overdue post

given that i'm now unemployed, one would think that i would be able to blog more...to make up for the lack of posts, i will make this a long post, starting with the survival class that i went to this past saturday

it was at hahamonga watershed park in pasadena...the picture below was taken after some rain, but it was dry when we went...there were lots of spiders, tiny frogs, and rat looking squirrels...about 30 people showed up...much more than i expected

http://www.lamountains.com/parks.asp?parkid=643

our instructor was chris...his special power was his gorilla like ability to rip off tree branches that are thick as a man's arm to make shelter...he was also good at batoning...batoning is using a branch or some other object to hammer the top of a knife to use as an axe...that's him below with survival chopsticks...his master must have been chun from remo williams: the adventure begins

the class focused mainly on identifying edible plants that were collected to eat as a salad at the end of the class...there was some instruction on making a simple shelter out of branches and foliage, making a tube tent, tying a plastic bag around a tree to collect water through transpiration, and making fire...it was almost 100 degrees, and we were lazy, so we left early and didn't see this...however, we got a drill and hearth board for bow drill fire starting and a piece of quartz to make sparks...i figure i'll have a lighter and/or my magnesium strip for fire(information about bow drilling - http://www.practicalsurvivor.com/bowdrill)...or the remo williams method to fire starting (watch past the bullet dodging around the 8:15 mark)

instead of staying for the fire portion of the class or making our salad, we left for bass pro shop in rancho cucamonga...a massive shop for camping, hunting, boating, and other redneck activities...their restaurant is pretty good too..much better than the plants we ate...i had half a chicken with mashed potato and cooked veggies...they have a huge selection of stuff, and it's worth checking out once...two drawbacks are that it is far away and the prices are on the high side

some of the plants that we picked were amaranth, mustard, wild radish, curly dock, passion fruit, and willow...there was also hemlock (fatal if ingested) and poison oak...apparently, if you eat a little poison oak on a regular basis, you will develop a level of immunity to it...we aslo made a little snare out of wire, but didn't use it to catch anything

the two most notable items that he carried were his knife and saw...i'm not sure what kind of saw it was but his knife was a cold steel bushman...i can see why he would pick this one since he uses the knife for batoning, and the bushman being made out of one piece of steel would be better suited for that kind of abuse...i didn't learn much, but it was still pretty fun and a decent excuse to be outdoors, use a knife, and wear my cabo san lucas hat

large man in shorts throwing a makeshift bushman knife spear

robert baratheon could have used this spear in his boar hunt, which leads to my review of a game of thrones book and hbo show...from my goodreads review - 

i don't read much fantasy, and i expected a game of thrones to be similar to lotr...heroes go on some epic quest to fight some great evil and good wins in the end...game of thrones is nothing like this...although it is hinted that a great evil will threaten the land when the winter comes, this book is mainly about political intrigue in a high fantasy setting...various families scheming and plotting to gain or retain power...murder, bloodshed, rape, incest, and other r-rated themes that you don't see in something like lotr...i can see why hbo picked this up to make into a tv series...the writing flows well and the story is paced evenly...a fun book, and i'm reading a clash of kings now 

hbo did a very good job of condensing 900 pages into 10 episodes while staying true to the book...in typical hbo style, they added a little more graphic violence, strong sexual content, and nudity without going overboard...their casting was pretty good, especially tyrion and arya, my favorite characters...daenerys looks interesting too, but i don't think her story gets developed that much until the upcoming book since that one is called a dance with dragons...spoiler below if you didn't read or watch


boromir suffered the same fate and died early...that's what you get for playing the same character...i knew that grrm had a penchant for killing of main characters, so i wasn't surprised when eddard was killed off, but i guess tv only watchers were surprised and even a little angry...i liked the way they handled that scene...everything goes quiet, and they pan to shot of a flock of birds flying after the chop without actually showing the beheading as with previous executions...a dance with dragons out this month with two more remaining, so i'm not sure how hbo will finish the series if they decide to do all the books...they would have to wait for the last two to come out, which could take ten years based on how long it took for the last book and the upcoming one to be published...a game of thrones and the walking dead might be the best shows on tv, depending on how good the walking dead is this season