Iron Man and Bruce Lee

Iron Man is AWESOME!!! Thanks to my fabulous wife, I was able to hit the midnight showing of Iron Man tonight at our local Alamo Drafthouse. Wow! What a fabulously cool movie! The audience was great, and we laughed and hooted and clapped at all the right places, especially at the cameo appearance of Marvel Comics creator Stan Lee. Robert Downey, Jr. was a perfect Tony Stark. It was well worth the lost sleep.
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So why is it that I'm always most inspired, creative, and ambitious when I'm up far past my bedtime? I'm about to drop from exhaustion, but what I want to be doing is making workout plans, cleaning the house, organizing the garage, and writing short stories, all at the same time. Any plans I make are going to look rather silly in the morning, and anything I write is going to seem awfully odd when read by the light of day. And the other stuff makes too much noise. I wish I could feel like this in the mornings instead!
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We're on our way to buying a new location for Jade Mountain. A new facility could be quite a long ways off, but a long journey starts with a single step, so we've started the process. Financing is a tricky thing, and we'll just have to see what obstacles are in the way, and how we can go around, over, under, or through them. Several things happened recently that suggested that it might be time.

I'm a pretty down-to-earth kind of guy. I like things I can see and touch. Facts are good to have when moving forward with any project, as are well-laid plans. However, I'm still in touch with my feelings (Yoda taught me well), and when I get such a strong gut instinct that it's time, then my friends, it's time.

One of our students, who works in real estate, brought in a property listing for me to see. I drove out there that very night after class, and got a really good feeling about the place. On my way home, I heard a song on the radio that really seemed to fit at the time, something that made me optimistic about the possibilities. Then when I got home and turned on the TV, I got the final sign. Let me explain...

We watch a lot of movies...high-brow, low-brow, foreign films, popcorn- and chick-flicks, action, drama, horror, you name it, we watch it. We saw Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story with Jason Scott Lee long before we opened my school. In it, there was a scene in which Bruce took his future bride to an old building and explained to her that it would be the location of his first school. The influence of his school, and his martial arts, would affect the world much like ripples from a pebble dropped in a pond. We know this to be true, for his influence is still felt today. He handed her a pebble, and asked her to drop it to the floor of the school, thereby starting the ripples. It was a very symbolic gesture, and whether it truly happened, or no, the scene stuck with me.

The day we signed the lease on our school, I had a pebble in my pocket. I took my darling wife Christina into our new school and reminded her of the scene. I told her that without her support and love, I would never have been able to open the doors of Jade Mountain. I asked her to drop the pebble...and she refused. With sweet tears in her eyes, she insisted that we had to do it together. So we did.

...and THAT was the scene that popped up on the TV when I turned the power on that night.

Whether we are able to actually get the place we're hoping for is irrelevant. What's important is that we've started the process. However long it takes, we will find the right place for Jade Mountain.

And now, I'm headed to bed. Happy Friday, all.