LarryKagan.com

Positivity vs Pain

Larry Kagan — 2010-07-21T15:46:00+00:00

The question is "Will you still race this weekend?" The answer is yes. I mentioned before that I didn't choose the Ironman, it chose me. I can still hear it calling. What is life without challenges and goals, as selfish as they may be. I'm unsure of the reasoning for my choice to race. It may be momentum or habit after thousands of miles of training for nearly a year. There is comfort in routine. Maybe it's just the distraction I need. Or it may be part of some larger plan beyond our comprehension.

Sanity can only remain if a trust in fate is unyielding. I will try to surrender to what will be. I can only have an impact on what is now, not yesterday nor tomorrow. The universe (a.k.a: god, Buddha, Allah) is choosing the path. However, I ask only for Marni's happiness and peace in whatever form it may come.

Many of you have posted the information about Marni and for that, I'm grateful. I'm also grateful to see so many faces that I haven't seen in years come forward to help. Every new Facebook friend request I get from an old friend is another drop in the bucket of positive energy and a reminder of how wonderful human kind can be.

2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run..... no radio.... only my thoughts. That scares me. No longer does the physical pain or suffering intimidate me, the 13 hours alone in my head terrifies me. I will try to focus on positive thoughts but there will be times throughout the race that I will be covered in a blanket of negativity.

It's race day.... I've just raced 2.4 miles of swimming and have already been racing on the bike for 3 hours. The sweat is dripping into my eyes, it stings. I'm getting tired, my back is hurting and I ask myself "Is it worth it?", "Why am I doing this?". "I'm not even 1/3 done with this race!" There are also the unmentionable thoughts that I dare not even speak or write. I could use some positive energy now, what would you tell me?

Now I've been racing for 10 hours, I've seen the sun rise and now it's beginning to reach the other horizon. I've been running for about 3 hours after being on the bike for 6 and swimming over 1. My shoulders hurt, my fingers are numb, my feet are throbbing and I'm feeling amazing pain from my shins. Sweat is dripping from my finger tips and the end of my visor. My shorts are covered in a white layer of salt from my sweat. I'm tired, I have nothing left. Once again, my thoughts turn toward my sister. Only 2 or 3 more hours to go? What would you tell me now?

I don't know what I'll be thinking out there. I've never gone this far, this long and under circumstances such as these. If you could tell me something, anything to help me along, what would it be? Tell me via Facebook reply to this post or email. I'll compile this list, and take it with me on the bike and run. When things get tough, I'll read it. The words will help, I'm sure, but not as much as reading the name next to it, yours. Having a reminder of the positivity of friends and family will do wonders, I'm sure.

Thank you to all my friends and family for your continued support and love, it means everything to me. A special thank you to my fiancee, Sylvia, who's unrelenting love has now become a pillar in my life.

I'm a Triathlete Now

Larry Kagan — 2009-08-30T21:10:00+00:00

I raced my first triathlon today. It was an amazing experience. This is what life is about.

The Stats

Total Time: 1:02:55.075
Swim Time: 8:46
T1 Time: 1:34
Bike Time: 28:27
T2 Time: 1:14
Run Time: 22:54
Overall Place: 137 out of 371
Overall Percentile: 63
Gender Place: 119 out of 246
Gender Percentile: 52
Category Place: 17 out of 28
Category Percentile: 41

My Garmin cycling stats are here and run stats are here. I broke 2 personal records today:

Cycling average speed of 20.5 MPH
Running max speed of 13.6 MPH

The Pictures

Click here to view pictures of the race

The Full Story

It still feels like the middle of the night as the alarm clock wakes me to "Sounds of Caribbean" on NPR at 4:30 a.m.. Rising from bed comes easy this Sunday. I'm exciting to be racing my first triathlon.

All my preparations for the race were done the night before. My bike is in the car and my backpack waits for me on my kitchen table next to a cooler that I fill with 3 water bottles. I hit the button on the coffee machine (since I prepped it the night before) and heat a bowl of oatmeal. I go brush my teeth, wash my face and jump into my tri shorts. I get a text from Laura "SWIM BIKE RUN!". That little text is what really starts the day.

This triathlon wasn't about competition. It was about setting a difficult goal and accomplishing it with friends. The people are what made this day stand out.

Pulling into Tradewinds Park, the only light comes from the headlights of cars and the park lights. I follow the direction of the volunteer pointing with his flashlight to go left. After being guided into my parking space on the lawn, I grab my backpack and take my bike out of the car. I'm now part of a group of scattered triathletes and spectators headed all in the same direction, toward the transition area. Some walk, some ride their bike.

After placing my bike in a temporary staging area, I show my ID and receive my race number, 198. I'm now guided to the body marking area where a volunteer with a Sharpie writes my number on both biceps and thighs and my age on my right calf. I felt bad for the guy because it was still pitch dark out and difficult to see what he was doing. Next, I turn around to see the volunteers handing out the timing chips, I say "198 please!" and he hands me my chips. The timing chips are ankle wraps that trigger a timer during the race so times can be kept.

I grab my bike from the temporary staging area and walk it through the darkness, looking for a bike rack with a number range on it that my race number falls in. Found it! I think to myself "Remember, it's the third rack from the tree." I setup my transition area with my shoes, towel, helmet, glasses, water, etc... I look around and can barely make out the shapes of about 50 other triathletes doing the same. After I'm setup, I take the bike out for a quick ride to make sure everything is ready to go. After the ride, I take my goggles and swim cap and leave the transition area for the last time until race time.

Leaving the transition area, I start seeing some familiar faces. These are my friends from the Try-a-Tri group that I train with. These are the people that make this so much more than a simple athletic competition. Our group starts making our way to the launching point of the swim leg of the race. I start a slow jog to get the blood flowing. Once arriving, I jump in the water to get a feel for the lake. I walk in and feel the slime of the weeds under my feet. I start swimming and take a look at where the swim finish is so I know what to look for when I start the race. I join my friends and we wait for the start.

The siren sounds and the "Elites" dive in first. 5 minutes later, hundreds of us start to trickle in the lake, one-by-one, 3 seconds apart. As people start the swim, our little group keeps up some cheery conversation. As we get close to our turn to jump in, I feel my heart rate pick up a bit. I ask Ralph (wearing a heart monitor) what's your heart rate now? 10 BPM higher then just 2 minutes ago. That sounds about right for me too.

It's my turn, I dive in way too fast and hard. My goggles dropped around my neck. I didn't want to stop so I kept swimming for about a minute. After that, I put the goggles back on. I kept bearing right during the entire swim, I was frustrated at myself. Half way through the swim, my biggest fear for this race came to fruition. That god-damned cramp on my right side, near my ribs. I slow down a bit. I figure it's OK to slow down, I passed a few people earlier and only one had passed me. It seemed forever before I got to the shore. I ripped my googles and swim cap off and booked it to the transition area. I hear David say "Go Larry!". That felt awesome. Thanks Dave!

I dry my feet, throw on my socks, shoes, helmet and sun glasses as fast as I can and run with my bike out of the transition area. I was tired as hell and had a hard time breathing. I kept telling myself, "You got this, Larry!" When I see the sign that says "Mount Bike Here", I did.

As soon as I was on the bike, I felt strong. I'm still fighting this cramp in my ribs but .... "You got this, Larry!" I quickly get up to 22 MPH and settle into my aerobars. Just a minute or two later, I lifted my hand from the aerobars to switch gears and put too much pressure on the left side of my handlebars. I lost control. I braced for impact and got ready to feel the pavement shave off some of my skin. But it didn't happen. I'm not sure how, but I recovered and continued my pace without falling. The entire time I'm on the bike, I'm passing people. I felt really good about that. Through the entire 10 miles, I think only 4 or 5 people passed me. I had a strong ride and got a new personal record of an average pace of 20.5 MPH. This cramp is still killing me so I'm going to slow down a bit toward the end of the ride so I have something left for the run.

I get the transition area, drop my bike and helmet and throw on my race belt. I book it out of the transition area to start my run. I felt strong even with the cramp. That wasn't going to last. Leaving the transition area, I hear David yell "Go Larry! I'm so jealous!" David is a fellow triathlete but decided not to race this one. I yell back "so am I". He gets to take pictures while I have a damn knife in my rib. It didn't matter, there was nothing that was going to make me stop or walk. The run was tough. People were passing me constantly. I'm losing everything I gained during the bike leg of the race. It's at this point that I start accepting that I'm not doing well. My Garmin is telling me that I'm running at about a 10 minute mile (6 MPH). That's not good. It's OK, I'll deal with it. The cramp is getting worse in my rib. I put my shoulders back as far as I can to try to stretch the area. I'm not stopping, nothing is going to keep me from running. I told myself at about halfway through the run, that for the last quarter mile, I was going to give it everything I had. I knew I would be in incredible pain but I was willing to deal with that as a fair trade for finishing strong.

I look down at my Garmin, a quarter mile left, it's go time! Just as I'm looking down, I see some guy passing me in a professionally printed triathlon suit. He apparently had the same idea I did to finish strong. "Oh no, you're not finishing before me!" I thought to myself. I raise my head, lean forward and give it everything I got! We're side by side and we're both pushing it. We're hauling ass. I'm breathing so hard that anyone within 15 feet of me can hear me. He's now on my left and about a foot ahead of me. "GO GO GO!" I say to myself. I'm gaining on him. He looks back and tries to pull away, I lean even more forward, lengthen my stride and push harder than I ever had in my life. Here comes the finish line! "Go Larry, you got this!" I pass him then fly past the finish line. I win! I don't care how I did the rest of this race. Right now, I win!

As I cruise into the finish area, I'm knocking over volunteers that were handing out water and pushing other competitors out of my way because I couldn't stop. Thank god for the palm tree. I reach down and take off my ankle strap timing chips and hand them to the volunteer that takes them. I grab a bottle of water and walk out to the parking lot. I then pour half the bottle of ice water over my head. I can't talk, I can't get enough oxygen into my lungs. In the last intense moments of the race, I forgot about the cramp, but it's back now to remind me and worse then before. I walk around the parking lot and continue pouring water over my head while taking the occasional sip. This goes on for about 5 minutes.

My heart rate is normal, I've cooled down, and the cramp is finally gone. I see David and King taking pictures next to the Finish line. I join them, then some others from our group and cheer on the rest of our group as they finish. It was great to see the smiles of our friends as we screamed their names and applauded as they crossed the finish line.

So now we're all snacking and talking about the highlights (and lowlights) of the race when they start announcing the winners. We walk over to the trailer where the speaker system is setup and the awards are handed out. We all know who won already since the times were posted. A few of us from the group did exceptionally well and took home awards. I, on the other hand, placed 17th out of 28 in my age group. That bothers me. It shouldn't, this is my first race and I'm told that my age group is the most competitive. I guess middle of the pack is pretty exceptional for a first race.

The awards ceremony is over and it's time to go. I say good bye to everyone and walk my bike back to the car with Danielle. As I turn on the car, I hear the weather report. "And the heat index currently is 101 degrees". Yep, it was a hot one once the sun came up. As I'm driving home, I look down to see the faded "198" in permanent marker on my legs and smile. I'm a triathlete now.

A Year in Reflection

Larry Kagan — 2009-07-30T15:33:00+00:00

Over a year ago, I reconnected with family. This is when I came back home to Goju. It certainly doesn't feel like it's been over a year but as you'll see in the first blog post of the Budo site , I came home in late June (6/21/08). The time has been flying by.

My Goju family has welcomed me back. The dynamics of the family have changed considerably since I trained 20 years ago. I've gained brothers, cousins, and even children. Some parts of the family have pursued the art by different means than others but all welcome me with open arms, regardless of differences. Most of those that I knew back then, now adorn the black and red obis of Kyoshi. For the one that doesn't, he transcends it in my eyes.

Through events that have lead to humility and pride, strength and pain, anger and contentment, training has enriched my existence. And for that, I am grateful.

What is Real

Larry Kagan — 2009-06-06T08:06:00+00:00

Clarity comes from a misty dream. The subconscious mind holds up a mirror to you in your sleep. Only when looking into it, will you see what is truly important to you. What consumes your conscious mind has little real importance, even during tough times.

Your true fears and pain will let themselves be known to you. This gives you perspective on everything else you're currently experiencing. Embrace it. It is why I'm up and writing this at 4:00 am. I'm grateful for the nightmare.

Yesterday, the attorney says "this ... creates real problems for you." I simply smile, knowing that these problems, although I can see them, are not real.

Look deep into the eyes of someone you love, a mother, a lover, a child.... and you will know what is real.

An Unknown Truth

Larry Kagan — 2009-03-25T14:53:00+00:00

Very recently, there was once again proof that there is indisputably another plane of reality that transcends my bad day at work or my quest for six-pack abs or even a kata performed to perfection.

I won't pollute the proof with my lack of language skills that will surely diminish the value of the experience. However, know that a traveler on a quest has picked me up and helped me discover the path that was hidden from me for many years.

I have begun another venture into this realm of existence. This is the realm of the spiritual, the metaphysical, the science that still awaits answers. Anxiety, fear, jealousy, loneliness all succumb to the embrace of a greater unknown truth.

Everyone Goes Away

Larry Kagan — 2009-02-26T21:38:00+00:00

Living in the now is all one can do. For in the end, everyone goes away. Sanity requires a contrary thought, no, belief. The body may remain but the essence will disappear. It may be abrupt or it may happen slowly and quietly until one day you stand there, alone, baffled that you didn't see it earlier.

Live in the now. Seek balance within and only allow others to add seasoning to the flavor of life, for only you can provide the main course. Understand that the valleys of pain and sorrow are in all our futures, but so are the peaks of joy and happiness. Do not be fooled by the mirage of stability instilled by others. It changes, everything changes. You.... will change.

Expecting pain is not pessimistic, it is realistic. The wound will be less damaging if you are prepared for it. Healing will come faster once you accept you are injured. The problem, one of which I have no solution, is how to maintain feeling after injury, healing, injury, healing, injury, healing. I believe, as of this moment, that your ability to feel after each injury is diminished, incrementally and permanently.

Accept who you are, more-so, who you aren't. Be satisfied with that. If you race with the rats, even if you lead, you will lose. The only way to win is to not race. Understand what is truly important to you. Then follow that, do not give up on it or let anything get in the way, for if you do, you lose your ability to control your happiness. Others can not make you happy, they can only make the taste of happiness sweeter.

Yet, we are human and as such, flawed. Thus, I stand here in this valley, unbalanced and searching far and wide for a mountain top, a peak. But all I can see is that, in the end, everyone goes away.

Feeling Fit

Larry Kagan — 2009-01-14T02:19:00+00:00

Just a quick update. It's been over a week and I haven't as so much as a single drag of cigarette. I feel absolutely great! It's been about 6 months since I started training in martial arts again. I've been going to gym every single weekday during my lunch break. I've been really active with volleyball, surfing, biking, etc... I'm in the best shape of my life and loving it!

Beautiful Torture

Larry Kagan — 2009-01-05T17:59:00+00:00

I ran out of cigarettes yesterday around 2 pm. I decided not to get any more. I'm not on the nicotine patch. Yes, I'm quitting cold-turkey. I feel cravings that are insatiable no matter how much I eat. I barely got out of bed from about 4 pm yesterday until 7 am this morning. I slept almost 12 hours. I woke up feeling numb. My balance is off today. I feel like I took cold medication.... disconnected.

Maintaining mellow is my one and only goal today. The stressors keep pounding on the wall to get in; (the new small office, the bad lighting, the AC that numbs my hand, the unclear and ever changing task specifications) I don't know how long I can keep them out. But I've been winning lots of tiny little battles today. I forgave myself for waking up late. I'm not rushing to get into work, it will be there no matter what time I get there. I actually rode the motorcycle a little slower this morning just so I can really enjoy it. Waking up late will screw up my plans for the gym and volleyball tonight; I'm okay with that, it's not important. I forgive myself for writing this while I'm supposed to be working. Work isn't important, my happiness is.

My mind is all over the place; jumping from fighting stressors to enjoying the light-headed feeling I have today, to feeling incredibly alone. It's been a beautiful torture. It's been beautiful in that it's not the same as every other day. Today is different. It's a different reality; or the same reality viewed from a different perspective.

This painful bliss will, in all likelihood, be in vein. The chances that I quit smoking for good are incredibly slim. But what is life if there is nothing to fight for?

Thanksgiving 2008

Larry Kagan — 2008-12-01T15:15:00+00:00

This Thanksgiving, David, Kim, and myself went up to the Tampa area to visit Nik and his family. They just moved up there. It was a great time. Nik & Harmony were extremely hospitable and really set the groundwork for a fantastic extended weekend. Thanks guys! I hope we brought you enough of those freakin' little pigeon gungoo peas!

The food was awesome, the people were even better. Noah (Harmony's brother) is absolutely amazing as a musical artist and as a person in general. The man is always traveling with his guitar, entertaining everyone around him. Thanks Noah! You can see a video of the best ever rendition of Old McDonald here. He played this for Nik's daughter and as you'll see, she thoroughly enjoyed it.

While up there, we went to Busch Gardens. I'm learning that I'm not so great with roller coasters. But whatever, I'm not gonna stop going on them. I'm a man! (even though my "man card" was revoked).

While up there for Thanksgiving, I found myself thankful for my friends. I'm also thankful for many other things in my life like my family, career, martial arts, and my health. If, over the holiday, you didn't take a minute to think of the many things you can be thankful for, now may be a good time.

Click here for pictures of the trip.

Ebb & Flow

Larry Kagan — 2008-12-01T14:41:00+00:00

Not long ago, I posted a blog entry about some bumpy roads. But for every ebb, there is a flow. As of late, life has been great. On November 15th, I competed in my first karate tournament in almost 20 years and performed extremely well. I entered 2 events and won first place in both. You can read more about the tournament here.

The loss of my major clients gave me time to enjoy life and now I limit myself to only one programming project at a time. I've been doing new and exciting things like surfing, bicycle riding through the Everglades, riding my motorcycle up to Titusville to watch the space shuttle launch, etc... Life is good.

MAF Tournament 2008

Larry Kagan — 2008-11-17T18:35:00+00:00

This past Saturday was Larry Mabson's tournament. I'm very proud of my students that attended: Damian, Felipe, Fabrizzio and O.J.. Competition, especially a karateka's very first, is not easy. The event was very slow going and lasted most of the day. Because of that, many competitors didn't stay to compete in all their intended events. You can't blame them. Thanks also to their parents who were patient enough to stay as long as they did.

As for me personally, it was a great day. I felt very fulfilled being a part of my student's experience. There were times when I felt my presence was appreciated by the kids. Throughout the day, I spoke with other students and teachers of USA Goju and other styles as well. The feeling of brotherhood that filled the gymnasium (at least in my eyes) is nothing less than amazing.

I competed in this tournament; the first time in almost 20 years. The very first event of the day was my forms division; black belt men. As I was watching the other competitors perform their katas, my adrenaline began to flow, my body began to tremble as I practice the form in my head. When it was my turn to perform, I once again rose above the kata. All thoughts left my mind as my body took over. I didn't know how I performed until I took my final bow and my mind once again took over. I heard the roar of the crowd. At that point, I knew they enjoyed my performance more than the other competitors based on the level of applause. I paid no attention to scores at any time throughout the competition. I won first place.

Many, many hours later, black belt men's fighting competition began. It was the last event of the day. I thoroughly enjoyed sparring the other black belts from Karate, Kung-fu and Capoeira. I think I may be a little strange in that throughout most of my fighting, I had a huge smile on my face. I fought three matches, I won all three. I earned first place in this division as well.

I can't explain the feeling I had this past weekend other than euphoric. I was overwhelmed with pride, humility, respect and excitement all at the same time.

There are some important people in my life that I need to thank for their influences that resulted in this weekend's wins:

Sensei Smith: As a karateka, I am little more then the culmination of your chosen knowledge and knowledge sought from a thirst for balance. Thank you for welcoming me back home.
Sensei Cheek: Thanks for allowing me to train with you, getting me back into shape, and re-discovering the things that sensei Smith taught me. Also, for giving me the confidence and encouragement to move forward as a karateka.
Sensei Reizner: Thanks for helping me develop as a karateka during the early years with our brotherly competitiveness and our equal passion for achieving the ideal.
Sensei Hobson: Thanks for helping me tweak my sparring skills and for welcoming me to your branch of our family.
My Parents: Thanks for enrolling me in martial arts 24 years ago. And thank you for having the patience and dedication to bring me to the dojo many times a week as a child.

Click here for photos of the tournament.

Meeting Up

Larry Kagan — 2008-10-27T13:20:00+00:00

My life has changed so much recently. I've greatly cut-back on the amount of client work I've been doing and taking more time to live. I joined a site called Meetup. The site is free and allows you to meet up with groups of people that share similar interests. I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone.

As a result of this site, I had a hell of a weekend! I learned how to surf on Saturday morning with about 40 other people. You can see the surfing pictures here. On Sunday, a group of about 10 of us rode our bicycles almost 30 miles through east Boca. That was pretty difficult for me but the other guys said doing it another 2 or 3 times will make it much easier in the future. Here's some pictures of the bike ride.

Daytona Biketoberfest 2008

Larry Kagan — 2008-10-20T14:00:00+00:00

Yesterday, Denis & I got back from Biketoberfest. We had a great time. The ride up to Daytona was perfect. All the recent upgrades to my bike made the trip much more comfortable. The hotel was cool. It was the same hotel I stayed in during Bike Week. It was right on the beach and I got to watch the sunrise one morning.

Once again, there were tons of amazing bikes. The people were very cool. It's almost like a huge family. We're all bikers. We all share a passion. So we're all respectful and friendly to each other. Here's an example. There was a woman who was turning the corner on her Harley. She lost her balance and dropped the bike. Within 3 seconds, 4 or 5 of us were helping her up and making sure she was OK. She was. Also, there were some women there that were wearing some very cool and sexy things. I simply asked to take a picture with/of them and also asked the person they were with, and they were happy to oblige. See the link to the pictures below. It was all about fun. There was level of trust amongst us. Twice, Denis and I had some female passengers that just really enjoyed riding on a bike. It was all about fun and the passion to ride.

The event itself was very much like Bike Week with only a few exceptions. Only motorcycles were allowed on Main street during Bike Week, but this time, during Biketoberfest, cars were allowed. Biketoberfest is only 4 days, Bike week is a full week. The city of Daytona Beach seemed a little less welcoming then it was during March when I was there for Bike Week. Cops were more numerous and more people were being pulled over.

My unlucky streak hasn't taken a vacation even though I did. The day before we left, I started getting sick. I was fighting a cold the entire time I was up there. Thanks Marta for the TheraFlu suggestion, that stuff rocks.

When, we walked back to our bikes after grabbing a bite to eat, they were gone. All we saw was an empty parking lot with a 'Tow Away Zone' sign. Yep, the bikes were impounded. Denis was on the verge of causing some serious damage to the poor guys that towed the bikes. I'm glad I was there or I may have had to bail him out of jail! That was a very unpleasant and expensive experience. The next night, while riding, my entire left foot assembly including gear shifter fell right off the bike! That crap never happens to my bike. My baby is mint! But I was lucky enough to have a set of tools on the bike and fixed it on the spot. 5 minutes later we were riding again like nothing ever happened.

Overall, I didn't let my misfortune get me down. For some reason, I've really been able to keep optimistic attitude in the face of adversity. I was feeling a little defeated yesterday and this morning. Thank god for music. I just put on my 'Happy Days' playlist in iTunes and it just makes feel like the best days are coming. Just listening to George Michael's 'Faith' makes me feel like everything will be alright.

Biketoberfest was fun as I expected. I love bike events. I'm going to start looking into other destinations for these events. I know there's one in Key West and another in Mertyl Beach. Denis and I were even talking about hitting the Carolinas and riding through the Appalachian mountains. I didn't experience any paradigm shifts like I did with Bike Week, but I sure had a good time.

See the pictures here and a video of Denis riding here.

Bumpy Roads

Larry Kagan — 2008-10-18T23:18:00+00:00

It's been a while since my last entry. There's good reason for that. The past 6 weeks or so have been pretty crummy. Here's a quick rundown of what's been going on:

Misty & I broke up after three years
My business lost 2 good clients
One of my programmers went missing in action for a while
My laptop died
I almost got run over on the bike again and had to kick the car to get the guy's attention
My motorcycle got towed while at Biketoberfest
There's a few more things that I'm keeping to myself.

For some strange reason, I'm feeling optimistic. After some deep reflection, I'm able to pull a lot of good out of the list above. If you curious about my thoughts, just ask.

I'm up here in Daytona right now for Biketoberfest. I'll post another blog entry, pictures, and video when I get back home on Sunday.

Hurricane Ike

Larry Kagan — 2008-09-04T04:00:00+00:00

Are you kidding me? Give me a break! Here comes hurricane Ike. I have a bad feeling about this one. Wish me luck.

Book Review: The Karate Dojo

Larry Kagan — 2008-08-24T05:16:00+00:00

The Karate Dojo, written by the late Master Peter Urban is a short and easy read with much valuable information. Grand Master Peter Urban created the USA Goju style of karate. I was lucky enough to meet this man in person, although I was too young to realize the importance of the man during the two hours my father and I spent at his home in 1987. See a picture of our meeting here. This book should be required reading for any serious karateka aged 13 and above.

Chapter 1 starts with the affects of martial arts on society in the past, present and future. Note, however, that this book was originally published in 1967 so some references to popular culture are a bit dated.

Chapter 2 reviews some traditions in the dojo including the roles of students and instructors. Chapter 3 covers the belt system. Master Urban reviews the mindset of students and teachers at different ranks.

Chapters 4 through 8 cover the history of the Goju style and general philosophy behind the training in traditional martial arts. Master Urban offers suggestions on how to perceive your physical training and change or improve your thought processes that will make you a more balanced karateka.

The remaining chapters are short and entertaining martial art tales that all have a moral, although sometimes hard to find.

In summary, after reading this book, you will have graduated from someone who simply takes karate classes, to someone who now studies the art of karatedo.

Osu, Oss, Oos, Os

Larry Kagan — 2008-08-19T14:47:00+00:00

You hear this during almost every class and outside of class when speaking with other karateka. You probably also say it yourself but what does it really mean?

There's much speculation as to it's true origin. However, the most logical explanation in my opinion is that it's a contraction of the Japanese term "Oshi Shinobu". Oshi means pressure and Shinobu means persevere or endure. Combining these two words into a single phrase or contraction results in the translation to endure under pressure.

Oshi Shinobu = Os~~hi Shinob~~u = Osu

Thus, the correct spelling is Osu. It appears to have been brought into the martial arts by Masutatsu (Mas) Oyama, founder of Kyokushinkai and one of Peter Urban's teachers.

Today, in western dojos, we use it to mean yes, alright, good, hello, goodbye, well done! and more. However, it's greatest impact is during an intense workout. You're on the verge of collapse. Your gi is soaked, your eyes are stinging from the salt of your sweat. Your legs or arms are about to give out from under you. Your sensei speaks some words of encouragement or simply yells out the name of your style Goju!. Now your adrenaline kicks in, you get goose-bumps on your arms, you feel the surge of adrenaline throughout your body, your chi has been restored and you yell in reply Osu!

Tropical Storm Fay is Coming

Larry Kagan — 2008-08-18T14:32:00+00:00

It's been a few years since we in South Florida have been threatened by a serious storm. The last one was hurricane Wilma which did considerable damage to my home. You can see pictures of the damage here.

Now here comes Tropical Storm Fay. It doesn't look like anything major so I'm not putting up the storm shutters. We did, however, stock up on some food, water, and batteries. I also stocked up on about 30 gallons of gas for the generator. I'm sure we'll be fine.

Brotherhood

Larry Kagan — 2008-08-18T14:31:00+00:00

An old friend, Kyoshi Dan Reizner recently visited South Florida. We trained together for quite a few years. He was and is again my Karate brother. It was great seeing him again. We recalled some fond old memories. As teens, my mother would bring me to his house and he and I would train in his back yard. We would condition our knuckles by using a tree as a makiwara. Sparring was almost always a requirement when he and I trained together. We put plenty of miles on our "Silver Bullet" sparring gear back then. We recalled a time at American Masters Martial Arts dojo where Sensei Smith gave us each a red brick and told us to take them outside and don't come back until we've broken them with our bare hands. That kind of training is difficult to find these days. But if you currently study under Master Reizner, you are very familiar with it. I'll save the stories I heard about Master Reizner's Black Belt "retreats" for another time.

No matter how badly you want things to stay the same, change is often inevitable. Much has changed since I last trained 17 years ago. But one thing has stayed the same; the sense of brotherhood amongst karateka. I was welcomed back by both Master Smith and Master Reizner with open arms. I am now an assistant instructor (Sempai), under Sensei Les Cheek. In the 6 weeks or so since I've been back, a brotherly bond has already formed between Sensei Les and myself. That sense of family and belonging is incredibly meaningful and is important in leading a balanced life. I have now extended my family by re-establishing relationships with a brother (Master Reizner), an Uncle (Master Smith), and have gained a new brother, Sensei Les.

Domo arrigato Senseis!

Introducing Budo

Larry Kagan — 2008-07-07T14:41:00+00:00

Budo has been launched. This site is the medium I use to share knowledge and information about martial arts. It is still very young and the amount of content is very light. But in the coming months and years, much useful information will be found here.

Currently, here are the sections that have some content:

Some of the items that are planning are:

USA Goju History
Belts / Ranking: The belts of USA Goju and requirements for each.
Kata: Names, history, and bunkai. Some video of lower-level kata will also be found here.
Kumite: Notes and tips as I remember them and learn them.
Kobudo: Martial arts weaponry.
Links: I may possibly include only a few links to sites that I feel are of particular importance or usefuleness.

What is Shodan-ho?

Larry Kagan — 2008-07-07T13:45:00+00:00

What is shodan-ho? First let's start by defining what shodan means. Literally translated, it means first degree. It is a Japanese term that refers to the first level of black belt in Japanese martial arts. The suffix ho is translated as provisional, junior, or probational. Thus, a shodan-ho is a provisional black belt.

Generally speaking, the karateka (student) has not quite fulfilled all requirements to earn the rank of shodan. Different styles of karate and even different schools within the same style use different belt markings to designate a shodan-ho. Most common appears to be a black belt with a white stripe running lengthwise throughout the obi (belt). Another option is a black belt with a brown stripe running lengthwise throughout the obi. Not all styles or schools within a style use the rank of shodan-ho. Those who do utilize it, have different sets of criteria for its use.

Note that the provisional status of ho is not limited to shodan. It can be applied to any of the kyu (lower than black-belt) ranks. For example, a provisional first-kyu would be referred to as ikkyu-ho.

Back in 1987, I earned my shodan-ho. I was only 17 years of age. One of the requirements for shodan was that the student be at least 18 years of age. Shortly after this achievement, I ceased training. I'm not sure the reasons but at 17 years old, you can take your pick (college, social life, etc...). Now, at age 34, I decided to start training again. I am once again a student of my same sensei, Jorge Smith. Although I am clearly above the age of 18, I am still considered shodan-ho. It is appropriate that I keep my provisional status in this situation (in my humble opinion) after 17 years of not training. A demotion to brown belt would have also been appropriate (again, in my humble opinion).

Back In Training

Larry Kagan — 2008-06-30T19:00:00+00:00

Last week I decided to begin training again in karate. It's been about 17 years since I last trained. You can see some old pictures I scanned in from the old days of training here. I googled my old instructor and found his school in Hollywood. That's a bit too far for me to drive for classes a couple of times a week. I did some more searching and found one of his students, Les Cheek, who teaches in this coral springs school. I drove on over to the school and started training immediately.

There is a beach workout coming up on July 12^th. A few different karate schools will be meeting up for a workout on Hollywood beach. These workouts are tough. We'll be getting our uniforms soaked with water, then once we're nice and heavy, we'll go ahead and run for a while on the sand. In order for me not to lose face, I'll have to train intensely over the next two weeks in order to keep up with everyone else. I quit smoking (again) today; so far, so good. I've already adjusted my diet. I'll be picking up a heavy bag after work today to put up in my garage. I'll also be going to the gym daily for strength and interval training.

There's a few more dimensions to martial arts training than simply the physical. For one, there's the spiritual dimension. I'm almost done re-reading the late Master Peter Urban's The Karate Dojo. I've already ordered Goju Ryu Karate Do Kyohan by Gojen Yamaguchi and hope to receive it by the weekend. Shortly after my 2-week physical and spiritual cram session, I'll focus once again on the remaining aspects of martial arts training.

Wish me luck, I'll need it!

A Night of Psychosis

Larry Kagan — 2008-06-16T18:49:00+00:00

I had one of the most profound dreams of my life last night.

Misty & I were on the outside deck aboard a cruise ship when it suddenly crashed into something. We quickly jumped into a life boat and were lowered to the ground. The cruise ship was not at sea, it was sitting somewhere on land.

It was at this point when I felt alone; more alone than I ever had in my life. Even if we as people are by ourselves, we are never really alone. We know there are people alive that love us and care for us. You know you have friends, family, neighbors, etc... that enjoy having you in their lives. Well, imagine for a moment that there was no one that knew you enough to care if you were even alive. That's how I felt. Imagine that there was not a single thing that made you special, not your looks, your personality, your sense of humor, your morals..... nothing. Add to that a complete sense of amnesia. In addition to being alone, you have no memory of the past, you don't know who you are, where you've been, what you stand for or where you belong. There is one thing and only one thing that I remember. The love I felt from my dog Tayla.

Tayla is on one of the lower decks where pets of passengers are kept. I make my way back into the ship to find Tayla. I had to find her, she is the only sense of self and love that I know. I wanted to find her so bad that I picked up a white poodle and believed it was her. I kinda knew it wasn't her but I wanted to believe it was her so bad that I forced myself to believe it. I was holding the poodle as I was remenising of the past with Tayla from the hours I spent picking the perfect name to the day I brought her home to her jumping up on me whenever I walk through the door. I never found her.

It's now months later and the ship was repaired and I now lived in a stateroom aboard the ship. I get on my motorcycle and ride it down the hall to my office. I ask someone for directions to the bathroom and they tell me where it is as if they were a nursing home care-taker telling a senile old man. I was offended. I also realized that no one was looking at me, no one addressed me or talked to me. I still have no recollection of my past. I just know I have to get to work.

I walk in the office and look around for my desk. I see one of my co-workers, I don't know him but I know I work with him. I can't remember which desk is mine. I feel confused and alone. I put down my backpack on one of the desks and pretend like I know which desk is mine and that everything is normal. But I'm scared. What's going on? Why can't I remember anything?

I look over at my co-worker and to hide the paranoia I say with high-energy, "Good Morning". He replies to me in a similar way as the previous person, overly-friendly, "Good Morning Larry, How are you today?". Again, I'm offended. I think to myself, "Why are you talking to me like that?" He asked me why I was in the office.

I walk out into the hall without replying and as I pass a mirror, I notice that my left-hand pinkey finger is missing from the top knuckle. There is a small scab there so it's been healing for a while. As I'm looking at my hand, I'm damn-near tears and thinking to myself: Why can't I remember this? What the hell is going........... I don't under.... Am I.... mentally ill? I am. I want to die.

Then I wake up. Most people can sympothise with the mentally ill, but after last night, I believe that I can now empathize with them. The sad thing about this story is that many mentally ill people go through this pain and feeling of loneliness for mostly every waking moment of their lives. Their reality is different from ours and no one can relate to them and they can relate to no one. They are indeed alone in the truest sense. Even if they do have that moment of light where they realize they are ill, it's more often than not, temporary. They are stuck in this perpetual cycle of pain, loneliness and realization.

We have such limited insight into mental health at this stage of human existence. It's sad. I recommend reading When Someone You Love Has a Mental Illness to begin learning how to cope with someone that has a mental illness.

Tools & Resources for Web Professionals

Larry Kagan — 2008-05-14T03:25:00+00:00

Tonight I gave a presentation on Tools & Resources for Web Professionals. It went exceptionally well. I had a great time and I believed the group enjoyed it as well. It could simply be the candy bars I was handing out, but I choose to believe that they truly found it useful. The group was the the WebPro100.

You can download the slides by clicking here.

Misty's Graduation

Larry Kagan — 2008-05-04T02:48:00+00:00

Congratulations Misty! Misty just graduated from Florida Atlantic University with her Master's degree in Social Work. She's been going to school for as long as we've known each other. Now, finally, it's all over.

I was so proud of her as I watched her during her procession into the FAU auditorium. She looked amazing as she wore her black gown and sash signifying to the rest of the world that she had joined the upper ranks in education with a Master's degree. There were about 200 graduates walking the stage that day, but only a small percentage of them had earned the right to wear that black gown and sash. They were, indeed, special. Those graduating with a Master's degree in social work were truly unique, a realization I came to as I watched them do the wave during the ceremony. Yes, the wave! Although Misty is not one to desire much attention, she sure got it when I yelled at the top of my lungs when they called her name to walk the stage. About 1000 people instantly turned their attention on her (and I guess a few on me). I apologize to the people sitting in front of me, I didn't mean to make you jump out of your seats.

We celebrated with a fantastic party at Misty's mother's house (Gerri) and many of our closest friends and family attended. Food and drink were plentiful and smiles were even more abundant. Thanks to Gerri and the rest of the family for making it so special for Misty.

So now, in the spirit of celebration, Misty and I are preparing to take a vacation to Disney World in Orlando. Well, Misty is actually dead asleep right now after all the commotion this weekend. But she'll be up bright and early getting everything ready for the trip. Stay tuned for pics of Disney.

See pics of Misty's graduation and related events here.

Congratulations baby! I love you and I'm very proud of you!

SFTP umask

Larry Kagan — 2008-04-23T15:23:00+00:00

What a pain in the butt it was to figure out how to set the default umask on new files sent via sftp. I was on a ghost hunt and found references to PermitUserEnvironment and the environment file but that didn't work as advertised. Setting umask in your shell configuration files (.profile, .bashrc, etc...) just doesn't work.

The quick and sure fire way to get this working is creating a tiny wrapper around the sftp-server binary. This is a three-step process:

The first step is to change your /etc/ssh/sshd_config (or equivalent) file to point to the new wrapper that you'll create: Subsystem sftp /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server.sh Notice that the name of the 'subsystem' is sftp-server.sh. It was sftp-server before the change.
The second step is to write a three-line wrapper around sftp-server that will be called sftp-server.sh. #!/bin/bash umask 117 /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server

Now just reload the sshd server: $ sudo /etc/init.d/ssh reload

And that's it!

This solution does not work for scp.

CodeIgniter from the Comand Line

Larry Kagan — 2008-04-15T19:13:00+00:00

So the question is "How do I write command line applications that use CodeIgniter?" Well, my techie friends, it's incredibly easy!
First create a directory to hold your command line scripts. Here's what my directory structure looks like:
- / <-- This is my project root + application/ + htdocs/ + tools/ <-- Here's where I put my command line scripts

Now we create a tiny script to run our code. It doesn't matter what you name it since the only reference to it will be as a command line argument to the php interpreter. I named mine rssBuilder.php. Here's the entire contents of that script: set_time_limit(0); $_SERVER['PATH_INFO'] = '/rssbuilder/personal'; require_once '../htdocs/index.php';

The first line of code tells the PHP interpreter to let the script execute for an unlimited amount of time. This is necessary for many command line scripts.

The second line tells CodeIgniter to use the personal() method of the Rssbuilder controller. You will build the controller as you would any other controller. $_SERVER['PATH_INFO'] is usually supplied by php when a web request is made. However, since we are calling this script from the command line, we need to emulate this small part of the environment as a web request.

The last line includes the CodeIgniter index.php file which sets up the CodeIgniter environment. This is the same old index.php file that lives in the document root of your site.

One important note about using CodeIgniter from the command line is that if you want your controller to only be accessible from the command line and not the web, you should place this small piece of code at the top of your controller: if($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'] != 'rssBuilder.php') { header('location: /'); // Ideally, send a 404 error instead of redirect. exit; }

You can use views. The Rssbuilder controller uses an xml view but assigns the output to a variable and writes that output to a file. By setting the third parameter of view() to true, the method will return the results of the parsing as a string instead of outputting to the 'browser' or in this case, the standard output stream (stdout). Here's how I call the view() method: $myFeed = $this->load->view('rss.xml', $data, true);

Now, all that's left is to call the script from the command line with the php interpreter. php rssBuilder.php
And that's all there is to it! I hope this helps you out and saves you some time!
Hacked With Eggdrop Larry Kagan — 2008-04-13T06:06:00+00:00 Superiocity (my company) just took on a new client. My client was complaining that he had to restart his Linux server a few times a day. Upon looking into the issue, I noticed a process that was running called eggdrop. Eggdrop is an IRC bot. That means that it monitors remote IRC chat rooms. This service should not have been running on this server. The most common use of these IRC bots is to listen to a command issued by someone in the chat root. If the bot sees this command, it (along with several other bots) attack a remote server with many connections to that server so the remote server can not function properly. This is known as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack. The infected machine is now considered to be a 'drone'. To secure this server is a multi-step process. Kill the eggdrop process Kill related processes Remove the programs from the server Secure the server to keep hackers from installing this code again Kill the eggdrop process This is done easily enough with kill -9 <pid> Kill Related Processes This wasn't as easy. I first had to find any and all references to 'eggdrop' in the system. More on that in a minute. Basically, the only other service I found running was being masked as apache. Running ps auxw | grep http will show you all your apache processes (if running that daemon as opposed to apache2). This server had three primary httpd servers running. One from Plesk (man I hate plesk), another as the userland apache server for serving the legitimate web sites, and another which was supposedly called with /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd. Um.... that binary doesn't exist on the system! It was being masked. I killed all those masked processes. Remove the Programs From The Server I found two instances where the programs were located: /tmp/.user /tmp/.psy A quick recursive remove got rid of them. rm -rf /tmp/.user /tmp/.psy Additionally, a crontab was installed for the user 'apache' that would restart these services if they were to go down. I removed the lines in the crontab by using crontab -e and then changed the mode and attributes of apache's crontab so that it could not be modified and was immutable.. chmod 000 /var/spool/cron/apache chown root:root /var/spool/cron/apache chattr +i /var/spool/cron/apache Secure the Server This is easier than it sounds in this case. There are a number of basic processes you should do to secure any server: Update all software on the server to the latest versions Shutdown and remove any unnecessary services Properly setup a firewall In this case, I can't update any software on the server. There's no package manager! This particular Linux distribution is old so finding packages and required libraries online isn't easy. I contacted the service provider and asked about this lack of a package manager. Hopefully I'll hear back from them soon. There are currently three ways that this particular server could have been hacked: Outdated Plesk application with known vulnerabilities Outdated SSL libraries that allow remote code execution via SSH Existing, poorly written web applications I found out about the SSH vulnerability by scanning the server with Nessus. In conclusion, I'm not sure how this server got hacked. I may never know. I hopefully stopped the services from running again but this server is still vulnerable until I can update the software. It may still be vulnerable after that due to the existing proprietary web applications. In any case, I will advise the client that we should get another server that I lock-down from the get-go and then install the web applications on that server. Wish me luck! We Were Bikers Larry Kagan — 2008-03-05T05:00:00+00:00 Early Friday morning, Denis & I jumped on our motorcycles and headed north toward Daytona. It was the beginning of Daytona Bike Week. This is the longest ride either of us had attempted. During the ride, we saw many other bikers on the highway. Once in a while, we would join with a group of other riders as we headed north on I-95. It felt nice to be part of a small unique group of people. Six hours later, we arrived in Daytona. It felt like we, the bikers, owned that city. The number of motorcycles on the road far outnumbered any other type of vehicle. The types of motorcycles were vast and varied beyond belief. Although the bikes were all different, we were all the same, we were bikers. There was sense of belonging. Not only belonging to a group of people, but an exciting and daring group of people that share the commonality of knowing the fear of death when a car doesn't look before moving into your lane. The same group of people that try to dodge the rain under an over-pass on the highway. The same group of people that deal with the issue of never having enough space to store anything on the bike. The same group of people that can move their feet about 4 inches and have their shoe touch the street while moving at 80 miles per hour. The same group of people that risk the one blow-out that could end their life to feel the freedom of flying on two wheels. Music, fun, beer and bikes is all that existed for me in Daytona. It was incredibly fun. I'll be returning. A few days later, Denis & I starting heading back south. We got on the highway and there was still a few bikes here and there. Once again, we would join a pack of other bikers for a while here and there. The further south we got, the fewer bikes on the road there were. Our group, our club was disappearing. As I hit the Glades road exit, Denis kept on. Once again I was a sole rider. I was the unique one on a motorcycle while everyone else was worrying about their bills, work, home-life, and how they looked in their SUVs and BMWs. We humans are surely a social animal craving the comfort of others that are like us. Before Daytona, we were guys that rode bikes. After Daytona, we were bikers. Pictures of bike week are here. The Value of Gifts Larry Kagan — 2008-02-24T05:00:00+00:00 Yesterday was my birthday. I had posted a list of gifts that I would like to receive on a cool little site called Kaboodle. Today, I have most of the gifts that I listed. But I'm not sitting here reading a new book or listening to a new radio. Instead, I'm remembering how much fun it was to hang out with every one last night. We played Taboo, ate, drank and got loud. It was great. Thanks to all who came over. And a huge thank you to Misty for taking all the time to cook, clean and entertain. This is in addition to her job, internship and school. It's at this stage in my life that I realize the most valuable things are those you can't see: the love you receive from people, the laughter of friends filling your home, the selflessness of loved ones that want only to make you happy. See pictures of last night here. Birthday Irony Larry Kagan — 2008-02-23T05:00:00+00:00 Through the consistent and heavy breaths taken in agony of my hospital roommate seldom only broken by the occasional moan, I try to maintain positivity on this, the dawn of my 34th birthday, 12:15 a.m.. Trying to avoid the pain of empathy for my curtain-hidden partner is how I'll spend the remainder of these dark hours. My heart chose to remind me of mortality yesterday, so today I wait for information, misinformation, or none of the above. Childhood ends when your secret, immature wants are no longer met. At this age, It's certainly unreasonable to expect a phone call or text message at 12 midnight on your birthday. I'll reserve my optimistic viewpoints for later today. I'm confident I'll have plenty for which to be grateful. LarryKagan.com v2.0 Larry Kagan — 2008-02-14T05:00:00+00:00 Well, it's about freakin' time I got rid of the 90's looking website. This update is a complete rebuild using all kinds of cool new technologies that would bore you if I mentioned them so I'll refrain. Check out the new photo album. The way pictures are displayed is really cool! There's not much new functionality, but the rebuild will allow more features to be added quickly. Some items that are coming soon ... Multi-page photo album view Mailing list registration so you will be notified when the site is updated with new content A new video section (probably based on youtube) Music player so you can sample all my music RSS news feed (if you don't know what it is, it's not important) Let me know what you think of the new site! I'm open to suggestions for new features. Home Made Sushi Larry Kagan — 2008-02-14T05:00:00+00:00 It's Valentine's Day and Misty and I decided to try to roll our own sushi. What a great idea that was! It came out awesome and we had so much fun doing it. See how it came out here. Birthday Wishlist Larry Kagan — 2008-02-08T05:00:00+00:00 I know you all are stressing about what to get me for my birthday, so I'll go ahead and make it easy for you. Just look below! Clicking on any picture will bring you to my complete birthday wish list. Thanks! Testing PHP MAX_FILE_SIZE Larry Kagan — 2007-11-03T04:15:00+00:00 I just thought I'd share a quick way to test your handling of uploaded files that exceed the maximum file size limit. You've written your code to detect if the file size exceeds the limit with something like: $fileTooLarge = array(UPLOAD_ERR_INI_SIZE, UPLOAD_ERR_FORM_SIZE); if(in_array($_FILES['userfile']['error'], $fileTooLarge, true)) { // Display descriptive message to user about file size exceeding limit. } Let's say you're using the default upload_max_filesize of 2 MB. Do you go search your system for a file larger than 2MB that contains no confidential information? I guess you could, but if you're on a Linux or Mac machine you can use the dd tool. To quickly create a file of 2.5 MB, you would simply type this at the command line: $ dd bs=512k count=5 if=/dev/zero of=testUpload This creates a binary file named testUpload containing zeros using 5 blocks of 512 bytes for a total of 2.5 MB. Now we all know that there's no way we're going to remember this unless you use it constantly. My solution to this is by creating a plain text file named thingsIforget.txt in my References folder. Having this file has been a huge time saver over and over again. Well, I hope a couple of you find this useful. Halloween Pics Larry Kagan — 2007-10-31T04:00:00+00:00 Sorry I haven't been keeping up with the site. Not much has been going on except for my company, Superiocity. I have lots of work and some really great clients. Today is Halloween. My company had it's annual party which was fun as always. You can see some pics here. We have a little storm brewing off the coast named Noel. Other than that, it's business as usual here in Sunny South Florida. Mac OS X Leopard Review Larry Kagan — 2007-10-29T20:29:00+00:00 After a relatively painless installation, I can now give an initial review of Mac OS X Leopard. Total upgrade time was roughly 1.5 hours. Here's a quick list of items that aren't stressed in Apple's marketing: Terminal.app has tabs! No more messing with the slight quirkiness of iTerm. My desktop background changed to a previous setting. Every time I changed it, a few minutes later, it would change back. I had to delete my desktop plist file then set the background again for it to stick. Spotlight seems much faster. Help menus have a search box as one of the menu items. PHP 5 is installed but I still use MAMP. With PHP 6 right around the corner, MAMP will have it available before Apple does. Spaces is very nice. It doesn't have the nice transitions like Desktop Manager but it integrates nicely. Moving windows between desktops is easy. Clicking on a web address in one application will first bring you to the desktop where your browser is, then open the link. Clicking on a dock icon of an open app brings you to the desktop where the app window is open. iCal doesn't have the side pane anymore. Details for events and Tasks are viewed by double clicking and viewing a pop-up. I like the old way better but this isn't too much of a hassle. There is a red line going through the day and week views in iCal that marks the current time. Makes it easier to re-schedule all the stuff I missed earlier in the day. The correct date is always displayed in the iCal dock icon even when iCal is closed. The upgrade caused all printer settings to be lost. Some of my Java apps randomly don't hide when when pressing command-H. Cover flow in the finder is really nice but not an efficient way to navigate by any means. Overall system performance seems marginally faster. System Preferences now auto-detects if I'm using an external keyboard or integrated MacBook Pro keyboard and uses the correct key-mappings. VMware Fusion 1.1 beta works fine. Image attachments in emails can be viewed easily as a slide show with quickview. You still can't build HTML signatures directly in Mail but it's easy enough to do if you follow the steps outlined here. So there you have it in a nutshell. One strange issue I do have is that I can't seem to make a bootable backup of the Leopard DVD. I use a dual layer DVD, create an image, lock it (via 'Get Info') and it just never succeeds in burning the copy. Strange. Adding User Directories to Virtual Hosts Larry Kagan — 2007-10-03T13:42:00+00:00 On Apache 2.x, UserDir is now a module. When I say UserDir, I mean the ability of Apache to allow users on your server to have their own publicly available web space via a public_html (usually) directory. This space would be accessible with a URL similar to http://<servername>/~<username>/. I found it useful to enable the UserDir module on a virtual host. I didn't, however, want it available to all virtual hosts on that machine. Although unintuitive, it's pretty easy. Here's what you do: Instead of using a2enmod userdir, you manually symlink the userdir.load file from your mods-available directory to your mods-enabled directory. That would look like this: sudo ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/userdir.load /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/. If you were to use a2enmod userdir, that would symlink the userdir.conf file as well and we don't want that. Now include the userdir.conf configuration file within your virtual host configuration file. For example, my virtual host file is /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/dev.superiocity.com. I add Include /etc/apache2/mods-available/userdir.conf anywhere between the <VirtualHost> and </VirtualHost> elements. Update your apache2.conf (or similar) file by adding: userdir disabled on a line by itself. This will disable the UserDir module in all virtual hosts that don't have a specific configuration. Lastly, don't forget to reload your configuration changes with sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload PHP and Web Development Tools Larry Kagan — 2007-10-03T07:17:00+00:00 As a developer, it's important to load up your toolbox with anything that can ensure you proficiently produce high quality web applications. Today I'll discuss some of my favorite tools. Operating System The three main operating systems that PHP developers use are Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. I'm not going to suggest you use one over the other, each has pros and cons. I will suggest, however, that you currently avoid Microsoft Windows Vista. The reason for your operating system is to allow you to be productive. My personal experience as well as those of colleagues has proven Vista to inhibit productivity. If you prefer to use Microsoft Windows, continue to use XP for the time being. Browsers Most of us don't have the luxury of developing applications in a homogeneous environment where our target users all use the same browser. Having access to at least Internet Explorer and Firefox is imperative. But that's not enough. Internet Explorer is split roughly 50% between IE 6 and IE 7 as of the time of this writing. There are a few ways to go about running different versions of IE. My preferred method is by using virtualization. More on that in a minute. There are two questions to ask yourself when deciding what browsers you will support: What browsers will my target users be using? How much time & money can I invest into supporting different browsers? Virtualization Virtualization is the process of simulating a PC via software on an already running PC. You then install an operating system within your virtual PC. Virtualization is available on all three of the operating systems mentioned above via VMware (Windows, Linux, and Mac) and Parallels (Mac only). If you're a Linux or Mac user, I don't suggest you use wine or CrossOver to run IE. The web application experience crosses over into the desktop space when dealing with browser plug-ins and document downloads such as MS Office docs and PDFs. The experience differs from one platform to the next. Either use virtualization or multiple machines. Dual- or tri- booting isn't a good option as it takes too long to test. IDEs — Integrated Development Environments There are a ton of IDE's out there. When I first started writing PHP code a decade ago, there was Vi & Emacs... that's it. Today, we have the luxury of using some really fantastic IDEs. I personally use Zend Studio. I've also used Komodo IDE with success. Note that I only use tools that are cross platform and both of those IDEs are available on both Mac and Linux. There are a few things that you should be looking for when choosing your IDE: PHP/CSS/HTML/Javascript syntax highlighting Code-insight or auto-complete for PHP, Javascript, HTML Server-side debugging: This is important to get you out of the bad habit of using print_r(), var_dump() and echo statements throughout your code. Note that although some products are marketed to be installed on a production server, this is a bad idea. Install a server-side component on your local machine or on dev and staging servers, not production servers. Browser Add-ons Firefox has a great variety of add-ons. I'll simply list the developer-related add-ons that I use: Web Developer Toolbar: This add-on has way too many features to list but here are a couple: view & manipulate cookies, resize browser window, view form information and much much more. Firebug: A Javascript debugger, DOM inspector, and so much more. You need this add-on. ColorZilla: Grab colors from a page you're viewing either from images or HTML. Allows you to copy the color value to the clipboard in a number of different formats including hex RGB. HTML Validator iMacros: Allows you to record and play back steps you take in browsing a site including form input. This is very handy in testing multi-page order processes. A huge time saver. Live HTTP Headers Google Reader Notifier: Although not a developer tool per-se, staying on top of the latest news in web development is important. This add-on gives you quick access to your Google Reader RSS aggregator. As we've seen, Firefox has some fantastic add-ons for web developers, but did you know that IE has a couple as well? What happens when you have a bug in your Javascript code that only affects IE? Firebug won't help you here. You can install and use the Microsoft Script Debugger to help you out. Note that there is a newer and better version of this script debugger available on the MS Office 2003 CD and is not installed by default. If memory serves correctly, it's located in the 'Office Tools' section when performing a custom installation. Sorry Vista users, the script debugger crashes and is unusable in this version of Windows. But wait, there's more! There is also a web developer toolbar available for IE that has some of the same functionality as the one available for Firefox. You can find the IE web developer toolbar here. Database Interface There are some really great tools to help you interact with your DB of choice. They range from command line access, to web applications, to desktop GUIs. My personal favorite is Aqua Data Studio. It's pricey but well worth it. This cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) application has support for a large variety of RDBMs. The number of features this tool has is astonishing. My favorite features are auto-complete for table and column names, syntax highlighting, schema diff (think dev & production DB servers) and a DB visualizer which creates an exportable graphic representation of your DB tables. Source Code Versioning I'll make this one short and sweet. Use Subversion, CVS or even SourceSafe, but use something, anything! XML Many of us don't spend too much time working with XML, but if you do, get Oxygen XML Editor. It is extremely feature-rich. Oxygen comes in very handy when dealing with web services. If you supply the location of a WSDL document, it will build an example SOAP request for you. This is a huge time saver. Oxygen will also graphically display all services exposed by the WSDL document. The Future There are a couple of projects in the works that may change my preferred toolset. One of those projects is the PDT. This is an Eclipse plug-in for PHP development. It's still very rough around the edges so don't download it and expect to be very proficient. There is another project that I'm forbidden to speak of at this point. It looks very promising and will combine many of the above mentioned tools into one platform. If you're a Zend Certified Engineer, I believe you already know what I'm speaking of. Summary As you see, there is no shortage of tools to help you develop your applications. Find the ones that work the best for you. As a final note, I want to tell you all to not be cheap! As PHP developers, we're used to getting web servers, operating systems, code, add-ons, etc... for free. Yes, free and open source software runs the web, but not considering the use of commercial tools simply because they are closed source is foolish. The price you pay for a tool is an investment in your livelihood. It will save you time and headaches. PHP Security and Best Practices Larry Kagan — 2007-09-10T21:05:16+00:00 There are two documents that I feel every PHP programmer should read before they write a single line of code: Mike Naberezny's Best Practices of PHP Development The PHP Security Consortium's PHP Security Guide By reading and understanding both of these, your code will be much more secure and significantly easier to maintain.This documentation is nothing less than essential. Even if you've been writing PHP for many years, I'm sure you will pick up some good tips. Which is Better, PHP or ASP.NET? Larry Kagan — 2007-09-07T17:42:58+00:00 After replying to a similar question in this thread in the Sitepoint forums, I decided to talk about it further here.There are plenty of comparisons out there that will prove either one victorious in this never-ending debate. I will answer this question with another question: Does it really matter? Unless you are building a multi-million dollar application, It doesn't. The time you take in researching which is better for your small e-commerce site, or for a simple site like this one, will eat up any resources you may have saved by choosing one over the other. When deciding on these technologies, there are a few questions that will naturally come up: How much will the software resources cost me? If you use a shared hosting service, the difference is negligible if there is any at all. If you host your own servers, it will cost you a bit more for ASP.NET since you must purchase a Windows license. But again, it's negligible. The only major cost factor here lies in the database. MS SQL server can cost from nearly $1,000 US, to tens of thousands per processor. There are free and comparable alternatives. How much will the development cost me? The development costs will be comparable. Will this technology be around for while? Both of these have been around for roughly a decade (in different forms) and there are no signs of either one 'going away.' There are always other options but these are two of the front-runners. How difficult is it to find people who know PHP or ASP.NET It's not difficult at all. However, what is difficult (according to clients of Superiocity) is finding talented and dependable developers. Superiocity is solely a PHP development company. If you happen to need ASP.NET development, contact me and I'll recommend a developer. I love speaking to people who are passionate about technology, whether it be PHP, ASP.NET, or any other language or platform. That passion is what often leads to developers losing their temper when arguing about what's better. They (as I once did), take any criticism to their platform of choice very personal. I suggest that loosing colleages, potential clients or business affiliates is not worth the argument. Instead,learn from that person. Guide the conversation in the direction of "Tell me more about x.", instead of "...well, x is better then y because...". As developers, most of us love what we do. So let's just shut up and start writing code! Lighting a Fire with CodeIgniter Larry Kagan — 2007-09-04T02:23:24+00:00 Two years after PHP frameworks started becoming popular, people are still confused as to what exactly is a software framework. The bottom line is this; a framework is a way in which you build your software. Usually, this is achieved with an implementation of the model-view-controller (mvc) design pattern. A framework is not a bunch of classes packaged together. This is what I refer to as a component library. Component libraries are not a bad thing. PEAR is one of the most well known and one of my personal favorite. Most of the time, however, frameworks are packaged with these component libraries. So there's your framework primer. Now let's get down to business. I've personally worked with most of the popular PHP frameworks such as Symfony, CakePHP and Zend Framework. I've been disappointed with all of them in varying degrees. Traversing through the forest of documentation for each of these is not exactly what I call fun. I'd rather start writing the code. I was listening to the new PHP Abstract podcast and heard a little something about CodeIgniter. After reviewing the docs, wiki, and forums, I decided that this was the framework for me. Briefly, here are the benefits of using this framework: Clear and concise documentation One of the quickest to get up and going Compatible with PHP 4 and 5 Very little configuration Doesn't try to abstract every part of PHP Easiest deployment Extremely customizable Versatile: Can be used in shared hosting environment In the short time I've been using CodeIgniter, I have only one gripe, the custom error handling. This is unnecessary and a bit confusing. I simply commented out the 'set_error_handler()' call and then all works as expected. Here's the bottom line, if you're tired of trying to figure out all the YAML configuration of Symfony, or tired of searching for a starting point in the myriad of Zend Framework docs, try out CodeIgniter. It's the quick and easy way to build well structured web applications. Camping Larry Kagan — 2007-05-27T04:00:00+00:00 Misty & I just got back from a camping trip in Naples. I have to say, if it wasn't for the company, the trip would have really sucked. It was way too hot during the day and we had very little shade in our campsite. The bugs were out in force! It was nice being away from my laptop for a while, although I did bring a copy of php|architect. There were, however, some interesting moments. Driving across Alligator Alley, we saw a ton of gators hanging out. On the way back, there was one area where the smoke from the Everglades fires was almost too thick to drive through. We saw a SUV flip (Nikki, David and Kyle actually saw it, we arrived just after. I'll be wearing my seatbelt for now on. This woman had only a tiny scratch on her leg and walked away from the accident because she was wearing her seat belt. The EMTs sent out a chopper that we got a nice picture of. We also snapped a picture of the overturned Hyundai. See the pics here. New Company Website Larry Kagan — 2007-04-28T04:00:00+00:00 I finally got a web site up for my web development firm, Superiocity. It's very basic but considering I can't take on any additional clients right now, it's more than enough. Aidon Arrives Larry Kagan — 2007-04-27T04:00:00+00:00 Scott and Sylvia just had a baby boy! Aidon has joined us on April 19. See pics here. Watch a video here. Misty & I met up with a few friends and went bowling. Here's some pics. Disney 2007 Larry Kagan — 2007-03-18T04:00:00+00:00 Just got back from Disney a few hours ago. Lots of pictures here and videos here. Misty and I must have walked nearly 50 miles across all the parks and Downtown Disney. There is one thing about Disney that I didn't remember as a child; everything is perfect. Nothing is broken, nothing is missing, no one is rude, everything is clean. They strive for perfection and in my eyes, they achieve it. Another thing I took with me is inspiration for innovation. The 'imagineers' at Disney find ways to incorporate the little mouse into everything from hydroponically grown pumpkins to rock formations in a pond. There is a placard in front of Magic Kingdom that I felt really epitomizes what Disney represents: Walt Disney World is a tribute to the philosophy and life of Walter Elias Disney and to the talents, the dedication and the loyalty of the entire Disney organization that made Walt Disney's dream come true. May Walt Disney World bring joy and inspiration and new knowledge to all who come to this happy place, a Magic Kingdom where the young at heart of all ages can laugh and play and learn..... together. — Roy O. Disney March Happenings Larry Kagan — 2007-03-13T04:00:00+00:00 Misty and I are heading up to Disney in a few hours so I had to clear some space on my digital camera to make room for Mickey. I had pictures on there from my birthday and Nik's birthday also. Here's some pics of my birthday. We spent Nik's birthday at MaiKai. Here are those pics. Also, there a couple of small video clips taken at the MaiKai here My Birthday 2007 Larry Kagan — 2007-02-28T05:00:00+00:00 First off, thanks to Misty and my friends for joining me on my birthday (turned 33 on 2/23). I've always valued friends and family but it's starting to mean more to me now. I'll post some pics of my birthday soon. So I'm sitting here at work listening to Phil Collins (In the Air Tonight) waiting for that one part where the drums kick in. I love that part. Why am I posting to my blog when I should be working? Because I'm frustrated. I quit smoking a week ago and I'm still having problems with it. I haven't smoked a single cigarette but it's still effecting me. My face feels flush, I can't focus, my legs keep bouncing as I sit here. I can't help but to think that when a non-smoker is told by a smoker that he or she is trying to quit again, they think to themselves "Yeah, whatever, you try all the time." You have no idea how fucking hard it is. Thanks again to Misty for being so supportive. So what else is going on? Work, work, work. I started a software consultancy business, Superiocity. Misty came up with the name, accidentally. I already had the clients but now they're clients of Superiocity. I'm doing this in addition to my full-time job. Oh, and I'm also working on a new version of this site. Oh yeah, let's not forget the PHP Frameworks site. How much more can I take on!? There's a light at the end of the tunnel, Misty and I are going to Disney for a few days next month. Trying to keep up with all this is really difficult, especially now with no cigarettes. Staying focused is damn near impossible. I'm trying to get on a work-out regimen but I just don't feel like it by the time I get home. How else can I improve my state of mind without working out, but how can I start working out without a better state of mind? I'm so tired at looking at this site. The design is dated and the functionality is crap. And as you can see, I barely update it. See those books over there —>, ....not really reading them anymore but I dont't feel like changing them. Another Cruise! Larry Kagan — 2006-12-16T05:00:00+00:00 Misty and I just got back from a week-long cruise to Mexico, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. We had a blast. See the pics here. Misty Moves In Larry Kagan — 2006-09-29T04:00:00+00:00 Misty moved in a few weeks ago. It's really nothing like what I expected. There's no time when I really need some space, and it's not like we're all gitty about it either. It kinda just feels like this is the way it's supposed to be. Ocala Larry Kagan — 2006-09-04T04:00:00+00:00 Misty and I just got back from a long weekend in Ocala. It was both relaxing and interesting. I took a bunch of pics that hopefully will let you experiance Ocala as I did. It's very different from my typical Boca Raton life. See the pics here. By the way, notice the 'Spam' on the menu in the first pic. One year ago today, I met an awesome girl named Misty. Last week, she agreed to move in with me. Thank god! I was getting tired of eating Cheerios for dinner every night. ;) Yet Another Hurricane Larry Kagan — 2006-08-28T04:00:00+00:00 Here we go again. As if Wilma didn't leave us with enough damage. We've got another one coming right for us. Oh well, better us than Louisiana again. I'll let you know how I fair through this one. Smoking & Sanibel Larry Kagan — 2006-06-26T04:00:00+00:00 So I haven't had but a few cigarettes since I last tried to quit again about a month ago. And I'm still craving them really bad. I don't get it, I don't remember craving them for this long last time I quit. I'm beginning to feel burnt out from my full time job, clients, and research. I need a break. Misty and I are going to Sanibel soon. Sounds boring to me but it should be relaxing. PHP-Tek 2006 Larry Kagan — 2006-05-18T04:00:00+00:00 I haven't posted in a while. I've been really busy. I went to php|tek in Orlando and got this incredible wave of inspiration. I've been doing little else other than research, reading, coding, etc... I also formed a linux certification group where a bunch of us are studying for the Linux+ certification. Last night I finally got this site running back on my server at home. I had to get rid of my cable modem and get DSL for the static IP. So now the music and video sections are available once again. It's my intention to rebuild this site using the newest technologies to create a richer interface that is inline with Web 2.0. Lion Country Safari Larry Kagan — 2006-02-05T05:00:00+00:00 Misty and I went to Lion Country Safari today. We had a nice time. We ate junk food, fed Giraffes, and pet some goats. Here's some pics. These are the first pics I've taken with the new Treo smart phone. They're better than I expected but still not so great. Painting & Smoking Larry Kagan — 2006-02-02T05:00:00+00:00 So we painted the living room and kitchen. The living room looks aweful. Some people like it but I sure don't. I'll repaint it soon. I'm trying to quit smoking once again. It's strange how so many non-smokers take it so lightly. They somehow relate it to going on a diet or starting to floss daily. They just don't understand, and I hope they never do. Think about something that makes you nervous; flying, meeting with your boss, going on a first date maybe. Now try living with that feeling every minute of the day. The rest of your thoughts and emotions are skewed. Add to that the constant feeling that you've forgotten something. Welcome to my world for the next few weeks. I have some help this time. I'm using the Nicoderm patch. Last time I quit cold-turkey and was ill from the physical withdrawl. I don't want to go through that again. New Treo & Home Improvement Larry Kagan — 2006-01-26T05:00:00+00:00 Sleep is soooo overrated. I was up late with my new toy. (No Lois, not that kind of toy!). I got a Treo 650 smart phone. It's nice to finally not have to drag around my palm along with my phone. Now I have both in one device. I've been on another home improvement kick. I put up shelves in my closet last night. This past weekend I rearranged my bedroom. That involved rewiring the TV cable again. So up in the attic I go. By the way, having your scalp pierced by a shingle nail isn't is bad as it sounds. I couldn't run it down through the wall so I had to run it outside the house and run it through the wall from the outside. The price I pay for Comedy Central! This weekend Misty and I plan on painting the living room and kitchen. I think next weekend I'll tackle repairing the stucco damage caused by the hurricane. A Long Bike Ride Larry Kagan — 2006-01-20T05:00:00+00:00 I just found out that I'm going to a technology conference in Orlando in April. The conference is called php|tek. I decided that I'll take the bike up there. It will be the first real road trip I'll be taking on the bike. I ordered a windshield and highway bars which should make the trip more enjoyable. I'm excited. Caribbean Cruise Larry Kagan — 2006-01-12T05:00:00+00:00 Misty and I just got back from our cruise this morning. We had a good time and solidified our relationship. We took some great pictures here. KIDS Christmas 2006 Larry Kagan — 2006-01-03T05:00:00+00:00 I recently added a bunch of pictures to the site. Here are a few from Misty's company Christmas party. I learned at this party that Misty and her friends have a rule, men are not allowed to dance with their girlfriends/wives. Only girls can dance with girls. Here are some pics from Christmas at our family's places. For new year's, we had Nik and Harmony over for dinner and then went to Dahlia's party where I was abused by an 8 year old (don't worry, I got even!), and then savagely attacked by an alligator. Here's some pics. New Year's Resolutions Larry Kagan — 2006-01-02T05:00:00+00:00 Just the other day Misty asked me what my goals are for the upcoming year. I really didn't have an answer for her. Rather than become complacent, I took some time and came up with some goals. First and foremost, quit smoking again! I'm in the process of studying for the MySQL 5.0 Developer certification so we can add that to the goals list. After that certification, I'm either going for the Red Hat Certified Engineer or the Linux+. There's not too much I want from 2006. Life is good so I just want to keep it that way. Now I want to take a minute to appreciate what I've accomplished over the past year: Became a Zend Certified Engineer Got in the best physical shape of my life Learned to ride a motorcycle and got a Honda Shadow Met a wonderful woman (yep, snagged me a hottie!) New York Larry Kagan — 2005-12-14T05:00:00+00:00 Talk about last minute! My sister talked me into going to New York with her this weekend. My aunt Mary is getting married. I love to fly so I'm really looking forward to this. I haven't seen my extended family in a very long time. It'll be great. I'm sure I'll have a ton of pics when I get back so stay tuned. Hurricane Wilma Larry Kagan — 2005-12-09T05:00:00+00:00 Well boys and girls, the site is finally back online! A big thanks goes to hurricane Wilma (that bitch)! As many of you know, I usually host my own website out of my house using my DSL. To date, my DSL is still out and Bellsouth expects it to be back online by January 24th. I migrated as much of the site as I could to this server in Oregon (kattare.com). You'll notice that the video and music sections are gone. I'm allowed one gigabyte of space here and my music and video takes up nearly 9 gigabytes. Hell, with almost 2,000 pictures, I'm almost at my limit with those alone. So what's been happening? Well, hurricane Wilma took her toll. See damage to my house here. Holloween was pretty much canceled this year because of the storm. Misty and I have been together over three months now. And for the first time in a very long time, I'm in love. (I know, I know, 'awwwww'). One of Misty's friends, Lois, was recently married. I took a few pics at the ceremony, reception, and Tim's favorite part, the 'intermission.' So take a look here. Also, Misty and I are going on a 5 day cruise in January. We're both pretty stoked. Nik & Harmony recently had a Christmas party that Misty and I went to. Here's some pics of that. Note that I stole these pics from David's site. Zend Certification Larry Kagan — 2005-10-18T04:00:00+00:00 After a tough all-nighter of cramming, I finally took my certification exam for PHP. I'm officially a Zend Certified Engineer. Next on the list is the MySQL Certification. Political Corruption Larry Kagan — 2005-10-04T04:00:00+00:00 It's been a month today since Misty and I first met. Seems like we've known eachother longer than that. I really dig her. Happy First Month Baby! On a much lamer note. Can someone explain to me how a person with no experience as a judge just got on to the supreme court!? So apparently, if you're president, you just do whatever the hell you want without regard to your constituents. This comes shortly after the discovery that FEMA's former director, Michael Brown, had no experience in emergency situations, unless you consider unfair practices in judging horses an emergency! Misty & Certification Larry Kagan — 2005-09-27T04:00:00+00:00 Misty and I are still seeing eachother. She started her internship so we don't see eachother as much as we have been. All her ambition has inspired me to pursue a few certifications, first on the list is the Zend Certified Engineer. Then either the Redhat Certified Engineer or the MySQL Certification. Meeting Misty Larry Kagan — 2005-09-07T04:00:00+00:00 Ya see that entry below this one? That didn't quite happen. That day I met Misty online on a dating site. A couple hours later we went out, then again on Monday. I'm really digging this chic. I'm sure you'll be hearing more about her. Also, I changed the portrait in the top left over there, as to appease my neighbor Jeremy. So I don't look gay anymore. Woo hoo, isn't that fantasssstic and sssssuper?! Burnt Out Larry Kagan — 2005-09-04T04:00:00+00:00 Do you ever feel like life is happening so fast that you can't keep up with it? It's Sunday morning, I'm still in bed and just got done watching 'Saturday Night Fever'. Beer bottles still lie all over the house and patio from last night's BBQ. I decided not to do anything else this weekend and just relax, think, and plan for the future. Hurricane Katrina Larry Kagan — 2005-08-29T04:00:00+00:00 The site is back online after hurricane Katrina stopped by for a little visit and took out my DSL. This was a small one compared to what we were hit with last year, but now it's much larger and hitting Louisiana. Good luck to them. Pauline visited this weekend from New Port Richey. It was nice to see her again. There just wasn't enough time this visit though. I'm a Handy Man Larry Kagan — 2005-08-08T04:00:00+00:00 Just call me the tool man. I'm doing some home improvements and they're actually turning out well. I painted the master bedroom, put up closet doors, cut base boards, ran coaxial cable behind the wall and installed the TV in the closet. I also made a chain 'door' for my office closet. Check out the pics here. Unbalanced Partnerships Larry Kagan — 2005-07-18T04:00:00+00:00 If there is a creator, why would he/she allow unbalanced partnerships. Is there anything we could learn from one person having more feelings than the other? I don't think so. How the hell could inflicting pain on someone you care about be part of any 'master plan.' The word 'unrequited' belongs in the story of 'Cyrano de Bergerac' and no where else. If I recall correctly, even they lived 'happily-ever-after.' Nik's Wedding Larry Kagan — 2005-06-27T04:00:00+00:00 Well Ivonne and I just got back from my friends' wedding in New Port Richey. The entire weekend went really well. There was the obligatory 'Bride driving everyone crazy' phase, especially the bride's maids (sorry Pauline). I met a lot of new people, a few of which I would really like to see again (just no glowing stick figure porn next time). We set a new record for the greatest number of pictures taken at a single event for this web site, 188! So take some time and enjoy them here! Crystal's Wedding Larry Kagan — 2005-06-20T04:00:00+00:00 Note to single men younger than me: You will one day go to a wedding and wish it was yours. Yeah, it's a little strange but I went to Crystal's wedding on Saturday and I thought that it would be nice to have a wedding of my own. Oh well, I'm not quite there just yet. And then I followed that up with Father's Day on Sunday and starting noticing the kids a little more. I will make a great father. I'll be lucky when and if my time comes. Broken Motorcycle Larry Kagan — 2005-05-31T04:00:00+00:00 Yesterday was memorial day. Ivonne and I spent a good part of the weekend at the beach. We rode the bike down to Ft. Lauderdale and got stuck a couple of times. I'll be greatful when someone can figure out what's wrong with it. We did have a great time though. Anonymous Request Larry Kagan — 2005-05-19T04:00:00+00:00 From Ivonne, my girlfriend: Well... You don't seem to be keeping up with your journal. Tell me more about this girl. A little birdie tells me she's beautiful... (on the inside just as much as the outside). Is this true? Is it still a whirlwind? or has the whirl started to wind down? How have you been feeling lately? How have you been doing (work, health, emotionally)? xoxo from your secret admirer (hint: using your computer) New Motorcycle Larry Kagan — 2005-04-22T04:00:00+00:00 First off, I'm still a non-smoker. It's been over 2 months now! I got a new motorcycle, check it out here. I met Ivonne on Sunday, April 20th. It's been nothing less then a whirlwind over the past few days. We've been spending just about every minute together. She's a great girl. Stay tuned, you'll be hearing more about her. New Jeep Larry Kagan — 2005-03-27T05:00:00+00:00 Today's easter. It's been over a month since I quit smoking! Woo hoo! I bought a new car last night. It's a 2005 Jeep Wrangler with all kinds of extra goodies. Check it out here. Dating Sucks Larry Kagan — 2005-03-08T05:00:00+00:00 This dating thing is full of it's ups and downs. I'm definately doing something wrong. I'm not sure what it is yet but I'm working on figuring it out. I'm reading a book on dating. I know how incredibly lame that sounds at first, but it's been opening my eyes to quite a few things. The author is a phychotherapist and specializes in dating and relationships. Hmm, I wonder if she's single. =) Here's a link to the book. I also bought the book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. I'm not sure if I'll read that one soon but it couldn't hurt to own it. Cold-Turkey Larry Kagan — 2005-02-23T05:00:00+00:00 It's my birthday! Nothing special planned for tonight. I quit smoking (again) on Sunday. This time with no help from the patch or anything else. The first couple of days I was pretty evil. I was aggressive and angry. Then last night I was sick. Today I just feel drained. I can't wait until this is all out of my body. DSL Issues Larry Kagan — 2005-01-29T05:00:00+00:00 I've been having issues with the site. My DSL is supplied by Bellsouth and they've screwed up my IP address twice over the past week. That means that there were a few days where the site was inaccessible. Damon Larry Kagan — 2005-01-06T05:00:00+00:00 I've been meaning to introduce you all to my friend Damon. There's no introduction that I can provide that will give you a better idea of who he is than reading the email response I got from him for my new year's party invitation. Read it here. New Year's Eve Party Larry Kagan — 2004-12-20T05:00:00+00:00 Come one, come all... In case you haven't heard, I'm having a new year's eve party at my house at 8 pm. I'll be sending out emails and printing up flyers soon. People Suck - Happy Holidays Larry Kagan — 2004-12-08T05:00:00+00:00 It's the holiday season. So what the hell is wrong with everyone! People lost their sense of humor, people are walking around pissed off cursing the world, and some people are even crying. I don't get it. New Hobbies Larry Kagan — 2004-12-06T05:00:00+00:00 Alot of my friends play the guitar so I figure I'll give it another shot. I think it may stick this time. I'm trying to allocate about an hour a day to learning. Also, I'm starting on my health kick again. I quit smoking this morning as well as changed my diet. Now I need to decide what to do about exercise; karate, gym, other sports, who knows? New Floors Larry Kagan — 2004-11-06T05:00:00+00:00 I'm getting wood floors installed today. Next on the list is a fence for the dogs. Introducing Madison Larry Kagan — 2004-09-18T04:00:00+00:00 I adopted a dog a few weeks ago. She's a lab mix. She's about 1 1/2 years old. She and Tayla are getting along great. Watch a video of the two playing here.