I Survived

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Survived my first aikido practice since the start of the pandemic.

Felt good. I was not in as horrible condition as I feared. I’ve been having a nagging shoulder muscle pain and a weird muscular or ligament problem in my inner hip area for a few months. Nothing horrible, but just annoying. I think the hip thing is probably the result of a skateboarding slam I took when I was 21.  Things got stretched out real bad but no breaks. I think it probably healed up with some scarring, and now at 56 the bill has come due. Aikido has been keeping it from flaring up all these years. One practice and it is better.

I’m not going to jump to any conclusions, but I think I just need to keep up my practice to keep this stuff from being an issue. Clearly I am not the kind of person that is going to do the things outside of practice to keep things good. I am not really a fan of “exercise.” Exercise is just a side effect of the things I like to do. So there you go.

 

Reading

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I’ve been spending my evenings reading recently. I tend to read in bursts. I’ll read 3 books, and then not read anything for 2 months. I made a decision not to allow social media, youtube, and all the rest steal my life from me. I’ll let books steal my life. Mostly science fiction. Mostly older science fiction. Mostly science fiction novels of less than 300 pages.

I’ll be honest. I don’t really miss the social media. I’m not totally avoiding it. I didn’t take the apps off my phone. I decided I should be able to exercise my human mind and will to simply read most of the time, rather than just dicking around on the internet.

It’s a better way to live.

In Praise of My Microphone

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I’ve been doing podcasting for quite a few years now. Of the last 14 months or so I’ve been working from home, and my podcasting gear has proven a real asset. In particular, this relatively inexpensive microphone, the Audio Technica AT2020 USB.

I have a Rode Procaster as well. A nice dynamic mic that I run through some combination of a mixer, audio interface, and Cloud Lifter. It sounds really good. It’s a $250 mic, and requires all the rest to make it work.

That AT2020, frankly, sounds just as good. Actually, there’s always this little bit of line noise in the Procaster that is there regardless what the setup is. The AT2020 is just about silent. No appreciable noise at all.  Great mic. I’ve had it plugged in 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for the last 14 months. Sounds fantastic.

Audio Technica AT2020 USB microphone.

 

Yet another skate video

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It’s that time of the year. Non-horrible weather, nice long days. I’m skating as much as I can.

Been riding an 8.25″ street board with some freestyle adaptations, like a skid under the nose and the rectangle cut out of the grip tape in the middle, for footwork. For the stuff I’m doing right now it’s pretty good. I wouldn’t recommend it for classic freestyle with lots of board flips and whatnot, and I wouldn’t recommend it for footwork for a shorter skater because of the relatively long wheelbase, but for me and what I’m doing these days it feels good.

The second shot in this video is a little sequence I’m working on. Next thing is going to be cranking some speed out of the frontside 360 that changes the direction of the flow. Was thinking about it today, and realized that a simple change in posture will probably do the trick.

I know it seems kind of like “the old guy is just doing this easy shit because he doesn’t want to learn hard tricks anymore”, but that is not the case. This is what makes me happy now.

Session from Bob Loftin on Vimeo.

Vimeo

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Can’t remember if I written about this before, but in case I haven’t, here it is.

You may have noticed most of my little videos are hosted on Vimeo now.

Here’s a link to my Vimeo account. I’m a paying customer there. They don’t block my videos because of the music playing on my bluetooth speaker in the background.

https://vimeo.com/user85384392

 

I’m back, sort of

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Back at my freestyle practice spot for the first time in about a year. It’s a bit more prone to pedestrian traffic, seeing as how that building next to me it the public library. I’ve not wanted to be there breathing the air of every parent and urchin that happens by, but now got my shots. Combing the shots, with loud music not necessarily friend to children, and I feel fairly safe there now.

It was nice to be back. I’m out of condition, but over the next couple of months lots of practice will correct that abysmal situation. I’m out of practice, but again, the solution is practice.

Anyway, here is the dancing elephant. Sorry Mike — I was not listening to the music you wanted. I have to have stuff that’s the right tempo and mood when I do this. I’m not driving a pickup down a dirt road at 100mph.

First Session Back at Freestyle Spot from Bob Loftin on Vimeo.

Favorite Science Fiction Films

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In no particular order.

I have high hopes for the upcoming Dune film. Hoping it isn’t dumb like the one from the 1980s. The SyFy channel’s Dune mini series have been pretty good.

  • Blade Runner
  • 2001 A Space Odyssey (This is really my favorite).
  • 2010 The Year We Make Contact
  • Alien
  • Aliens
  • Forbidden Planet
  • Arrival
  • Planet of the Apes
  • War of the Worlds (1953)
  • Contact
  • Silent Running
  • Logan’s Run
  • The Road Warrior (Mad Max 2)
  • Mad Max: Fury Road
  • Fantastic Voyage
  • 12 Monkeys
  • The Andromeda Strain
  • Altered States
  • Blade Runner 2049
  • The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
  • Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956)
  • Prometheus (Alien prequel)
  • Alien: Covenant
  • Europa Report
  • Prospect