So I went to the doctor today. I had a rash in the mustache area on my face that was sometimes bright red enough to actually show through the mustache. I thought it was just dermatitis since I am prone to that but my usual treatments (hydrocortisone cream) weren’t helping and I figured they might have something stronger to deal with it.
Turns out that it was a staph infection. According to my doctor “we’re seeing a lot of that from all the mask wearing–creating a warm, moist environment for bacteria to grow.”
I predicted this kind of thing a year and a half ago. What I did not expect was to be an example case. In any case, I’ve got a course of antibiotics to deal with the infection and we’ll proceed from there.
Two lessons:
Masks suck. Wearing masks did not stop me from getting COVID last December, and wearing masks led to a staph infection this December.
Even if you think you know what that odd rash is, it might still be a good idea to get it checked by a doctor. If I hadn’t I would never have known and the infection might well have spread.
The first exposure that I really had to ice skating, figure skating, was watching Dorothy Hamill at the 1976 Olympics. I was 15 at the time.
Incidentally, Ms. Hamill was the last women’s figure skater to win the Olympics without a triple jump.
I may have seen figure skating before that, but it made no impression on me and I don’t really remember. So this was what first put figure skating “on my radar” so to speak.
Along about that time, I saw some other kids skating on a frozen stream and somewhere along the line I saw a bit from a movie about Hans Brinker where the main character mentioned making skates from wood but he couldn’t skate for long on them because the wood absorbed water and swelled. One of the plot points was that he needed good skates to enter the race and, hopefully, win the silver skates. To be honest, I tried to make wooden skates but, well, it didn’t work.
And that was it for a while.
A few years later, I saw the movie “Ice Castles” (original 1978 version staring Robby Benson, Tom Skerrit, and Lynn-Holly Johnson).
Do I need a spoiler warning on a 43 year old movie? 😉
I didn’t see it in the theaters when it came out but rather a couple of years later While Hamill introduced me to the idea of figure skating as something to watch other people doing, and while the short bit of Hans Brinker got me curious enough to try (and fail) that “wooden skates” thing, it was this movie that really lit a fire in me to learn to skate. I saved up money from my summer job and scraped bought a pair of skates from Montomery Ward (then still a going concern). The skates, to be honest, were junk. The blades were neither screwed nor rivited to the sole but molded into it (how they were fastened internally, I have no idea). Not much I could do with them until I made a trip out to a friend who lived in Phoenix Arizona. One of the malls in the area had an indoor rink and it was there that I first went to skate.
I had no formal instruction, just messing around on the ice and using descriptions from books and…well, I got to where I could do basic forward stroking, something that sort of looked like a forward crossover, and a not-bad T-stop. Couldn’t skate backward at all and my one-foot work was abysmal. Still, it was something.
For a while I tried to relocate to Phoenix. I had just turned 18 and, legally an adult, I enrolled in school locally and went looking for work, making a little bit of pocket money by mowing lawns. And, whenever possible, I went to the rink and skated. Badly, perhaps, but with great enthusiasm.
And those skates I’d bought? Within two sessions on the ice I had to discard them. One of the blades came loose and would wobble, making the skate impossible to control. And with the blade molded in, there was no way to tighten fasteners so…cheap junk was cheap and junk and ended up being a complete waste of money. (A lesson for any would-be skaters out there.)
In the end the relocation to Phoenix failed. I ended up returning to Ohio. The community I was in had no real rink. In the winter, when it was cold enough, they’d flood one of the outdoor basketball courts and let it freeze so people could skate on it. If that sounds horrible, it’s because it was. But, it was all I had and I did the best I could. Somebody gave me a pair of skates. The boots were worn out. The blades were dull (and there was nowhere to get them properly sharpened–I tried with a round file in the hollow but…I don’t think it really helped). Again, all I had and I did the best I could.
I think I only even gave that a serious try for maybe one winter before graduating from school and well, before another winter rolled around I enlisted in the Air Force.
While I was in the Air Force, I was assigned to a base in England for two years. While I was there, I discovered Queen’s Ice Club. And they had a pro shop with skates for sale. So I got my own skates. To be honest, they were probably no better than entry level skates but, well, they were the best skates I’d ever skated on. Between work and other interests I probably only had about a half dozen opportunities to skate at Queens, but I made the most of them. Again, all I really did was the most basic of forward skating, but I had fun at it. And, once again, no formal instruction.
When I turned 23, I was reassigned away from England back to the US. I never really found an ice rink at the new place. There may have been one but it never appeared on my “radar”. So, I set the skates aside and that was it for a long time.
In the interim I went back to college, got married, got a job, and moved to my current city and state. And I had largely forgotten figure skating. I don’t even know what happened to the skates I’d bought from Queen’s Ice Club. I know I had them when we moved here, but, somewhere along the line they disappeared. I think maybe my ex, my then wife, donated them to Goodwill or something. In any case, they’re gone.
Time continued to pass and my daughter took up ballet. Then, not long after the divorce (I have custody) she asked about starting figure skating. I was amenable even though money was tight and told her we’d try a few public skate sessions just to see if she was really into it before getting her into lessons.
And so, for the first time in something like 35 years I got back on the ice and…
Odin’s One Eye, skating is not like riding a bike. I couldn’t skate at all. However little what I’d accomplished before had been it was all gone. I was starting completely from scratch.
And it was a lot harder to re-learn than it had been to learn in the first place. For one thing, older bodies don’t bounce like 18 year old bodies do. Falls hurt a lot more. It’s easier to get injured. And injuries take longer to heal. Still, I persevered and got my daughter into classes. Soon, however, her figure skating classes started conflicting with ballet. There was another rink, however, a bit farther away but not completely out of reach, which had classes on another day and that one also had adult classes.
And so my daughter and I started taking classes right next to each other: her at 14, me at 58. I’ve continued since then, working my way up through the adult classes from Adult 1, where I started to Adult 6 where I am now, poised to move on to the actual “figure skating” classes which start with Pre-Free Skate.
And that’s the story of my journey into figure skating, a journey that from one perspective is decades long, and from another that has barely begun.
Some things I’ve noticed switching from my old skates to the new ones. The old skates were Riedell Motions with their Eclipse Cosmos blade (the slight “upgrade” available buying the boot and blade set). The new ones are Jackson Premier Fusion with Coronation Ace blades. (Links are approximate to show basically what I have and may not match details like size or color for what I have. These are Amazon affiliate links and I receive a small payment for purchase you make if you go to Amazon via one of those links.
First thing I’ve noticed is that, while I had foot pain issues (with my arches, I always have foot pain issues), they weren’t anywhere near as bad as the Riedell’s were when I first bought them. Second thing, is that the laces are actually long enough. I simply could not completely lace up my old skates with the laces that came with them, or even the next size up (120″). At first, I tried skipping a couple of holes to save a bit of pace and maybe relieve some of the foot pain but…that led to some deformity of the boot and probably contributed to their breaking down after only two years. For a while I tied to 75″ laces together to create something a bit more than 140″ (after accounting for what was used in the knot). Later, I found 140″ laces that, while not figure skate laces, served until I replaced the boots.
On the ice, there was definitely a learning curve. It took me a couple days (maybe two hours total ice time–half an hour the first time, a but under an hour and a half the second) before I got really confident with my forward skating and before I was ready to even try any other elements besides forward stroking and forward crossovers.
Backward has been a bit of a mixed bag. Backward pumps on a circle and backward crossovers (the latter tried for the first time today) seemed much easier and smoother than with my old skates. Backward edges, however, were a different matter. I couldn’t go more than two or three feet before having to set down the free foot.
I started working on backward one foot glides and, yeah, that was proving much more challenging than it had been but I started getting it. Along the way, I tried my forward three turns. Outside three turn was very nice, including the brief back inside edge coming out of it. The inside three turn has proven a bit more challenging but it was an element I was working to get consistent before the switch so I’m not surprised.
I haven’t tried either of my hops (side toe and bunny) and wonder what effect the larger drag pick and king pick on the Coronation Ace as compared to the Eclipse Cosmos will have. I might want to wear my headgear when I reintroduce the hops…just in case. I haven’t tried my spins either. So…that will be interesting.
So far there’s been a learning curve, but not as bad as I feared. The boots are getting more comfy as they break in. One “trick” I had to figure out is that when various instructionals say “tighten the skates on the ice every 20 minutes or so as the leather softens and conforms to your foot” the mean loosen and tighten as normal not crank them down tighter from where they are.
What really puzzles me though is why my backward pumps on a circle and back crossovers came so easily after the switch but the back one foot glides and back edges have presented such a challenge.
Sometime back in the late 70’s or early 80’s dying hair in “unnatural” colors came into vogue in certain segments of the population. It may have started with the counterculture, punk rock groups (at least that’s where I became aware of it) but spread out a bit from there. It reached a point where, while people might still make assumptions (because people always make assumptions), you couldn’t really say that someone with hair dyed blue, green, purple, or scarlet was part of such a group. It was gaining a small following in the wider community.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, while I was in the Air Force, I met a young woman with purple-dyed hair. On reflection, I think it was more of a purple tint since she didn’t bleach her darker underlying hair. On hearing that my co-worker’s sister (I think it was) had purple hair, my initial reaction was “I could never be interested in someone with purple hair” (quite prejudicial of me, but, well, I was young and stupid so what can I say?). However, when my co-worker had a bunch of us over to his house, she proved to be a perfectly nice young lady. And, so, that was my first introduction to the idea that people experimenting with unconventional styles, including hair colors, does not necessarily mean what many other people would have me believe it meant.
In a similar vein, there was an issue of World’s Finest comics (a series that featured team-ups between Superman and Batman). In the particular issue, they were looking for a missing heiress in order to tell her that she’d just inherited a fortune (if I remember correctly). At one point, and this sticks out vividly in my mind, Superman sees a picture of the missing heiress:
Superman: “She has green hair. Isn’t that some rebellion thing?”
Batman: “Used to be. Now it’s just fashion.”
And that’s exactly where we were headed. We were getting there. I was inspired to dye my own hair by a friend on the Book of Faces who died hers in bright colors which she changed up every so often. A writer of my very distant acquaintance had a “significant other” (they have since married) who also went with bright colored hair.
So I took to dying my hair black with a purple streak and found I liked it. It suits me in ways that my mousy brown (mostly gray now) hair never really did.
Only in recent years another group has taken up the mantle of bright hair coloration. It’s become something of a badge among the perpetually offended, the people who mark status by how many “victim points” they can accumulate allowing them to blame others (with heterosexual white men being the top of the “offender” pyramid) for why their lives aren’t perfect.
So, once again, instead of being a small but rather ordinary fashion trend it has once again become something about which people make assumptions. And those assumptions are nearly diametrically opposed to, well, me.
And that’s annoying.
I suppose I could lose the purple streak. But, dammit, that would be surrender and I’ll be damned first.
So I’m going to continue to wear my purple streak (occasionally switching it for other colors–bright red or blue, for instance). And I’m going to continue to not be part of that group that’s largely taken over the fashion.
If you’re an Atheist or Agnostic who doesn’t like “Merry Christmas.” If you’re a Christian who doesn’t like “Happy Holidays.” If you’re a Jew who doesn’t like “Blessed be.” If you’re a Wiccan who doesn’t like “God Be with you.” If you’re a Muslim who doesn’t like “Gud Yule” or “May Thor hold his hammer between you and harm.”
I have one thing to say to you: Grow. Up. Take these things in the spirit they are offered, one of well wishing, and leave it at that. And on that note, may I wish you a very merry Christmas and may Thor hold his hammer between you and harm.
So, things started last week okay. I skated about an hour and a half in my session on Monday. Then on Tuesday things didn’t go so well. I started having severe ankle pain and had to call the session short at about a half hour. Same thing happened Wednesday. Thursday I took off (Thanksgiving) and…same thing happened yet again on Friday. Saturday I did some experimenting with lacing to see if maybe I was over or undertightening the skates and…same problem.
So, on Sunday, class day, I discussed the matter with one of the coaches. Turns out I’d finally managed to break down the skates at the ankle. This loss of support meant that I was stressing the smaller muscles that stabilize the ankle and…pain while skating. So, the solution was to replace the skates.
Unfortunately, I checked a number of vendors, including the manufacturer itself, and the same model skates that I have (the correct style and support level for where I am currently in my skating progress) was not in stock. Not anywhere. Not even at the manufacturer.
Fortunately, when I was fitted for my current skates I was measured for another brand as a “just in case” fallback if the skates in question weren’t in stock then. They were so I didn’t need that fallback but what it means now is that I know the correct size to get for that other brand. To be specific, Jackson Ultima skates.
And, so, I have just placed an order for a pair of Jackson Ultima “Premier Fusion” skate boots. The support rating is similar to what I have with my old skates. I also ordered a new pair of blades: John Wilson Coronation Ace–a blade that seems to be very popular with serious figure skaters who haven’t yet reached elite levels, a decent all-around figure skating blade.
Hopefully, it won’t take too long for the new skates to arrive, then I can pass them on to the coach to have the blades mounted and sharpened. Until then, I’m just going to have to focus on my off-ice training: Mostly core and off-ice jump training.
So…I guess I get myself an early Christmas present.
If you are outraged by the Rittenhouse verdict then there is one of three possibilities: You are ignorant, you are stupid, or you are evil. Although you might be in more than one of those categories simultaneously, there is no fourth category*.
Ignorant.
This is the “benefit of the doubt” category.
You might not know the actual situation, despite there being multiple witness descriptions of the events leading up to the shootings and video from multiple angles. You might not know that Kyle worked in Kenosha (the very definition of “having business” there). You might not know that his father lived in Kenosha. You might not know the personal relationship between Kyle and the person who’s property he was helping guard. You might not know how deadly a gas station fire can be. You might not neve know that what set off the mob was Kyle acting to extinguish a burning dumpster being pushed into a gas station. (Oh, wait, a claim–entirely made up purely out of whole cloth–was later made that they weren’t pushing it to a gas station but to some overturned cars. A distinction without a difference since the gas station was right there and there’s little difference in it being ignited by a burning dumpster or burning cars.
You might not know that there is no legal requirement that “sometimes you have to just take a beating” when faced with an angry mob that has made verbal threats to kill you. You might not know that there is no legal bar to crossing state lines to clean up graffiti (why Kyle was there in the first place) or to help guard someone’s property. You might not know that it was perfectly legal for Kyle to be carrying a rifle for his own protection–which was why the judge dismissed that charge out of hand. You might not know, in fact, that he could only carry a rifle or shotgun. The law did, explicitly, forbid him from carrying a handgun.
You might not know that being armed for your own protection, even with something that other people can see (such as a rifle) is not, legally speaking, “provocation” and, does not turn any attacks on you into “mutual combat.” You might not know that the prosecutor was just making things up in presenting such a claim.
You might not know that the first person what Kyle shot had made verbal threats to kill him (motive) and then demonstrated means and opportunity by trying to grab Kyle’s weapon. You might not know that the second person shot by Kyle first assaulted him with a deadly weapon (attempts to dismiss it as “just a skateboard” neglect the fact that it’s a wooden plank, a club, that’s perfectly capable of killing someone, as was demonstrated recently in another case). And the third? You might not know that the third admitted, in court, that Kyle did not shoot at him (hitting him in the arm) until he. pointed. a. gun. at. Kyle.
You might not know that nothing that Kyle did prior to a violent mob attacking him was illegal and, therefore, did not eliminate his right of self defense.
And, not knowing any of that, despite the fact that all of that information being readily available, it’s conceivable that you could be outraged at Kyle being exonerated.
The problem is, all that information is readily available. And to continue to remain ignorant of it almost requires being willfully so, which is to fall into one of the other two categories.
Stupid
Okay, perhaps you do know all or most of the above. But, you just can’t wrap your head around the idea that those things add up to justified self defense. You grasp at straws. “He shouldn’t have been there” and can’t seem to grasp the idea that as a free citizen in a mostly free country he had every right to be there. Indeed, he had more right to be there than did the rioters. Perhaps you can’t grasp the idea that this argument, if valid, wouldn’t apply just to Kyle but to anyone. It is to claim that not only should Kyle not have been there but nobody else should have either. And, thus, the rioters should have just been left alone to loot and burn to their hearts’ content and never mind the damage caused, the livelihoods ruined, the people hurt, and the lives lost.
And so, having the information you just cannot draw the conclusions that Kyle had every right to be there. He had every right to be armed in his own defense. And, as someone in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury, he had every right to use the force necessary to stop an angry, violent mob from killing him.
You have the information, but you’re too stupid to draw the conclusions.
Evil
But maybe you do draw the conclusions. You know good and well that Kyle, in the situation in which he found himself, acted entirely properly first in acting to extinguish a fire that would have destroyed much property and put other lives in danger (if only the lives of those tasked with extinguishing it once it gained a foothold and firefighters were eventually able to get to the area). You know good and well that the villains of the piece are the rioters, not Kyle.
Perhaps it serves your purposes for the rioters to continue. Perhaps you get political advantage by supporting “protests” which allow you to demonize others for political gain. Perhaps you see the protestors/rioters as being on “your side” and, thus, anyone opposing them is on the “other side” and has to be the bad guy. Perhaps, in this you’re playing Drazi Politics.
In that case, I have some bad news for you: You are one of the bad guys.
*Okay, I’ll modify that slightly. One might be outraged that there was a verdict because there was a trial. Kyle should never have been charged in the first place. And since the prosecutor was not ignorant. He had full access to all the information I referred to above. He was not stupid. One really doesn’t obtain that kind of political office while being truly stupid (or at least without being a mouthpiece for someone not stupid). The conclusion is left as an exercise for the reader.
In all the trials that we have, today is a day to reflect on the good things we have in life and the things we are grateful for
I am thankful for my wonderful daughter.
I am thankful for my dogs, unconditional love that money really can buy.
I am thankful that I have a comfortable house, a comfortable place to sleep, and food on the table when so many around the world have none of those thing.
I am thanful to live in a country where Freedom is still a thing. It may be under attack daily by enemies but that freedom still exists more here than anywhere else and there are still people willing to fight for it.
I am thankful for my friends, both those local to me and those scattered around the world.
I am grateful for modern communication which is why I can have those friends scattered around the world.
I am still working on several specific things going forward. In addition to the things I noted in my “2 1/2 years progress” video, I’ve been working on several things in specific.
First thing is that I note that when I finish Adult 6 and move forward into the “Free Skate” track I’ll need to be very confident with my backward skating. And, so, during those public skate sessions where there’s little enough traffic that I can safely practice, I’m spending a lot of time doing simple backward skating:
However, in order to finish with Adult 6, I have to get that two-foot to one-foot spin down. And in order to do that, I have to get the basic two-foot spin to a much higher level than I had been. Unfortunately, there are problems:
Instead of spinning in place, I “spin” while moving across the ice (completely out of the frame in that first attempt here). That’s called “travelling” and is a decided flaw. Since I took the above video I’ve been doing better but…still need to work on it. I’ve only felt solid enough to try doing the one foot spin twice. One time I got about two rotations on one foot before I had to step down from the spin. The other time I, well, I may have felt solid enough to try it but I wasn’t there yet. I managed to avoid falling anyway.
Part of the backward skating that I need for more advanced work is holding back edges. One of the elements that I have to learn for the first test to qualify for “entry level” at United States Figure Skating Association competitions requires continuous edges on a line, forward and backward. That’s basically alternating edges, one foot for half a circle, switch to the other foot, and proceed across the ice in big “S” curves. There are four you need to do: Forward Outside Edge, Forward Inside Edge, Backward Outside Edge, and Backward Inside Edge. Well, I’ve been able to do the forward edges adequately for level for some time. The backward edges, however? Not so much. So, recently, I’ve started working on them, having that exercise take the place of my backward edges on a circle work:
I did surprisingly well with the backward outside edges. The backward inside edges, however, were a different matter. I had a lot of difficulty getting a good “push” to generate momentum in the edge. I’ve been working on it since taking the above video and…it’s slow. Still, I can remember when I was at that point with the forward edges so I have confidence that with some time and effort I can get there.
And that’s where I am with my skating right now. We’re close, really close, to completing Adult 6 and I have a good start on a number of techniques in the Free-Skate series. There remains work to do, but we’re getting there.
One of the things I noticed about figure skating. Back when I was in martial arts (a couple of traditional striking arts and judo) is that I always had what I thought was pretty good proprioception, that’s the ability to “feel” what your body’s doing so you can get good control over it.
Figure skating, however, was a whole different world. What was good enough to seem me through Isshin-Ryu, Chinese Kempo, and Judo (among others) is totally inadequate for figure skating. The margin of error is much smaller and, unlike many techniques in martial arts you can’t compensate for imperfect form by muscling through. It’s been an eye opener and makes for an exciting challenge.
People, including people who are pro-2nd Amendment and pro self defense, have been making this claim. I just have to shake my head.
“He shouldn’t have been there” is a stupid argument. As a free citizen in a free country on publicly accessible property he had every right to be there. As a free citizen in a free country he had every right to be armed for his own protection. As a free citizen in a free country he had every right to move to stop an incipient disaster (a burning dumpster on its way–never mind how for the moment–to a gas station where it might well set off a conflagration that could kill hundreds).
Other folk, however, did not have every right to offer violence in “retribution” for that act of extinguishing a burning dumpster–that they lit on fire and were pushing toward that gas station. Being a free citizen of a free country doesn’t extend quite that far.
Let’s look at that. A dumpster had been lit on fire. It didn’t spontaneously combust. It was lit on fire. It wasn’t rolling of its own accord into the gas station. People were pushing it there. A large fire in a gas station. Folk don’t want lit cigarettes in gas stations for fear of starting a fire. How much worse is a burning dumpster?
If that gas station had gone up–and what other possible reason than setting that off was the purpose of folk pushing a burning dumpster into it–the fire would have spread. Burning gasoline doesn’t stay in one spot. It spreads. And gas stations have a lot of gasoline, almost like it’s their reason for existing.
Oh, wait, nothing “almost” about it. It’s exactly their reason for being.
Good luck getting the fire department to respond promptly in the middle of a riot.
How many people would have died in the resulting fire? For that matter how many of the rioters? Had Kyle not been there, that fire would not have been extinguished because there was nobody else to do it, nobody but the rioters who set the fire.
Kyle shouldn’t have been there? Thank whatever gods you worship that he was. He probably saved more lives than he was forced to take in self defense…because the rioters were upset that he extinguished the fire they started.
Going further, what argument that Kyle shouldn’t have been there does not apply to anyone else? His age? This infantalizing of older teens is kind of ridiculous. 17-year-olds can join the military with parental consent (at least they could when I was that age). But, really, the argument that he shouldn’t have been there is an argument that folk rioting, looting, and committing arson should have free rein. They should be allowed to destroy and kill (arson kills, maybe not every time but often enough that it’s considered a very serious felony) with no one to stop them? Is that really the society you want?
Was it, on some level, unwise for Kyle to be there? Perhaps, on a personal and short term level, yes. After all, if he weren’t there, then he wouldn’t have been forced to shoot three men in self defense, he wouldn’t have been wrongfully charged with murder, and he wouldn’t have been dragged through this long court battle, and he wouldn’t have the target on his back that the Left is putting there.
And the rioters would have lit that gas station on fire.
Society functions because of people who are willing to put their own short term advantages aside for the benefit of others. Society functions precisely because of people like Kyle. Were his actions wise? Again, on some level perhaps not. They were more than wise. They were laudatory.
The Writer in Black 