Wasabi: M(s)+J = BLAST

[Wasabi]

Okay, I'm under super secret talks about putting a logo on my bags with a couple of my artsy friends at college. They were enlightened by Chris' contribution to my footblog, and thought of wicked designs just to improve on the concept. Chris has given me his blessings to continue work on this, and I'm kind of stoked just to actually take it into my own hands in putting a tag on. Sure, there is a side of me that still thinks its stupid, but I'm a fond lover of creativity, and this is a very creative design. So, me and a close friend are going to do a few rough sketches on making a logo fitting the awesomeness that are Wasabi/Wayway bags, and I'm going to do my best to make them look as detailed as possible on the facile & amaretta material.

A friend of mine, who is a local from Florida, helped me to find cheap prices online going to Orlando Florida on the days I want to go. So far, the cheapest flight (before and after August 11 and the return flight at the 18th) was at $180, but the airport was at Newark. My thoughts were split on the idea: 1. Pester Ken Somolinos to have me stay at his/his sister's place at the night of Friday 10th just so that I can go to Newark airport comfortably, 2) get a flight at LaGuardia near my place which is around $268 for Delta Air, or 3) reserve to my original plan of using my stupid air miles to fly first class to Orlando with United. As much as i want to be conservative on this and not annoy Ken (wait, naaaaahhhh... ) I think I'll bite the bullet and get a much more expensive flight. Plus, since I already transferred my air miles at close to $185, I'm going to use my air miles for United Air. Whatever.

Footbag-wise, I feel like I'm improving a lot. I'm really getting used to flip mirage, and I think I'm sinking in well with my clippers. I enjoy the criticism that I'm getting from Ken; he's being too modest to think that he's pushing me really hard on my style. I really want to improve more and more, and excel from my flaws. It kind of makes me want to play with Cleaver again, without injury, just to see what he thinks. From playing with 2 years, and not showing much improvement, I really want to make a difference with myself - footbag being my top priority. I'm too laid back to a lot of things happening in my life, and if I slack now, nothing will change.

I'm enjoying stitching again. The hot weather summer weather is doing well with my joint pains and arthritis, and having a beer while stitching is like bliss to me imo. I just finished Aaron Gerlich's batch of bags just yesterday night and sent them off earlier this afternoon. I'm going to immediately work on Barrett's and Brian Dams orders now. After that, I'm going to stitch up a 12-panel bag that I want to give to Matt Cross. It's been too long. Then Benny Kellman's and a few others I can't think of in this post right now.

I can't wait to make the trade bags for Marco Hartig and Andrew Kownirk-Dunford. They're going to get some sweet Wayway bags.

I think I inadvertedly pissed off Ted on a post in Journies to Tournies. I didn't mean any ill will. I respect that he's still playing at his age super hard and super well. I just haven't seen a lot of my footbag buddies around the East Coast for some time, and they're part of the younger crowd too. That's essentially what i meant in my post.

4th of July party with a fun and friendly girl. We're just friends, but she's super hot. She's Irish/Russian. Crunk and drunk ftw.

PS: I went to a Chinese fast food joint earlier today, and ordered something spicy (Curry Beef over rice). I love spicy food, but my body has a natural response to it by sweating tons and tons of sweat. As you can imagine, I was sweating bowls. The waitresses were looking at me funny and laughing like crazy. I held my dignity and posture well in front of them, though, finished the dish completely without flinching and drank an iced coffee. I even read today's paper right in front of them right after I finished eating. I thought it was a bit weird because this was spicier than the the Thai food that I ate with Ken, Barrett and his friend after the promo shooting from last Thursday. Oh well.

[Wasabi]

My mirage > legover > rpt. drill is feeling like cake to me more and more, but sometimes I feel like my ankle sprain can't take the pressure every time I get the bag. Aspirin helps me a great deal, but I feel that the effect has become temporary after a few turns, and that I should just use it at a lesser rate to avoid any potential side effects. Just tonight, I think I went through MAJOR stomach cramps and several rushes to the toilet. Well, you get the idea. Usually, this doesn't happen to me this severely, but I think it's because of the Kombucha that I bought after playing footbag to keep me cool. Mmm, fermented Mongolian tea - sour, very acidic, tasy - but I think it's reacting to the aspirin in some way. Ow.

Concerning footbaggy links and stuff, I'm becoming more and more comfortable in doing atomics and pixies during mid-strings. Taking into heart from Ken Somolinos' advice, I'm trying my best to comprehend well on how I should set my pixies and atomics. Oh, and I'm trying to bsos them as well. Just today, I bsosed dim-walk, but not in a fluid string or anything. Just bailing to toe and initiating. Flip atomic still feels kwonky, but I'm getting used to the set, and its getting much straighter. I've yet to put flipsided uptime sets into midstring, or initiating a string.

My strong clipper is sauce (well, only if I keep my back straight; stitcher's slouch). My flip feels like it's getting there. Infinities feel comfy, but I need to find my rhythm sometimes. It goes on and off, and my thighs get in the way sometimes. The set is good - it's just my position and form. I'm bending my knees more, but as Ken has told me, I need my clipper to sink in with the bag, and not have it simply fall flat onto my shoe's railing. I'm trying to find my form for my flip clipper, and make it a point to face toward the bag as I do them. I'm satisfied with the difficulty.

I'm going to go out to buy a new ankle brace. Either I keep breaking them due to my rough-housing in my G-units, they stretch out, or they become way too uncomfortable during footbag sessions. My Neoprene ankle brace, in particular, has given some trouble whenever I play in it, and it really restricts ankle crank and makes my foot numb for days due to its tight grip. I have refarined from using it for footbag, and only use it whenever I need to make short walks whenever I'm in pain. I think I'll buy some regular Spenco insoles as well, not the Cross Trainer ones, so that I can replace the insoles on my G-units. I'm becoming more serious and aggressive about my style, and I think the concrete pavement is starting to take effect on my knees.

I wish I can play more on a more comfortable surface.

I feel too sick to stitch tonight. I don't feel like doing anything really. I'm just trying not to puke or get the runs in my pants. I'm watching some anime online to keep my spirit up, and then a few 'Anz Trikz' to help study up on my form.

I want hoppy beer. There's no IPA sold anywhere in Queens. This makes for a very sad Wayway. Guinness is around, but it's nothing in comparison. Ugh.

[Wasabi]

I finally found a market that sells IPA! It was a long trek, but I managed to find a well-named brand: Dogfish Head IPA. It's the 60 minute variety. I'm in love. I want to try out their 90 minute variety once I scrounge up some cash.

I also found some patching tape that looks exactly like Mefix tape. This will save me on cash and shipping charges.

I got a confirmation about my air miles! Alright! I'm going to buy my tickets tonight! The reason why I'm not doing it now is because my connection speed always lags whenever daylight is still out, and I don't want any shit to go wrong as I purchase my tickets. I'm going to face the exaggerated prices of United Air as best I can, and find the best price at August 11 to the 18th!

In other news, my Pengu bag that I bought at Kickass last year died yesterday. I brought her to my first NYFA session, and it was getting pretty choice. I only noticed one big hole, which is normal for the material. After washing it today, though, I found the Baby Cougar (white/black) material was littered with holes aplenty! Agh! Here's a pic:



NYC concrete does murder to weak facile.

I put most of the leaked filler back into the bag, but chances are I'll be retiring her. The picture doesn't show much of her bruises, but you can see a massive hole on the top left-hand corner. I think I'll make a baggy for myself and reuse the filler in it. I'm thinking Country Cream/Midnight - 12/8, Punch pents. I'm feeling pretty excited, but also very sad about it. -Sigh-

Stitching Barrett's bag, and then Brian Dam's. Then Matt Cross' 12-panel, and then whatever suits my fancy for Worlds.

[ObArA'BaRs]

baby cougar is one of the weakest colors of facile.

[Wasabi]

The brown/black version is surprisingly strong. Much stronger than animal print or leopard print.

United sucks. I checked the website and as I got my air miles transferred into my account, ALL of the super saver seats were SOLD OUT! Good thing I found cheaper flights at Kayak dot com with my friend last week, so I'm trying to make plans to see her sometime soon. Wayway WILL GO TO WORLDS.

Btw, anyone in the east coast going to the U.S. Open next year? I may have some *ahem* air miles to pay for my trip there by then.

edit: Waylon Lew: August 11, 7:29 PM- August 18, 2:19 PM YEAH BOOOYYY. Cost me a pretty penny, but I'm done with this shit.

[Wasabi]

Good footbag session today. I liked how my mirages were on point in my strings. I still need to work on my clippers, but sinking into proper clipper form is still hard on my ankle sprain. It's like how people have a fractured knee and can't bend to a certain point without feeling an extreme amount of pain. Ken says it's my rhythm that is a problem, and I agree. I still need to keep myself in sync with the bag and how I set and catch it with my clipper foot. I think I should go see a chiropractor and have him/her snap my ankle into shape, because this reoccurring pain is just a bitch to me.

Pick-up felt really weird today, so I didn't do much on it. It's not a move I generally like to do, since, well, it's pick-up. I really enjoy doing legovers, though, so I guess butterfly > ss legover > flip rpt. would be a good link to work on. Of course, schooling pick-up does have its benefits - good whirl training. Or, you know, just school whirls in general; it's not something that I want to aggressively work on just yet though.

I hit atomsmasher twice today, though the first one slipped out of my foot as I sealed it. Still, they were both very rakey, which is not something that I like. I would like to see myself hitting a rubberman consistently in the near future. Legbeater is out of the question: my clipper form still feels sucky imo.

A lot of cute girls were enlightened by footbag shred. Of course, most of the attention were directed toward Bruce Dole and Ken Somolinos. Maybe to Ken David too, but he left early in the session so I don't remember much. I gotta school some more so that I can grab more attention for myself.

On a separate and more crucial note, I LOST MY PAIR OF FABRIC SCISSORS!!!! They were made with japanese stainless steel, so they were effin' good. I've been using them for more than a year now, so I've grown attached to it somewhat. Man, they were freakin' kickass! I threw a fit after I noticed that I lost them just now. They're probably lying around somewhere in Washington Square, where we went and kicked today. Or maybe Bruce picked it up for me on some rare chance that he noticed it lying around in our bag pile. My father hooked me up with a pair made with German stainless steel, which look and feel nice and sharp, but the grip is not something I'm used to. The way it cuts also feels somewhat tighter. Oh well. You use whatever is made available to you.

Just to list down the names of people I have stitch bags for:
-Barrett
-Brian Dams
-Marco Hartig
-Eskimo Joe
-Lotus
-Benny Kellman
-... then a few bags made for Worlds.

I enjoy having orders and and receiving cash, but I really need to make some sort of income for Worlds. Sure, there's going to be a lot of people selling a TON of FRESH 32s at the event site, so having a limited supply on me at hand is making me feel just a bit intimidated about my competition. I make bad ass bags, and have a ton of experience in stitching and filler experimentation. But having knowledge alone is not enough for this year's Worlds, and I want to make an impression to people in person. So I have to at least make an effort in making hot bags. I'm now not taking any more orders from people, through people in the club and on modified, at least until Worlds is over. At least give me this freedom.

4th of July party at my friend's place. I can't wait! I'm bringing my digital camera, so I I'm expecting to take a ton of silly photos with her, a la John Mahood in a way. I'll be posting them up on modified and facebook. I'll try to get a few pictures of NYFA playing, especially some with Ken Somolinos kicking if he allows me the opportunity. Maybe a nice blurred out picture of WHAT!? or a still of a PS whirl.

[C-Fan]

I LOST MY PAIR OF FABRIC SCISSORS!!!!

I'll trade them to you for a bag.

[Wasabi]

EXTORTION! Whatever. I'll be more than glad to stitch you a bag, Ken. Plus, the bag I gave you a while back seems to be getting murdered. I'm waiting for my stronger colors to arrive, so I'll be sure to stitch your bag sometime soon.

I finally made a bag shop in the For Sale page. I'm really happy in my endeavor, and I really want to share whatever bags I stitch to those at modified whom are interested. Sure, the prospect of money gained is really cool, but I would like people to be interested in my bags regardless of this notion. I worked hard to make my bags awesome, under the guiding light of most of my stitching idols and the Lonn Irish bag that Drew Martin gave to me in the past to further excel my stitching critique. I think it is truly the right time for me to share my gift to people not only on modified, but to people whom I meet in person who seriously love footbag.

Of course, I won't be making many bags for private orders to people before Worlds is over, so that's the downside to creating the topic. Still, I'm ecstactic that I made a page that I'm satisfied with, and I hope it is as informative as possible to interested buyers.

edit: I had one too many beers in my friend's 4th of July party. It was raining, so I felt sort of depressed. I'm not a fan of lingering in a non-footbag crowd as well, to tell you the truth. For the record: 3 Lagers at most, 2 IPAs at most. Beer can really fill you up. I didn't even have dinner, so that may be another influence.

I vomited 2-3 times. I feel pretty ashamed, not because of what I did, but having broken a promise to myself of not doing something this stupid again. I could care less of what other people think, but I didn't want to leave a disgusting impression to my friend, who was the hostess. I did clean up my mess, but... ugh. I guess I'll stitch her a 32? I don't know.

I messed up my Nintendo footbag tee. There are some vague red spots at the front of the shirt, and they seem a bit hard to clean. I think I need to put it in black dye or wash this shirt along with other dark colors. Vomit is a bitch - I think it purged the black dye in its acidity.



I'll make a note of this at Worlds.

edit2: Something in me tells me to play in Lavers again. I think I'm going to get a size 7.5-8 Rod Laver, white/green. Having G-units is more than great, but more and morr have I seen people reverting back into Lavers. I need to school my clipper form more, so Lavers would probably be ideal. And having white/dirty grey shoes isn't such a bad idea imo.

[Wasabi]

I was given an interesting order this week. A NYFA member (Brian Dams) sent me an e-mail with this pic - http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h123/ ... less55.jpg - and asked me to stitch it with the same colors. I thought it was an interesting challenge, to duplicate this Fearless 55. Here's what I came up:




Colors used: Country Cream, Midnight, Cinnabar, Petit Pois, Punch, Montauk, Sable, Willow.

From what I've seen from pictures of vettehunter's and Eskimo Joe's Fearless 55s (which were basically in the same color scheme) I just used what suited best from my perspective. I didn't have Fired Clay (it looks like it), so I used Cinnabar. I'm running out of Eclipse, so I used Midnight. I think Marmalade was used, but I replaced it with Sable because of the color contrasts. I had no clue what the eighth color was (both Travis and Andrew's pics covered this part for some reason) so I used Willow. I think it turn out pretty good. I filled it to 55.5 grams of seed beads, zinc-plated steel shot and steel shrapnel (basically planetfootbag steel fill).

Feels nice.

[Wasabi]

(old abshire and old Wayway bag in the back)

My poor baby (bag). She's made with Cinnabar, Tulip and Eclipse. She's littered with holes aplenty. She was the last bag that I stitched with floos after I made the transition to ribstitch cord. It's almost time for retirement for her, but I'm thinking of stitching the another bag under the same size and colors. I'm just wondering - is this good enough?

Should I use the same colors, or something stronger? Should I apply a backing? I do have a method that utilizes thin paper tape, so I don't know. This bag was made so that I could remake a faux replica of the one Lonn bag pattern that I fell in love with. If I use stronger colors, what should I use then? I have Sunny Sienna that I can replace the Cinnabar, but what of the yellow? Spanish Gold? It did seem like the Lonn that I inspected from Drew and Ted Fritsch had something close to it in terms of color, but it's really thick. Maybe I can iron it. As for the blue, I'm completely open since I have a wide variety. Maybe I'll replace Eclipse with Admiral or Lapis - whatever.

I'm just sad that this bag will soon come to a retirement. What a great bag.

Non-related footbag news: I celebrated my nephew's birthday today! He turned 2. Sure, his birthday is on the 10th, but since it was 7/7/07, it would be a great day if his birthday was a few days earlier. I had some fun with relatives and good barbecue to compensate for the lack of footbag.

My nephew even got some cool toys. One of them was a cool Transformers figurine, which were from the Transformers Universe line. It was the Decepticon named Barricade. He's still 3 years too young to fiddle around with it, so I'm guessing his parents will safeguard and watch over him whenever he plays with it. Another toy in which I thought was cool, but not befitting my still-learning nephew, was a song-playing Sesame Street Toy. It looked like your typical Sing-along mechanism, but when you play any of the songs, some stupid rap tune either from the Cookie Monster, Elmo or Ernie would play. One in particular, named "B.O.O.G.I.E. Bounce" had Elmo doing some silly rap, and in the end he would say "Yeeeeah BOY!" That cracked me up, and I just knew that I didn't want my nephew to talk in ebonics or whatever. Anyway, he's 2, so it's just silly fun for him.

Right now, I'm tripping out on super amounts of caffeine from my sister's "special coffee brew" and ice cream cake from after the barbecue. I feel sort of sick.

edit: So there were a few orders that I've forgotten to put in my blog. The list goes:

- Jonah Bruno - I'm thinking: Cameo/Petit Pois: 10/10 Blur, Navajo Turquoise pents.
-Josh Penney - something festive, something that he will enjoy. He deserves it (imo), and he's being too modest to suggest otherwise. I think I'm going to try to stitch him one of the cool rainbow patterns I've been meaning to dish out with mah (yes, mah) needlin' skillz.
-Marco Hartig
-Eskimo Joe
-Lotus
-Benny Kellman
-... THEN a few bags made for Worlds.

I don't know if I have time for bags to be made for Worlds. I don't know. I can stitch bags on the spot if any, I guess? Whatever.

Can't wait to shred it up with Will Digges tomorrow.

[Wasabi]

I played with with Will Digges on Sunday. His shred is still so intense, so awesome. Alex Strassman came by as well, which was really cool. His style and flow was something that you could actually feel once you're in a circle with him, and it made me really pumped to improve my strings. I haven't seen him since... Benny Kellman's farewell jam? WOW. That's a long time. Josiah Digges and a friend of their's showed up as well, and kicking with them felt really good. Xander of the original Penn Stat crew came by as well - I haven't seen him since forever. In fact, I almost mistook him for someone else in which I felt really awful. I don't know what else to say - I think the total turn out was 10-12 people in total. What an exceptional and exuberant NYFA session!

The weather on Sunday was extremely hot as well. Around 93 degrees I think, but it felt really good. I enjoy hot weather, eventhough I sweat a ton. I enjoyed it. I really don't have much else to say about the session. It's one of those feelings that you just don't want to talk about it, except smile.

Oh right, there is one thing, but it's nothing important. Ken Somolinos blew out the mesh on the clipper of one of his G-unit shoes. I offered to fix it for him, using Black Noir facile to replace it entirely. I took the entire day on Monday to fix it, using some breaks just to dick around (not literally) while patching the fabric on the shoe. It was somewhat tough, but I'm satisfied with the results. I'm going to give Ken a call sometime on Tuesday afternoon and see what's up.

It's hot, I'm sweaty, and I'm being cost efficient on my energy bill. Saving up the electric juice on my A/C. In need of fly honeys. j/k

[Wasabi]

I feel so out of date from not posting in my blog at all that much. I just don't visit modified as much as like to. Also, I've become a temp tutor for my 1st grader niece through out the summer, so I've been a babysitter and teacher all in one throughout my weekdays in the summer. Also, NYC has been hit with some summer storms during our weekday sessions, so I haven't found much time to play except just messing around in my tiny space at home (it's not even shred-worthy, and I bet I'm doing more damage to my old house if I continue to hop and freestyle).

The Wasabi has been a pretty tamed footbagger as of late.

I've been doing some stitching, but not enough to compare to some of my competition out there. I guess I'm just a pretty patient person when it comes to this. I haven't found my drive to do so - just jotting down cool color combos in my free time in my stitching journal. Brian Dennis gave me some great encouraging words on stitching a few weeks back, and I very much appreciate them. Too bad I haven't enacted on them so much. I just got a PM from Eskimo Joe to keep up my stitching progression, so that's pretty cool. It would be too early for me to retire.

I still don't like people telling me to buy better filler. Lead is out of the question, since I babysit kids and I don't like to keep a huge batch on me, and Tungsten is way too expensive. Maybe if NYFA gets club funds and I get a portion of the proceeds to buy filler to use for the club exclusively and maybe open, then yes, it's a possibility. Or maybe if I can find a cheap quality version of Tungsten, then that would be good. I don't know. Tungsten-Iron? Tungsten-Polymer? Tungsten Carbide? I'm too stupid to notice the difference. Also, Bismuth sounds pretty good in my book (that is, like Tungsten, if I can possibly get a cheap source for that as well).

In any case, steel shot is good to me. I use zinc-plated steel shot, and it hasn't failed me just yet. Sure, I've found some shot in my batches of this variety that have rusted, but it's in small quantity, and I usual check my filler stock constantly to find any badd eggs. So, whatever I fill in my bags ABSOLUTELY DO NOT have rusted steel shot in them. Also, Pengpeng has suggested to me about stainless steel shot, in which I might be interested to get. Not only is there no fear of rust, but the batch I've seen from my Pengpeng bag (the one pic that I posted recently) had the shot looking very irregular and and somewhat nonspherical - which I like in shot. I think the performance of a bag seems better for a filler in that sense.

~~~~~~~

Shred-wise, I feel a good improvement. I'm sinking in my clipper form much better, and I like my playing style a lot. Drew taught me on how to do my mirages in better, down-time form, which I felt pretty flustered in my last session, but I'm getting a sense of. I feel that I gave a bad impression to him in my frustration for this, which I don't wish to impose, but I did it all in jest. I don't know. I hope he doesn't take it seriously.

I should work on perfecting my form on some of my bigger moves, just in case. Schooling tiltless more and more is a good way for me to improve, but I still need to put a little focus on my uptime sets as well. I have to worry about my technique and not to rush anything. Should I work on eggbeater? My illusioning/legover stuff still feels kind of week to me, so I don't know. I think I have a good shot in whirls, but I need to school my clippers more just in case. I don't know. Too much to worry about, really.

I want to play drunken style like Ken. It's a cool, on-command shred style that I enjoy seeing from him more and more. I guess that's why I'm training myself more and more on tiltless and better form so that I can play just like that whenever I can. Ken is a very amazing player in my book.

Too bad I have to repair his shoe. I repaired his clipper side, and now he wants me to do his toe! Ack! Stinky shoe! -10 points for foot odor! j/k For the record, though, I'm actually very glad to repair his shoes, just so that he can play more and more and not lose hope in throwing out a perfectly good shoe. It's just a surface problem, and not something involving the sole of the shoe. Plus, I doubt Ken would look good in any other color variety than the black G-units. Still, it's draining away my batch of Black Noir facile, so I should probably stock up on that while I can. Probably 1/4th of a yard, in 2 increments of 1/8th, or maybe 1 1/4th and 1 1/8th, just in case.

I have to say, though, without Ben Roscoe enlightening me about using black facile on shred shoes in the last year's Funtastiks, I wouldn't have possibly done a good enough mod to perform in the least bit well (Ken isn't too sure about how long this fabric mod will last, but we both think it's an impressive job). Props to him in all of this. I hope I can do the toe well.

Waylon, you talk too much. Ciao bloggy.

edit: 5-something AM. I got this inspiration from a dream just now, and I'm putting it down on this bloggy so that I don't forget. I'm hypothesizing on a different way of stitching. It could make or break everything that I've learned in the past two years, but would put me back into basics essentially. I think I'll talk it over with a few good stitching buddies, and experiment after Worlds. I feel sort of ecstactic. Jotting it down onto my journal as we speak.

[Muffinman]

Waylon, do you have a trick for tracing out black facile? Do you use a white marker or something? I have midnight, and every panel I cut out is just a wild guess as to where my lines are :p

Definitely school your 2s to no end. It will feel much more cool, and be way more fun, to be able to string runs of 2s consistently, than to worry about dropping tougher moves. Maybe work on some BOPs and BOP drills, definitely before moving on to moves like eggbeater. Butterfly > pdx mirage > osis [repeat] -- go!

I don't really know your game too well, though. I only saw you play really briefly at KICKASS.

[bdams19]

bag looks awesome waylon! I still have to check my yahoo mail (since its blocked at work), but I will when I get home to see if you guys are still going to coney island or playing in the city tomorrow. I'm dying to hack since all I have been doing is drinking and drinking (21st birthday was on wednesday ). Can't wait to get some shred in.

PS. my last name is damato, I don't know why I signed up for my yahoo acct with bri dams

edit: PPS. I puked halfway through the night on my 21st birthday to make room for more beer, don't be depressed because you pushed your drinking limits; everyone has an embarrassing night like that once in a while. Just learn when to slow down when you feel your stomach getting heavy. Try drinking lighter beers (my fav is hoegaarden) that won't fill you up so much.

[ThisIsFate]

hey wasabi, i have always think u are a girl, but then after reading the first page how u ripped ur shoes off i know u are a guy lol

[Wasabi]

There was a footbag session on Sunday. It was silly, but in a very bad way (to me, that is). I felt extremely pumped for footbag, woke up early, had a good breakfast and enough time to fully digest everything before I showed up. The one thing that threw me off is the coffee that I drank before my footbag session. Now, I know what you're thinking: "Wayway, coffee is normal! I drink like 5-6 cups before shred all the time and it doesn't affect me." Well, I don't know. I guess I'm just not very used to that habit.

I have to add that for an entire week, I was tutoring my niece (she's 5 years old) on her english and math skills. She's going to 1st grade in the fall. I also babysit her for the entirety of the summer. Before, I was just a babysitter, but her parents gave me the task to be her tutor because they were too busy to do that with her at home (her father/my brother-in-law was given extra hours at work just recently). So, my footbag priorities have become very limited, and I have to wake up a bit earlier to take her in and start work. I started drinking coffee just last week.

Back to the session - so, it was just bad. One of the worst this summer, I would say. I felt cranky, jittery, really out of breath. I had to crouch down just to take a breather when I didn't have the bag. I couldn't focus and dropped a lot. I felt really frustrated. I'm sure most of the NYFA members that showed up in that session were really pissed at me for my rude and stupid behavior (Ken David in particular). I'll agree to that - I didn't enjoy my stupid behavior during that session.

I took a walk around Washington Square Park (where we were kicking) during the middle of the footbag session on Sunday. It was alright. It took my head off of the session for a while, and I checked out some pretty girls around the park. Ken Somolinos was right on that this weekend had plenty of cute girls around the city, but I'll digress because I want to get to my point on this session. When I got back to the circle, Ken Somolinos suggested that we play 4-square. Most people at NYFA were new to the concept of this game, but I had a lot of fun. It got me warmed up, and made me forget my troubles. I just needed something to help me mess around. Eventhough I suck at 4-square, it was really fun!

We got to playing footbag agin. I got 5-6 butterflies in a row, with perfect clipper-sinking form, and I got props for that. It felt good. Ken suggests that I should do consecutive muted clippers to perfect my form more and more, and I agree. I really like that drill, and I should that just to help me warm up before I start playing. My mirages seemed good, but I was a little off rhythm in my opinion. I really think I need new insoles to help me support the shock on my toe-y moves. Probably the Ken Somolinos mod (which I won't divulge).

I guess that's about it. The only other significant matter of concern was Ken spraining his ankle during the end of session. I hope he's doing alright. Reading his latest entry in his blog, it seems like he's handling it well.

It does feel like the end of summer now. The days have gotten colder, and August is slowly approaching. I don't want to go back to college! I wish every day was a footbag day.

I'm determined now: Me, Ken, Barrett, any other NYFA > Chinatown Ice Cream Factory!

[Wasabi]

I'm blogging this, since I'm seriously frustrated about this and I need to vent privately.

My dog is barking up a storm late at night, usually around 2:00 am and such. This has been a routine thing that has been happening for more than two weeks. This is why I'm blogging this. I can't think straight. I'm angry (not angry enough to go awol on my dog, but it's getting to that point). Why won't he stop!?

My family is trying to pamper him and sleep by him to ease his nerves. I don't think this is the case. I think it's a misunderstanding of leadership. My dog has gone pretty wild even with this stupid nightly habit of his.

I'm now enforcing strict dog training techniques to show him that this behavior is not necessary and not wanted. I hate to do it, but it's not normal to be 'human' to him, in the words of Caesar Milan. Go Dog Whisperer!

I hate being an insomniac knowing that he's going to wake me up for no good reason.

[bdams19]

My dog hasn't barked since he was a puppy, and he is now 13.




He's getting surgery today. I hope everything turns out ok.

[C-Fan]

My dog is barking up a storm late at night,


... he's going to wake me up for no good reason.

You don't know this for sure. If its a recent change in his behavior, there may be some medical reason for it. You may want to have him checked out.

[Wasabi]

I love my dog too. I just don't know.

It's just that he's become very territorial now. He's going to the carpeted areas around my house and marking them late at night when nobody is watching.

I'll check him into the vet to see what's up. He's been pretty healthy for 4 years straight. Maybe he's showing his age now that he's reaching 11 years, I'm guessing.