As a preliminary note, I’ve found a way to make posts on my personal journal and have them automatically post to my LiveJournal. This is the first such post, so here’s hoping that it works.

gi burnLast weekend was action-packed. First was a day of floor-slamming, joint locks, arm bars, and choke holds. That’s right, it was a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu seminar. Probably uninteresting to the majority of you, so I only leave you with a picture of the gi burn that it left me with (click on it for a larger version). For those interested in such things, the school I go to is the Francis Fong Martial Arts Academy.

Sunday, it was time for the Renaissance Festival. Unfortunately, in this nice southern state of Georgia… it was in the low 50s on Sunday, and windy enough to make it feel upper 30s. On the plus side, parking was easy, and the shows were small enough that it was easier to banter with the performers. Oh, and I almost got my penis removed by a bullwhip.

That last one probably requires a bit more explanation. There are these fire-eating gals, who do some acrobatic type stuff during their show too. One part of the show involved some demonstrations with a whip. It was explained that the “crack” of a whip is caused by the tip breaking the sound barrier and creating a miniature sonic boom. The main woman then had her assistant girl Spike hold up a newspaper, and she proceeded to whip it in half. And then again using one of those halves. And then they started asking the audience, “Should we do it again? Si or no?” The audience, of course, responded a chatter-toothed, “S- s- si!!!”

Well apparently I was replying vehemently enough during this process to get noticed. So she looks over and says to me, “Sir, you seem pretty excited about this. What’s your name?” So I told her, and then the next time she asked the audience the same question, to the same response… and then asked, “Mike, what say you?”

“Si!!!!” came my response.

Repeat this a few times until that strip of paper was pretty tiny. And then, karma strikes. They have me come up on stage, and everything is slightly blurry from this point. I remember feeling someone stick something between my legs from behind, and looking down to see a celery stalk. Then the whip lady came over and jiggled and tugged on it a bit to “make it a little longer.”

“So, Mike, do you have any kids?” she asked.

“No, and after this I might not ever.”

“Are you Jewish?”

“Nope. Am I about to be?”

So I was told to thrust my hips out, put my hands behind my back, and to pray. There was the crack of the whip, and a piece of celery fell off. Then the question to the crowd. “More? Si or no?” I, being the sport that I am, yelled out, “Si!!!” myself, and gave a double-thumbs up. There were a few more cracks of the whip and an ever-shortening celery stick. Thankfully, she only hit the celery, and I didn’t end up as a Bloody Mary myself. They gave me the celery as a souvenir and sent me on my way.