Woody Cavenaugh

I read this article and it was worth sharing. In a nutshell they are talking about a drug now known as PT-141 or Bremelanotide. What does it do? Think Viagra, only this works on women too, and to put the cherry on top it is a nasal spray. Where Viagra increases blood flow to "down there", PT-141 goes into your brain and puts you "in the mood".

Think of every party you have ever gone to. Think of the parties where you had the most fun. Were you "in the mood" at the time (reguardless of wether or not you scored)? Probably. All I can think of this being the next hot thing on the streets. Victoria Secrets fills their air with a smell that makes you want to buy underwear. Krispy Kreme fills the air with a smell that makes you want to eat donuts until dawn. Night clubs could fill the air with a drug that makes you want to have a VERY good time.

Gone are the days of date rape drugs my friends, enter the new age. Did you have sex with this woman? Yes officer, I did! Did you have sex with her against her will? No officer, we were both VERY willing. Case closed.

I can't decide if I want to buy stock or run screaming in a panic.

Based on the disapproving looks my wife gives me whenever I bring this up, I am guessing stock is completely out of the question. I suppose I can dream....

Posted by at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

The first game of the Carolina Cardinals Professional Women's Football team is a mere three weeks away! As a new team in the IWFL, they don't have any home games. The major way these teams raise capital is through their home games. I believe the rationale must be that if you can survive the first season through your own fund raising, then your organization is strong enough to last. To that end, the Carolina Cardinals organization has put together three activities to hopefully generate some buzz along with enough capital to operate.

The first one is a raffel for a 2006 PT Cruiser. Tickets are $10.00 each or in books of five for $40.00. The drawing is on Sunday, June 25th 2006 and you don't need to be present to win. You can buy the tickets at the link above.

The second event is a party at the Radisson High Point May 5th 2006 from 8pm til 1am. Come out and meet the team! Tickets are $20.00 per person or $30.00 per couple in advance or $25.00 each at the door. Music, food, a cash bar, and a good time had by all. Ticket purchasing info is on the flier link above.

The third event is probably the coolest of all. They have put together an outstanding travel package to three of the away games. If you can't have a home game, bring your home to the game! For just $150.00 you can travel with the team to the game oboard the "Fan Bus", get two nights hotel accomidations, a ticket to the game, and a t-shirt. Games include Deleware on May 27th, Orlando on June 3rd, and Boston on June 17th. For $400.00 you can travel to all three games. Pretty cool huh?

If your business is looking for an opportunity to advertise why not be a sponsor?

Posted by at 8:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I have a "Body Mass Index" of 42. Well, what do you know? 42 IS the answer! It is down from my starting number of 47 by the way. To find this on the government website Shape Up America. I had to look at their body mass indicator page. I found my height, and I followed the line over to find my weight. It wasn't there. Odd. Then I noticed that at the bottom of that page was a link that said, "High Range BMI Chart". I clicked. I'm not positive, but I think the red got a shade darker. I found my weight about half way across the page. Huh. So, on a whim I backtracked looking for my target personal ideal weight. The good news was I got to go back to the normal chart that has yellows and greens on it. Strangely, my personal target ideal weight was still firmly in the red.

On a whim, I continued to track back to find out what this chart would view as an ideal weight range. I am sure I was that weight once, but it was well before the 5th grade, and no I have no intention to ever be there again. (5th grade either for that matter.)

Of course, the BMI chart has a few fundimental flaws, and to the government's credit they list them.
* It can misclassify up to one out of four people.
* It does not take into account location of body fat.
* It cannot accurately classify elderly individuals who are frail and sedentary.
* It cannot accurately classify body builders.
* It does not distinguish between body fat and lean body mass.

So why does my western doctor treat this BMI chart like some sort of holy scripture? More and more I am beginning to think of her as the witch doctor. It explains why my blood pressure pills come in an oversized bottle so all of the warning stickers will fit.

Still, as far as educational websites go, I have to say that the content of Shape Up America is pretty good, though I won't be book marking it.

A site I like better is from of all places the USDA. IT is their My Pyramid Tracker site. (Sponsored by Sweet and Low) On it, I found not only informaiton, but tools. It isn't perfect though. There is a place where you can enter in your height, weight, and the food you ate in a 24 hour period and it analizes it for you, to let you know how you are doing. I tried this and when I hit analize this it brought up a two radio button questionair. "Do you intend to maintain your weight?" and "Do you intend to slowly lose weight?" I clicked on the lose weight one. I was sent to a page where in bright red capital letters it told me under no uncertain terms that I really shouldn't even get out of bed without a doctor's OK signed in triplicate and submitted for peer review. The message (and it wouldnt' let me go further) led me to believe that I shouldn't even watch fencing on TV let alone teach it. I had no option but to go back.

Quackery says I. Next the government will be saying that I should consider surgery. I suppose I diserve that, I've been saying they need a president-ectomy for nearly four years now.

Posted by at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Yesterday I went to the zoo, again. Again I had a wonderful time with good friends. Yes, that was three times in a single month. I am sure there are those amoung you who wonder why I would possibly want to go back so quckly. It isn't like the animals are on some sort of fast rotation. The truth is they are.

I love looking at the animals. I like the meercats, fennec foxes, chimpanzes, and ocelots, but my favorite animal of all is people. They entertain me to no end and their antics are simply unending. Being a avid fan of people watching and being in the same place so often I have made one observation that I have no explenation for. There is a huge percentage of pregnant women at the zoo for some reason. I don't have an explanation, but I do have a theory. The zoo, should you see everything is about a six mile walk with plenty of places to stop and rest along the way. It could be that the zoo is an ideal place for those with child to get a little excercise. The exercise was what first attracted me towards a family zoo membership, so from my perspective it certainly seems possible. Again, it is only a theory and I could be wrong.

Sometimes when you stair at chaos long enough patterns emerge. The pattern that emerged for me yesterday was what I have titled "inappropriate T-shirts on teenage girls day". I am not making this up. I actually shared my observations early on with a famale in my group and she saw what I saw. Should a 12 year old be wearing a "Spring Break Cancun '06" shirt? If you say "where's the problem", I have a few websites to show you. I saw, "Taste these round ripe juicy melons". Just to make sure everyone was on the same page, on the front left and right of center where two watermelons. Fruit was popular, I saw one that said, "Do you like my peaches?" I saw two girls in their early teens, everything they knew about how to act they learned from The Simple Life, and apparently no one saw fit to correct them. At the first of the day they were doing the whole Paris and Nichole thing, fortunately as the day went on, they relaxed and became real girls again. Even the one with the "You can't afford to date me" shirt. By the end of the day I figured maybe I could design some children's clothing for the children of Rocky Horror fans. The boys shirt a preshrunk cotton tee. 5-point left chest pocket. Seamless collar. Fully double-needle stitched. Taped shoulder-to shoulder, would read, "Asshole". The girls shirt would be a soft and durable cap-sleeved tee to mix and match with her favorite pants or leggings. It would read "Slut". I could be a millionare overnight apparently.

I also have a new theory on why some children aren't doing well in school these days. Apparenlty some of the parents of those kids are idiots. I was standing there looking at the meercats. Near me is the sign that tells you the name and information about the animal. A woman brought her young child up to the glass between me and the sign. She points to the animals on display and says to her child, "Look honey gophers!". I can see mistaking a bison for a buffalo, but meercat for gopher? With a sign right there???? I can even cut a little tiny bit of slack on the person who looks at the chimpanzee and says, "Look at the monkey". That is of course the same thing as looking at your neighbor and mistaking them for a monkey. I've made similar mistakes myself. I once thought that my nextdoor neighbor had married a sasquach. As it turned out, he had married a six foot four woman with some serious face and body hair issues. Big feet too. Still, I have to confess I nearly went "ape shit" when moments later at the chimpanzee exhibit, I heard a father tell his son, "Look at 'em baby apes." I've got your baby ape right here dumbass. Clearly this debate will rage for well into our future, is stupidity genetic passed down from generation to generation, or is it learned? In my opinion it may be a mixture of both.

Lastly, I have to tell you a funny story. It was a little sad, and very cute, but funny none the less. At the lions, a little boy runs up to the glass to see the lions. *GOOOOONNNNNGGGG* The whole rail reverberates as his little head smacks it at full speed. Just as this happens, his mother not realizing what has just happened, says "Do you see the lions". Nope, but I bet he sure see's stars! Fortunately, he didn't get hurt, he was just so stunned and surprised he only managed an eventual whimper before he was distracted with a bottle of water. (He drank half of it without a breath much to MY shock and surprise.)

I'm looking forward to my next trip to the zoo, who knows what I might discover!

Posted by at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

No. Probably not. Suffice it to say that every waking moment of every single day is filled by an overwelming urge to eat a bucket of chicken. The fact that I am getting some sort of twisted joy out of denying myself this chicken (that I so richly diserve) will be the subject of someone else's book one day.

It's always time for chicken and Cheerwine, (just not for me).

No Zoloft allowed!

Many thianks to Mr. Programmer for this piece of animated genius.

Posted by at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Some of you knew I took Wednesday and Thursday of last week off to spend some quality time with the fiddle. Others might have figured out something was up based on Thrusday's blog entry. For the rest of you, (and for the impatient) I offer this recap of Wednesday, Thursday, and a short summery of the events of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

First to recap. Fiddle is the same as Violin except fiddle music is more fun, and violin and violence are closely related. I can now play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Ok, I call it that, you would probably call it screeching noise or something, but it is progress in my book. I predict that in 20 years I will be a raging alcoholic, Martha Stewart, or making music close to this. Either way, I can't do it without professional instruction.

I was watching the news this weekend, a bear attacked a woman and her two children. It killed one child and put her and her other child in the hospital. A massive bear hunt was unleashed to bring the offending omnivore to justice. Apparently that meant kill the first bear you find and send it somewhere to be tested to find out if it was actually the offending bear.

Meanwhile, the entire Duke Lacross team was accused of raping an exotic dancer. No one was arrested as there is no DNA evidence linking any of them to the crime. People were angry that no one was arrested. I guess they wanted the entire team arrested or something. I don't think there is enough room in the Durham County jail for a Lacross team. It will be interesting to see how this one comes out. Jesse Jackson and his Rainbow Push group have announced that they will pay for the victum's college. All of it, even if it turns out that none of the Duke Lacross people were involved. This made a bunch of stuffy white guys pissed off. I am not sure why. Jesse Jackson doesn't care who raped this girl, he just wants to help keep one more person from having to be in that situation to begin with. You remember the situation right? Having to resort to stripping in order to pay their way through college.

My solution to the whole Duke Lacross thing is simple. Kill them all, and run test on the remains to figure out if any of them actually did it. That's how they deal with criminal bears.

That solution in its blazing simplicity came to me while at the NC Zoo Friday and Saturday. The Media was there, filming the bears and talking to the rangers about dangerous bears. The ranger brought up that the dangerous bears are less dangerous than the shy bears because the shy bears tend to hang out in places that people want to hang out at. Fight or flight? You pick one, the bear gets the other one.

Oddly enough they deal with the family pooch the same way they deal with bears. This weekend in some hick town around here, a lawman shot a dog for not being on a chain. The dog in question was standing next to the daughter of the owner of the dog when the "bear" got trigger happy. The bear's reasoning was it was perfectly in his rights to shoot a dog standing next to its owner because it wasn't on a chain. I say we shoot the bear until all this gets sorted out.

And that is what I did during my spring vacation. Written instead of eating lunch. How's that for fan service!

Posted by at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well here I am. I took today to be my fiddle day. The day I apply what is in my book towards making some small progress in the fiddle. I am now convinced that fiddle playing leads to alcoholism. Either it leads to alcoholism or domesticity. Don't think progress wasn't made. I didn't drink a drop because I have fencing tonight, and the house looks terrific! There isn't a dirty dish or an unwashed piece of clothing in the whole house. The carpet is clean too.

I nearly raked the yard.

Basically I heard the deep disembodied voice say, "Voilin wins. Fatality."

I saw the signs though. When we bought the instrument of doom, (I might end up having to name it Barbara or something), we got a DVD to go with it. Estèban's guitar DVD absolutely rocks. Why wouldn't a fiddle DVD be good. I don't know, maybe it was the first five minutes when it explains slowly and with feeling that the DVD was no substitute for professional instruction, and you should buy a book too.

I bought a book. The first page of the book tells me elequently that it is no substitute for professional instruction. It didn't mention a DVD.

What have I learned from the DVD? It taught me how to set up a fiddle, it taught me how to tune a fiddle, it taught me how to hold a fiddle, it taught me that I was going to have to get some professional instruction if I intend to even be "less bad" at the fiddle at some point in my life.

What have I learned from the book? I learned the history of the violin (why does violin sound so much like violence?), I am learning how to read music. I have learned that I am going to have to get some professional instruction if I intend to even be "less bad" at the fiddle at some point in my life.

The only reason the yard isn't raked is I remebered that in the computer room I had something else patiently waiting to kick me in the bean bag. And it did. Twice.

Posted by at 3:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I am sure everyone reading this has experienced a phone call from some pre-recorded phone spam firm who wants you to listen to their spiel and either press a number to speak to a sales representitive or leave your contact information so a sales representitive can contact you. Have you had them call during dinner? Have you had them call you on your cell phone?

I have had both, and I have had enough. I admit, in the past I simply hung up. I suspect you do the same, but it just isn't satisifying. It isn't a human that is getting disconnected, it is a machine.

I have allowed my genius to fully tackle this problem and I have come up with a solution that is clever (very), pointed (clearly so), and evil (you're welcome). I didn't want to go public with my master plan until I had had an opportunity to test it for myself. That opportunity arrived and gleefully I struck passionately with wild abandon!

This particular message wanted me to leave my contact info at the beep. The moment of the beep is the single moment where I have their full and complete attention. The moment where they are at my mercy.

While the automated message was comming in to me, I found suitable material from my blog, and at the sound of the beep, I began to read, with feeling, in a nice rich metered tone that only nine years of college theatre experience can train in me. I ended only when the recording itself stopped.

It was glorious, it was educational, it allowed me to target a new audience, during their working hours, and best of all I know they listened to each and every word. The beauty of this plan is I took the time to answer them, and instead of giving them what they wanted I gave them what I wanted them to have. They couldn't hang up. Shock kept them listening. Perhaps they even got a collegue to listen to it again. What sort of man listens to their speil only to read to them in a rich and metered tone a blog about the value of every touch in fencing.

My path is clear. I will be known at the telemarketing conventions as the Terrorist Pod Caster! They will fear me. Some may even take me off of their calling lists, but sooner or later, fate will put my number on their auto dialer, and low I will strike once more!

FEAR MY CLEVER WORDPLAY!

Posted by at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I have been on a soap box in club of late reminding eveyone that every touch is important. I admit in club it can be confusing to hear me say that then watch fence in a bout with a student and fence at their level so they can be successful against me. Jim goes so far as to counter that some touches are more important than others. This is also true. It made me realize that I needed to be more clear and more wordy on the subject.

Class is an opportunity to try things, learn things and when we bout apply these things to an actual tournament senerio. Everyone is in a different place in club so when each fencer fences they all have different goals. Our younger students are trying to apply skills learned in lessons to bouts. Our expereinced fencers are trying to expand their horizions applying new theories and techniques in a "live fire" situation. In between there are fencers who simply need "tournament simulator" time. Clearly while trying to do all three in pools at the same time, some compromises have to be made and because my club is filled to the brim with the greatest group of individuals I have ever had the pleasure to work with these compromises do happen. If an advanced fencer fences a less advanced one, they will 'fence down' to the level of the less experienced fencer so they can have a good experience and get what they need to get. The only thing you learn by being hopelessly crushed is a sense of worthlessness.

This said and out of the way, you have times where you have two evenly matched fencers who are able to fence to the best of their ability to try to win. Here is where we should apply Jim's "First touch is the most important" theory. When two fencers are evenly matched, the person who gets the first touch is winning, therefore the ounes of "catching up" falls to the other fencer. If they double touch for the next four touches, the person with the most touches still wins. This is very true, but it is somewhat short sighted. Lets look at the bigger picture.

The goal of pools is to be seeded in direct elimination. Each fencer's goal is to be seeded as high as possible so that their path towards first place is as easy as possible.

Lets say that there is two pools of fencers. In each pool there is six fencers. You have won all of your bouts 5-4. You fenced five bouts so overall you scored 25 touches and had 20 touches scored against you. You have an indicator of +5 and took first in your pool. The first place fencer in the otherpool won all but one of their bouts 5-2, and lost one 5-1. They scored 21 touches and received 13 touches. Their indicator is +7. Now imagine there are more than only two pools. You do not come out as well in DE's as you think, because though you won all of your bouts, your indicator is very low. The closer to the top you get, the weaker your opponents are. The closer to the middle you are the more likely you are going to fence someone closer to your own skill level. The closer to the bottom you are the more likely you will face someone much stronger than you.

The secret to climbing up this food chain in pools isn't winning bouts. It is winning and making sure you are not scored against. The secret is total defeat of each opponent. Many inexperienced fencers see pools as nothing more than a warm up for the big fight in DE's. The battle truly begins at the first touch in the first bout of pools and ends when you gear down.

The first goal is to win big.
If you can't do that, just win.
If you can't do that score high against everyone you lose against.

Every touch counts, even if you don't win the bout. Clearly this is difficult to practice in class, but you have to know it so you can practice it in tournaments.

Posted by at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Brenda commented here and reminded me that I had not updated the world on the state of my facial fuzz.

Fact is, I'm dead sexy. Odd though, I could have sworn I had a jaw line. Oh well, I guess I will have to work that out later.

The funny thing is, I shaved the beard on a Friday and suddenly the very next week I have given three presentations at work. I say it is just evidence telling me things I already knew. People love beautiful people. It explains so much about my past.

I just hope I don't become one of those ego maniac types who think they are gods gift to _____. Nah, it will never happen. I'm too good for that. ;)

Posted by at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)