It’s Been a Crazy Week: Technology, Iaido, & Non-Profit Changes!!!

Really sorry I’m not blog­ging more! I wish I had time, but I’ve been quite busy. Next week looks to be even busier, as I am tak­ing a two day “power mes­sag­ing” course given by my col­league Rick.

A few quick updates for the week:

Tech­nol­ogy:

David Linthicum and I have pub­lished an e-book on SOA Test­ing. You have to reg­is­ter for the down­load (my apolo­gies!), but please have a read and let me know what you think.

I’ve also fin­ished my abstract (and an abstract for a col­league whose time is bet­ter spent cod­ing) for my pre­sen­ta­tion at Progress Exchange later this year. Please join us! It’s online, so you can bring you pets and choose your own beer.

Iaido:

Recov­er­ing from last week’s train­ing camp with two very strong Japan­ese sen­sei. One of the atten­dees has posted a video of my first round of com­pe­ti­tion (I won that round!), and I’ve put some pic­tures on Face­book. I also used this as an oppor­tu­nity to update my “dis­cenda” page with a few other iaido videos at the bot­tom in case you’re inter­ested in that sort of thing. Turns out, my yon­dan exam from last year has got­ten about 2500 views!

I’m lov­ing my prac­tice by the way, and should you ever meet me in per­son, if you are inter­ested please ask. I’m happy to talk about it. If you want to know what I get from it, a great book to read is “Turn­ing the Mind Into an Ally”. Even if you’re not inter­ested in me, or iaido, still a great book to read!

I also put a deposit down on a new shinken (sharp sword) so that I don’t have to put my antique on an air­plane. I intend to travel quite a bit more for sem­i­nars and com­pe­ti­tions to gain expe­ri­ence over the next three years before my next exam.

Non-Profit:

It’s offi­cial, Where’s Your Heart? has been incor­po­rated. We’re start­ing the paper­work for non-profit fil­ing, and I’m work­ing hard on cre­at­ing a Face­book fan page so I have a place to start to build the com­mu­nity around it. It’s pretty excit­ing. I’ve also spent a cou­ple evenings this week social­iz­ing the ideas and have learned a lot from the peo­ple I’ve spo­ken with. It’s been a really good moti­va­tor (so now I’m freaked out about it again!).

Have a great week­end everyone.