Flogging 101

Those of you that know me probably know that flogging is the next skill I want to learn. (Still learning rope, but I think I will be forever and that’s a good thing.)

The problems are:
1. I am not an overly coordinated person in general.
2. I have lousy aim (actually FAILED archery in gym class in high school).
3. Floggers are expensive things when made well.
4. Most people are loathe to let others use their personal floggers (with good
reason).

That being said, I do have a delightful group of friends who are quite generous. One couple allowed me to practice on yet another friend using their floggers at a play party in May. Um, yeah….I sorta suck at flogging. Clearly more practice is needed before subjecting my sweet boy to that!

However, all hope is not lost….I came across this video on a fellow FetLifer’s personal site. If I can figure out a good spot to tie a pillow to (which also allows for more rope practice – bonus!), and I can procure a flogger to practice with, there may yet be hope!

more about "Brian’s Intro to BDSM Flogging Techni…", posted with vodpod

The Trouble with Safe Words

No, this is not yet another post debating the necessity or validity of safewords. Not really. They do have their place (particularly when playing with someone newish that you can’t quite read yet). Most people I know have never had to actually use one, however.

The video below is a humorous take on just what can go wrong when trying to select a “unique” safeword. Enjoy!

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Yes, I survived the end of the school year…

…and so did all of my students – a minor miracle.

Not much to post just now, more to come soon I hope.

For those that don’t know me in RL, I like frogs.  As a science teacher, frogs are kind of my “thing”.  Kids get me frog-themed gifts, I use frog-themed posters in my classroom, the website I maintain for my students has a frog theme, etc…  At my school, frogs are associated with me (that really doesn’t sound quite right, but you get my drift).

I have always found it interesting what names groups of animals are called. For example, a herd of horses everyone knows, but what do you call a whole buch of hippos for example? (a bloat, if you were curious)

So I came across this website that has a nice graphical depiction of some animal group names.  While I’ve seen more exhaustive lists in the past, this one is visually appealing.  And this one was the first one I noticed that listed frogs.

I’ll wait here while you go look at what a group of frogs is called.  Click HERE.

Yup – a KNOT of FROGS.  Go figure.  Me who loves both frogs and rope and is learning all sorts of new knots.  Too funny.

Meet Wolfie!

Nope, I haven’t abandoned the blog – just been a bit busy with life.  And sidelined by a nasty cold.

By now, you have probably heard about WolframAlpha, the new computational search engine.  It’s all over the ‘net and spreading faster than a LOLcat video from your aunt.

I’d like to add the WolframAlpha box in the sidebar, but it uses javascript which wordpress.com does not allow.  Sigh.  If you want to see what all the buzz is about go here: WolframAlpha

You can add a search box to your desktop, add a toolbar, add it to your iGoogle homepage, or even add it to your iPhone.  Adding it to wordpress blogs is a no-go at the moment.  Sigh.

However!

This is a really cool thing.  It’s not a search engine – it’s not going to find you a biography of Marie Curie, for example.  But it WILL tell you all sorts of things about elements she discovered.  The trick is asking the right questions.

An easy place to start to explore WolframAlpha is to simply type in the date of your birth.  By doing that, I found out that I have been alive 14,376 days.  Man, no wonder I’m tired!

It’s a trivia buff’s DREAM site – need to know the 10th largest country in terms of population?  Just ask Wolfie! (my pet name for the search engine – it seemed to need something warmer and fuzzier than WolframAlpha)  Wolfie will tell you that it is Japan!

I’m eerily reminded of the computer on StarTrek – all that’s missing is the voice of Mrs. Roddenberry to make the experience complete.

“Computer: Calculate the distance between our ship and the Romulans and the escape velocity needed to elude them!” If such data were in the WolframAlpha database, Wolfie would know the answer for sure!

Go check it out – ask questions – tell me what you learned from Wolfie today!

(On the minus side, this is one more site I need to worry about my students using and not citing properly.  Ah well.)

Duct Tape!

Ahh….who doesn’t love duct tape?  So many possibilities!  Such versatility!  So useful!

Today’s post over on graphjam.com made me giggle.  Not the graph as much as this photo that accompanied it.

If you’d like to view the picture with the graph, click HERE.

Then there’s this gem I found a while back.  No idea where it came from, but I didn’t make it.

Ok, that’s it for today’s post.  No substance – just duct tape!

Even Nature Has a Kinky Side

OK, so even on an innocent walk through a park, my mind sees kink.   We tried to celebrate spring  by taking a walk through a local park after dinner yesteraday.  It was FREEZING!  (OK, not technically – but with the wind – brrrr!)

When I stopped to take a picture of the trees below, I nudged my boy and whispered what I saw in them.  He just shook his head.  You’d think by now he’d be used to the fact that my mind does not in fact “turn it off”.  Ever.  Can’t help it – I make connections to things all the time – Sunday it just  happened to be trees and rope!

I saw these vines and immediately thought – wow -they look just like ROPE!  The effect shows up better in black and white – not that there was much color to begin with.

A few minutes later I noticed that the way this vine wound around the tree looked a bit like a rope karada.   A bit hard to see from the picture, but trust me – the effect was there!

Just a few minutes later, we heard a loud splashing and commotion in the stream you can see in the picture above.  We turned to see two male Mallard ducks in hot pursuit of a lone female.  They held her head under water more than once but she always came up fighting.  She escaped them repeatedly only to have them both in hot pursuit within seconds.  Ahh, spring!

I’m pretty sure this duck we spotted a little while later at the naure window was the loser.  He just sat and stared into the pond, all by himself.

Happy Spring Everyone!

Bubbles!

There are two types of people – those who love can’t resist bubble wrap and those who shudder when they see it because of the first type of people.

I’m in the first camp.  I don’t quite understand how someone can resist popping the bubbles in bubble wrap.  It’s a great stress reliever – the pop is so satisfying!

A few months ago I came across the bubble wrap keychain.

They were sold out for Christmas but I managed to snag one for my kid (ok and one for me too) for Easter.  Be sure to play the little demo video on the site – too silly!

Then today I found the bubble wrap calendar!

You get to pop a bubble EVERY DAY!  How cool is this?  Want.

Apparently I missed Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day on January 26.  Darn.  But the site has some amazing facts and links and pictures!

The pictures of bubble wrap clothing combined with the giant rolls of colored bubblewrap have got my twisted mind thinking about the possibilities of wrapping my boy up tightly in bubblewrap instead of the usual plastic wrap.

Add in a little impact play to the outer layers and a blindfold and the possibilities are endless!

If all this talk of bubble wrap has your fingers itching to do some popping, there’s always virutual bubble wrap! I’ve been secretely visiting this site for YEARS for clandestine bubble popping fun.  Enjoy!

virtual-bubblewrap-distv1.1

And Now for a Video Interlude!

Ok , so my last two posts have been neither geeky nor kinky.  And yet you’re still reading! All three of you!

As a reward, I am posting a video clip I came across on maymay’s site, Male Submission Art.  He got it from someone else’s blog.  Who found it on youtube.

It’s part of a German film called Punish Me.  I’d like to find the entire film and watch it – clearly there’s more to the dynamic between this couple than this clip shows.  But it’s a good clip.  Slow and sensual – powerful.  Grab your headphones and sit back for the next 11 minutes and enjoy!

Happy Equinox!

Equinox means balance to me.  A day twice a year that achieves perfect balance between day and night, light and dark.

Balance is something that I am constantly striving for in my life.  Balance between work and home.  Balance between being a mom and being a daughter.  Balance between responsibilities and relaxing.  Balance between vanilla and kink with my boy.  Balance.

If you read my “25 things” post, you know I am terrible at balancing.  In that post I meant my physical sense of balance – as in I will fall over if asked to stand on one foot for more than a few seconds.  But it occurred to me later that I often fall short of my goal of balance in other areas of my life as well.

I often say I am my own worst critic – that I am harder on myself than anyone else could ever be.  So I am constantly frustrated with myself and my lack of balance.

Today I realized that even nature only achieves perfect balance twice a year.  Only two days out of 365.25 are balanced.  (Yes, I do realize I’m oversimplifying things – humor me.)

So maybe it’s ok to be a bit “off balance” sometimes.  Maybe it’s ok to indulge in a weekend of nothing but kink with my boy.  Maybe it’s ok to ignore the housework and veg on the couch with a good book and a glass of wine.

But I know I’ll always be striving for more balance – more equilibrium.  I think I’m getting closer lately (thanks in large part to my boy).

Jumping on the Bandwagon of 25 Things

I believe this is the latest rage on Facebook, but I’ve seen various permutations of it for years in the blogosphere.  I’ve never caved….til now.

I present you with 25 things about me.  Some you probably knew (or surmised), some you didn’t and many you probably don’t care about.  I honestly didn’t spend a lot of time on the list – just things about me that popped into my head today.

1.       I taught myself to knit from a book and videos on the Internet in my 30′s.  I am the only person to knit in my family.  Ever.

2.       I sucked my thumb until I was six and a half years old.  My mom bribed me by promising to buy me Tinkerbell nail polish if I stopped.

3.       I have a very low tolerance for stupidity and lack of common sense.

4.       My report card from preschool noted that I was “too bossy” with other children.

5.       I read for pleasure every day no matter how tired or busy I am – almost always fiction.

6.       I studied classical piano for six years as a child.

7.       I find it difficult to trust people completely – I have few close friends.

8.       I am a founding member of a Thespian troupe.

9.       I am missing part of one finger on my right hand. It was bitten off through the bone by a mentally ill patient I worked with at a state institution.

10.   I am allergic to mango.

11.   I can be extremely naïve about social maneuvering and the games people play.  I never suspect ulterior motives for people’s reactions and take them at face value.

12.   In college I worked in a domestic violence shelter doing 12 hour shifts on the hotline.

13.   I like most foods – notable exceptions being lima beans, steak, and eggs (though I will eat eggs in a casserole or quiche).

14.   Tact has never been a strength of mine.

15.   When I was 13, I had a huge crush on all the members of Duran Duran (and my bedroom was plastered with their posters to prove it).

16.   I played varsity soccer in high school.

17.   I am too intense for many people I meet.

18.   I like tent camping with no electricity.

19.   I don’t mind doing things alone like seeing a movie or eating at a restaurant.  I like my own company and need regular periods of solitude (most often in nature) to feel sane and balanced.

20.   If I found myself in a situation where I didn’t HAVE to work to earn money, I would most likely spend my time in a creative pursuit – either writing or photography or both.

21.   I have a terrible sense of balance and am not very physically coordinated.

22.   I don’t watch much television.

23.   I spend entirely too much time on the Internet.

24.   I vastly prefer classical music to opera.

25.   I have a somewhat twisted sense of humor and an unhealthy attraction to puns and plays on words.