Author: Laura Highcove

Movies

Laura Highcove

Generally when I leave the theater after seeing a movie, I regard it as one of three things. Good, bad, or entertaining. The first two speak for themselves, ‘entertaining’ generally means I don’t think I wasted my time/money, but I probably won’t go out of my way to see it again.

Every now and then, however, I see a movie that leaves me with a sense of…epicness. Batman Begins was one of those movies. Star Trek another. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (Probably one of my favorite movies of all time.)

Speed Racer is another ‘epic’ movie in my book. Now I never watched Speed Racer, the original anime, but as any good anime fan, I knew what it was. When I saw the commercials for the live action movie it looked unreal and both SD and myself were very excited about it, knowing it would either be beyond awesome, or a horrible train wreck.

When the movie came out people said it was awful. Not wanting to disappoint ourselves, SD and I never went to see it. But last week, somehow the topic came up and one of our D&D pals, Evan said that it was really good if you don’t go into it expecting an amazing movie. He said they did a really good job translating anime style into live action.

I was intreagued. I downloaded it. I loved it.

The movie itself was so beyond amazing. The story, of course, is rather typical of anime but not bad, and the way they told it and the style of the movie will have it forever etched in my mind as one of my favorite movies of all time.

The reason the movie did poorly, however, is pretty obvious. The style that I love so much is a cross between Pushing Daisies (A TV show which got canceled.) and anime put to live action. Unfortunately the people who like both are probably a small portion of the population. SD and I just happen to be two people who love it.

Even now I have that ache that I always get after reading a superb book or seeing an epic movie.

Horse Clinic

Laura Highcove

So I’ve been calling all my horse posts ‘horsemanship’ for some odd reason even though I know it’s showmanship. Ah well, I will admit my mistake. Life goes on.

The past weekend we had a clinic at the barn. Two days of riding and showmanship. (Though I didn’t ride.) I learned a lot just by watching. Things to be tucked away until I do get to the point where I can use them. I hope that when Carol comes again in February, I’ll be enough of a rider to be worthy of her tutelage.

In showmanship I learned about backing up, which is rather hard all things considered. I also worked more on my turns and learned about moving when a judge inspects the horse.

I am also tapping in my ‘Near’ persona when working on showmanship. Thus I can set aside the part of me that kind of lounges along and lets the horse do whatever, and become a person who knows what she expects, and expects it out of the horse as well. I don’t have it exactly. I felt rather guilty after one session when I most fell into this persona.

Near is a character that developed from my WoW character. When I leveled her, I already had the plans laid out for her to be my main. When she reached 70 (max at the time) she had gear, rep, and a epic mount waiting for her. So she’s rather spoiled. Though she worked hard to get where she is, she’s not one to act modest. She knows what she wants and she takes it. She’s actually an evil character. The first I’ve created that was not meant to be a villain. But she is Lawful Evil. She makes her own set of rules and she follows them. And because of her collection of mounts in WoW, she, the character, is very knowledgeable about them. Though she does not treat them as companions, but as the mounts they are. Thus why she’s a good persona for when I need to be firm handed with horses.

Horsemanship: Setting Up

Laura Highcove

So my next step with Maggie has been Setting up, which is when you move a horse’s hooves so they are in a box. This shows off a horse in their best position and is apparently when, during a horsemanship routine, the judge comes over to look at the horse? Not perfectly clear on what the judge is doing the rest of the time yet, but I’m sure he/she knows, so I won’t worry about it.

This is actually something I learned way back when I started, but my first few (failed) attempts I was trying to make Maggie move her feet with only the little movements that Morgan and Deb can make, and of course Maggie would just ignore me. Once I was reminded that, as a beginner I should over exaggerate my signals I began getting a response, and am slowly working my way down to smaller signals. Though it it worth noting that Morgan told me to avoid ever trying to move the back right leg (on my left) unless the other three were perfect because it’s the hardest to move. I had noticed that by trying on several occasions. I think I will take her advice. 🙂

In other news, Becca rode Homerun today. She is thinking of buying him and wanted to try him out. Also, Nora has gone MIA to New Jersey. Not sure exactly what’s going on there, but I expect to be doing MWF mornings on my own for a while. Blah.

NaNoWriMo 2009

Laura Highcove

It’s that time of year again. NaNoWriMo is once again upon us. This year I am full intending to win. I’m going to be writing the rough first draft of Candidate that I failed to write for this site. Then hopefully I’ll be able to edit it into something I feel I can post (though still not a final draft) here.

This year I’ve even gotten a few other friends involved. Hopefully that will help keep me motivated. The challenge of keeping up (or beating) them.

For right now, this is my page: PyroPawz

My husband: Mssngrdeath

And one friend: PhoenixAscending

Writing starts tonight.

Rocky Mountain Horse

Laura Highcove

So recently we got a new horse in the barn named Scarlett. She’s solid brown with a flaxen mane and tail. She’s rather skiddish, and I’ve heard that several people had her charge past the wheelbarrow to escape the stall when it was being mucked out.

Today after I watched Rachael, Najerri (I know I spelled it wrong, but at least I know what her name is now.) and Morgan ride, Deb did some training with Scarlett in the round pen.

She ran her around and used a long rope (I forget what they called it.) to have her halt when she called out ‘ho’. After that Deb tried to join up with her, but Scarlett seemed to be too unsure of it. She stood and watched Deb, but didn’t make any attempts to go to her. Deb ended up eventually making her way to Scarlett, moving up whenever the mare looked away from her.

When I got home I did some research on Rocky Mountain Horses, which are an extremely hardy breed that was developed in the mountains of Kentucky. They are gaited horses (have an extra gait from the time they are born.) and apparently the “silver” gene is a trait, which is why they almost all have the flaxen mane and solid body.

Apparently poor Scarlett has trust issues because the the breed is supposed to be extremely loyal, like dogs. Thus the fact that she didn’t join up with Deb is unusual for the breed and is probably attributed to something that happened in her past. Hopefully she’ll feel better with some good, solid training.

>.> Ballz /giggle

Laura Highcove

(Fail not actually posting this once I wrote it.)

This fight was a pain and a half to learn, but I ended up still liking it by the end, which is saying something. Don’t know how I’ll feel after next week when we have to down it again to get to Anub, but one thing at a time.

We followed the standard strat of melee/healers in the middle and ranged around the outside making sure the wrong color ballz didn’t go into the middle and kill everyone. Once we got ranged to realize that picking up their ballz was more important than any dps they could do, we made much more progress.

And again there is no real kill shot, but here’s one I took of the bids for Death’s Verdict, heroic version. Alt ended up winning and has the non-heroic version as well.

Twins Vid

Horsemanship: Practice

Laura Highcove

Still having problems with Maggie just being ahead of me when I stop. She’s been doing pretty well stopping exactly when I do, but I’m still ending up behind her neck. It’s frustrating me, so today I did some laps without a horse seeing if I could figure out why I kept ending up behind. I didn’t come up with much.

In a month Carol (I realize now I never asked for a last name.) is going to be coming to give a clinic at the barn. Since I’m not riding yet, I would only be in the horsemanship part. I’m rather excited about the prospect, and the cost isn’t totally prohibitive, though it isn’t a nominal amount either. Plus even if I’m not in everything, I can still sit and watch. I’m learning tons around the barn just by doing this, so I’m actually still excited to just watch as well. I wonder if she’d let me tape it. I guess I could always ask. Worst thing, she just says no.

I also finally got my camera to the barn. Got some pictures of the horses who get turned out every day. It was a beautiful day, so I hope they turned out. I’ll see if I feel like posting them later.

Horsemanship: Trot

Laura Highcove

So for this lesson Deb taught me the trot. It consists of lowering your body, crouching almost and jogging forward while keeping the top part of your body straight and hands still.

It feels kind of weird in a silly way, but Maggie responded immediately to it. My particular problem seems to be in that I kind of straighten back up a bit as I move, meaning when it’s time to go back to a walk, I don’t have much place to go back up to.

I’m still having issues with stopping. I practiced such that I don’t take an extra large step when I’m stopping which caused Maggie to think I was continuing forward, but it seems to be an issue that my arm is too long. I can’t have my hand beside her jaw and stand at the right place at her neck unless I have my elbow beside me instead of in front like I was told to.

I was getting rather frustrated about it as I keep being too far back even if Maggie stops right when she’s supposed to. I started dropping my elbow back even though I’m not really supposed to so I can try and stay in the right spot better.

Then today Morgan came out with Money and did some horsemanship. I’m not sure if it was for my benefit or not, but it was nice to see it up close again now that I know what to look for. The way she stops is something I really would like to aim for. She kind of leans back just a bit as she steps into her final place. Money still overshot her a few times, which made me feel a little better about my own failures. She also did a perfect haunch turn that made me extremely jealous. I haven’t tried that in a few weeks but I still remember the disaster that was my trying it.

Dill behaved himself today, which is the first time I’ve seen him do so. I also got his story.

More terminology: Leg yields, half pass

Trials of the Champions

Laura Highcove

So it was both a good and surprising week for us. We must have hit that arbitrary gear level as we downed Beasts of Northrend, Lord Jaraxxus, and Faction Champions during the same 50 attempts of the heroic version of Trial of Champions.

Most of our learning attempts of Beasts came from the week before, so that went down with not much trouble. Jaraxxus took us down to three attempts left before we managed it. Then second try of Champions had us finish the fight after 20 minutes with less than half the raid still alive. I’m sure it will make a long and boring video. Either way, wonderful progression everyone.

Horsemanship: Posture

Laura Highcove

I’m working on my own posture now. Putting my shoulderblades together, which of course sticks out my chest, which is something I have avoided. That and my back is really weak so holding my shoulders back gets tiring really quickly.

I also seem to be thinking about stopping too much and tend to take a larger step when I am about to stop, which confuses Maggie. So I worked without her on Wednesday (Tuesday Deb couldn’t make lessons.)

Despite it being hard, I am enjoying it. Not always thrilled to get up in the morning, but once I get there my mood improves. The next step is working on losing weight and getting in better shape. Of course it won’t be easy, but after the doctor’s appointment tomorrow that I need to not forget, it’s my next goal.