The Holidays are upon us !!!

Well, I am just jotting down some thoughts on the holiday season and my inability to escape the commercialization of x-mas. As I watch the endless commercials, sit-coms and dramas playing into the holiday fever I just want to puke. And here come the news stories telling (again) how much retailers are hurting because people aren't spending enough.
Arrrgghhh..
People aren't spending enough because they don't have it to spend. Most people charge it.
Check out the fed stats here.
You will see there is currently about $788.9 Billion in revolving credit floating around out there. People are paying interest on it and the balance just keeps growing as we buy more stuff we can't afford.
That got me to look up the TOTAL current population of the US. - 295,025,845 !!!
Let's do some math. That's approximately $2,674 of revolving debt (credit cards) for every man, woman and child in the US right now. That includes babies who don't have any credit cards yet.
Also, I found out that the US gains 1 net life every 11 seconds. That means that even with the death rate factored in, we are growing by one person every 11 seconds. That does not include population growth through immigration.
Hmmm.
Well, I am all warm and cozy now. Time for bed.
Merry ...... yeah... just don't buy me anything. We have lot's of mouths to feed and interest to pay.

Cheers.

Wrestling as meditation

It's been over three months since I last attended any type of grappling workout. Since I had some free time today, I made it down to the R-1 and did some wrestling in the morning. After an awkward start (I never spent much time at grappling, and after three months since my previous go I was really busy in my head trying to remind myself of the environment) I started to loosen up and have fun. The guy I was working with was good and encouraged me all the way. It's great to have good training partners. It makes you leave feeling good no matter how you performed.
Anyway, things were going along fine for a while. I felt like things were getting smoother and I was moving better than at the beginning. But when we started going a bit harder, I found out just what kind of shape I was in; not great! Things were going along ok until I just started gassing out. Sometimes you hit that point where you know your going to pay a heavy price the next day and wonder "should I push it"? Well, I decided not to on two occasions. I figured I could take it to a certain point and stop (which I did) and I would not have the (I haven't done this for a while and I over did it) pain that we all get when jumping back in with both feet after a break. Well, I mis-calculated that stopping point. I was feeling great after the workout. You always do. But man, I am sore as heck tonight. Zoe and I had Yoga this evening and I thought I was going to fall asleep, until the pain woke me up. That's were part of the "wrestling as meditation" comes in. The wrestling induced a feeling of euphoria offset by pain that kept me in a constant state of detached awareness while doing yoga. A very interesting feeling I haven't had since spending the weekend at a Buddhist Monastery in Taiwan 12 years ago.. 4AM chanting in the hall with all the monks and students... I am also now working on detaching from the pain while being aware of the fact I am writing this blog entry.
It was a lot of fun today. I hope I survive work tomorrow.

Property Details - 2747 E 139th Place - Thornton

Anyone looking for a house in Denver, CO???
2747 E 139th Place - Thornton

Two more great foreign films.

I really liked a couple of foreign movies we saw recently.
Butterfly
And
Kolya
They both look at key moments in history. The nice thing is they look at the situation from the perspective of children's relationships with family and adult figures. Very interesting pieces.
D