I always thought that I’d have all this free time once I had the surgeries, but much to my surprise, it seems as if I have less time now than I did before. The one good thing is that because I’m on my own schedule, I don’t have anywhere to be at any given time, but I still have just as much, if not more, things that I have to get done each day. With everything I have on my plate, my current schedule mimics my normal (pre-surgery) schedule almost to the hour, it’s funny how these things work out sometimes.

The good news is that I’m finally making good progress on my dissertation. With my classwork being completed and not having wrestling on my schedule, I’m free to spend much more mental energy on it and its pace is therefor increased. I think I’m about a month away from submitting my proposal and twelve to fifteen months away from wrapping everything up. God willing, I’ll have earned my Dr. Greco name by nationals next year.

On another note, wrestling is going on this weekend at the OTC here in Colorado Springs; the Dave Schutlz Memorial International Invitational (something like that). I took some time out of my day yesterday to watch some of the Greco competitors duke it out for the opportunity to be called champion. Watching everyone competing really got me anxious to be back on the mat. It also reminded me that I need to take my time and make sure I’m fully prepared. I witnessed some decent wrestling, I witnessed some really good wrestling, and much in between. All in all it was good to see the guys out there fighting it out. I can’t wait till it’s my turn.

Until next time…

Jake Curby you will be missed…

More Info

One of the things I’ve been planning on doing is creating a special section on my site dedicated to the world championships. I’m planning on posting photos and blogs about what’s going on over there. I’ll make sure it gets taken care of before we take off so I can keep everyone up to date with the happenings of our trip. I’ll post a note with the details as soon as it’s ready to go.

Take care.

UPDATE:

The section created for the 2009 world championships can be found by clicking the link titled “2009 World Championships” on the right, or by clicking HERE

Get em while they’re hot!!

http://www.allcustomstores.com/rcjohnson/

For the design of this shirt I enlisted the help of my former teammate and great friend Paul Johnson over at www.spintopdesigns.com. Without his help I doubt I could have created such a cool design. If you’re ever in need of any sort of design for anything from a simple logo to a full website, I would recommend you to him.

Last but not least, here are images of the front and back of my t-shirt. I hope you think it’s great and will want to get one and help the cause. If you don’t like it, let me know. If you do like it (and I’m thinking you probably will), let everyone know!

Later in April, the 24th to be exact, a good buddy of mine had his PhD defense and I tell you what, this guy is good. I’ve always respected the work he does and am glad to know the kid. I think it was a good for me to have witnessed the defense, because when it’s my turn I’ll already have some sort of idea of the process (at least for the defense itself). Long story short, you write a book, give a lecture on your new stuff and then get peppered with questions from your committee members and the peanut gallery. Fun, fun, fun.

After that, there were good times and not so good times, lots of work on and off the mat in prep for trials, and other different events. One of the more interesting events involved the filing of a patent; the details of which are only really interesting to a few people at this point, but hopefully many more down the line. It was an interesting experience to file my first patent. The process is interesting in that you do all your research, pay a good lawyer to help you file, file, and then sit and wait (up to a couple years!) for someone to review it and finally start the dialogue (there’s apparently lots of back and forth communication involved once the process starts) for weather or not you can get it granted. It was entertaining and hopefully it won’t be the last one I work on.

Other than these two events, the time in between the two tournaments was spent finishing up my last semester of classes (ever, I do believe!) and working on improving myself as a wrestler. Something funny about that last part (improving myself) is that while I don’t like to comment about policies that have been implemented at certain places that I frequent, I feel it is necessary to say that removing key pieces of direct support does not improve a situation in which that support is crucial (speaking of past and present times) it only destabilizes it. But hey, champions persevere… right?

So there you have it, not much, and yet quite a bit, occurred in the time between Nationals and Trials.

Good times.

The US Open was in held in Las Vegas this April 8-11. It was a fairly good tournament with good competition (as it usually is). Unfortunately for me I didn’t win (haven’t before, so what else is new!), but I did take 2nd (for the second year in a row). Why didn’t I win, you ask? Because it wasn’t my time. As I’ve told many people who have asked me, there are many factors that go into a winning performance. From one certain training session a month before a tournament to what you have for breakfast to what song is playing on your iPod as you arrive to how good your warm up is just before you step on the mat. Sometimes these make a big difference and sometimes they don’t. Hindsight being 20/20 I could point out a dozen or so reasons why I wasn’t the last man to have his hand raised but in reality, it doesn’t matter. Why you ask? Because everyone loves a winner, period. You can have all the excuses in the world and no one will truly care, they only want to know weather or not you won. It’s just life.

Moving right along.

It’s always nice to be back in Las Vegas for that tournament. Many people go there because of the casinos, but because I don’t really enjoy gambling, they’re not a draw for me. I enjoy the area because of things like the Hoover Dam (there’s something to be said about a dam that was started in 1931 and is still curing today… look it up if you don’t believe me) , the nice climate (great to visit, not to live), and the plethora of buffets (what can I say, I’m not small and I really like food).

As with all tournaments, I enjoy going to compete and seeing different places, but mostly I have fun at them because I get to see my parents. From the start they’ve been my inspiration to do great things (do… or do not, there is no try – Yoda).

I’ve never really been one to read lots of books unless I didn’t have much choice in the matter; a real problem for someone who wants to do research in the Computer Science field. When I was younger a teacher had me read a book named Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card. Apparently, all I needed was a book that could catch my interest. I read all three of the books that were out and available at the time. It was probably the first time I’ve searched out books to read on my own.

Since then, the total of books in the series had grown to eleven. There were four books that follow the main character and four that follow his second in command and a few around that. Apparently time flies when you’re having fun, because without even noticing that much time has past since I read eight of the books that I knew were available (probably about 3 years now), four more books have appeared in the saga (three published and one in the works). Also, a movie has been in the works for some time now. I hope it will finally get the push it deserves because I would really enjoy a book like that coming to life on the big screen. Its potential is almost limitless.

If you haven’t figured it out, I recommend these books to anyone who’s interested in sci-fi and adventure stories. Also, for any parents that have kids who say they don’t like to read; maybe they haven’t found the right set of books.

Here are the books in the Ender series ( from Wikipedia ):

Ordered by Publication date
1. Ender’s Game
2. Speaker for the Dead
3. Xenocide
4. Children of the Mind
5. Ender’s Shadow
6. Shadow of the Hegemon
7. Shadow Puppets
8. Shadow of the Giant
9. First Meetings
10. A War of Gifts: An Ender Story
11. Ender in Exile

Chronological order

1. “First Meetings”
2. Ender’s Game
3. A War of Gifts: An Ender Story (Parallel Novel to Ender’s Game as seen by Zeck)
4. Ender’s Shadow (Parallel Novel to Ender’s Game as seen by Bean)
5. Ender in Exile (This book begins at the end of Ender’s Game and ends at the beginning of the Speaker for the Dead)
6. Shadow of the Hegemon
7. Shadow Puppets
8. Shadow of the Giant
9. Speaker for the Dead
10. Xenocide
11. Children of the Mind

Here is a map that is also on the wikipedia site:

This post was started three weeks ago (as stated above). It’s not that I haven’t had anything to write about; it’s that I’ve been so busy since I returned. It’s interesting what missing the first 5 weeks of a semester and over a month of work will do to you.

As I finish this post it’s March 17th. We’re a little under a month out from Nationals and everything is progressing as it should. Still busy as ever but at least I have some breathing room. There are many great things in the works for me at the moment. So many things, in fact, that it will take more time than I currently have available to mention all of them. Suffice to say for now that things are going well for me.

A friend of mine from France (Soufian Elgarne) has been kind enough to post one of my matches (two different clips) on YouTube. I have a plug-in that allows me to play it on my site, but I don’t have the time to configure it at the moment so I’ll put the link to them in this post so anyone who is interested can take a look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK14wCvDo0Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdKV0-8S8FQ

Well, that’s it for now (due to an extreme lack of time… didn’t I just say that I have some breathing room?). Hopefully I’ll soon be able to add a few photos, quotes, and other misc random nonsense that makes this site what it is.