Some more book news: Last week I was browsing through the book aisle of my local grocery store, and to my astonishment, I saw the new book by a friend of mine.

No Excuses is the autobiography of Kyle Maynard, a congenital amputee -- he was born with no arms past his elbows and no legs past his thighs. He never let that stop him, though -- he played football in sixth grade and proceeded to become a Georgia state wrestling champion in high school, as well as setting a world record in weightlifting.

I met Kyle a couple of months ago at the HardCore Gym, my martial arts school. When he showed up, I was a little surprised -- I didn't imagine a quadruple amputee would consider starting martial arts. But the instructors had met him earlier and welcomed him on the mat. He held out a stump of an arm and asked me, "Do you want to roll?" (which is an invitation to wrestle.) I shrugged and said, "Sure," and slapped his stump to indicate the match had begun.

Kyle proceeded, without any hands, to throw me down, climb on top of me, and choke me into submission. And then do it again. And again.

I was pretty depressed that I got beaten by a quadruple amputee -- that's not the sort of thing one goes around bragging about. I only found out later that he was a Georgia state wrestling champion.

Since then, we've wrestled a lot -- he's probably the person closest to my weight in the school. (He'd probably around 190 with his arms and legs.) He's one of the friendliest persons I've met, a dedicated Christian, and I'm honored to know him.