So we were at the art fair a couple of weeks ago. Frankly it was a bit of a disappointment, the best pieces on canvas were actually photographs. Some good pieces there, but nothing worth spending big bucks on. At least I only saw two booths with fruit & bowl art. I despise fruit & bowl art. If you want to practice on that stuff fine, but don't waste a booth at the fair with that stuff. I don't like the 3d mixed media stuff (it freaks me out) but at least its something interesting.

On the upside, while waiting for Andi & AD to make their purchases I heard some music that caught my ear. Female singer, good voice, very clean chord structures on the guitar. I checked the performance schedule, made a note of the name and went to dinner.

I listened to a couple of 30 second clips on iTunes, which is about as satisfying at eating only 1 chip, and decided to take a chance.

Her name is Martha Berner, and the album "This Side of Yesterday" is fantastic. Incredible vocals, great lyrics, and beautifully written songs. Its very acoustic/folk with some twists thrown in. I've been quite addicted to the album for weeks now, I had to buy it on iTunes since I can't find her in Best Buy, but I highly recommend you checking this out.

On another note, sorry I haven't been posting much, as many of you know the technology gods have not been kind to me. This will be the subject of the next post which should be out in the next day or so while I'm in Chicago (Genesis concert on Tuesday!!!).

I notice that my opponent is always on the go

Sorry for premature posting earlier, I hit the wrong button, we now give you your very late post in full.

Well after a month off, I'm back at fencing. The month of August was rough with it being the end of our fiscal year, plus visitors from out of town, add a week of a sick kid and the month goes by pretty fast.

While not my best bouts in foil, at least my epee was pretty solid. What's the difference? A foil is the basic fencing weapon, you place hits on the chest only. Its a very light weapon, with quick flashy strikes. Basically everyone starts learning with that weapon, and it lays down the foundation for the rest of the sword types. The epee has a much larger guard, and its more of a positional weapon. Any part of the body can be hit, and instead of parrying you do more of a counter strike. Frankly, while I enjoy the foil, I was born to wield an epee.

For those of you who have watched Olympic fencing, let me assure that what we do is nothing like that. Our fencing is actually fun to watch, and is a martial art. What goes on during the Olympics is basically spastic motions with no thought for defense. We act as if the point is actually sharp and would kill us. It makes a large difference.

Women seem to get in sync with fencing more then men, don't know why, it just is. Probably because men's basic instinct is to smash, while women are more subtle.

It does take a certain change in mindset. Your basic instinct when a sword point is coming at you is to bash it out of the way with a lot of force. This however puts you off balance, unable to launch your own attack, and a skilled opponent will simply dance their sword around that parry and hit you. Instead you almost need a sterotypical super-calm British mentality. As if your body is saying "Would you terribly mind moving that sword to the left just a tad so I may live and skewer you? Jolly good!". The perfect parry is one that has your opponents sword almost brushing your body. Its an economy of effort that allows you the best chance for a strike at your opponent before they know what is happening. When you have two skilled practitioners bouting, you can get movie quality sword fights every couple of minutes.

Its a lot of mental and physical discipline, but its an awful lot of fun!

My computer is still awaiting a good motherboard (and yes, the irony of a previous post has not escaped me), so blogging is still sporadic. Hopefully this weekend everything will be OK, but considering my luck with electronics this month, I'm not holding my breath.