Woody Cavenaugh

I sat upon a public throne pondering earlier indiscretions, of a dietary nature. Nature can be a harsh mistress sometimes and speaks to us in dark and burbling tones when her mood warrents it.

On the wall next to me, someone had made a proclamation of love to a specific portion of the female anatomy. I thought, considering where I was sitting at the time, he was really preaching to the choir more than creating enlightenment to the downtrodden. It would be like a fish proclaiming his love of water, sure there are a few amphibians within earshot who heard the message even if they couldn't wholey agree with it. That's just the nature of things.

My real issue was the proclaimer's short sightedness. Had he never really stopped and taken the time to appreciate the whole package? Clearly he had arrived at a destination but had he ever paused to appreciate the view or stopped to smell the flowers on the journey there?

If not, I feel bad for him. He has no idea just how much splendor he has missed. I guess that helps explain why I don't ride in airplanes when I could just as easily drive. The journey is just as entertaining as the destination, and sometimes you might even discover new destinations on the way.

My dispute with nature done, I wiped clean my mental whiteboard, flushed the writer's intention from my mind and joined my wife in the throws of outrageous retail (already in progress).

Posted by at 1:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

If you click on this link you will see all of the results of all of the tournaments I have been in since my triumphant return to fencing back in the summer. My goal has always been to land in the middle. If you notice the trend you will see that I have met my goal more times than I have missed it. The two times I missed the most was my first tournament, I suffered badly from the heat and was pretty bad off. The other worst result was yesterday.

You must be wondering what I did wrong to do so poorly and why am I so deluded as to call it my best fencing day ever? Surely he's suffered from heat exhasution and is hallucinating. Nope. I fenced the best I ever fenced against the toughest crowd I have faced yet. In the "E" and under I fenced a "D", twice! That's how tough it was.

Of course this brings up a problem, I fenced the best I ever fenced, and my results show me at nearly the worst I have ever done. What's up with that? Honestly, the tournament proved to me that my initial premise of "success" was faulty. My goal of landing in the middle of the pack assumes that the "pack" is a constant.

My whole line of thought comming back into competition was that I would strive to be in the middle of the pack, behind the fit and well trained top half and ahead of the less trained and less experienced newbies. When I constantly landed in the middle, as time went on I would slowly find myself closer to the top as I gain fitness and competition experience. I still have no burning desire to win. The guys who have to "win" never look like they are having fun when they fence, and I fence because it is fun. If it isn't why do it?

However, as neat and tidy as my premise was it fails to take into account that at some tournaments the competitors will be better overall and everyone who fences gets just a little bit better after each competition. In order to stay in the middle those below me are going to pass me as the ones above me become rated high enough they can't fence in the competitions I fence in.

I'm not losing any sleep over it, infact as I write this I can hardly keep my eyes open. I now know my whole premise is wrong and at this time I don't even know if I am going to craft a new goal set. Why bother, when I'm still having fun right?

Posted by at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It is already a well established theory that kittens, puppies, babies, and mammal young in general are all cute for a reason. Mammals respond to beauty. Humans especially respond to beauty. Vacation destinations are beautiful. Visual art is beautiful. The written word is beautiful. Language, theater, film, these things are beautiful, even when they are about ugly things. When a car company designs a vehicle, they want to create something that will ultimately attract buyers, that thing they do is to make the car beautiful to its target audience. When they fail, the car fails to do well in the market.

There is a certain truth to beauty. Hugh Heffner knows it, Jackson Pollak knows it, George Lucas knows it, Maya Angelou knows it, and the throngs of people who lust after George Clooney certainly know it too. We design buildings to be beautiful, we design cities to be beautiful, we landscape our world to be beautiful. When the paint on your house peals, you paint it so it will be beautiful again, when a part of a city is blighted, you do some urban renewal to make it beautiful again. When your 1965 Ford Fairlane 500 Sports Coupe sits abandoned in your driveway you dream every day of making it beautiful again. The truth of beauty is that we all want something beautiful and we all respond to beauty positively.

When you walk down the street and a beautiful person is walking towards you, you look at them. You have to, they are beautiful and your eyes are drawn to beautiful things. A red rose, a redhead, rosey cheeks. You look because it brings you pleasure to do so.

We know also that people are attracted to symatrical shaped faces as mates because deep down in our lizard brains we know that beautiful symatry comes from superior genes. AKC registered dogs are paraded around and judged on how close they come to the standard of the breed.

The beautiful thing about beauty is that there isn't just one. If there was just one beautiful building all buildings would look like that. If there was just one beautiful work of art there would be only one art museum and no artist at all. If there were just one perfectly beautiful dog there would only be one breed in the Westminster Kennal Club award show year after year. If there were just one perfect human beauty each year Miss America would look exactly like the last Miss America and Miss Universe would look just like that too. Either Playboy bunnies, would be modeling in cloth as well as skin, or the walking coat racks would be on the catwalk as well as in the centerfold. Won't happen. (Thank the lord)

My mother always used to look me up and down at my un-ironed ill fitting cloths and messed up hair and she always said "Don't you have any pride?" It always struck me as odd, I have lots of pride, I'm just sick with it. I now know she was asking the wrong question. It isn't about pride, it is about a personal obligation to be beautiful. I am sure more than one reader just read that sentence, glanced over at my picture and thought to themselves, "That ain't happening". But for every reader that scoffed at the idea that I could ever be physically beautiful there is another who not only knows it is possible but has seen it for themselves at least once. (It may have been a long time ago.) My mom thinks fondly to my highschool freshman year when I played a season of football.

The reason there isn't one kind of beautiful is because there isn't one type of person, and there isn't one specific definition of beautiful. We can take a crack at it, philosophers and artist all have. The one I like the best is "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." So while it is our duty each and every one of us to be beautiful for the sake of humanity, there are more specific beauties, and more general ones. Angelina Jolie comes to mind when I think of "general beauty". She has a beauty that seems to appeal to a very large group of people, man and woman, homosexual or breeder.

This fact should remove all the pressure one may feel to look like a walking coat rack modeling cloths in Paris or Milan. This fact should take away the need to feel like you have to go under the knife to resemble a playboy bunny or Fabio. You have a responsibility to be true to yourself and be the most beautiful you can be, not someone else, and certainly not TV's definition of what beatiful is. Some will have mass appeal, some will have more specialized appeal. In my case, I wouldn't mind appealing to anyone at all.

When I walk down the sidewalk and I see some beatiful woman, I smile and aknowledge them. Not with cat calls or sexist remarks but with a smile and a nod and when I pass them I feel better having seen beauty and look forward to seeing more around the next corner. Seldom do I get a nod or a smile in return, we tend not to notice the plain, and we are revolted by the hideous. I rarely get a smile, and I just as rarely get the revolted shiver. As these things are equal I don't worry too much. I make it a goal to improve myself so those who look upon me warmly will outnumber those that are revolted by me. I had forgotten that goal along the way, but The Counting Crows reminded me, "We all want something beautiful. Man I wish I was beautiful."

Just like there is beauty in music, paint, sculpture, film, poetry, and literature, there is beauty of character in people. Remember back when Brittney Spears was beautiful? Do you remember when she suddenly wasn't? What changed? Ok, what changed first?

When I walk down the sidewalk, only a few of the strangers I pass may see me as beautiful. To those who know me, I am willing to bet that for the most part, I am better looking than I am to the total stranger. Believe it or not, I am working just as hard not to be an ass as I am working towards dropping 140 pounds. I couldn't tell you which is the easier task, I love fried chicken, and I love being an ass to those who I feel diserve it. I hope one day I will be 200 pounds and as curteous to my best friend as I would be to a true asshole. That day hasn't come yet, but I will keep working on it. It is my duty to be as beautiful as I can be to the largest group of people as possible using what clay I was given. That is all of our obligations for the good of all humanity.

Posted by at 10:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have had friends comment that I am a difficult person to track down. Well, they would probably say that were they able to track me down. I've been busy lately, and it looks like I am going to be busy for the forseeable future too.

I am looking at my schedule and I am involved with something fencing related every weekend, from February 17th all the way out to June 3rd. Of course I'm still doing the IT work at sweat shop pay, as well as three nights a week teaching fencing.

It is during realizations like this I remember the words of the late great Warren Zevon; "I'll sleep when I'm dead."

As I see it as long as I'm busy doing stuff I love I'm immortal, just highly unavailable.

Posted by at 9:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You've heard the news about The McMissile incident.

VA law says that any object (including a McDonalds cup) that flies under any power (including being thrown) is a missile attack and punishible by law.

So this poor woman is facing 2 years in the pokey for littering in someone's general direction.

How lame is that?

My advice when traveling in Virginia: If you feel the urge to toss your empties at some idiot in a fit of road rage, don't. It isn't worth it. Instead use an RPG (available on the black market), a pipe bomb (available in your garage), or at the very least hurl a brick. If you are going to do the time anyway, you may as well earn it, instead of ending up a joke on the letterman show.

Don't make a mockery of the law, make the law mean something, and break it right.

Posted by at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yesterday I fenced in a tournament at Brevard college. I was able to go because Cameron was willing to give me a ride, and she had to be there as the division's tournament observer. My intent was the same as it ever was. Go, meet new people, fence a little, and try not to embarrass myself or my clubmates. It sounds really simple when you write it out like that, but in practice I find it all really complicated to accomplish.

Brevard is a college club, and not a team, so it all reminded me of the early days back in UNCG's fencing club. They were all winging it as best as they could and counting on the kindness of strangers to make it all come together. We brought a box and a set of reels which was a kindness and I got to fence for free in return. That was good. In the bad list, they had lined up a dedicated referee who never showed up. Dedicated referees are really necessary for foil, where the referee has to be concise, knowledgable, focused, and able to withstand the constant questioning and antics of the fencers who will use every trick they can think of to bully you into calling something their way. Most of the rated referees in the state were all at JO's and unavailable.

Foil took a long time. I started helping ref, but I was pretty quickly 0wnz3d by fencers who figured out how to push my buttons. I found myself feeling more like a rodeo clown than an official of any kind. I gave up and sat down, fortunately Cameron stepped up. She didn't want to do it, but she was amazing. Hand signels, calmness, and that eye thing that makes the bad boys sit down and shut up. I'm talking about the total referee package. She finished the pool I started, and went on to referee all the way up to the semi-finals.

Epee, which I was going to fence for free was supposed to start at one PM. Because of a lack of foil referees we didn't get epee on the road until 3pm. About half of the fencers were complaining about it starting late and the other half were thrilled that they had gotten 15 people to show up with enough ratings to make it a D1 tournament. I didn't care either way. I have no ratings aspirations, and I knew that I was there for the duration with Cameron anyway.

My first bout I lost 5-0. I'm not complaining. I always tank my first bout. There is a well known and well documented way to not tank your first bout. It is called "warming up", and usually involves some mild exercise, and something that looks a little like fencing. I made my decision early in my come back career no never to "warm up", because that takes valuable energy and creates heat. I never have enough energy to get me through the day and I always generate way too much heat. The fencer in question was quick and offered no target. To defeat him you have to take the target from him. So in the end I won two, lost two and came out at a negative two. Remember my personal target goal is zero. I believe that the newbie's place is a low negative number and the highly competitive skilled fencers should be a high positive number. That saves the middle for the guys like myself who just want to fence because fencing is fun.

With my 2-2 win loss ratio and my indicator of -2 I came out 8th out of 15 going into direct elimination. So that was just about where I wanted to be. My first DE bout is against the 9th place guy. This is good as I know that my first DE is against a person who is as skilled as I am. If I lose here, it will be a good close bout against an equal, and that is nothing to be ashamed of. As it worked out, the winner of that bout had to fence his next bout against the guy who came in 1st.

Unfortunately that winner was me.

I had been watching the guy fence through the day with a sense of wonder. I wondered why he spent the money on the most expensive FIE rated clear mask he could find. I wondered why he fenced like Daffy Duck. Or, if you would rather give him credit, I wondered why he fenced "Monkey Style". I wondered why he did those silly low bows, faked civility, and kissed women's hands and stuff. I wondered why he was D rated, and I wondered most of all how could he have possibly come out of pools in first place. There were one or two fencers in the room who were better than he was, and they were placed out of pools in second and fourth.

Still those were the cards I was delt, and I knew I could fence my own game and score some touches on him, maybe even enough to make it a sporting bout for him. The first touch was his. Huh? I must have gotten locked out. The second touch was his. Huh? I could have sworn I hit him first. The third touch was his. Huh? Well, he is a D fencer, maybe he's better than I realized. I decided right about here that I wasn't going to blog about this tournament...ever. After two minutes the score was 9-0 and my "Statistical Annomily" light was flashing in the back of my mind. I asked to have my weapon tested. It did not work. One point was annulled. The score is 8-0 now. I wondered just how many touches I lost due to a dead weapon. I scored my first touch of the day and we went into our first one minute break.

Fencing is geometry. It doesn't matter at any given moment where your opponent's tip is. Their shoulder is always in the same place, the length of their shoulder to their elbow is always the same, the length of their elbow to their wrist is always the same, and the epee blade is always the same length. Therefore there are certain divine truths that cannot be undone. The shortest distance between two points is a strait line, and if the other fencer extends his weapon to hit you his closest target (the wrist) will always be the same distance from the end of his weapon. To win, all you have to do is make sure that the tip of your weapon is there waiting for his wrist to arrive at that finite point in space.

At the break, Cameron gave me the great advice I have come to count on from her, best of all it was exactly what I was thinking myself. In the next period he scored four more touches on me. I on the other hand, had scored eight touches on him. All was now right with the world. I knew I had been hitting him before, my kung fu WAS strong. Win or lose, the math comes out right, and for me that is the most important thing.

So in the end I lost a bout I could have done much better in had I questioned my equipment and not myself in the beginning. I guess that is a personal fault of mine. I tend to love and trust my hardware more than I trust my wetware. To be fair though, the problem with my weapon was something I have never before seen in my entire life. Wires break, wires get pulled out of the socket, tip screws fall out, tips fall out of barrels, they do not as a rule fall appart in the barrel.

Posted by at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This morning we are getting ready for work and suddenly Sara says to me dead seriously;

"Turn around a second."

"What is it? Did I sit in something?"

"I'm not sure."

"Great, I must have sat in something. Is it cat barf? Its cat barf isn't it? Always with the barfing these cats."

"No. It isn't barf. You've got a butt."

"A butt!?! This is bad. Should I see a doctor? Do we have time for accupuncture? What am I going to tell my friends and coworkers? Can I tell them I sat in cat barf?"

"No, it isn't bad. Its the jeans you are wearing, they make it look like you have a butt."

"Should I change? I should go change."

"No don't change, it looks pretty good on you."

"Really? Can we go jean shopping later?"

Posted by at 9:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today the little software product me and my partner, (also known affectionately as my "work wife") have been implementing goes live. Pray for us.

To help put it all into perspective, the product cost more than my partner and I make combined in five years.

No pressure. Why should it be? Any way you slice it, they got a bargain.

Posted by at 8:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Valentines day is a bunch of different things to a bunch of different people. For most of my life it was a day of bitter reflection because I wasn't in a relationship. For some of my life it was a day of bitter reflection because I was in a relationship with various someones who made me miserable/afraid for my life. These past few years however have been good. Sure, my wife could and would kill me, but not without a damned good reason, and don't think I don't appreciate that.

I think about the usual valentine traditions and smile because they are really odd when you get down to it. Take for instance:

Hi, honey. Happy Valentine's day, I brought you the sexual organs of some plants which will wither and decay over the course of a week, more if you put them in water with some asprine in it.

Or:

No honey, you don't look fat in those pants. Happy Valentine's day, I got you a two pound box of chocolate.

I mean, I suppose I could do the nice meal thing, but where can we have a romantic dinner with no alcohol, or desert, and a meal that consists of six onces of lean red meat with a cup of steamed vegstables on the side? Hold the bread please, she's in training.

I could do something I am likely to do only once a year like clean the house, Saturday I was told I couldn't go to the YWCA to repair the ever growing mound of broken fencing equipment, because we never spend any time together. So she told me to clean the house instead and then she left for football practice. There are some ironies there, but the house looks great!

What I really want to do is send her to one of those places where she is stripped naked and total strangers rub her body from head to toe with essential oils while burning scented candles and playing Yani CDs. They would follow this with a nice facial and pedicure. However, as long as I am working so many jobs that don't have money in them, this is simply not possible. It does make for a really nice mental image though.

So while most guys in my position are giving flowers, candy, and fancy meals, I gave my wife a card with a little poem inside with a small gift. The card reads:

Roses are red
Violets are blue
You have perfect teeth
So wear this when you go to practice.

Nothing says love in my household, like a brand new fancy mouthpiece.

Posted by at 8:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Three nights a week I volunteer at the Downtown YWCA teaching the sport of fencing to all manner of willing student. Our youngest is 10, our oldest is 56, both men and women. The YWCA is nestled between a library, the cultural arts center, Center City Park, and the historical museum. By all accounts this ought to be a safe and snug harbor for folks to come out and expand their horizions in whatever way they choose. Sadly this isn't the case.

Last night at 8pm I am called out of my foil class to give aid to a woman who was attacked in the parking lot of the YWCA. As she was getting into her car a man attempted to steal her purse, and were it not for that lady's quick thinking and the awareness of the nice lady at the front desk, he would have gotten it and possibly more besides too.

Whenever this sort of thing happens, there are those who want to analyze what the woman did that made her a target. So lets cover those bases.
Where did she park? She parked in the handicapped space directly in front of the front door of the YWCA under a street light, which was working.
What did she do? She was holding her keys in her hands and as soon as he grabbed at her, she started screaming and she hit the panic button on her keys.
Where was her purse? She put it in the passenger seat of her vehicle under a coat.
What did he do when she started screaming and making a fuss? He just stood there looking at her all annoyed like.
Why did he leave? He saw the woman from the desk running out the door, me just seconds behind.

Now why was he there? I am not making any accusations, but I can't help but note that on the very same night that this happened, some group or another was feeding homeless people next to the library on YWCA Place. I'm not saying that those good, honest, but down on their luck folk are responsible, but maybe them being there is the cover that a more unseemly crowd needs so they can persue their criminal intents. Doesn't matter to me one bit one way or the other.

This is what makes me mad as hell. There are folk out there preying on me and mine and I am not going to stand for it. We were lucky last night as the eight girl scouts (ages 13 and 14) that were supposed to be here last night stood us up. Lucky also for us was the fact that because we knew we were going to have an additional eight on top of our usual 10-12 students we had plenty of coaching coverage. Had this happened on a night where we didn't have an abundance of coaches that would have meant that in order to protect the gentle souls at the Y, I would have to abandon my class. That doesn't make for a good fencing lesson, and that doesn't reflect well on me as a coach. Now imagine how I'm going to feel if I happen to find myself in charge of one of these miscreants sitting around NOT teaching a fencing class while waiting for the police to arrive.

I would hate to be that miscreant. It takes a great man to show compassion in a situation like that, and at best I'm just a good man. Well, maybe I'm ok. All I'm saying is this, if any of my people get attacked I swear by my spikey modern haircut there will be hell to pay.

Posted by at 8:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

For a long time I have heard over and over again that fencing would never be successful because you can't make it look good on TV. As someone who dabbles in local independant film, I knew that just because it hadn't been done yet didn't mean that it couldn't be done. The only real reason you don't see fencing on TV in America yet is because no one has really put forth any effort to try to shoot it for TV. There have been some various local efforts here and there, but the reason there isn't more on ESPN is becuse there isn't a well established fencing TV production company going out and getting the footage. Golf, Tennis, Football, Baseball, Fishing, all of these sports in their various degrees of "interesting" have overcome the technical issues necessary to make it work on the tube. Thus proving that they can make their sport at least watchable. Some even entertaining. You find yourself in a restaurant with a TV, and suddenly you have to ask yourself why you are watching poker? You know you've done it, don't deny it.

It isn't the sport/activity that draws you, it is the production, that makes you watch.

So let it be with fencing. The've been doing this in Europe for years, while in America we only whine about why it can't be done.

Click around and watch some things, you might find it interesting.

Posted by at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

WANTED: A FEW GOOD WOMEN TO PLAY FOOTBALL And we aren’t talking powder-puff, either. We’re talking full tackle, full contact, bone-crunching American football. The Carolina Phoenix team (members of the IWFL) is currently seeking new recruits. Excited and screaming “heck yeah!”? Then come on out and show us what you got!

New Recruit Report time: 12:00PM Please report promptly . It is preferable that you communicate your intention to try out ahead of time, so we know to expect you. We will take people who just show up, but they need to arrive by 12:00 PM.

Special requirements: Participants must be at least 18 years of age by the date of the try out. There is no maximum age limit. There are no height or weight requirements. Please bring proof of age and health insurance.

Cost: $25 (No Checks or Credit Cards, please)

Shoes: Please wear athletic shoes (no Shox). Football Cleats are strongly suggested.

Clothing: Please wear appropriate work-out attire for the weather.

Equipment: No pads are required at this time. Try out activity is non-contact.

Weather: Try outs are subject to cancellation/postponement due to weather conditions. For information regarding possible tryout cancellations, please call any of the following:

919-824-6133 (Coach Tim Holmes)
336-549-1688 (Sara Cavenaugh)
336-457-9990 (Candice Idol)
You may also contact the team through email at carolinaphoenix at gmail.com

Interested, but not 100% sure?
Please feel free to contact us for dates of Organized Team Activities (OTAs). OTAs are free, and give you a chance to get on the field to see if you would really like to play football. You can then make an informed decision as to whether or not you want to try out.

Posted by at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This Saturday at UNCG's Health and Human Performance Building, UNCG and the Downtown YWCA are hosting "Girls and Women in Sport Day". If you watch the video link to the right of the article you will see that fencing is heavily involved, and that I look fat in my whites.

The event isn't local or small time, it comes from a much larger national association. The message? Sports aren't just for guys, and they aren't just for school girls either.

Speaking of Girls and Women in Sport, You might have noticed that I am a fan of women's football. Being married to the center for The Carolina Phoenix, it was either be a fan or be a hitting dummy. Check out this link. If you've been under a rock and unaware of women's football, here's your wake-up call. Are you ready? Tim Holmes head coach of the Phoenix has a great bunch of players and is getting them ready for the 2007 season. If you are interested in being involved with the Carolina Phoenix please contact the team at carolinaphoenix at gmail.com

Posted by at 9:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The car ride home late last night.

Sara: We've been in a relationship of some kind for almost ten years now. You are my longest relationship.

Woody: Yep, the end of the month marks our one and three quarter anniversary, we will have been married seven years.

Sara: I don't know wether to say congratulations or pity you.

Woody: I was just thinking that exact same thing. I did note with some irony that just a couple of weeks away from seven years married and I had to sleep on the couch last night.

Sara: Congratulatiy! Congratulatity? I'm thinking a mix of congratulations and pitty.

Woody: Congratulatity sounds like some kind of pocket dog rich girls carry in handbags.

Sara: How about "Pitulations"? (note: Pronounced pid-u-lations)

Woody: I like it. I get this mental image of a pitulation ceremony where the married couple beat each other with birds, like maybe ducks or pidgeons or something.

Sara: Are the ducks dead or alive?

Woody: First one, than the other?