I went back to jiu-jitsu class last night, having not gone in over a week or so due to the business trip. I thought I would just get mangled. Well, the second guy up for me, my friend Diego, did pretty much toy with me. He was also helpful and gave me tips on some easily correctible errors I was making. The real cool part of the night though was my first partner, Dave. Now, Dave and I are about as evenly matched as I can find in the classes. This is not to say we are actually evenly matched, it’s just, there’s not that many new people right now. So we rolled first, and for the first time, I pretty much maintained control the entire time. By maintained control, I mean, I either had or was transitioning to the dominant position most the time. It felt great! I was doing so well, he managed to compliment me during practice even, while we were going. Hopefully tonight will be fun as well.

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Last night a few co-workers and I hopped over to the Pleasanton Regal theater to catch a flick. We saw “The Illusionist“, which fortunately, turned out to be pretty good. Good, but not great. I say “fortunately” because I managed to confuse the film with “The Prestige“, which though I’m sure vaguely similar in content, is in fact, an entirely different film. I realized this as, during the movie trailers, a promo for the real “Prestige” was shown. So for the next five minutes, I sat in flickering darkness, furiously scanning my brain to try and remember what movie we were indeed seeing. It wasn’t until Edward Nortan’s name came up in the opening credits that I figured it out. It’s a pretty funny experience sitting in the theater thinking “um, what movie am I about to see?”

And hopefully “The Prestige” will be better.

Just about to pull out of here to head for Pleasanton with William. I’m looking forward to seeing my grandmother for a brief time tomorrow, but worried about the lack of sleep we face this weekend. It will be nice to get out somewhere new though. If all goes according to plan I should be back Monday night!

I’m excited because I just discovered that one of my favorite bands, Calexico, released a live session EP on iTunes recently. Their music is awesome, I’d describe it as an eclectic blend of rock and spaghetti western music, with surf and southwest sounds slapped on top. Much of their collection is available on emusic. I recommend checking them out.

Well, it’s a half road trip, as it’s for business. I volunteered to go up next weekend with my co-worker William to Pleasanton, CA (it’s near SF) to help move our server room up there. It’s about an hour away from my grandmother’s place, which I haven’t had a chance to visit yet. So we’ll leave Thursday, check into the hotel that night, and I’ll probably visit family on Friday. Then we start the big move at about 11pm. I hope it doesn’t kill us dead tired! But, it should be fun, and I’ll get to meet people from the company I haven’t bumped into yet.

So earlier I’d mentioned that my goal was to get my BJJ blue belt in the next year. Well, that goal has unceremoniously come and gone. I haven’t had a belt since I’ve gone back to class, as I couldn’t find my old ones. Well yesterday morning, my teacher flung a blue belt my way: “Murphy, you need your belt”. I was like, uh, I was a blue belt ten years ago, but don’t feel like one now. Well, once one always one I guess. Now I’m the blue belt who gets beat on by the white belts. There’s only shame in it if I let it bug me, though.

So now my new goal is to actually roll like a blue belt!

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