In an attempt to get up to date with this blog, I’m going to try to recall some history. Since I have such a great memory (if you know me, you know what I’m talking about), this should be an interesting endeavor.

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).

So many things are going on that I haven’t had time to post anything in a while. I’m currently sitting in my office and just finished a conversation with a good friend of mine that lead me to want to post this.

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:

It’s Feb 24th and I’ve just returned from my trip to Bulgaria and Serbia. For the first time this season, I’ve come back from a tournament without hardware (a medal). Its never any fun to come back ‘empty handed’. I put that in quotes because it’s only partially true. I brought back experience of new rules and different opponents. Also, with traveling the world, meeting new people, and experiencing new things, I can never really say I came back ‘empty handed’, only that I return without hardware.

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.

Well, I’ve returned from Istanbul, Turkey and, as expected, my altered sleep patters have given me the “opportunity” to get some stuff done around the site. I’ve managed to add a bunch of new images. As far as the tournaments go, I’m mostly caught up, and even have pictures from Istanbul up. I’ll be working on posting the wrestling videos as soon as I figure out how I want to do it. I’m trying to decide between making a highlight video (more exciting in my opinion) or just put the raw footage up (probably only exciting for other wrestlers). Either way, I should hopefully have something posted sometime in the near future.

Also on my mind is the inauguration, which has now come and gone. Besides a slip up by a certain justice that shall remain nameless in this post, everything went off without a hitch. I wasn’t stateside when everything went down so I caught everything on BBC. For anyone who cares about such things I would highly recommend getting a copy (you can probably get it off their site or youtube.com or something) and checking it out. It’s interesting how the views of people in different countries differs from our own. One of the things to pay attention to (if you decide to re-watch it) is their commentary on who built the White House (very interesting indeed).

Lastly for this evening/morning/who know what the heck it is, are my comments on the first seven days with the new president. I’ve been following some of the news and the moves being made and all I can say is well done sir, well done. It’s pretty cool to be in a foreign country, surrounded by people who can barely speak English, knowing only a handful of their language, and being able to say two words to anyone and have it universally understood as a brighter future: “Go Obama!”

I thought I’d make note of two additional things for today, this day I leave for a wrestling trip to Turkey:

1) It’s MLK day and I think that anyone who has yet to hear the ‘I have a dream’ speech should first slap them self, twice, and then go download/purchase/borrow/find the speech and listen to/watch it. It’s not his only great speech, but what a speech it was. And while listening to it, take a moment to think about days gone by and days yet to come. It might just help some of you, you know who you are, put things in the proper perspective.

2) The inauguration of Barak Obama is tomorrow. After two score and three presidents we’re finally ready, as a country, to break from the status quo. This means a lot in terms of where we’ve come, as a nation, in recent years. The man himself is not a miracle worker, he’s no savior, and I’m sure he’s done a thing or two in his life that he’s not proud of, but what he represents is something much larger than himself. The ‘change’ he spoke of during his campaign, in my opinion, represents a breaking of the status quo, not only in the political views he says he has, but in the self image of the country.

Just some food for thought…

It only took me about 6 months to do, but I’m finally posting my photos from Beijing! As I type this the photos are uploading and should appear in the wrestling section shortly. While I was in Beijing I really enjoyed seeing the sights and meeting new people, but most of all, I enjoyed the overall experience. It really left me hungry for my turn, but that’s a story for another day…

I’ve gotten the Wrestling section a bit more filled out. I put an excerpt from a promotional letter on the main wrestling page and I’ve added more tournament results. My next big task will, most likely, be getting the pictures from Beijing posted (finally).

Also, If you hadn’t already noticed, I have the comments turned off for all posts in all sections. Once the site gets a bit more filled out I’m going to start allowing comments and see where that takes things.

A couple of days later and things look almost complete. Albums are posted, quotes are migrated and I’ve even added an extra section or two.

In this revision of my site I want to make sure I carry things over from the previous revision. Since the previous revision was hand rolled, I’m going to have to make a concession or two in the way I go about doing things. Simply put, I’m dumping a cut-and-paste version of my old posts into this one single post. If you don’t like it, then you just don’t like it…

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Subject: Times

Submitted by:
RC
Post Time:
04/22/07 6:43 pm

Well, it’s been a while and things are looking up. I’ve been doing some reflecting and it seems as if things will be okay. Nationals went okay this year, I didn’t win but I think I did learn a thing or two about what I need to do to get my job done on the mat. I also put more pictures up from the winter tour (ones from Russ). Just because I feel like mentioning something about what’s been going on lately, I’ll say that in these times of sadness (speaking of some current events) it’s good to see that people aren’t losing hope.

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Subject: Worth 1000 words

Submitted by:
RC
Post Time:
03/07/07 12:59 pm

I have much more to say but for this entry I’ll keep it short and sweet. I’ve finally had the time to sit down and play with Coppermine. For those of you who don’t know, its some pretty sweet photo gallery software. I originally wanted to make everything on this site from scratch but I just don’t have the time these days. At the time of this writing all the configuration has not been completed to my full satisfaction, but some albums are up and they look fairly good. Click on the “Media” tab to check it out. As always, check back for more updates and information…

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Subject: Ever Changing Progression

Submitted by:
RC
Post Time:
11/12/06 11:54 pm

It’s been a while since my last post and I thought I should update everyone. Many changes have taken place since my last post; some good, some bad, some just life. There’s limited space here so I’ll make my best attempt to briefly summarize. After this year’s (last wrestling season’s) winter tour I came back to lots of work; academic and wrestling. For many reasons, none of which I’ll get into on here, wrestling wasn’t the same for me as it had once been. I loved it as I always will, but something wasn’t right. After a disappointing performance at nationals, I came home and had seven days to study for my final PhD qualifier, which I ended up passing by the grace of God and some good people around me in the academic world. The next big thing that I had was world team trials, at which I did a descent job. Sometimes the simplest conversation in a hotel room can make the biggest difference. After that, I was able to relax for most of the rest of the summer, if relaxing can be called going to practice, then work, then practice, then work; good times indeed. Now we fast forward to this fall. We had another tournament a month ago at which I think some strides were made while testing some new things out. This quickly brings me to about a week and a half ago. I came home to a dead hard drive; everything gone, not much backed up. After the outright panic subsided, and the fact that I just lost the last five or so years of photos, notes, e-mails, backups and other things that I think of as being so important really had a chance to sink in, I thought about the rich man, the philosopher, and the fishermen. Of all things, these thoughts are what keep me going (if you don’t get the references, then you’re not reading the right book). Anyway, everything is moving in the right direction these days (because Murphy’s Law has already done its thing); I see good things in the future. To everyone helping, working and being flexible with me, I say thank you. To everyone who is unwilling to do these things, I say thank you even more because you are the reason I strive to be the best; so I don’t ever end up like you. Anyway, there you have it; the last few months of me. Once things settle (yeah right!), I hope to update some sections (especially my work one and the media one), and actually finish others (Wow, I’ve got quite the task a head of me), but we’ll see how that turns out. I’ve skipped many things in this update, but as I said before, it’s just a brief summary. Maybe in the future I’ll make a section where I’ll rant about stuff that interests me; who knows…

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Subject: Winter Wrestling Tour

Submitted by:
RC
Post Time:
02/28/06 9:32 am

I made it back from my winter tour safe and sound. This year’s tour took me to Paris and other parts of France and also to Ismir, Turkey. I didn’t bring my video camera so I most likely won’t be putting any matches on the site. I took some photos that I will post and I will hopefully be receiving photos and possibly other media to post from others who were with me in the various places. God was good to me on this trip; that’s for sure.

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Subject: Update

Submitted by:
RC
Post Time:
01/04/06 10:48 pm

I’ve been doing little things here and there on the site. I’ve added a search to the quotes section, a random nonsense page to the bio section (yet to actually be filled out as I write this), and other minor tweaks that fail to come to mind as I write this. This site is coming along quite nicely indeed.

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Subject: Photos

Submitted by:
RC
Post Time:
07/15/05 7:29 pm

I posted some pictures that I received from this year’s Johnson family reunion. I wasn’t able to be in attendance but I hear that they did the best they could without me and it went off without much of a hitch.

_____________________________
Subject: Update

Submitted by:
RC
Post Time:
06/11/05 5:26 pm

As you can see I’ve moved my new layout here to the main site. I still have some work to do on the layout (a logo, a graphic or two, a couple of different layout themes and schemes, etc), but all in all I think I am going to stick with this look for a little bit. I’m going to be working on putting information into the different sections at the same time I’m tweaking the layout; should be interesting indeed…

_____________________________
Subject: Update

Submitted by:
RC
Post Time:
06/02/05 10:57 pm

I’ve actually gotten around to getting a start on updating the look and feel of my site. The dark side has been calling me for some time now and I decided to partially give in; that’s right, I’m going to use Dreamweaver to create the template for my site. This doesn’t mean I’m going to have my site created by some editor though; it will still be hand coded by me, but it will have a pretty interface instead of a really basic one that will only work in Mozilla/Netscape/Firefox (everything on the planet but IE, which many people use). Check out my progress at beta.rcjohnson.net.

_____________________________
Subject: Update

Submitted by:
RC
Post Time:
12/06/04 10:49 pm

I added pics from the weekend of my Uncle Nate’s Funeral; Oct 8-10 2004.

_____________________________
Subject: Update

Submitted by:
RC
Post Time:
11/02/04 2:37 pm

I think I’m actually about ready to add more stuff to this site. I think it needs a wrestling section and more photos and graphics. I’ll be working on that soon hopefully. I’m not into flashy websites, but hopefully I can give my site a little more personality.

_____________________________
Subject: Update

Submitted by:
RC
Post Time:
07/22/04 8:29 pm

I finally got off my lazy butt today and started (and just about finished) a photo gallery. I’ve been running around quite a bit this summer having a good time; the reason for the slow going of the site over the summer. To date, my trips for the summer include: Lodz, Poland; Detriot Lakes, MN; Marquette, MI; Colorado Springs, CO; New York, NY; Washington DC and Baltimore, MD area; Jackson, MS; and right now I’m relaxing at home in the Twin Cities. Gotta love the summer!

_____________________________
Subject: Photos

Submitted by:
RC
Post Time:
07/22/04 8:19 pm

Almost done writing my photo gallery. The basic layout is there, and it seems to be in working order. The next thing for me to do is write something that will upload and categorize my photos without them taking up too much space.

_____________________________
Subject: e-mail

Submitted by:
RC
Post Time:
06/09/04 8:34 am

I found out that my e-mail hasn’t been working for the past couple of weeks. The problem has been fixed. If there is any sort of problem sending e-mail to rc at rcjohnson dot net, try sending it to that_ra at hotmail dot com. I apologize for any problems this may have caused.

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Subject: site layout issues

Submitted by:
RC
Post Time:
06/09/04 8:31 am

I’m making this site using Cascading Style Sheets which allows me to have much more freedom in the general layout and design. The current problem I’m having is getting it to work properly with Internet Explorer because in general IE is “broken” and does not like to work well with CSS. If the layout of my site looks very strange (the information starts below the menu that sits on the left side), I’m working on it. If you know anything about CSS and would like to throw in your 2 cents, I would not be offended. If you’re using Mozilla Firefox or Netscape (or any other non-IE browser I think) my site should look normal.

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Subject: My Old Site

Submitted by:
RC
Post Time:
05/17/04 9:03 pm

In case I forgot to mention it, my old website is still at http://www.swafo.com/rcjohnson. It still has a bunch of pictures and information on it. The old site will continue to have all the information on it untill this site is ready for such things. All in good time…

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Subject: Update

Submitted by:
RC
Post Time:
05/16/04 1:33 pm

My site is coming along slowly but surely. I’ve been making imporvements here and there, as soon as I can get someone else off their lazy butt, I’ll have some sweet graphics on here to go along with all the code… so be watching…

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I’ve finally given in to the temptation of a CMS (content management system). I’ve decided to go with WordPress. They have proven themselves, in my eyes, again and again and so the are my top pick. Hopefully this revision will be updated and maintained much better than I have done with previous revisions now that I don’t have to write every module before I use it.