from some third-party seller, who may or may not be reputable.  I've assumed, perhaps erroniously, that it's just because I'm looking for old books that weren't that popular. A recent experience Recently, I finished the last book in the Tales of the Otori, and I decided I want to read the prequel, "Heaven's Net is Wide", which came out in September of '08.  That's las Fall, kids.  Anyway, once again, the standard buying option is not available! http://tinyurl.com/ykwrtyu While looking at this, somewhat in disbelief because i know this to be a popular series, I did note that the Kindle version was available.  Further investigation revealed many other titles I'v...

Good examples of great design that have me stoked this week. In the constant effort to improve my own work and provide great examples for students, I find myself often on the look out for good design examples.  I’ll be giving a shout-out to everything from my church’s new web site to the new Themes and Styles available in MS Word of all places. LWCC York's new FAQ page http://www.lwccyork.com/pages/page.asp?page_id=70814 The sheer brilliance here comes from the amazing use of awkward silence.  Just click on the page and enjoy for 2 or 3 minutes.  This isn't simply a brilliant concept rendered with great design and amazing flash coding, it's also a great example of fabulous video editing. Wow, that's a lot of positive adjectives... I hope I have some left for the rest.

Drawing a connection between faux pas in fashion and in print design to help kids “Get it” when it comes to their documents. Microsoft Office for once is not promoting terrible design.  The core applications in suite now contain new Themes and Styles that make it easier to use really sound design techniques.  Unfortunately, the majority of twelve-year-olds do not see the value of this and would rather make their documents look like a gypsy’s nightmare.  Fortunately, many of our middle school students do have an obsessive concern for fashion, and this has been the key to unlock design greatness.

In a post totally unrelated to any mentioned in my Monday mash-up, I must declare: Cheers for Mr. John Pontolillo , 20, of Wall, N.J!!!  Jeers for the Baltimore city police for detaining him. Back Story So my local news just carried the first paragraph: A Johns Hopkins University student armed with a samurai sword killed a man who broke into the garage of his off-campus residence early Tuesday, along with a comment that police were still investigating the student.  I decided to give this the benefit of the doubt, but then I read the above article.  Mr. Rice, the suspect / victim apparently has quite a record including many recent incidents where our criminal justice system failed to get him locked up. Reaction All I could think of when I read this story was character, Burt Gummer' s line from Tremors . ...Broke into the wrong [darn] rec room, didn't ya?... Again, bravo John Pontolillo!!

Wow... so I haven't posted for awhile, and I'm beginning attribute this to my lack of inspiration for one singular coherent topic to write about.  Of course, I also have so many topics I'd like to talk about that the task of covering them all seems monumental. Additionally, I'm a bit unmotivated by the readership stats I've seen since moving here from Edublogs .  My blog at Edublogs had 100's of hits per day from all over the world.  I moved to Wordpress essentially because Edublogs took on ridiculously un-blog-like advertising practices to try to cover costs.  I feel that I am no longer accessible by the education community, but at least all the links in my posts are MY links and not some advertiser's links. Today's "Miscellaneous Monday Mash-up" is really an attempt to run through a quick list of those things on my mind for this coming week, and whether or not any or all of these topics become full-grown posts depends largely upon my week. To...