Check this out from Der Spiegel. All about Germans and the way they view Americans.

I was contemplating whistleblower laws earlier. So you work at a company, you see some illegal activity and report it to the authorities, the company gets in trouble. Bam, whistleblower law takes effect. They can't fire you for getting them in trouble (at least I think that's how it works). But why would you want to work there after that? It would be incredibly uncomfortable. On the other hand, they might just stick you in an empty office, give you a salary, and not give you anything to do. Might be kinda cool, actually. Anyway, it's not an unjust law, you shouldn't get fired for reporting a major violation of the law. But it's definitely a weird law.

Did you hear about the hexagon on Saturn? The Cassini probe took an infrared picture of the south pole of the gas giant with the rings, and found a giant swirling cloud that looks, and I'm dead serious, it looks like a hexagon. Six straight sides and everything. One thing I keep seeing in articles about it is that it resembles the polar winds on Earth, which swirl in a circle. So it doesn't really resemble the winds on Earth because it's a hexagon. I'm no scientist, and I'm not 100% sure why we have big swirling circular winds at our pole, but I can take a damn good guess (rotation of the Earth?). But I can't come up with a logical explanation of why it's a hexagon. Anyway, I'm sure if you google "saturn" and "hexagon" you will find something.

Did you know if you capitalize Google, then blogger says it is spelled right, but if you don't capitalize google, it underlines it as wrong. I guess they are protecting their copyright against the chance of the word continuing to be used a verb, which would not be capitalized. I think people still say to "google" things. I know I do.

To my detriment, I haven't been following the case of the kidnapped British soldiers. I say detriment because there's a chance this could turn in to something much bigger. I was just reading this. No way to know if it's true, but it says the Brits were actually not in Iranian water and were captured in a planned ambush by Iranian forces. If that turns out to be true, that's an act of war, not the capture of foreign soldiers in Iranian territory. If undeniable proof of Iranian villainy in this matter comes out, will British and US politicians do something about it, or will they find excuses and try to ignore it, as they ignore so many other things that happen in the middle east.

Here's something that really bugs me. People who don't understand the difference between what's right, and what's legal. Just because something goes against a law does not mean it is evil or bad, and just because something is legal does not make it right or good.

"Only Mr. Romney sees the challenge: "Kyoto-style sweeping mandates, imposed unilaterally in the United States, would kill jobs, depress growth and shift manufacturing to the dirtiest developing nations." And "Republicans should never abandon pro-growth conservative principles in an effort to embrace the ideas of Al Gore. Instead of sweeping mandates, we must use America's power of innovation to develop alternative sources of energy and new technologies that use energy more efficiently.""

I'm starting to like Mitt Romney more and more. I am seriously considering getting involved with either his or Guiliani's campaign, though I personally think it's way too early for these campaigns to be starting up.

Israel sold the Palestinians loads of material, including a lot of metal, to fix their sewer infrastructure (I should point out that the money the Palestinians used to pay for this material was given to them out of US tax revenues, and UN dues, as well as other foreign aid, it certainly wasn't wealth created by the Palestinians). The Palestinians took that metal and turned it into rockets to launch into Israel and kill Jews. Then their sewer collapsed and killed a bunch of Palestinians. What do they do? They blame Israel, saying that Israeli raids [to stop Palestinians from firing rockets into Israel] compromised their ability to fix things. I hope I don't have to point out how ridiculous this is. Unfortunately, perhaps I should since a bunch of American journalists are taken the Palestinian side on this issue.

People can be really dumb. Lately I've noticed a lot of references to various polls as evidence of truth. For instance a poll showed that X% of Americans surveyed agree with that statement that global warming is at least as much a threat as terrorism. So a bunch of bloggers pointed to it and said, "See, we were right, global warming is going to destroy soon if we don't do anything."

Sorry buddy, but a poll of random Americans (50% of which can barely find the United States on a map of the world) reveals more ignorance than truth.

Don't you just love environmentalists? They are so often just simply wrong, but it always takes a few decades for people to realize it, by which time the environmentalists who made whatever point have faded into obscurity with the damage done. An example... Nuclear power. Widely protested against in the 60's, 70's, and even into the 80's to the point where they stopped building new plants. Now all of the sudden nuclear power is seen as the solution to our energy woes.

Grocery stores started using plastic bags because environmentalists were upset about all the trees cut down for paper bags. Now the city of San Francisco is banning plastic bags and requiring grocery stores offer paper or fabric bags.

Want to have your mind blown? Bob Barr, former politician and now sometimes media pundit, and always an anti-drug warrior who did a live debate with Neal Boortz about the drug wars a few years ago, has joined a marijuana advocacy group. Seems like a flip-flop, right? It is, sort of, but he said (very paraphrased from memory) that it was not that his anti-drug stance has softened, more that he realized that there are better ways of going about it, that a lot of anti-drug programs just waste money, and arresting people for smoking pot under doctor's advice was too much government intrusion in our private lives. So he sees being a lobbyist for this group as an anti-big government deal, which fits right in with his generally conservative/free market stance.

His son is friends with a friend of mine who is having a birthday celebration this weekend, so I may get the chance to ask Mr. Barr's son about this new adventure.

I read a cool article on Microsoft on Wired.com today. The focus was on Microsoft's new openness, with support for in-company bloggers and an unscripted video network called Channel 9, which features interviews with Microsoft employees, primarily aimed at developers. At the end of the article, the author mentions how he got his hands on Microsoft P.R.'s file on him, which contained various items like how to talk to him in interviews, and what points he is most likely to respond positively to.

I'm sure I mentioned CrossFit a while back. Their philosophy is sort of like aerobics with heavy weights. Not like jumping jacks, but squat thrusts for 10 reps, followed by sprinting 100 yards, followed by 20 kettlebell swings, followed by 5 pullups, repeat until you hit 10 minutes. So by the end you feel like you ran a marathon, and you worked your muscles really hard, too. They have a workout of the day of this sort every day, and they give them names. Like today's workout of the day might be called the 'Mary.' They are all girl's names.

I don't have the equipment for a lot of their workouts, but with access to a park with a place to do pullups, and my kettlebell, I can do some neat stuff. So I'm going to try my first CrossFit-like workout tomorrow, throw my kettlebell in the car, buy some gatorade at the gas station, and go to a nearby park. I'm going to name my workouts after liquors, and tomorrow will be called the jaegermeister. I'm going to save my favorite liquor for when I have tried this a few times and found a workout I really like, and that will be the tequila workout.

If your goal is to be "toned," rather than just get big, then these sort of workouts are the way you should go. They don't take too much time, they give you a lot of absolute strength, endurance strength, and cardio endurance. Your metabolism will rise, your fat will melt away, and the muscles underneath will get bigger and harder. You might not lose weight, but you will lose inches, and that's the important thing.

Today I went to the Georgia Tech Alumni Career Fair. It went pretty well, even though most of the companies were there for engineers or programmers. Once I was walking by a booth and this lady stops me and asks me what I'm about or whatever, and I said I doubted I was what they were looking for, and she said they have a wide variety of positions they are looking to fill and I might be surprised. Then she asked what my background was. "Finance MBA." "Oh... Er... [awkwardly] Yeah, we're pretty much looking for technical positions." I wanted to be like, "No shit, that's why I didn't stop to talk to you on my own," but that would be kind of rude, and it's not like I was in a hurry or anything, so I thanked her for talking to me anyway, and wished her good luck. After that I did go to a few technically oriented companies that I thought might be looking for finance also, basically starting with, "I don't want to waste your time, so if I say I'm a finance MBA, should I talk to you?" It actually worked pretty well. I even got a couple of leads on some very nifty looking technical jobs that someone with a background in financial modeling could fit right in to.

And, of course, there were several consulting firms and financial companies that were definitely looking for someone with my background, and were surprised and excited to see a finance/risk management MBA walk up. So I'm hopeful something from today will pan out, and I have the GSU business school fair next Monday left to go.

Love or hate Bush, if you can take a step away, you can find a lot of really funny hypocrisy and illogic from haters and supporters. Take Rosie O'Donnell for instance. She hates Bush, criticizes everything he does, calls him a moron every five seconds.... But then, every time some important happens like the Iranian's holding those 15 British soldiers, all of the sudden Bush is not a moron, he's an evil master mind who faked the entire incident to provide an excuse for war with Iran.

Sorry, honey, you make not like Bush, but what you say is impossible. The man cannot be both an incompetent moron and an evil genius at the same time.

Our government and our tax policy is out to destroy our country. I could point to any number of studies that show that people who grow up in two parents homes are more likely to become educated and be successful. So why is it that we have the AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax) set up to hit an estimated 89% of two parent households? Two parent homes are absolutely better environments for kids, so we set up our taxes to disincentive this? That makes no sense. Our laws are telling our citizens NOT to get married to have kids, because they are making it cost more to get married.

Below is a letter I wrote to the AJC regarding a recent discussion of whether or not the State of Georgia should apologize for slavery:

With all the talk of apologies for slavery, one tends to forget how arbitrary and unfounded it is to expect a state to be responsible in any way for slavery. Most slaves were taken from their tribes and sold to slavers by other black African tribesmen. Why is no one demanding an apology from their descendants? And the infamous triangle trade, which was responsible for transporting and selling African slaves in the Americas was primarily made up of British merchants. Why is no one demanding an apology from them? Yes, slavery was bad and has immense sociological effects that continue today. But a balanced look at slavery must not neglect the question of where the descendants of slaves would be today, if not for American slavery. I doubt many would prefer to be living in their malaria, AIDS, and poverty stricken homelands. Additionally, the US is a country of immigrants, and Atlanta a city of immigrants from other parts of the country. I'd be willing to bet a VERY small percentage of current Georgians are descended from slaveholders. Many are probably descended from Union soldiers that fought and died to free the slaves.

The world's most famouos scale is the 1-10 scale of hotness. Sure, some people might say the Richter scale, but not everyone lives in an earthquake prone area, but just about everyone lives where there are attractive people. Anyway, now that I have taken statistics, I realize that hotness is normally distributed. I initially assumed the scale was percentile based, with a 9 being hotter than 90% of people. But I realized I was giving less than 10% of women 9 or higher. So 5 is still average, and there are going to be a lot more 5s than 9s or 10s.

Enjoy the superficial nature of this post?

http://www.startribune.com/blogs/kersten/?p=138 is a journalist's newspaper blog entry (does it count as a blog if she is a professional journalist writing on her paper's website? it's maybe more of a continuous editorial... either way, Katherine Kersten of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune has a lot of interesting stuff) on the city of Minneapolis trying to keep circuses from being able to bring exotic animals like elephants to town. Silly, right? Some animal rights group that has Richard Pryor as a spokesman says circus elephants are chained up, not allowed to choose mates, forced to do unnatural acts. Which the journo/blogger reminds us sounds a lot like a pet dog. And don't we always feel bad when dogs roam wild? In fact we kill them if no one claims them. So do these animal rights people want the circus to let the elephants roam wild here? Or do they want them shipped back to Asia where their natural environments are shrinking rapidly due to human encroachment? Kersten goes on to mention some fascinating stuff about elephants I never knew. Did you know the importation of elephants has been banned since the 70's, so Barnum and Bailey and Ringling Bros or whatever they are called has an elephant center in Florida. And elephants like to stand on their heads for fun. At least I guess it's fun after all the positive reinforcement. And heck, I wanna be able to stand on my head.

Ok, elephants are cool! There used to be elephants the size of large pigs! How cute would that be as a pet? And fun to train.

Wow. Wow. Wow! Damn. Just watched the season finale of Battlestar Galactica, and damn was it cool. The overall awesomeness of it cannot be exaggerated, it was just so incredibly wonderful. The first half was a great court scene with lawyers and witnesses and impassioned speeches, made all the more interesting in the context of the last 40,000 or so humans left in the universe trying to keep some form of real law and justice.

The second half of the episode was the payoff for.... Well, three years of storyline. I suppose technically they only started this storyline a season or so ago, but it involves truths that reflect back to the beginning of the show. I wonder if the powers that be knew from the start of the series that this was the way it was going to go down.... Of course there's still another major question. They told of four out of five in that category, and I have some guesses for the last.

But that's not all for this episode. The last minute or two gives one last reveal that is a very nifty case of tricking the audience. I don't want to say more, because I'm hoping someone might read this and decide to watch the show from the beginning, and I want them to have the same surprises I did.

So here I am on Saturday night at home writing on my blog. I have a very irritating cough, and a crapload of schoolwork to do. And I'm stressed out. This week is the week my job search really kicks in to high gear, I can't put it off anymore. And I have two career fairs in the next two weeks. Hopefully I find a job quick, finish school without disaster, and them May will come along with my 30th birthday and I can have my nights free and an income again!

In most of my classes, I tend to listen more than participate in discussions. Of course whenever we touch on politics or technology, I wake up with something to say, but with business strategy especially, I try to stay quiet and learn. All this listening has given me an insight into the annoying ways people use words. Today, for instance, I noticed that just about every time the professor calls on someone, the student starts with, "I was going to say...." No one cares what you were going to say, they care what you are saying. So stop prefacing every statement with something that makes you sound retarded. If you have something to say, say it, don't give everyone a reason to think you are a fool before you even get to the content of your statement.

I probably say things like that myself sometimes, and now that I realize how silly it sounds after hearing it over and over again, I can try to cut it out.

From an interview with Al Gore regarding global warming:

Q: There's a lot of debate right now over the best way to communicate about global warming and get people motivated. Do you scare people or give them hope? What's the right mix?

Gore: I think the answer to that depends on where your audience's head is. In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality. And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any discussion of solutions. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.

So Gore admits that he has overhyped the danger from global warming, thus "playing on our fears" in the same way he and other Bush critics claim he did.

Good news on the poker front. Democratic Congressman Barney Frank is seeking to overturn the ridiculous anti-gambling law passed last year as an addon to the Safe Ports Act. He calls it a really stupid law, among other things. So good for him. Of course it's going to suck when they decide to allow and regulate online poker, and all the tax proceeds end up going to some handout or something.

I watched a really bad movie tonight, but it did have a great line. This kid is in an interview to get in to Oxford or something and is asked, "What is history?"

"It's just one fucking thing after another."

Well known blogger Matthew Yglesias (hope I spelled that right) made an interesting point about the fall in influence of "neoliberals," which seems to be defined somewhat as more centrist liberals. It doesn't matter though, his point works for any group. I think what he is saying is that as a tendency acquires some amount of success, that becomes the norm, and what then defines the political tendency is what differs from the norm, i.e. something that was not a chief aim of the tendency in the first place. The liberal example is that as what would now be considered centrist liberals achieved success in some of their goals, they then became the norm, and the democratic party instead became defined by people with different goals. A party is not going to be static. They had their victories, leaving the people who favored them with less to work towards, allowing those with major goals yet to come to fruition (the farther left, in this case) to rise to define the party through interest and activism.

Did that make any sense?

The announcement that Georgia Tech was selected for an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament brought back some fond memories for me. Our first round opponent is UNLV, the same school Tech faced in the national semifinals in 1990. I was 13 then, and not in to sports at all. My Dad was watching some basketball game on TV, so I decided to hang out with him and see what was up. Tech was playing in the first round of some big tournament, and he explained how there were 64 teams and the winner is the national champion. Tech won the game, and it was really exciting. The next game was two days later, I made sure to watch. They won again, this time in a last second thriller, if I remember correctly. By the 3rd round, I was a basketball nut. I had read all the articles in the AJC about the team, and Kenny Anderson was my favorite point guard of all-time (based on a sample size of one week), I had a GT poster on my wall, and my Dad and I had something to bond over. We still share our thoughts on the phone immediately after almost every GT basketball and football game.

My new interest in sports came at the right time. Tech reached the final four that year, and then the football team won the national championship that fall. And soon after the Braves began their remarkable run, though to be fair, I remember watching a lot of Braves games in the early 80's in the house I lived in until I was 8.

Read this, another story about a botched police raid on a home, where the surprised and innocent citizen shot at the people breaking in to his home brandishing guns because he feared for his family's lives. He had no idea they were police. His son even called 911. Would he call 911 if he knew they were police? So the guy is on trial for murder and attempted murder and endangering an officer. The last is just adding insult to injury. I think the officer endangered himself.

I wonder if any sick minds will find this incident as fodder for gun bans? I mean if the guy didn't have a gun, then he couldn't have killed a cop. Of course if they had been actual criminals, he would be a hero now, but with a gun ban, he and his whole family would be dead. This story is an indictment of SWAT tactics.

Lots of 2nd amendment talk lately, since the DC Court of Appeals struck down the DC gun ban law as unconstitutional. The big question, does the 2nd Amendment refer only to militias having the right to bear arms, or to individuals. I submit that those are the same thing, and were meant to be by the people who wrote the words in the first place. What is the militia? It is a fighting force formed by individual civilians, not by professional soldiers. A militia is not the army. Is the National Guard a militia? Sure. But if the U.S. was invaded today, you can damn sure bet that there will be groups of civilians all over the place forming militias for mutual defense of their towns, neighborhoods, etc. Same in the case of an oppressive government rising up. By that, I mean real oppression, not George Bush is taking away our civil liberties even though I can't really point to anything specific that has been taken away from me sort of oppression. Anyway, these individuals have the right to have guns on hand in case such low probability events happen. Or should they just be forced to bow down to an invading force because the Army has all the guns and all the Army people within 100 miles were killed when their bases were bombed in the initial surprise attack.

Farfetched, yeah, but still feasible, and certainly much more likely when the Amendment was written. At the same time, I have complete and utter derision for anyone who thinks I should not be able to properly defend myself when attacked.


Wow! I was just reading the online comments on the Washington Post website regarding an editorial supporting gun bans and decrying the ruling. Out of 5 pages of comments, only like two individuals agreed with the editorial. So like 95% of commenters agreed with the court decision that the 2nd Amendment guarantees the right of INDIVIDUALS to bare arms. Very cool, I wonder if this is a sign of a groundswell in favor of the right to carry.

Big news!

I did NOT win the lottery. What are the odds?

Before George Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, and man named Robert Jordan gave the world the first of the modern super-bloated epic fantasy, The Wheel of Time. Jordan fell in to a trap that Martin has so far avoided. He got bogged down in detail and sideplots to the extent that nothing seemed to happen in volumes 7-10. For the sake of time reference, I started reading these in 1992 or so, around when volume 4 was released.

So 11 came out a couple of years ago, and was pretty good, then I heard something about a blood disease. Didn't pay any attention until today, when I found out Jordan actually has a terminal illness, and with treatment has a median life expectancy of 4 years. So he's wrapping everything up in one last book (to my mind, two would be better, but I can be understanding in this sad situation). I hope he does finish, and I'm sure the end will live up the beginning. Whatever I might think about 7-10, 1-6 were absolutely phenomenal, and he will always be one of my favorite fantasy writers. I hope, of course, that he beats the odds and lives long enough to not only finish this series, but perhaps write a standalone story or two after. He seems the type who would want to write to his dying day, and I will read whatever it is.

Man, I also hope George R. R. Martin finishes his books without such pressure as terminal illness.

I was just reading some guy's blog where he is complaining about feature overload on his cellphone. Among other things, it scans text messages and replaces certain words with pictures, so if someone text messages you to say they ran over your kid with their car, you'll get a cute little picture of a car rolling across the screen instead of the word.

Lottery fever here in Atlanta. The multi-state Mega Millions is up to $350 million or so, the point at which even the people who call lotteries a tax on the stupid come out of the woodwork to buy a ticket or two and indulge in the fantasy. I went to the gas station to buy some coke and some tickets, and the three people in line ahead of me as well as the two behind all got tickets.

I can tell you one thing. If I do happen to win, I'm going to stop my job search. But I guess I might as well finish my MBA since I'm like two months away.

I just went to Burger King for lunch. Big mistake. From the time I walked in and got in line to when I got my food in my hands was 22 minutes. The incompetence displayed can only be described as legendary. The workers did seem to feel a great sense of accomplishment when they got something right, as rare as that was. At least they have something to strive for. Perfection 1/20th of the time ought to be a big improvement.

At one point a worker put a tray down on the counter with food on it and quietly said, "140." No one came, but she didn't notice since she immediately ran off to to stare at the row or receipts displaying current orders to see what she could mess up next. A few minutes later, she looked back and saw this strange tray of food sitting on the counter and went to examine it. Ticket #140, very interesting. I wonder if anyone wants this. She yells, "140." The owner of 140 comes up and is just about to take the tray when the worker grabs it and says, "This is to go." The man looks sadly, probably thinking she is about to give his food away, and goes back to his waiting position. The woman packs all the food from the tray in a bag and goes to the drive-thru area. A minute later she returns with the same bag and says, "140." The man walks back up and looks at it and says, "But my order was for here." The worker looks up, and, with an aggressive tone, says "Well I just had it on a tray," as if it were his fault that she doesn't know what she is doing. This was merely one example of several similar incidents I saw in that same 22 minutes of waiting in line and then waiting for food.

Wendy's is pretty much awesome with service at most locations. McDonald's is usually at least satisfactory. Burger King, on the other hand, seems to push their incompetence on you as if you are supposed to find it charming.

I went down to the Crossfit place today. When I got off the highway, there were some police cars and people walking around and stuff on the overpass, and that's when I realized that was where the big bus crash was yesterday. Pretty crazy. I was getting off on the right hand, non-HOV exit, and when I got up to the bridge, I could see orange plastic fencing up where the bus ripped through the fence/rail. Pretty amazing there weren't even more people dead.

Crossfit looked really neat, but was a disappointment due to the fact that they were closing up when I got there. At noon! I did talk to a guy for a few minutes, and he let me try a muscleup on their gymnastics rings (couldn't get it, the transition from the pullup to the dip was tough, and my ego made me try to muscle through instead of kicking), and I found out that the guy that works there on Tuesday nights is a gymnastics instructor, so I'm going to try again Tuesday evening. Maybe he can get me started on the front lever, too. I really want to get the muscleup down, because the way my back feels from failing at it a few times tells me it's a great exercise, not that I had any doubt.

I hung out at a friend's condo for a while after leaving Crossfit then came home. Soon after that, cousin Michael and wife Jenny (recently pregnant, congrats again!) came over for a few minutes with a couple they are friends with. They were in the area and decided to stop by. Jenny reads my blog, so she wanted to see what a kettlebell looks like. She said it looks just like she expected it to look, so if anyone else is curious, my description of it as a cannonball with a handle on top seems to be evocative of the real thing. I just looked up evocative to make sure I was using it correctly. I am. Good word, yea me!

So word on the street is that some astronomers are finding evidence of very recent global warming on Mars. We know that no one is driving any internal combustion engines up there, so why are the polar icecaps melting on Mars? Assuming the astronomers saying this are right, then the only explanation is that Mars is getting more heat from the sun. That can happen in two ways. Either the distance between Mars and the sun has shortened, or the sun has gotten hotter. Since several other scientists who have been practically excommunicated from science for saying global warming was natural have also been saying that the sun has gotten a little hotter, and I think Mars changing its orbit would make the news, I'm going to go with the hotter sun theory.

Again, this in no way means I am against reducing obviously toxic emissions into the atmosphere. We need to find a way to reduce the ozone destroying compounds, greenhouse gases, etc. being released into the air. My point, however, is that we should do this with a plan based on forethought with as small of a negative economic impact as possible. Ideas like the Kyoto Accords are based more on hysteria and what is now the "acceptable" stance on global warming. And almost all plans put forth that I have seen unduly punish the U.S. while basically ignoring India and China, which may not be as bad as the U.S. now but are on a path to much worse. IMHO, reductions in harmful atmospheric emissions of all kinds should be handled by advances in technology, not by Luddite-lite religious nuts. And I mean religious in the sense that the most vehement in this debate do seem to treat "global warming" as some all-powerful God that is more important than anything else and is absolutely unquestioned in their faith. To them, global warming is what they say it is, and there is no possibility of any deviation. Thus disagreeing scientists are dismissed as having been bought and paid for. People who disagree are referred to as cavemen and morons in letters to the editor in newspapers by people whose best knowledge of the subject comes from a 3 minutes puff piece on the local news.

After my first significant use of the kettlebell, I was pretty disappointed, and feeling like I wasted money on it. But I persevered, and a day or two later, I began to get the hang of the movements, my mind was working better with my muscles, and suddenly I really started to enjoy it. The bell I got is too heavy for me to do one arm snatches with at this point, but I should get there soon enough. I want to be able to do at least 15 good overheard presses with it, I figure that will get my forearms in proper shape for it, which I figure is the biggest issue. It's not so much that I don't think I can handle the weight, but that I fear the bell coming back down on my forearm at the top of the movement without added muscle there, and I've already felt the difference.

Saturday seems to be some sort of open house kind of thing at CrossFit Atlanta. I've been meaning to get down there for several reasons, so this seems like a good time to check it out. They have a full range of kettlebells, so I can try the snatch with a lighter one. They also have gymnastics rings so I can finally try a muscleup (pullup to dip) and I can even do it on a thick bar, which I haven't had available since I built one in my frat house. And it's still there, even though someone else put their name on it. I'm very bitter. They have a climbing rope, and a lot of other nifty stuff, too. And presumably instructors who know what they are doing.