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Since moving into "the house that the dojo built," Sarah and I hadn't had a chance to carpool to Open Sky Aikido together a few miles away at the Boone Shopping Center.  Today, we did!  We started rice before hand so that food would be nearly prepared when we got back (thank you, rice cooker technology).

After class, Sarah Kaneko, Alex Hamer and I were sitting in the back talking about Body Worlds being in Charlotte... when Sarah noticed a wave of water coming out of the back dojo room.  Frantically, we started mopping, laying rags, and called Steve Sensei to let him know our dojo was being quickly flooded from the back.  

See, we're next to this tshirt making place.  Turns out a hose connected to some piece of water pressure equipment bucked off from the machine and started, literally, a nonstop flood of water coming from their side of the barn.  Sarah, Alex and I were chatting almost 40 minutes after class was over - if we weren't there to begin the frantic "bail out the ship that is our dojo(!)," this hose would have quickly filled a few inches of our entire dojo at the rate it was going... since it would have had a full 12 hours to run before folks started coming in.

There's nothing like unplugging refridgerators with your feet in two inches of water.  Well, actually, I got out of the water and stood on the countertops to pull it... but I definitely, inanely, had my hand on the outlet before I realized "hey, I'm standing in water."  I don't want to win any Darwin Awards.  Imagine a fire starting in the dojo because of the water problem... it's not every dojo that can say it simultaneously was flooded away while on fire.  

So, that having been said, the dojo is safe and sound (thanks to mad-dash water scooping and mopping... and a friendly neighborhood emergency plumber/water person who arrived 40 minutes into it with a monster wet vac), Sarah and I came home to some Well-Cooked rice (which we proceeded to turn into yummy giant burritos), and our first "real" night together in the dojo house will proceed, hopefully, much less on emergency mode.

And I'll wash and dry my gi-top, which worked well as a giant wet rag.  Sandbags would have been nice.  

peace,
Mike

Labels: aikido, open sky, sarah kaneko