Yokozuna wannabe

“You can achieve your goals if you set your mind to it”. Great. 

As I told weeks ago, I decided to be a Yokozuna after watching a sumo event in Japanese NHK TV channel. Fascinating! “Don’t let others limit your dreams”, bla, bla, you know. 

Note: Yokozuna is the highest rank in sumo. There have been only 73 Yokozunas.

Being that fat and winning battles sounded a good idea. My efforts to increase weight by eating mango sticky rice every day didn’t work. After a few days I was still far from my 200kg goal. Not talking about training (zero bananas, zero progress). To justify my 100% failure I have to say I didn’t do anything. It looks like setting your mind was not enough.

But… what if not everything is lost? What if I’m already a Yokozuna and I don’t know it? I was relieved. Still some hope.

I researched online for those kind of questions like “10 signs you could be in a toxic relationship” or so. I found this:

5 signs you could be a Yokozuna:

1. Your hair is black, bright and long.
2. There is a huge 20kg white rope around your belly.
3. You often go to sumo events, usually as fighter.
4. At some point you were promoted as a Yokozuna in a full of rituals ceremony.
5. Friends / other sumos call you “Hey Yokozuna”.

Since I don’t match point number 1, my goal to be a Yokozuna is over. Very sad.

But… can I still be the referee? His moves and clothes are amazing! That’s my new goal for 2022.

Thailand 2022

Here some photos from Thailand. I have the feeling the country is changing quite fast.

One day I should compile a group of pics showing the essence of this amazing culture and place. At least the perception I have of my dear Thailand.

Tibet and water

Water is a key resource.
Most of the humans live in this area.
Most of the rivers in the area start in Tibet.
China controls Tibet.

Water is abundant now but it could be scarce sometime soon. If humans can’t manage energy and some even say energy is “scarce” when we have a huge infinite power of energy so near and multiple ways to get energy.

I can easily imagine how big water problems would be. Water can’t be produce magically from nothing.

Some huge things found recently

My new idol is Terunofuji. And now Yokozuna wannabe. How should I start? Is there any other Yokozuna by here to guide me? I've started to eat mango sticky rice if that helps to increase my weight x2.

Testing new papers

Paper is key. From more important to less: Paper - ink - pen.

Still happy with my dear vergé paper but I'm open to options. Somehow the paper has shown feathering a couple of times. First time it happened was traveling in Vietnam with hot temperatures and humidity. I tried to reproduce those conditions at home but paper worked so well even under the most extreme tests.

So I'm quite sure what caused that feathering: Lignen, the "glue" which joins the fibers together, inside paper is gone or damaged. But I have no idea why that happens only sometimes.

I'm looking for a cream paper with texture, about 100m/m2.

Anyways it's fun trying new things. And more papers to come soon. I will post my conclusions.

Useful tools which can be kept inside the notebook

Many people ask me about how I do such straight text lines and what template I use. I don’t think it’s something special, but maybe it’s useful for somebody so here it is.

Very simple: All I need can be hold in the rear part of my notebook. From top: paper template for small writing, drier paper, notebook, ruler, plastic template for regular writing, foam and a card (credit card style).

If paper is not too thick you can just pace a paper template behind the page. In my case it doesn’t work so I made a plastic template from a folder separator. This is very lived already and definitely I need to do a new one 🤔 The pitch is important. For my writing I use 3.2mm separation between lines. Changing the pitch a little bit changes a lot the number of lines in a page. I tried from 4 to 3.4 before but 3.2 is the optimum looking for my kind of writing and pen.

3 blocks of foam helps to hold the hand and writer near the edges. It has 3 highs and it’s super light for travelling.

A small credit card is very useful as a ruler, much better than a big ruler.

A video about this can be found here.