I’ve been toying with the idea for a little while now about giving the blog a facelift and incorporate a few new tricks I’ve picked up over the last couple of months toying with a bit of ASP, implementing some jQuery scripts and picking up a few advanced-ish CSS tricks at work…

And yes, I know that WordPress uses PHP as its main scripting language, but some of the principles behind scripting within ASP (though to be honest, I actually cut my teeth on XSLT, and everything’s been a bit easier to understand since then!) can still be applied to PHP – a scripting language is a scripting language, you learn some of the principles and apply it to the situation, and sometimes your code works, sometimes (more often since I’m still learning!) it kinda breaks everything 😉 Or is that just me? I guess that’s the problem when you’re a bit of a self-taught backyarder when it comes to coding 🙂

Anywho, I’ll probably start toying with some ideas for design changes and some new functions/features soon-ish. If anyone knows of any really progressive and stylish blogs or blog designs (self-promotion is fine ;)), let me know in the comments. I don’t know when I’ll put time aside to start fleshing out some new ideas and compile some new toys for the blog, but I figured if I actually post about it, it might encourage me to actually do something about it instead of just thinking about it 😉 Plus I haven’t built a local testbed since re-installing my O/S a while back, so I’ll have to get off my behind and get onto that too!

Bloginated Wednesday, 19th August 2009 / Blogs/websites
Tag-isms: Blogs | CSS | jQuery | PHP | scripting/coding | web design | wordpress

Wifey and I took a trip to the country to escape from things for a few days recently. It’s been a few years since we last jumped out that way, and it’s definitely been the first time in a while (and possibly since starting this blog) since I’ve spent a couple of hours at the wheel driving in a single hit.

Mind, the drive wasn’t too shabby at all – Wifey and I loaded the car up with tragic 80s tunes (bad habit, tragic 80s seems to suit country driving :)), so it was good fun 🙂 I did find though, rolling towards the end of trip, that my stump was getting a bit grumpy from sitting still for so long (probably didn’t help that we went straight from work, and I’d been sitting on my arse at work for about 8 hours before we headed out!). The angry muscles were along the base of the stump, my left hip and a little higher into the waist – it was nothing serious mind, but it was definitely there.

Anywho, this presented an issue – how do you stretch the stump out when it’s held inside an airtight socket, and there’s not exactly a whole lot you can do with your prosthesis when you’re driving!

What I ended up doing was clenching/flexing the muscles around my stump to start with, tilted my hips slowly left and right, and then gently twisted my stump to the left and right in the socket. Wasn’t much, but it did the job and took the strain off the muscles.

I think the reason it worked was because while the motions weren’t that big, they involved stretching the muscles relatively deeply from a restricted sitting position; the restricted position meant that the body didn’t have the ability to move with the motions, so they were all built on resisting other muscles.

… or at least I think that’s the theory behind it 😉 I’m sure those more in the know with muscles/physiology/anatomy will not only be able to dispute my theory, but possibly say I’m doing the wrong thing too! 🙂

Mind, I also might have described things really badly too 😉 Still, for other amputees involved with road trip or country driving, the above might prove useful!

Bloginated Wednesday, 19th August 2009 / Prosthesis or amputee stuff
Tag-isms: country | driving | road trip | stretching | travel

Okay, bear with me on this one – a few weeks ago, I convinced my Dad it would be an awesome idea to come over and help me do some gardening. I wasn’t talking about your run of the mill weeding/potting gardening – I had more destructive things in mind 🙂

I didn’t know chainsaws could cut concrete – thanks Wikipedia!

Chainsawing stuff is awesome fun – Dad brought over his light-duty chainsaw, his crazy hedge trimmer and some other gardening toys and the two of us proceeded to do some boring stuff (weeding) and awesome stuff (chopped down several trees and bushes). To my credit, I didn’t even mangle myself, despite Wifey being in a panic the whole day, worried I was going to give myself a stupid injury 😉

Anywho, to bring things back to being an amputee and a martial artist – I found a lot of things helped get through the day because of my training. Strong stances meant I could get down low to rip up tree trunks without falling face-first into the dirt (which would be funny, just not terribly productive!), breathing and body conditioning meant I could carry heavy weights around the garden and plonk stuff into the trailer without causing any pain or strain on my back whatsoever, and through the training that has helped me be more nimble on my feet, I didn’t stumble or fall once, regardless of where I might have been standing or my footing.

So it’s a bit arbitrary, but there’s definitely a connection there – good martial arts training lends itself to plenty of other applications in life, and as an amputee, by extension it helps you keep up with the rest of the able-bodied community 😀

Bloginated Tuesday, 18th August 2009 / General training
Tag-isms: Balance | gardening | Technique

I was just thinking that I’ve been pretty slack with catching up on my usual round of martial arts bloggers on my side panel, and wanted to quickly post up a “I still think you’re all awesome :D” comment on my blog acknowledging that 🙂 I blame it on a busy work schedule and my almost-obsessive fussing over my arcade cabinet. I might break down and post some nerd images in a few weeks as I’ve tracked down a couple of ace fighting games, which in my mind is still remotely connected to the martial arts side of this blog. I don’t think the vast majority of my readership will care (though you’re welcome to surprise me!), but I don’t mind shouting into the void every now and again 😀

Bloginated Tuesday, 18th August 2009 / Blogs/websites
Tag-isms: Blogs | Video games

Observe the awesomeness that is my latest injury!

… well, rather, don’t observe because I don’t have any impressive images 🙂 Didn’t go to training last week as I was unable to even remotely form a fist with my right hand, which makes it hard to do all sorts of stuff, and I was afraid of further damage during any grappling or kumite exercises. It’s almost better now, but I’m hesitant to go back to training tomorrow night in case it accidentally re-opens the wound…. hmmmm…

As for what I did? Was really stupid – I was picking something up off the floor in the bathroom, and the knuckle on my thumb knocked into one of the stainless steel containers in the bathroom. Figured all I’d done was a light paper cut, but it turned out that I almost took the top of my knuckle off – hanging by a flap was all this awesome exposed flesh and muscle, looked really gross and stung a bit as I soaked it in crazy Dettol:

For the first week I was changing the dressing daily and working hard to keep it from getting wet – there was a Dettol + Betadine combo on the wound and under the skin flap, couple of band-aids, then thick sports tape holding the thumb straight to try and stop me bending my thumb. It’s now a week and a half later, and I’m down to only having a single band-aid over it and can almost bend it back like normal without it feeling like it’s going to split right open again. I figure by the weekend, it should be back to normal so I can start with some weight training during the week and then back to training.

Considering how it looked and the fact I didn’t get it infected, I will also take this moment to observe I was tapping into my crazy Wolverine healing powers 😀

Stupid thumb 😛

Bloginated Tuesday, 18th August 2009 / Injuries
Tag-isms: Hooray for Dettol | stupid injuries | thumb | Wolverine healing powers