my random ramblingsan infrequent (and these days, mostly Mira related…) blog

Saturday stretched into Sunday at Avi’s Holi party. eventually back to the apartment for some sleep, only to wake up late to some heavy rain that came and went throughout the day. glad i didn’t wake up early and drive to the DZ.

breakfast from Lou Mitchell’s, then some morning Muay Thai. opening day today at the DZ, so went straight there from the gym. big place, and seems like a good group of folks. first day using my GoPro helmet camera. got in 3 jumps, the last a 3-way dive turning 10 points. stopped at Avi’s for a Holi celebration that ended up going kind of late.

nothing going on today, so took a huge walk around the city, looping to the lake shore and Michigan Ave., into the Water Tower, past Gold Coast, then eventually through River North and back to the apartment. happened upon e.leaven on the way, so stopped in and got reacquainted with their Mangelsen photo of the Tetons. caught up with Joseph at the Apple store, and poked into a bunch of shops on Michigan Ave. yup, the excitement of city life…

difficult morning to motivate for my early morning lesson. sore from the pummeling i took yesterday, and last night at Rossi’s didn’t help. St. Patrick’s celebration happened at noon with the yearly river dyeing ritual. maybe they should dye it blue the rest of the year…

took a morning walk to the Field Museum from my apartment. had been a number of years since my last visit, and was nice to see Sue still waiting for me.

every Saturday morning, before my class starts, i watch the end of the boxing for 6 to 12 year olds – always something cute going on. enjoying the training, wish i had more time to dedicate to it. and with the DZ at Skydive Chicago opening in 3 weeks, soon there will be one more competing interest.

bunch of folks from work joined me at the apartment to celebrate. played some games in the basement, then grabbed dinner at Cafe Iberico. fun night, even brought me a cheesecake birthday cake!

breakfast with the gang then worked on a few projects during the day. didn’t feel like shaping a knife from bar stock again, so started with some existing cut blanks. Mike hooked me up with a nice little damascus number that i handled in black palm, along with a Canadian Special blank that i reworked and handled with the box elder burl scales i had brought with me.  i also sharpened the swedge on my bowie before heading out. long drive back to Chicago through a gnarly snow storm – wish i would have been at the wheel of Black Sheep…

was hoping to make a karambit, but Mike didn’t have any steel wide enough for my design. ended up designing and building a long, upswept blade dubbed a pirate sword by most of the others. was enlightening to learn each step of the build process, and to actually craft my own blade starting from raw A2 bar stock. looking forward to my next opportunity during the summer.

drove up to Escanaba in the MI Upper Peninsula for the Bark River Grind-In. got a room in the Terrace Bay Inn overlooking the frozen Bay de Noc. excited for tomorrow and my opportunity to build my first knife and learn the process from start to finish.