Culinary 101: Dicing and Julienning

Knife skills to culinary are like learning how to write letters to an elementary school student.. something you must learn right the first time because you will use them everyday in the future. For this Culinary 101 post, I felt that dicing and julienning an onion were the best place to start because so many recipes call for one or the other.
First, slice off the onion top (pictured above) and the onion root (pictured below).  When slicing, grip the onion like you have a claw, curling your fingers in and hold the onion so your elbow.  This way, the only thing the knife would come into contact with in case of a misstep would be sliding against the flats of your knuckles (see how knife rests against my knuckles below). Cut the onion in half perpendicular to your previous cuts (see picture above).  Peel off the first layer of skin so only white skin is showing. With the onion cut-side down, cut 1/4" slices against the grain of the onion (pictured above). Flip vertically and cut 1/4" slices again perpendicular to the slices you just made. At this point, you should have perfectly diced pieces, but if you see any larger renegade chunks, run your knife through them quickly to make all the pieces consistent in size. To julienne an onion, start with the cut and peeled onion cut-side down.  Starting from the onion meets the cutting board, angle your knife and cut along the grain so you have approximately 1/4" wedges (see above). Once you get halfway through the onion half, flip the quarter so that you are again making cuts where the onion meets the cutting board.  Finish cutting the 1/4 and you should be left with a pile of jullienned onion wedges.

There you have it folks: how to dice and julienne an onion.  Any other culinary questions you'd like to see tackled here?