Last weekend at The Academy we had a jiu jitsu seminar with internationally-renowned  Robert Drysdale. We spent three hours with him, going over some of his favourite techniques, and linking together movements and transitions. I found him really approachable and familiar, in contrast to some of the senior black-belt Brazilians I’ve trained with. He was just a guy that was good at jiu-jitsu, or that’s how he came across.

One of the activities we performed at the end of the seminar was an “in the hole” exercise. For this, we have five people starting “in the hole” on their backs with an opponent in their guard. The guard player has to sweep or submit their opponent, whilst the defender has to pass the guard or back out to win. The winner stays in, either keeping or taking the role as attacker and the loser joins the end of a line, from which new defenders cycle in.

I volunteered to be one of the initial hole dwellers, starting on my back with an opponent in my guard. I tend to like fighting from my back so this is an activity that I quite like. I worked my way through three or four defenders until my instructor, Adam, was in my guard. I figured my run would be up, and didn’t have any expectations of beating him. Similarly, he was aware that Robert was doing the exercise with us too, and everyone was anticipating the match up between the two black belts. I think Adam was a little distracted, and wasn’t as focussed on me as he might ususally be.

This was great for me, because as Adam started to pass my guard, I caught him in half-guard, which is a position I’m not very comfortable in. I find people pass through my guard into half, and then straight through to side control. However this time I locked him down and went for a basic half-guard sweep (reverse the positioning and place Adam on his back with me on top). He regained some balance (he has great balance, as you might expect) but I felt he was committed in one direction, so I swept him the other way.

It was only a minor victory, but in terms of my jiu jitsu journey, it’s a milestone. Sure Adam wasn’t at his peak, and if he was concentrating 100% on me then it might not have worked out. But that wasn’t the case, and I won this encounter, this time.

I think it’s what I really needed to kick-start my 2010 training. I have a goal for this year, and if I can string enough small victories together, then I’ll achieve it.

What are some small victories you’ve had in your life that had significance to you?

Do you fix broken MacBook Pro keyboards for fun?

Well to be truthful, that’s only half of what I did. I also enjoyed dinner and coffee with Magdalena, Fitzy and Kirstie, but the last two hours were spent hunched over Magdalena’s broken MacBook Pro with my mini screw drivers and a plastic spudger. Nope, I did not make up that name, that’s what it’s called.

The replacement keyboard arrived today, just one week after we placed the order online. I can’t recommend iFixIt enough. They not only have great guides, but when I bought the keyboard, they “suggested” the tools I’d need, and offered to include them in the purchase. I thought this was a very handy up-sell.

All up the job was not too difficult, though I was scared for a second that the keyboard wasn’t sitting perfect in the top casing, but some jiggling and prodding saw it seat itself fine.

There were no screws left over, however a generic piece of black plastic did wriggle free from somewhere inside and fall out when the shell was disassembled. It doesn’t look important though, and has probably been floating around inside the laptop for months, if not years. No real loss.

I also thought that the back-light wasn’t working, meaning that the back-light cable was not re-attached correctly, or that there was further damage that the water had caused that I had not detected, but it was simpler than that. Magdalena had the checkbox for “Illuminate keyboard in low light conditions” unchecked. I ticked it and now the keyboard lights up like a Christmas tree.

All in all, Im very happy with how the repair work went and extremely happy with the parts, tools and service I received from iFixIt. Whilst I hope I don’t have to repair too many more Macs, it’s reassuring to know that there is a one-stop-shop with all the parts and tools necessary to get the job done.

A few days ago Magdalena and Doug were messing about and Doug caused Mags to laugh really hard, when she had a mouthful of water, when she was using her laptop. As such, she now has a semi-functioning keyboard where some letters, like “S”, “E” and “X”, just don’t work. Or maybe she’s worn those ones out independent of the spill.

Her MacBook Pro is a hand-me-down. I didn’t need two, so when we replaced our units at work last year, Mags got my old one. It’s about three and a half years old, which makes it six months since the extended Apple Care expired. On top of that, I doubt Apple Care covers liquid damage to the keyboard.

The good news is that the rest of the computer seems to be working fine, so a new keyboard should do the trick. I had a look around, and whilst it’s not easy, there’s definitely resources online that provide instructions on how to remove and replace the MacBook Pro’s keyboard. I reckon it’s a task I can undertake.

In the mean time, I’ve bought a wireless keyboard that Magdalena can use. Coincidently, it sits over the inbuilt (broken) keyboard almost perfectly, so it’s a great short-term replacement, as indicated by the thumbs-up in the photo.

The wireless keyboard won’t be useless after I repair her laptop. Tony’s been using one of the pairing keyboards recently and seems to like it, so I’ll bring it into the office when we’re finished with it.

Initially I had some problems with the Bluetooth keyboard not pairing with her machine, and I couldn’t install the system patch because it required Magdalena’s password, and one of letters that’s broken is used in her password. Talk about a vicious circle! Anyway, the patch was for Mac OS X’s Java install, so I didn’t think it would make any difference. I plugged in a standard USB keyboard and used that to get the patch installed, and when her Mac rebooted it was playing nicely with the Bluetooth keyboard. Maybe another coincidence, or maybe the patch was mostly an update to Java, but had other things, or maybe it just “reset” some bit on a chip somewhere. Either way, it’s all good now, and we have a replacement keyboard being shipped on Monday. It looks like I’ll be doing some laptop surgery in a week or so.

Maybe Emma or Chanel can lend me their scrubs and a face mask.

On my birthday we collected two toy poodle puppies. We have a boy and a girl. Magdalena said that if she could pick the breed, I could pick the colour and name them.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Snake-Eyes and Baroness (or maybe Baroness and Snake-Eyes; they didn’t have their collars at the time the photo was taken, so I don’t know which is which):

Initially we had planned on getting a little girl (I can’t bring myself to call her a bitch) but when we were at the breeder’s home a few weeks ago, when we were visiting Baroness at about 4 weeks of age, Magdalena got to meet Snake-Eyes. She had a play with him whilst I was nursing Baroness, and they hit it off. Then and there I knew we needed to get both pups, and we had talked about getting a second at a later stage - I just skipped the waiting part.

They’ve been getting on great and only whine when we put them back in their playpen before they’re exhausted. They’re eating properly and don’t appear to be missing their mum at all. I think having a brother-sister pair meant that they’ve got a friend to play with all day.

Magdalena’s doing a great job trying to toilet train them whilst she’s on holidays, and I can’t wait until they’re a little older and have had their next round of vaccinations. That will mean they can come into the office for a visit. I know the Epic crew will love to meet them, and maybe they’ll have a play date with Aaron’s dwarf rabbit, Mathilda, who’s sometimes found hopping around our office.

I’ve recorded a few videos of the puppies running around our back yard which I’ll upload to YouTube, allowing me to boast like a proud parent.

Magdalena and I just spent a tonne on books from Amazon, with the idea that we’ll build up our collection of classics for the coming 2010 season of the Berwick Manor Book Club. We established the book club in April 2007 and I’d estimate we’ve read close to a book a month since then. When we were recently down in Mandurah for a long weekend we discussed some titles that we’d like to read, and came up with a list similar to this (in alphabetical order):

• “Animal Farm” by George Orwell
• “Emma” by Jane Austen
• “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley
• “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding
• “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck
• “Persuasion” by Jane Austen
• “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen
• “Sense and Sensibility” by Jane Austen
• “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger

You might notice there’s a few Jane Austen novels in there - Amazon were doing a 3-pack for $8 which was hard to go past. We’ve found so far that we most enjoy reading books that you’d regard as classics for our book club, like George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty Four”, Truman Capote’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and Anthony Burgess’ “A Clockwork Orange.”

As a side project, I’m running another book club (of which I am the only member) where the focus is on classic adventure stories that boys should have read growing up. To be on this list, the book has to have been written before I was born. I wanted to read some of the books that my father read as a boy, and even some that his father might have enjoyed too.

Magdalena didn’t think she’d be interested in a lot of the titles, so I’m doing it solo. Feel free to play along at home if you’re interested - I’ll use lambie.org to keep you informed of the titles as I start them. There will be some cross over with “Lord of the Flies” and “Frankenstein” being on both the lists, however I have added (again, in alphabetical order)

• “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” by Jules Verne
• “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass” by Lewis Carroll
• “Around the World in Eighty Days” by Jules Verne
• “Casino Royale” by Ian Fleming
• “Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson
• “Journey to the Centre of the Earth” by Jules Verne
• “Live and Let Die” by Ian Fleming
• “Moonraker” by Ian Fleming
• “Peter Pan: Peter and Wendy and Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens” by J.M. Barrie
• “Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe
• “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain
• “The Complete Sherlock Holmes: All 4 Novels and 56 Short Stories” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• “The Invisible Man” by H.G. Wells
• “The Swiss Family Robinson” by Johann D. Wyss
• “The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells
• “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson

When I was a kid I had a pop up book about Tom Sawyer, and it was the most amazing book ever. I have such fond memories of it, but alas, it seems as though eBay, Amazon, and even Google don’t have a recollection of it. I guess it’s destined to remain a memory. Watching the recent Sherlock Holmes film was the final motivational push I needed to start creating a list of the all-time classic adventure stories that I really should find the time to read.

I’ve also seen the latest Bond film, Casino Royale, and know that Lewis Carroll was not on LSD when he wrote “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” (though he probably should have been). In “Back to the Future III”, Doc Brown recalled with a great fondness reading Jules Verne’s work when he was a child, and that ol’ time-traveller knew what was what. I probably watched a Disney version of Peter Pan as a child. All up, that’s my experience with these stories, and I’m very excited about the prospect of changing that.

Call me sentimental, but I think it’s a romantic notion that one day my son, or daughter, will want to read these books too. If that day comes, these novels will be already waiting on the shelf, eager to be devoured by yet another generation.

Which of these titles have you read, and which would you like to read in the future? What do you think I’ve forgotten? Will you be playing along at home?