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[As usual, two weeks lag here, if you aren’t reading this on my Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/blazeward). If you’d like your news fresher, and the monthly Anti-Stodgy/Redneck Chef newsletter, all I ask is a buck to help keep the lights on around here.]

Monday. Been monsoonerating for about 24 hours, so I got breakfast and skipped shooting. Gonna be so far out of practice when the weather finally starts getting nice. That, or start shooting on Wednesday or something. Used to shoot on Tuesdays, but the old farts at the gun range like to do their volunteer work Tuesday morning, and got offended that I wanted to use the archery range. So they literally close the range entirely Tuesday mornings until noon these days. Wankers.

Been focusing on Tai Chi and martial studies over the winter. Know the cane form my school teaches. Learning the sword form (about halfway I think).

I have a friend who is a senior sensei in Insshinryu Karate, (actually, several, but one in particular) who taught me a spear form he knows. I learned it, understood it, then switched hands. His is left handed, and I’m not. Plus, his uses a rattan stick with a gaff hook on the end, one tine forward and one back.

I’m using a Cold Steel Boar Spear that weighs at least twice as much. Three or four times as much as a bo. It does not move quickly. But it does have a stupid amount of heft, if I want to hit something. And a double-edged leaf blade with cross-bar below that.

Boom.

So I have been working on a series of motions that would be form #1. I’m about solid on it, and will demo it for Sensei in a week or three. From there, I will ask all the senior folks I know (a bunch) what I need to add to create a form #2, or to maybe add a second+ section as I go.

All of this is exercise. Upper body strength and flexibility that I’ll need in the future, because I’ll be 54 this summer. Take a lot of pills in the morning for various things, because I’d like to stay like this as long as possible. (Read an article online this morning suggesting pills would be available by 2028 that stopped aging. I doubt it, but at the same time, aging is mostly disease, and if you can delay/correct diseases, how long can you go? I’d rather be this healthy at 90 or 120 than how bad some of my same-age friends are right now.)

Anybody awake? Nobody ever replies, so I don’t know if this is actually being read. What’s the silliest thing you’ve seen this last week that made you laugh or go “awwwwww”?

Story work. Crossed 55k on Science Officer 13. Still feels 60-65, in that I’m close to the end and wrapping things up this week. Dunno what “next” is but will start thinking on that later. Maybe tonight. Got more Chace Haig. Got more Last Stand (“Prophet and Loss” just came out this morning. You finished it yet?).

Almost done with copy edits on Kincaide’s War #2. Vehicles of Epiphany. One more and that’s a trilogy done.

Corsac Fox #1 (“Flight of the Corsac Fox”) is up for preorder everywhere. Gotten some nice comments from folks who backed the Kickstarter and got their versions already.

Not a lot past that. Been busy. Been slow to ramp up today and still not entirely in motion, as of 1pm. Might be getting as far as I can and calling it good.

Hopefully, you’ve got more energy.

Shade and sweet water,

b

West of the Mountains, WA

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