Let's see. It's still snowing and we're probably up to about twelve inches and counting. A freebie day off! Spent the vast majority of the morning and afternoon upgrading the website. Since much of the site used Java as part of the navigation and unfortunately a lot of people either have disabled Java or never activated it in the first place, a lot of folks had problems getting around the site. Most of it is simple busy-work, changing parts of code that control how the top and bottom of how the pages load (the headers and footers) but every once in a while I found some aspect of the new design that required a re-write of the code.

Kids are off from school today, which nowadays means a non-stop ‘Sims 2' festival. I've not the patience necessary for the game, which is a simulation of the daily life of characters that you create and follow through life. Most kids I know are addicted to the game, but I expect that it would hold little thrall for any adult with kids. Really, when you have to follow real life characters through life, would you want to spend your free time following computer characters as well?

The website rewrite has at the least pulled me away from the SWAMI project, which has now grown to over 4,000 lines of code. I've begun to let a few colleagues play with the program and the response has been quite positive, with a few remarks about the fantastic detail that the program is able to produce in its eventual diet printouts. As to when it will make its public appearance, only time will tell. I keep thinking of new things to add.

My brother alerted me to a Wikipedia entry on the BTD that was not exactly flattering. Turns out it was just the old tiresome Klaper article that was cross-posted all over the internet by several of the vegan websites. I responded to this article years ago, but I no longer do this type of riposte, as it constitutes a type of cheerless infanticide that leaves me no more satisfied or happier than if I had just ignored it in the first place.

I think the martial arts studies have certainly helped me to accept that the field of nutrition is basically a dog-eat-dog world, and that in certain circles there will always be unacceptable conclusions, no matter what the quality of the work or originality of the concept.

Of course these folks have a major problem with my advising certain other folks to eat meat. I suspect that if I had concluded that, based on blood type, everybody should be a vegan, they would be in love with my research.

It's not surprising that polls consistently show that more and more people feel that the vast majority of material on the internet is not believable. Often it is not who is right or wrong; it is simply who got there first with their side of the argument. However, if this all leads to greater iconoclasm and less gullibility on the part of the internet public, then perhaps it will have been a good thing.

Well here I am at the computer again. I'm supposed to be working on the Allergy book, but the weather can't seem to make up its mind, which I prefer to think is the reason for my writer's block.

This morning featured its usual dose of austere training, centered around the simple act of moving foward and backward, delivering either a block or a punch. Sounds easy, but it's not. You have to deliver the technique in a tensed, extended position but move in a relaxed fashion (tension/ relaxation). One author writes that you should "move along the floor as if your feet are separated from the floor by a sheet of tissue paper, but deliver the technique as if you are suction-cupped to the floor." You must also move in a linear manner, not bobbing the head up and down.

Easier done than said.

The concept was to 'flat line' the concentration; do the technique but not bother it with too much thinking. I'm sure the instructor meant flat-lining my EEG, but after 15 minutes of this he could just a soon been referring to my EKG instead.

This weekend Martha and I attended a class in Escrima or Kali, a Phillipine martial art technique that uses short rattan sticks or bastones. It uses complicated footwork as you weave the bastones into an electron flurry (sinawalli). Done with a partner it is quite hypnotizing.

The class was taught by Grandmaster 'Nene' Tortal, a 69 year old, five foot one ball of energy. Not only was this guy quite obviously deadly, he was gentle and helpful as well. Several times that afternoon all twenty of us had to have a go at him one at a time in a series of drills that left each of us panting for air, while GM Nene just went on to the next student and started all over again. He would guide you through the drills by yelling 'get out' while lunging at you. After you finally started doing the drill correctly, he would then just start chanting 'maintain! maintain!'

Maybe that should be a bye word for doing the diet: get it right, then maintain.

This weekend we had a visit from my sister in law Marge and her husband Jim. Jim is one of those people I could listen to for a long time. In one of his prior lives Jim, a West Point graduate, was a battalion commander in Vietnam. The exposure to defoliants like dioxin (Agent Orange) was probably the reason Jim can down with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and Hodgkin's Disease at the same time a few years ago, apparently a very rare occurence. He was given several months to live, even with chemotherapy, but has amazed his oncologists by living with the illness now for something like six years, using conventional and alternative medicines.

Maintain Jim. Maintain.