So...

Well, training didn't happen. I think my mistake was getting my hopes up when Kyle called to tell me when they might be training. Yesterday I texted Kyle to see when and if they were still meeting. Kyle told me he tried calling but got no reply back from John. Oh well. But I can't say I was surprised, since I only heard from Kyle and not John on the matter. Next time I get my hopes up for any of this will be when I actually here from my old kung fu master.

Kyle has asked me about training with just the two of us, but there's really only so much I can teach him, especially being out of structured practice for so long. I like Kyle though. Has that same excitement at 19 that I had for the martial arts. I'm sure I could learn some stuff from him as well. Smart kid too. He's about to have a fantasy novel published. Looking forward to reading it.

Currently I'm reading "Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere". Excellent book focusing on basics/fundamentals of Aikido. A lot of excellent illustrations on nearly every page descriptively depicting the points in the text. The book was first published in 1970, the year following the death of Aikido's founder, Morihei Ueshiba, whom the book is dedicated too. It was written/illustrated by a couple practitioners of the art in the NYC area. I've been reading this book at home.

I have a different book I'm reading at work. We have some downtime on the less serious interfacility transfers we do to the bigger hospitals. "Passing Time" by Ron Roy is an interesting piece of fiction based on the author's time working in the local paper mill in my hometown of Berlin, NH. The name of the town and a few other spots are changed in the book, but anyone from the area will recognize what areas he's talking about. Good book. Fellow locals should check it out.

See how awesome I am at supporting local authors? Now if I could pressure Ray Coulombe some more to publish his "Night and Day" novel (should have been published years ago)!

On another note, this past weekend Marjie and I took Alice and her cousin Lilly apple picking at Gibson Orchard in Bethel, ME. Excellent weather. Good times. Later that day we used the appler slicer/peeler contraption my mom gave me to turn some of those apples into some scrumptious apple pies. Leane had a good pie dough recipe that uses vegetable oil instead of butter or shortening, and it helps that my sweety Marjie is an awesome baker.

That was just one of the four excellent days off I had until coming back to work this morning. Last thursday we went to the Fryeburg fair with my Marjie and little Alice Moon. Good times with my ladies.

Hope all of you out there are having an excellent fall season!