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Item the number one: Yesterday we made stir fry of tempeh, cabbage, onions, and red peppers—although it’s probably not technically a stir fry because we made it outdoors on the grill (using a “grill wok“). It was laughably easy, and delicious. Fire good.

Item the next one: After spending two weeks dead, my sound card has mysteriously resurrected itself! *cue spooky music* Maybe it was the thunderstorm, although that seems more like a convenient sitcom plot twist than an explanation. Whatever the cause, I’m grateful to have music at my desk again.

Item the other one: I will definitely be going to the free outdoor TMBG show in Baltimore this Saturday. We’ll just see about this new drummer fellow. I hope the weather holds.

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Oof, my right side is pocked with little bruises from fencing last night. Good fun though. I took my usual group lesson in foil, and stayed for a group lesson in epee, which is completely new to me. It’s really different, even though the basic skills transfer easily.

Here’s a little background for those new to the subject. What it only hints at is that while a foil bends easily, absorbing a lot of the force of the attack, the sturdier epee blade can actually hurt when it hits you. But the differences in the rules are what make it interesting.

I found the additional target area was beneficial to me last night; I was scoring a lot of touches on the arm. I also think epee will suit my somewhat defensive general approach pretty well. I’m not really committed to it yet, in terms of buying my own epee and eventually competing in it. I figure I’ll wait until I have some more experience with it. If it’s always this much fun, though, I’ll definitely be doing a lot more of it.

Either way, I’ll definitely keep doing foil. I think being good at foil will make me better at epee, while the reverse is less true.

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Yesterday I finished Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. This is a truly great story, completely enthralling once it gets going, and very well told. Read it, you’ll thank me.

Not that I’ve ever seriously entertained the thought of being a novelist myself, but work this good vaporizes any fledgeling aspirations that might have been rattling around the back of my warehouse of half-baked daydreams. And yet, in other ways, the book inspires me. Go figure.

Let’s not spoil it for you. Don’t finish this post unless you’ve read the book already. Then I’d love to discuss it with you.

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Whee, I cleaned the gutters today. Actually, it’s not so bad, the time passed pretty quickly. It’s making me sneeze like crazy, though. The last time I did this, it had rained pretty recently so I was pulling out thick wet muck rather than crumbly dried leaves. I’m not sure which is easier to deal with.

Update on the ginger ale offer: This stuff is harder to find than I realized, even down here. I ended up ordering a case directly from the bottlers. It’s here now, and I hope to do the mailings in the next few days.

My computer problems persist, but I think I’ve found a solution that strikes the right balance between cost, risk, and inconvenience. I’m getting an external drive casing to put the drives in, then I’ll access them from a working computer. This way I should be able to get at my files and back them up, but I don’t risk messing up my working computer in the process.

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Apparently, I won a portable gazebo today.

I don’t have all the details yet, but man, there’s a sentence I never expected to hear myself say.