Lauren In Tokyo

Changed the water in the jar

2011-02-20T19:11:00.000+09:00

I try to change the water in the tank every two weeks or so. Today was the day, so I also changed the water in the baby fish "tank".

The tank really is just a clear 2 liter Tupperware jar. You can see all those little fishies swimming around in there. They are still less than a centimeter in length.

Scooping the fish out carefully with a little cup, I found that roughly half of them were dead. Was it the cold? Was it the water quality? Was it sickness? Or was it just the way Nature works?

Anyway, the water is clean again and the healthy fish are swimming all around and an occasional dead one floats along the bottom of the jar. There must be 20-30 healthy ones now. That's a cut of around 70% from the first time I culled the fries.

Whooping cough in Japan?

2011-02-15T15:31:00.000+09:00

About 15 years ago when I lived in Washington, DC, I came down with a mild case of whooping cough.

Every moment of the day, you feel like you need to cough, and when it finally happens, it is painful and a terrible sound like a goose honking is made.

There was a guy on the train coughing like that. You heard it first here, whooping cough is coming to Japan.

Baby fish are born

2011-02-06T17:46:00.001+09:00

Several of the eggs hatched this morning. But it looks like some of the fish have already died in infancy. We'll push through tonight and see how many of the little buggers are swimming tomorrow morning.

Something is moving in the eggs!

2011-02-03T00:17:00.000+09:00

I took out my old slide loupe to look at one of the eggs clinging to the wall of the tank because I noticed the egg had some black spots. Under magnification, I could see a tiny spine.

Then the spine twitched! I looked at a few other eggs around the tank and saw that they were also blackening. I think we'll have quite a few goldfish very soon, if the parents don't eat them.

:-D

Henry, the girl goldfish

2011-02-02T11:42:00.000+09:00

The other day I was up pretty early in the morning and saw Henry and Red "fighting" and what seemed like scales everywhere. Henry would swim away to a corner of the tank, and Red would follow and bump Henry's sides as hard as he could.

After a few minutes of puzzling over why they were going crazy and worrying about Henry's well-being, I noticed that the things floating around in the tank weren't Henry's scales but tiny goldfish eggs. Henry was a girl!

Goldfish eggs are very sticky, so a lot of eggs stuck to the leaves of the fake plants. Seeing as goldfish will eat their own eggs, I pulled the plants out and put them in another tub of water. If all goes well, they should hatch within the next couple days. If things don't go well, the eggs will turn white and I will return the plants to the main tank.

Fingers are crossed!

Sleeping with the fishes

2010-07-07T13:29:00.003+09:00

Fish don't have eyelids, but they definitely sleep.

In the morning and evenings when people are around, the goldfish are active. They swim around and play with each other and try to showboat to get some extra food.

But when no one is here during the day time, they get their rest. I just found them quietly floating together at the bottom of the tank away from the bubble stone and filter cascade.

The flash from the camera woke them up, but they seem to have gone back to sleep now.

I need to change the filter and a quarter of the water this weekend.

Regarding Henry

2010-04-22T15:56:00.005+09:00

Don't be alarmed. The fish you are looking at isn't dead. It's actually very much alive, but it has an air bladder problem.

Henry, shown here upside down, is a beautiful little goldfish that is active and happy. He greets me when I get home and swims around like crazy when I reach for the fish food. He also gobbles air. It is a very bad habit, and it is what causes his problem.

Essentially, his air bladder is too full. This is a result of a combination of things related to his eating of air and also his overeating of food. He's got gas. Lots of it.

When we found him this morning, he was completely upside down and floating quietly. It takes a lot of energy to swim around upside down, and the gas inside him forces him to the top of the tank. He was probably pretty tired by the time we all woke up today.

Last time this happened, we fixed the problem by letting the gas out of his system over the course of 3 days. That meant no food for the fish until things got back to normal. And after 2 days, the fish were just fine, although Red (the white one with a red back) seemed to have lost a lot of weight. He's the real loser in all this, because it's not his fault at all, but he has to suffer right along with Henry.

First day of school!

2010-04-07T11:01:00.002+09:00

Yesterday we all dressed up in our Sunday best and went to the kindergarten for the new students welcoming ceremony. Today is the first day of kindergarten!

In Japan, kids go to kindergarten from 3 years old and stay there for 3 years. Of course there are other kids who only go 1 or 2 years and start later. Since Julian is 4 now, he's joining the 2nd year kids and will only go for 2 years.

When 1000 years old you reach, look as good, you will not

2010-03-15T11:23:00.002+09:00

The other day we had some pretty strange weather. It snowed and that was followed by strong winds. Down in the ancient Japanese city of Kamakura, a sacred tree that stood for more than a thousand years was toppled. I visited it this weekend and almost half the courtyard was cordoned off with large screens put up around the fallen tree.

A large crane was hovering over the tree stump, and much of the tree had already been cut up and stacked against the back of the courtyard on the left hand side of the stairs. The stairs to the shrine itself were blocked, so anyone trying to go up had to use the side stairs.

It's probably sacrilegious to say, but those pieces of wood would make some very nice tables.

I've been raising 3 avocado trees on my porch, and while I don't expect them to live 1000 years, with good care they could possibly live longer than me. I bet the guy planting the ginkgo tree didn't really think about how long that tree would stand there. Maybe he thought forever.

Broken aquarium filter?

2009-09-11T13:31:00.002+09:00

Yesterday we discovered that the aquarium filter is not filtering very much water. The water should cascade out of the spout, but only a low dribble is coming out now. It may be broken, or it may need cleaning.

The goldfish themselves are seeming pretty lethargic. I changed a quarter of the water this morning, so I hope that helps.

I'm also wondering if the lack of light is affecting them adversely. They are in a pretty dark area which only gets real light for minutes at a time throughout the day. Their lethargy may be them sleeping, now that I think about it.

Triceratops burgers

2009-08-03T00:55:00.001+09:00

If the dinos never died out, would I complain that the triceroburger tasted like chicken?

Mandela guard snuffs a life

2009-08-02T23:37:00.003+09:00

Albeit his own...

Did you know Mandela's grandson's name was Mandla? I'm going to have to impress upon Julian that his son's name should be Laurn. Or Laren. Hmm.. The possibilities are endless... (or within 6/1 :-)

Americans on the move

2009-07-14T16:50:00.002+09:00

I don't have any real data to back this up, but my gut feeling is that there is a lot of moving going on back in the U.S.

With the current economic downturn, people are starting to look outside of their current locations for work. That means moving to different cities, sometimes across the country. There was a recent article that claimed DC and Baltimore have a growing job market. San Jose too. As people get more desperate, they are likely to get over their moving anxiety, pull up their roots, and just move to where the jobs are.

If so, we may be seeing a new relocation of the workforce, especially in the tech sector. The tech heavy Northwest and Bay Area may see a small reduction in workers with the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic areas seeing a huge influx.

As these people start moving, it is going to affect housing prices, salary levels, tax income, and other things for the areas affected. It will also bring different cultures directly in contact with each other, which ought to be a good thing overall.

Who knows, maybe my next home in the U.S. will be back in DC.

Oh sure, kick me out

2009-07-06T15:12:00.002+09:00

I was just kicked out of the Nishi-Kasai public library. It is against the rules to use a PC because it may disturb other patrons.

Nevermind the guy over by the electronic catalog with the 3 bags of garbage and his pants falling off. No, Mr. Library Manager, I'm the one causing a disturbance.

Now I'm at Doutor Coffee getting lung cancer from all the second-hand smoke. At least I now have some air conditioning.

Burger King

2009-04-09T16:01:00.002+09:00

I had heard that there was a Burger King in Shinjuku, but I didn't realize until a couple weeks ago that my office is just across the street from it.

So I had, for the first time in years, a double Whopper with cheese and BK onion rings.

Now I am feeling very greasy and will probably abstain from it for another 7 years.

Here's the location for anyone interested. It's close to the Marunouchi Nishi-Shinjuku station, but also within walking distance from the Oedo Tochomae station.

Spitting in the airport

2009-01-24T04:34:00.003+09:00

I just got back from a 3 week trip to Taiwan. I really enjoy my time over there. The people are great to work with, and the food is always delicious. I'm looking forward to going back again soon.

But sometimes I am taken a little aback at little things. Today after passing through immigration and into the boarding terminal, I heard an old guy hock a loogie. Not out a window or into a plant or in the bathroom. Rather, he spat out a lungful of phlegm right in front of the Mont Blanc store.

7 years ago when I first got to Japan, this kind of thing really annoyed me. Everywhere I went, people were spitting on the sidewalks. It was a veritable wading pool of tobacco tar, saliva, and snot everywhere you went. But this type of behavior, while still occasionally popping up, has been pretty much eradicated from Tokyo.

But as bad as it ever was in Japan, I don't think I ever saw someone spit inside a building onto the floor.

Yuck.

Car immobilizer at Narita airport

2009-01-09T15:33:00.002+09:00

Before you can drive up to the airport terminal in Narita, you need to stop for a brief inspection to make sure you aren't carrying any bombs or other dangerous items into the airport. The officer typically asks to see some ID and then if it is okay to open the trunk. They do a brief inspection with a mirror to check for items underneath the car and then send you on your way.

What I noticed this time, though, was that after they let me go, my car's engine was off. The key was still in the ignition in the ON position, and the car was still in gear.

The only thing I can think is that they've installed a car immobilizer to kill each car as it passes through inspection. I suppose so that you wouldn't be able to get away if they did catch you with something.

I'm curious as to the possible detrimental impact of getting the circuits fried like this.

Muslims in Japan

2008-12-22T01:12:00.003+09:00

I always supposed there were Muslims in Japan, but I never really gave it much thought. It's not like there are mosques everywhere. In fact, I can't say that I've ever seen a mosque here in Tokyo (at least one that I would immediately recognize as such).

But I was reminded that this is indeed a very diverse place the other day at a highway rest area. As we pulled in to the parking lot, I saw a guy stooped down next to his car. Probably just checking his tire pressure or something, I thought, until I saw him begin praying. He had his prayer carpet and everything.

I thought it was pretty interesting, and that was my drive-by cultural experience for Saturday.

Avocado: 9 months along

2008-11-29T16:14:00.003+09:00

As the weather grew a bit cooler in the last couple months, the avocados themselves have slowed their growth to match. They are getting bigger, but they are not growing like they were during the warm summer months.

One of the big changes is the formation of bark at the base of the trees. Though most of the trunk is still green and plant-like, the bottom inch or two has developed a tree-like bark. Both trees were damaged in their early stages, so there is a clearly visible point where the bark stops. This bark is a new development since the weather started cooling, so I am interested to see if the entire trunk becomes woody as we progress through the winter.

One other thing I noticed in the past couple months is that the avocados seem to go through a difficult dormant stage right around 7-9 months. The older avocado, for a long time, seemed to have stopped growing altogether. There were leaf buds visible at the crown of the tree, but they didn't seem to get any larger. The younger avocado also seems to have entered this stage because it shows the same set of leaf buds but exhibits no growth. A few weeks ago I pinched the dormant buds off the older tree and have been rewarded with a flurry of new growth. You can see the new growth in the photo.

I'm not sure how much I want to promote growth at this time, though. With cold weather approaching and the daylight time becoming short, it may be better for the trees to become a bit dormant soon.

There is a slight concern that the younger tree may be a bit anemic. I moved the pots around in the early spring to make room for other things on the veranda, and through the summer it seemed okay. However when the days started becoming shorter, the veranda wall was blocking most of the direct sunshine. Since the avocado tree is fairly short, it wasn't receiving any direct sunlight. I believe this is the reason why the leaves were very light green compared to the older avocado which had much darker leaves. I moved both trees on top of the storage box you see in the picture so that they can receive a whole day's worth of sun everyday. The leaves are no longer yellowish, so I take that as a good sign.

Here is the younger avocado. Note the small leaf buds at the top and the bark at the bottom.

Here is the older avocado. This one also has bark, but you can also see the new flourish of leaves at the top where it was pinched. The leaves always come out at an angle from the point of the pinch.

Avocado: Typhoon 13 and some soil changing

2008-09-19T16:25:00.003+09:00

I was supposed to attend some training today, but we wrapped up all the material yesterday and so today I worked from home. This is a good thing because today we will be hit by a pretty decent-sized typhoon. When the rain and wind come, my train is one of the first to stop. So working from home is a whole lot better than worrying about whether I can get home in the evening.

Since I'm at home, I ate lunch with my family. We ordered some pizza. I think I mentioned a long time ago how weird Japanese pizza is. The key is to go along with the weirdness. If you try to fight against it, you will only be disappointed. Avoid the meat-lovers and Italian sausage pizzas and stick with the squid, corn, and potato pizzas. It must be a cultural thing.

This week I took a few minutes to change some of the soil in the older avocado's pot. The soil is a different variety for both avocados, and since the younger one is doing so well, I wanted to see if giving the older avocado some of that soil would help. It's only been a couple days, so it's hard to tell at this point.

I did not change the entire soil, of course. I scraped away about a centimeter of old soil from the pot and refilled the pot with a couple centimeters of new soil. What I found really interesting was that the avocado roots were right at the surface of the soil. I needed to take care when scraping the old soil because I was uncovering roots. The roots themselves were a couple millimeters thick and very wiry. I should have taken a picture!

This week, the younger avocado seems to be having another flourish of leaves. The buds at the top are growing very quickly. You can see one large bud growing in this picture.

You can see the darker, loamier soil in this picture of the older avocado. There is a set of leaf buds at the top of the avocado, but I haven't noticed much change there for a while. I am actually worried that this avocado may be sick.

Avocado: Strange weather in Japan

2008-09-07T17:30:00.004+09:00

The weather this year in Japan has been very strange. First, we haven't had any typhoons at all. But instead of typhoons, we have had a steady stream of thunderstorms. These thunderstorms, quaintly dubbed "guerrilla rain", have been heavy and life threatening for those caught unawares.

The pictures today aren't very good because the sky already darkened and the camera's flash was far too strong to take a good picture.

If you can, note the small bud growth at the top of the younger avocado. It looks like a new flourish will be coming in soon, so I am hoping that the leaves are fully formed before the temperatures drop too far.

On the older avocado, there is a smaller bud growth, but I have a bad feeling that there may be something wrong with this avocado. It has stopped making leaves for a while and it is a bit droopy. The water seems to be fine, so I worry that it may not be getting enough nutrients. I noticed today that it did not receive any direct sun due to the angle of the shadows cast by the veranda wall, so I may have found my culprit. I have moved the pot a bit out of the shade and we will see if it can get on with photosynthesis and feeding itself.

For kicks, here's a shot of some strawberries that I've been growing for the past year. The shape is nothing to look at, but they are sweeter than any strawberry I ever got at the store.

Avocado: Comparing leaves

2008-08-31T21:53:00.005+09:00

In the past couple months since I last updated the pictures of the avocados, there has been quite a bit of growth due to the warm summer. We've had plenty of rain and lots of sun, and the avocados seem to be making the most of the weather. They are still potted, and they are somewhat sheltered from direct weather contact, but they are outside and receive a fairly substantial dose of the natural world. The avocados here definitely aren't indoor plants.

So last time I wrote about the avocados, I mentioned that the leaves were different shapes. Since the avocados are grown from seed, they are genetically distinct and will have similar but different phenotypes. One easy to understand phenotype is leaf shape. The older avocado has a rounded end on each leaf. The younger avocado has a distinct pointy leaf shape.

Rounded leaf:

Pointed leaf:

At first I thought it might have just been a malady that was affecting the shape of the leaves of the older avocado. Several other leaves seem to be strangely-shaped due to what appears to be burns. What this is due to, I don't know. However, the basic shape of each leaf seems to be rounded at the tip, so I don't think the lack of a point is due to disease, malnutrition, or sunburn. It is a good idea to keep a close eye on it for changes, though.

Another interesting thing is that the older avocado's seed has completely dissolved. You can't see it well in the pictures, but the seed is almost completely gone. I am attributing this to the age of the tree, but I am a little worried that the tree used up the remaining food within the seed due to lack of nutrients in the soil. Is there a way to determine the nutrient level within the soil?

One last point to mention is that the younger avocado is almost as tall as the older one. This may be due to them being only a few months apart in age, but it may also be a genetic difference, causing them to grow at slightly different rates.

Here are this week's pictures:

Older avocado (white pot):

Younger avocado (black pot):

Avocado: No updates in a while

2008-08-20T10:38:00.002+09:00

It's been a few months since the last time I updated the avocado information. There has been a lot going on, a new job, overseas travel, and the always-constant laziness.

Pictures can explain the situation better than a textual description, but I don't have pictures, so you'll have to make due with your imagination.

The avocado that I have been watching for the past few months has grown to almost a foot and a half. Due to the heat, I am worried that its growth may be stunted a bit. Sun damage is a definite possibility in the summer months. Given that the avocado is growing in a pot and not in an open soil area where its roots can spread out, I am curious if the tree will be stunted and will fail to develop a large canopy to protect itself from the sun.

The leaves have grown large, and there is a clear pointiness of the leaves. The older avocado has rounded leaves. Unfortunately, the latest leaves do not seem to be growing to full size. This may be just a little bit of overcaring on my part, but if the leaves fail to grow out, then there may be a real problem.

The little tomato plant that I temporarily put in the same pot as the avocado has been transplanted and has grown quite a bit. It had flowered, but the strong wind of the other day broke the top of the plant off. However, this is not that bad because the tomato plant itself is not big and mature enough to handle a tomato at the moment. This year may be a bust for the tomato crop. Next year I should probably start a month or two earlier to maximize the number of tomatoes.

Avocado: Heat, humidity, and rain

2008-06-10T06:57:00.004+09:00

This past Saturday was Julian's birthday party. It was a joint birthday party for about 4 kids who were all born around this time of year at the same hospital. We all had a good time, and had way too much cake.

I made my increasingly famous nachos. And what takes center stage in the recipe? Why, an avocado, of course. So now I have an extra avocado seed and am considering sprouting another one. I have two seedlings already, this would be a third, and there is a fourth waiting in the unpeeled avocado in the kitchen.

Growing these things is my small way to combat global warming, or something...

This week was relatively warm. The humidity has become very high and yesterday it rained almost all day. This signals the start of the Japanese summer. The rain will last about two weeks in a mini-season called tsuyu. During these two weeks, the temperatures reach into the 90s and the humidity is maxed out at 100%. It's a terrible time for us humans. The avocados are responding very happily, though.

There isn't much growth news this week except to say that the main trunk seems to have been completely bypassed in favor of the secondary trunk. This is the growth that started from a little shoot on the side and has now grown into the main trunk. The only worry is that as the tree grows, will the joint strength hold?

I meant to transplant the tomato plant this weekend, but found out in the process that we don't have a shovel. I will need to transplant it this week.

Gas prices jump 10 yen per liter yesterday

2008-06-02T07:51:00.002+09:00

Gas prices here in Tokyo have never been especially cheap. When we first got our car, the prices were about 100 yen/liter. The yen was also a lot weaker in those days, so assuming that the exchange rate was about 120 yen/dollar, the price of a gallon of gas was about $3.80/gal. This was back in 2004.

Yesterday, gas prices hit an all time high here. 170 yen/liter. A 70% jump in price in just 4 years. Doing the math with the latest yen/dollar exchange rate of 105 yen/dollar, we get $6.12/gal.

Needless to say, our driving habits have had to adapt.

Avocado: Skipping the metrics this week

2008-06-01T23:50:00.005+09:00

Want some metrics? How about 4 days of a terrible cold and a 38.8°C fever. This week has been pretty terrible as far as my health goes. But I think I'm over the hardest part and finally on the road to recovery.

And the same can be said for the broken seedling! The reason I am skipping taking metrics this week is because they don't really make sense at this point anymore.

The reason I started taking them in the first place was to measure the progress of the avocado stem after it was broken. The stem would need to show consistent growth or I would have to cut this little experiment short due to a failed seedling.

What I hadn't counted on was the seedling bypassing the broken stem altogether. As you can see in this week's photo, the bud that we've been looking at for the past 2 or 3 weeks has grown into a full-fledged stem of its own.

The secondary stem has completely outpaced the original stem in growth. I believe the original stem has stopped growing and will probably dry out and fall off at some point. If there is no other growth on the original stem, I may prune it back.

The other avocado plant is still going strong. The new leaves are sprouting nicely. Summer is coming and the new set of leaves will help absorb a lot of sunlight this year.

Avocado: Variable weather week

2008-05-25T08:04:00.006+09:00

Last week we had mid-winter weather, but this week we had all sorts of weather. The weather at the beginning of the week was terrible with a typhoon blowing hard and raining really hard. Then a warm air blast came in and brought the temps up to mid-summer levels. Then the past two days, the rain has come again and the temperatures have dropped back to the mid-60s. A few other plants here have succumbed. The avocados came through relatively unscathed.

The hot weather was not very pleasant.

The seedling had no discernable vertical growth on the main trunk. In fact, if you compare last week's measurement with this week's, you'll notice that the height actually shrunk by 5mm. I believe this is due to measurement error, mostly my imprecision in holding the ruler.

However, the real growth is coming from the bud on the side. What I first thought was a new leaf bud looks like it may be an alternate trunk growing out the side.

The little leaf peeking in at the bottom is from my trial tomato seedlings. They are temporarily planted with the avocado until they grow big enough to transplant safely.

The other avocado has a lot of new leaf growth from the little bud. Just compare the bud from a couple weeks ago to today. You can really tell how fast these things are growing.

Lalaport grand re-opening

2008-05-23T13:48:00.002+09:00

After almost a year of construction, Lalaport Tokyo Bay reopened the West wing. For the most part, the stores are the same with a few notable new shops like Zara. But the big news is the new restaurant expansion on the 4th floor.

With large chain expansions like Monsoon Cafe, Kua'aina, and Sumire Ramen, the new 4th floor is a huge hit with me. Additionally, they have a new gelato store with great Cream and Chocolate Chip and Tiramisu flavors. There is a Chinese buffet, udon shop, Korean restaurant, tonkatsu shop, Okinawan restaurant, Japanified-Western-style hamburger shop, and even a huge sushi restaurant. We are going to be busy trying out all the places, for sure.

The store I'm most interested in is Sumire Ramen. This import from Hokkaido is one of the top ramen shops in Japan. They have their own line of cook-at-home ramen products and actual restaurants are few and far between. This is the first one in Chiba, and the second in Kanto (there was a small one in the Yokohama Ramen Museum, but it closed. There is one still remaining in Kawasaki). The problem is that the line to get in is at least 20 minutes long. That was when we went yesterday. Around 4:00pm, the line dwindled out, but by that time I was stuffed with Kua'aina gourmet hamburgers (mine and half of my wife's). Next time, Sumire. Next time.

Avocado: Summer arrives, then leaves, then returns

2008-05-18T23:30:00.006+09:00

This week has been a very strange week for weather. It started off very warm, then it rained a couple days and was mid-winter cold, then the bad weather broke and we had a beautiful spring day on Friday and Saturday. Today, Sunday, the weather got very hot.

The next two days will be rainy and muggy. Just the kind of weather the avocados enjoy. I can't say as much for the humans.

This week in avocados, there isn't much to report. The seedling grew a half-centimeter.

The older avocado's leaf buds are coming in nicely.

One worry is that I've temporarily transplanted some tomato seedlings into the avocado seedling's pot. I was having trouble keeping them in the little paper cups they were sprouted in, so I rescued the spilled seedlings and planted them in the nearest pot. When they get a little bit bigger, I will try to move them again. Hopefully there won't be too much impact on the avocado.

Avocado: Using metrics

2008-05-13T00:36:00.007+09:00

In the programming world, it is fun to use a lot of words to describe methods of performance improvement, but until you actually take metrics all the talk in the world is just bluster.

Since the avocado seedling broke off a couple weeks back, I've been blustering and doing a lot of hoping and hand waving. But that's not going to do any good, and it doesn't provide any significant data.

So I will measure the growth of the avocado seedling with a ruler. Though it is not visible in this week's shot, the bottom of the ruler is sitting on the top of the seed. As you can see, the stem is approximately 5.5cm.

I mentioned before that the broken stem may act as a rough "pinch" and though the damage is initially significant, the plant will find a way to increase growth. In fact, if you look at the stem around the 2.5cm mark, leaf buds are coming in laterally. These buds did not exist last week. The seedling is fighting back and finding an outlet for its energy.

On the other avocado plant, new leaf buds are coming in on the top where I pinched off the new leaves three weeks ago. You can make them out in this picture.

The brown area is the pinch point. The bud is red with a light green leaf emerging. Unlike the seedling, the plant is not producing leaf buds from the sides of the stem. I suppose this may just be the way avocados grow.

Avocado: The potted and broken

2008-05-04T08:45:00.004+09:00

After the stem incident last week, I heard that the avocado seedling was pulled out completely and rolled around on the patio. Some nice angel came along and re-potted the seed. Now I can only hope that the seedling makes it through the next couple weeks.

Here is a shot of the current situation, including the broken part of the stem.

For kicks, here's a shot of the first avocado plant that is a few months older than the seedling that I've been blogging about.

Avocado: Tragedy strikes!

2008-04-28T12:22:00.003+09:00

This weekend I transplanted the avocado seedling into a larger pot. The stem has grown to over 10cm and buds which indicate leaf growth are appearing on the stem. It was definitely time to move it to a soil pot.

I intended to take pictures of the avocado in its new home, but as I was grabbing the camera, my son grabbed the avocado and yanked it. The stem broke in half and the roots were slightly damaged. I don't think it is fatal, but the impressive stem is now an unimpressive stub.

I'll have pictures of it soon. Hopefully the exposed wound area doesn't get infected and the growth will continue apace. In some respects, this is similar to pinching, though a bit more aggressive than the typical pinch.

In other news, I pinched off the older avocado plant a week ago and some new leaves are emerging from the stem. If I've learned nothing else, it's that avocados can take a beating and still grow like crazy. I hope this holds true for the broken seedling that we've been watching.

Avocado: Stem about 5cm

2008-04-20T22:52:00.003+09:00

There isn't much news this week except to note that the stem has grown to about 5cm above the seed. Last week it was only 1cm, so the plant is growing pretty fast.

Boy's Day is coming up soon, so we got the big samurai armor out for display. This took up all the room that the avocado was using, so the avocado and glass are now sitting in the shadow of the samurai armor. This means that the seedling will be getting less direct light. Hopefully it doesn't permanently damage or stunt the avocado.

Avocado: Ooh, a new variety!

2008-04-15T10:41:00.002+09:00

Last time I was mentioning that the avocado type I am growing is Hass, but according to the University of California avocado information site every seedling is different and distinct from the parent tree. So while the parent was likely a Mexican Hass avocado, the seedlings I am growing are a hybrid of Hass and another type of avocado.

Avocado: What kind is it?

2008-04-14T17:06:00.002+09:00

Although I don't have any solid evidence, I believe that the avocado trees which I am growing are of the Hass variety. The skin was rough and pebbly and dark purple to black, so it seems like Hass is the variety that fits the bill.

There is more on avocado varieties here at avocado.org.

I haven't seen any other varieties except for Hass (or what I take to be Hass at any rate) here in Japan. Looking at all the different varieties is certainly interesting, but not quite as fun as tasting them. I wonder where I can get my hands on some non-Hass varieties.

Avocado: Stem peeks out

2008-04-12T22:27:00.004+09:00

Last week's entry mentioned that the avocado had developed a stem. In just a week, the stem has grown enough to be plainly visible above the edge of the seed.

The stem should grow another couple weeks before sprouting its first set of leaves.

Here is a diagram of an avocado seed.

You can see the various parts which I have been describing. The cotyledons are visible to the naked eye, but they are obscured a bit by the strange growth around the hypocotyl. The rest is easily discerned.

If you look closely at this week's photo, you can see that a few root hairs have sprouted from the main root.

Lots of changes this week!

Avocado: Strange growth in the seed

2008-04-05T22:11:00.000+09:00

The avocado root is growing quickly and is wrapping around the bottom of the container. Soon, it will need to be transplanted. (I say this every week, but I never get around to it.)

What bothered me this week was a significant growth of white nodules around the origin of the root and stem. You can see it in the picture. It looks like cottage cheese between the root and the stem.

If anyone knows what this is, whether it is normal or some sort of disease, a little help is much appreciated.

Avocado: Reaching the bottom of the glass

2008-04-01T02:17:00.004+09:00

I swear, every time I make an avocado entry I have some kind of cold or something. Today I seem to be afflicted with a sore throat. This is worrisome because Miki had a sore throat last week and is still coughing. If I caught the same cold, that's going to be bad news.

This weekend was really cold and rainy. The avocado outside is not a happy camper, especially as the wind is strong and its leaves are getting battered. But inside, the seedling is enjoying the warmth, and it shows.

The root has reached the bottom of the glass that it is sitting in. It is curling a bit at the end, so I am thinking of how I can keep the growth relatively straight without changing containers. I have a feeling I can rotate the seed a bit and get the root to climb sideways along the bottom of the glass for a large coil. If it works, I'll try to update the pics next week.

This week, the picture shows the longer root and a little bit of the coiling going on at the bottom of the glass.

Avocado: Split widens, root lengthens

2008-03-23T17:59:00.003+09:00

This weekend was the worst two days of pollen this year. I was knocked out all weekend. Some of that may have been the allergy medicine, but most of it was just exhaustion from sneezing and blowing my nose all day long.

This week the avocado split a little wider and the root grew about 5cm. The weather has warmed up a lot and the average temperature inside the house is getting higher. This is leading to more growth from the seed than earlier when it was very cold in the evenings.

The split in the avocado seed is getting wider. The stem is becoming visible. It looks like a little green nub on the base of the root. Once the stem comes out of the seed, I'll transplant it into a pot.

Turned the Wright issue into the right issue

2008-03-20T01:20:00.004+09:00

A couple days ago I talked about how I felt that Obama's reaction and distancing himself from Pastor Wright was done clumsily and would be a net negative for him. I felt that he needed to not feign ignorance of the issue, but to tackle it head on by turning the negatives of Wright into a platform to bring the "two Americas" together.

I said:

I wonder if he couldn't have embraced this man as a strong supporter of the Chicago African American community which faces unique challenges in its unique way, and also personally distanced himself from the specific words that do not reflect his beliefs

Today, Obama did just that. Here is the speech from the Youtubes.

A lot of people are claiming this speech as one of the seminal speeches of this generation, and while I share that enthusiasm, I believe that the proof of that will be when we open and continue the conversation of race without pointing fingers and looking for chances to derail the progress made. Racial problems are a major dividing force in American culture today, but in the grand scheme of things it is a problem that will eventually work itself out. The first step is to speak honestly and respectfully about the problem and not try to sweep differences under the carpet. This speech opens the door very wide to anyone willing to be part of the conversation.

But there are other issues that we need to overcome. The root of these issues is the definition of who we are, and who we want to be. What kind of country do we want to be? How shall we conduct foreign policy with regards to our friendly neighbors, our neutral neighbors, and our hostile neighbors? What level of societal support do we want to provide to the least able among us? These are the big questions. Race is a small issue made big by people who wring the issue for political gain. I hope we can focus on the big issues while tackling the difficult little issues as well.

Avocado: Taproot emerges

2008-03-17T11:25:00.004+09:00

Today I am down with a cold or something. I'm feeling pretty terrible, so I am staying home in the morning hoping that I can get better and head off to work later today.

Today I noticed that my avocado has grown a taproot in the past week. A taproot is the large root that grows straight down and will anchor the seed as it grows in the first stages of its life. Later. the root system will grow sideways and provide a wide area which the avocado will use to absorb rainwater. Right now, it's sitting in water, so it's happy as a clam.

In the last week, the root has gone from a little nub in the middle of the seed to an easily recognizable root feature almost 4cm in total length. The root extends past the seed about 1 centimeter. In a few more weeks, the root will grow even longer with more root fibers.

Obama stumbles on Pastor Wright issue

2008-03-15T12:09:00.004+09:00

On Anderson Cooper 360 this evening, I saw Obama's response to Pastor Wright's inflammatory remarks and was disappointed in his inability to take control of the issue and turn it to his advantage. He seemed a bit evasive when confronted with the issue, and his denunciation of Wright was unfortunately not strong enough to truly distance himself from the controversial preacher.

What strikes me, though, is that the segments that I have seen of Wright's sermons is run of the mill black empowerment speech. While there is perhaps a slight tinge of reverse-racism that insinuates that white people are somehow less attuned to "real" American life because they are not subject to the humiliations and hurdles that blacks face, I don't see it as technically incorrect nor do I detect true racist overtones in Wright's words.

Obama wants to run a clean campaign, but I wonder if he couldn't have embraced this man as a strong supporter of the Chicago African American community which faces unique challenges in its unique way, and also personally distanced himself from the specific words that do not reflect his beliefs. He seemed to try to do just this, but his hemming and hawing wasn't the same strikingly clear orator that we saw in New Hampshire. Which is a shame, since I think that his answer was very human.

Did anyone else notice that his ears were very red?

Update: David Gergen just mentioned what I just said. Namely that the conversation that has been going on in the Black community for the past few decades has been strikingly different from the conversation that has been going on in the White community. The shock that people now hearing this type of inflammatory speech is due to ignorance of the boiling undercurrent in the black community.

Avocado: Getting started

2008-03-09T21:28:00.005+09:00

I've been growing an avocado tree at the house for a while, and it's grown up a lot. It started from a seed which I dug out of a fruit destined for guacamole. I meant to post about it with pictures, but I really didn't get the urge to do it until it was already sprouted and growing in the pot.

So I started a new one. Hopefully I can track it here with pictures every week or so.

It's easy to grow an avocado! All you need is a jar, 3 toothpicks, and an avocado.

1) Eat the delicious avocado. Take care not to cut too deeply into the seed. Save the seed.
2) Rinse the seed off to clean off any remaining meat
3) Put the seed in the jar and fill it with water. Leave for 2 weeks. This will prime the seed for sprouting.
... time passses ...
4) Identify the "bottom" of the seed. The fat side of the seed is the bottom. If the shape of the seed isn't immediately obvious, you may have a defective seed. If this is the case, return to step 1.
5) The toothpicks are going to be used to stabilize the seed around the mouth of the jar. Stick the 3 toothpicks into the avocado seed about a third or quarter the length of the seed.
6) Set the avocado on the rim of the jar and fill it with water.
7) Refill the water when it drops too far.

Today, I checked the water level and I found that the seed had begun to sprout. The seed has split and a root is forming in the gap. From the time I started the seed until now has been about a month. I've read that it usually progresses faster, but 1 month from start until first split is my experience.

DHS 5th anniversary

2008-03-07T03:17:00.003+09:00

It's been 5 years since the Department of Homeland security was formed. Bush is on CNN right now talking about how scary terrorists are trying to take away our freedom and liberty and implement tyrrany. How ironic.

I don't have anything against the concept of a DHS, per se. We had the FBI, we had FEMA, we had INS. These were all in somewhat working order before DHS was formed. There was a significant lack of communication between the various agencies, and that was the vulnerability which led to the 9/11 attacks. The Patriot Act, at its core, comes from a desire to knock down the walls between government agencies and share crucial information which can help prevent acts of terrorism.

It's unfortunate that the result is a huge over-arching bureacracy which does nothing but impose itself in the daily lives of many Americans and foreigners passing through the US. It's unfortunate that our freedom and liberty is curtailed to protect us from terrorists who seek to curtail our freedom and liberty.

Though it we are a far cry from a tyrranical government, the amount of power given to departments like TSA and USCIS has simply gotten to a point where the work they are doing is counter-productive. The problem isn't immigrants and citizens. My hope is that we see the dismantling of the DHS into its constituent parts in the next Presidential term.

Security is a noble goal, but it's not worth the price we are paying.

John McCain gets Bush's endorsement

2008-03-06T03:17:00.006+09:00

I don't know if this is George's typical MO, but McCain can't possibly be comfortable standing behind this guy. Every question is fielded by Bush and answered in the worst possible way.

OMG, he just said that he'll be for McCain if it helps him, and he'll be against him if it helps. This is absolutely ridiculous...

Maybe Bush is drunk... He does seem a bit loose.

McCain can't get a word in edgewise!

Alright, I can't even breathe now. I'm laughing too hard.

Here's a link to a video: This is a prelude
Here's a link to the actual "endorsement": link
Here's a longer Youtube link: link

Unfortunately I can't seem to find the last 10 minutes of the endorsement where George seems to lose his mind and starts sabotaging McCain's campaign. I'll try to look for it some more.

Not reading much lately

2008-02-28T12:57:00.002+09:00

If you follow my Current Reading list over on the right column there, you may have noticed that I'm taking an inordinate amount of time to read Joseph Conrad's Nostromo . The reason behind that is frankly that I am not reading it. With the amount of work piled up lately, and coupled with outside reading that I am trying to accomplish, I do not have the time to read for pleasure.

Unfortunately, that's not the whole story. The truth is that the first 50-odd pages of Nostromo have been appallingly boring. Conrad appears to fill each paragraph with as much detail as possible to create a solid world in which to tell the story, but in doing so he seems to have left out the story altogether. That's not accurate, I suppose, and I'm not doing justice to the writing. Let's just say that what would take another author 1 paragraph to say takes Conrad an entire chapter.

The preface and back cover claim that Nostromo is one the 20th century's greatest works of literature, but if this sort of overblown, dense-for-density's-sake type of writing is indicative of what "great literature" ought to be, then I am not surprised when it is reported that the vast majority of Americans don't read. What could they possibly be excited about when the "classics" they are fed are exercises in tedium?

I've read quite a few books in the past couple years, and I've tried to list them in the reading section of this blog. For the most part, I've also contributed reviews to Amazon.com for those books. I haven't hit a brick wall of a book like Nostromo. This is definitely a first.

Perhaps a second, now that I think about it. The last time I felt like I was wasting my time reading a book was with Tim Allen's I'm Not Really Here. Man, what a waste of time that one was. Nostromo is a bit different in that it doesn't seem like I'm just exploring the musings of an idiot, but rather that I'm sitting in the presence of someone who wants to say something but can't get the words to connect with his thoughts.

In any case, it may be a while before I finally finish this book, if I ever do at all. Once things settle down at work again, I'll try again. If it doesn't work out the second time, I'm going to drop Nostromo and move on.

Life's too short to waste it on bad books.

Unicef call for donations

2008-02-23T16:21:00.001+09:00

I just saw a commercial for Unicef. They were asking for donations to help bring vaccines to poor nations around the world. I'm a bit perplexed as to why the UN would need to ask for this kind of donation.

CNN anchor

2008-02-13T21:32:00.002+09:00

I get to watch TV at work as part of my job, and I spend a lot of time with the channel tuned to CNN. On the show American Morning, the anchor Kiran Chetry gets a lot of camera time.

If it were up to me, she could have all the camera time she wants.

Merry Christmas (belated)

2007-12-26T01:02:00.000+09:00

We celebrated Christmas on the 24th rather than the 25th this year because I had to work today. The 24th was a floating holiday for the Emperor's birthday (the 23rd). Working on Christmas.. Sheesh.

On another note, I'm raising an avocado. It's been a couple months since I initially sprouted the seed, and it's finally getting somewhere. It was stymied for a couple weeks because Julian knocked the original sprout off the seed, but in the words of Jeff Goldblum in Jurrasic Park, life finds a way. The new sprout is growing out of the side of the broken stem. The only worry I have is that the stem will not be strong enough to support a full-grown tree.

Hillarity

2007-12-16T13:42:00.000+09:00

Whether Hillary wins or loses in the primaries, I think we can look forward to a slew of Fark headlines claiming either "Hillary ensues" or "Hillary does not ensue". God forbid she make it to the general election, because there will be another year of that sort of idiocy.

I can't even imagine how much Hillarity will ensue if she wins the Presidency.

For the sake of Fark readers who don't particularly like the "hilarity ensues" cliche, please remove her from the running as early as possible.

Thanks.

Guam trip 2007

2007-11-26T18:06:00.000+09:00

After months of preparation, I finally took the family to Guam for a 3 day vacation. We also took the in-laws, since they wanted to see where I was from.

We left at 8pm on Tuesday evening and arrived on Guam at 2 in the morning on Wednesday morning. We had dinner at the Chinese restaurant in Narita, which btw, is really good and totally recommended. It was a good thing we ate because Northwest's dinner cuisine was absolutely terrible.

Immigration on Guam was very easy. Since Guam is so dependent on tourists, they go out of their way to make travel to the island easy. On top of that, my American passport means that getting into the country is no problem. I chatted it up with the immigration officer for a minute about traveling abroad and coming back home after so many years, and then we got our papers together and went out to get our luggage and rental car.

We got a Nissan Quest which turned out to be just about the right size for the 4 adults and 1 child we were hauling around the island. Maybe we could have gotten away with a slightly smaller car, but if I've learned anything about this type of thing, it's that it always pays to get a car bigger than you need than one smaller.

We stayed at the Fiesta Resort which used to be the Dai Ichi Hotel in the middle of Tumon. Unfortunately, we were not able to get an ocean view room, so we had to make due with our parking lot/street view. They call it "mountain view", but they must be joking.

Bright and early the next morning, we got up and had breakfast at the Fiesta Resort buffet. Expensive and bland. Not that we had time to eat, though. At 10 the bus came to take us to the tour package Beach Tour.

The beach tour consists of getting on a bus to be taken to an Agana bay beach club where for only 50 bucks a person more you can ride jetskis and do other fun things that people who didn't pay only get to sit and watch from the shore. At lunch time, they brought out some barbecue chicken, spareribs, and red rice, but most of the time you're stuck in the shallow water waiting for the bus to go home. If I had known ahead of time what the beach tour was going to be, I would have passed on it altogether. I had expected that it would just be a hotel tour of the adjacent beach and a lunch meal coupon to be used at the hotel. I didn't expect to be kidnapped and taken to a completely different location.

The bus ride back to Tumon was very sad for me. The drive back took us down Marine Drive through Tamuning. In the years that I've been away, Tamuning has gone from a bustling metropolis to a burned out ghost town. Literally, many of the old buildings that I remember from my youth have been burned out and left that way. The old Hong Kong restaurant is probably the biggest testament to this decay with its charred three story husk graffitied walls sitting silently next to the abandoned lot which used to be Chick's Chrysler/Mitsubishi/Dodge. Now, there is only Atkins Kroll Toyota and the UIU building that seem to have avoided the creeping decay.

Since we already ate lunch at the beach, we hopped in the car and went to Micronesia Mall to do a little shopping. Wednesday afternoon at the mall is dead. No one there but the tourists and the poor shop employees who had to hang around while no one came in to look at the merchandise.

I remembered that my friend Clifton worked at Foot Locker, so I stopped in there and found him right away. Can't miss the tall guy managing the place. We caught up and I felt really old when he told me his son is 13 and just about to enter high school. I can't believe it's been long enough that one of our kids is the same age I was when I met my friend.

After the mall, we headed down to Agana for the weekly "fiesta" at Chamorro Village. Less a fiesta and more of a tourist trap, we had some sweet tuba, a fiesta plate, and enjoyed the evening crowded under a tree. While not exactly the best fiesta food I've ever had, it wasn't too bad. Miki says that she now understands what a fiesta is, but I'm afraid she really has no idea. Whatever you want to call Wednesday nights at Chamorro Village, it will never be a real fiesta.

The rest of the evening was spent in the hotel sleeping. Except for me and Miki, who went to KMart and bought some refreshments. We also stopped in at the Haggen Daz which is on the first floor of the hotel for a quick cone.

The next day, I decided that we weren't going to "take advantage" of any more of the freebie tour package stuff and got everybody packed in the van for breakfast at Kings. Of all the places we ate during the trip, this one was the absolute best. You can't beat filling your body with grease and fat first thing in the morning, so Fried Rice Ala and a bottomless cup of coffee got everyone in the mood to go driving.

Guam isn't so big, so there's no sense in heading south right away. Instead we visited Two Lover's Point and took our pictures with Tumon Bay making our backdrop. The weather was great and the winds were very light, so except for the fear that Julian would jump off the cliff, everything was really nice. It costs 3 dollars a person to go up to the observatory now. It used to be free when I lived there, but there wasn't an observatory back then, so it evens out, I suppose.

Next stop after TLP was One's store in Yigo. This is where another friend from high school has a family store. He wasn't in when we stopped in, but his parents were glad to see me and to meet my wife. They invited us to Thanksgiving dinner, but since I was with the in-laws in tow, I had to decline. I think Miki could have gotten a real understanding of fiestas if we had gone, but it wasn't to be.

After picking up a few more refreshments, we drove down Back Island Road to Mangilao and my old high school GCC. The gates were locked so we just drove past. I pointed out my mom's temporary classroom T-4, which despite it being a temporary building is still in use 15 years after I used it. It was dilapidated then, it must be terrible now. I wonder if the soft spot in the floor eventually fell in.

Our next stop was the University Of Guam which really improved with new buildings along the backside of campus for the business school and hospitality departments. The science building is still the old white building it always was. There is a small area near the administration building which allows one of the nicest views of Pago Bay on the island. We stopped there and took a few pictures and Julian ran around the parking lot for a while. Since there isn't much more to see in that part of Guam, we headed south.

Our first stop was Taga'chang beach in Yona. The drive down to the beach was eye-opening as there was lots of development where once there was only jungle. Who wants to live on the edge of a cliff, I don't know, but apparently that is a hot real estate spot. It's not hard to understand why, though, with the great view of Pago Bay and easy access to central Guam.

There wasn't much to do at Taga'chang, since the water was too rough to wade in and no one really wanted to get wet yet. So after letting Julian play in the rocks for a while, we packed into the van and went to visit my old stomping grounds.

Baza Gardens, in the south of Yona, used to be a somewhat upscale neighborhood, but with all the people leaving island, it is all boarded up ramblers and broken down cars. It's hard to believe that this place used to be my old hangout when there wasn't a kid running around anywhere. Casas de Serenidad, which is where I lived, at the bottom of Baza Gardens was a bit better, with carefully manicured green areas and clean swimming pool and pavilion. But even here, a lot of the old playground has been removed and replaced with kid-friendly rubbermaid stuff that doesn't look at all playable.

The highlight of the tour, at least for some of the gourmets in our troop, was the next stop at Jeff's Pirates Cove. Island style outdoor beach dining with good food and good drinks were a welcome relief after almost 2 hours of driving. Julian and I played on the grass while the adults hung out in the shade.

Everyone else ordered Jeff's signature sandwich, but I stuck with the fiesta plate. It was more than I could eat with two chicken filets and spareribs and red rice and a salad and chicken kelaguen and squid. I couldn't finish the second chicken... The hamburgers everyone else ate looked really good and I wanted to try it, but I just couldn't force myself to put down another bite.

The gift shop at Jeff's is great, with overpriced t-shirts and towels as well as hand-crafted woodworks. We got a few t-shirts.

Continuing south, I intended to stop in Talofofo for some brown sand sightseeing at the bay, but in the years that I've been away, Talofofo bay beach has completely washed away. The water has risen and washed away the sand and is encroaching on the road. I don't know if this was just natural erosion or whether rising ocean levels are to blame, but to see my old boogie boarding spot completely destroyed was strange.

We drove slowly through Talofofo, Inarajan, and Merizo and saw many empty lots that were for sale. With all the people moving to the mainland, it looks like the southern tip of Guam is suffering the most population loss. A big problem down south is that the road runs almost along the waterfront, so no beach developments can be easily undertaken. This makes the area useless as far as tourism goes. Which is unfortunate, because the south is where most of the best and most interesting parts of Guam are.

We drove on to Umatac and Fort Soledad to see the ancient fort which the Spanish built to protect their cross-Pacific galleons. The view of Umatac village from there is really beautiful and if you ever have a chance to go to Guam, I recommend you make a visit to that village.

With Umatac past, we drove back to Tumon. There are other interesting places to visit. The Latte Stone Park area of Agana is nice, as is the view from Fort Apugan. But everyone was asleep by the time we got to Sumay, so I figured it would be better to skip all that and just let them sleep for a while.

When we got down to Tumon, though, everyone was wide awake and wanted to see more sites. So I took them to Gun Beach on the edge of Tumon, next to the Nikko Hotel. Or so I thought. The road to Gun Beach is not paved and our big van had a hell of a time getting down. Everyone had a blast as we bounced that rentacar down the rocks and slipped and slid to the bottom of the road. Unfortunately in the middle of the road was a very large and very deep puddle. The puddle was about 20 feet across and there was no way I could get out of there if we got stuck. The two military dudes in the econobox who followed us down the hill parked their car and walked the rest of the way, but we thought better of it and just 4x4'd our way back up the rocks in our FWD Nissan Quest.

That evening, we drove back to Two Lover's Point to catch the sunset. With the sun rapidly setting, I hightailed it along those back roads at 70mph and got to the spot just in time. We all had our pictures taken in the minute or two that it took for the sun to dip below the horizon. We didn't get the full effect of the sunset because we had run from the parking lot and were out of breath, but the pictures look great.

Afterwards, we went out for dinner at Sam Choy's. Sam's is an upscale restaurant from Hawaii that attracts mostly tourists and locals looking for a nice restaurant. Unfortunately the service was subpar. I ordered a Chardonnay, but since they were out the waiter brought a white zin. You can't even begin to compare a Chard to a white zin! Then he had the audacity to claim that they were similar. Anyway, after that, we put in our orders and our waiter disappeared for the rest of the night. I think he was a little shell shocked after the wine incident.

The food was okay, but was too much volume and too expensive. The beef, while tasty, was tough and chewy. The pasta was okay, but I expected better. The mashed potatoes were great, and if they just had an entree of just mashed potatoes, I'd order it. After eating good food all day, these large portions were too much to handle. I don't think anyone finished all their orders.

The next day we went shopping at KMart in the morning and bought a few souvenirs and other touristy things like chocolate to appease the savages back home. Then we went to Duty Free Shoppers and spent half a day looking at very expensive stuff that we wouldn't buy for ourselves in a million years. I did find Chamorro Chip cookies, though, so the visit wasn't a total bust. These are the best cookies ever.

Julian slept halfway back to Japan and played with his puzzles the rest of the way. He didn't make a scene and didn't throw up on anyone, so he was a really good little boy.

Japan just implemented a new system which requires fingerprints and photos to be taken of all foreigners. Apparently some people can't grasp the intricacies of pressing their fingers to the scanners because it took a long time to get just 4 people in front of me through immigration. How can that be right when I sailed through in 10 seconds? They should have a separate line for people who didn't fill in their immigration documents yet, and there should be a separate holding area for people who can't follow directions. That would speed up my immigration ordeal a bit, I think.

That was our Guam trip story. Nothing too crazy happened. The old island isn't what it used to be. Too many people leaving and too much focus on attracting tourists instead of attracting immigrants. When I was growing up, we used to sing a song that had a verse which went "I came to Guam and it's here I think I will stay". That feeling is still in me, but as more and more people leave island for the greener pastures of the mainland, Guam is losing its most important features. You can argue that the scenery and hospitality are essential to Guam, but the people and the culture are what make it livable. I wish more people would make it to Guam and feel like they want to stay.

Fujiyama beer

2007-09-18T01:58:00.000+09:00

A week ago we took a drive out to Fuji-kyu Highland for a visit to their Thomas Land park. It was a blast. You should definitely go if your youngster loves Thomas.

One of the benefits of taking a break between jobs in Japan is the chance to travel around a bit. While I was unemployed, I took frequent trips up to Mt. Fuji and the surrounding area. I became quite familiar with the drive from Kawaguchi-ko to Yamanaka-ko.

Smack-dab in the middle of the way between these two lakes is a Michi-no-eki (route station) where they sell all sorts of locally-produced souvenirs. Just a hop away from the michi-no-eki is Fujiyama Brewery. Despite the so-so reviews at ratebeer.com, the brewery is a welcome respite after driving for 2 and a half hours of stop and go traffic on the Chuo-expressway.

I picked up 3 1-liter cans this time. 2 dunkels for myself and 1 pils for sharing. The pils, as I have come to expect, was uninteresting. The dunkel which I'm drinking tonight is also pretty basic. There is a lot of honey infused giving it a very sweet taste and a lingering aftertaste.

I don't know if I'm sold on it, but at 2 in the morning after a long night's work, it's hitting the spot.

Flag designs and client comments

2007-09-12T17:38:00.001+09:00

Found this over at Metafilter. It's what happens when you let the customer give too much input into your designs for their products.

Flags with client comments

I particularly liked Liberia's redesign.

Tasteless, but appetizing

2007-09-04T13:36:00.000+09:00

I know I shouldn't be lured into this kind of thing, but O.J. Simpson's book If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer is just begging me to buy. Currently it is #76 on Amazon's top 100 list, but I expect that it will be climbing pretty quickly as it becomes more widely known that it is available.

What is it with this case that makes it such a voyeuristic pleasure? Is it Simpson, the fallen from grace hero? Is it Nicole, the beautiful victim? Is it Fred Goldman, the vengeful father?

It's hard to believe that the murder happened over 13 years ago. It's incredible to think that it is still imprinted on our culture this long afterwards.

New furniture and eating out

2007-08-22T16:02:00.000+09:00

Over the weekend I went to IKEA and picked up a Billy bookcase. 202cm tall and 80cm wide. It's pretty huge and weighs about 40kg. It was very difficult heaving that thing around, especially in my currently lardball shape. I put it togther yesterday and got all my books arranged on it.

I'm still low on space.

Who knew that I had enough books to fill that sized bookcase? I expected to have quite a bit more room to grow my library, but it looks like I'm going to need more space if I want to do that. I still have a handful of books that need reading, plus my wife has suggested that I prep for the JLPT level 1 test this fall. So my wallet may get a short reprieve from my book reading for a short time.

Last night I took the family out to Planet Hollywood Tokyo Disneyland. It's the only place nearby where you can get a decent fajita. The next closest place is out in the middle of Tokyo, and I'm not too fond of getting out that far, especially in this summer heat.

Planet Hollywood distinguishes itself by being a sort of movie museum as well as a mediocre restaurant. They had a life-sized Spiderman crawling up the wall, Freddy Krueger's striped outfit, a torso and arms costume of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Johnny's tournament gi from the Karate Kid, and a Chucky doll. Julian didn't get the coolness of the Karate Kid outfit, but he loved Chucky. He just kept checking the evil little doll out and asking us to take him closer for a better look.

On the way out of the restaurant, he made a big scene. He wanted to take the Chucky doll home. Yeah... No way, Jose. My wife was just a bit creeped out.

What a weird kid. First, he loves asparagus and broccoli. Now he's into devil dolls. What's next??

Where have all the books gone?

2007-06-08T13:32:00.000+09:00

I have two main ways that I pick books to read. The first is to pick a book that I've either always wanted to read (Grapes of Wrath) or one that I have been recommended (Future Shock).

The other method of book selection is to look at Amazon's bestsellers list and pick up something that looks interesting or different. This way I can keep up with the current zeitgeist without much effort.

But I just can't find anything that I want to read on the list anymore. I'm not interested in Harry Potter. I am not up for giving Khaled Hosseini another chance after his mediocre Kite Runner. I'm not trying to lose weight or get rich quick. The politically charged books don't hold any spell on me. And the novels all look to be more of the same dreck that lines the airport magazine racks than the next great thing.

The one book that does seem to be a step above the others is Hitchens' God is Not Great. It isn't the subject matter that excites me (Dawkins makes me want to tear my eyes out). It is the pure writing ability and literacy of Hitchens that makes his work stand out.

But it's only one book in a list of 100. I can't possibly save any money ordering one book, so I will have to make due re-reading something that I already own.

Which is fine with me. I need to save some money anyway.

I'm so vain. I probably think this blog is about me

2007-05-31T01:08:00.001+09:00

On occasion I've been known to do a little vanity searching to see how popular this blog is. For a long time, if you searched either Google or MSN, Lauren In Tokyo would be somewhere on the first results page. The site shows up after Lauren Lee Smith's website and, for some reason, my Photo.net user page.

Today I took a quick look and discovered that I am now relegated to the 4th Google results page and nowhere to be seen on the MSN search results.

I'm a little sad. I guess I need some better links pointing to this blog if I ever intend to get it back up to the first pages again. The question is whether I should do it with good content or with reciprocal links.

Update 2007/06/03: It seems that I've fallen to page 6 on the Google search.

Insurance comparison: the tables

2007-05-29T17:58:00.001+09:00

Unbeknownst to anyone, I stopped in at Nippon Seimei, better known as Nissay, this morning to have a chat with the insurance department there about their offerings. If Ishida-san is reading, don't be alarmed. I only went to get policy information, not with any intent to actually buy. You're still our guy.

I received information about 4 different policies. The main thrust was that I want to leave enough such that my survivors will be able to survive without me. I also want to be free from paying the insurance company at some point, so all payment options are limited to age 65 at the latest.

The first is the simplest, 20 year Term Life insurance for 50,000,000 yen.
The second is slightly longer, an Age 65 Term Life insurance policy for 50,000,000 yen.
The third is a standard Whole Life policy with premiums paid until age 65 for 10,000,000 yen.
The fourth is a Mixed Term and Whole Life combination policy which provides 50,000,000 for a term of 20 years, then premiums and coverage drops to a Whole Life policy for 10,000,000 yen and is paid off at age 65.

I ran the numbers and was surprised by what I found.

I used the most expensive policy premium as a baseline. Any amount over the baseline is assumed to be saved or invested at a rate of 5% per year (current AAA bond values are this rate). Every month the premium is paid and the leftover is thus invested and returning some value. Naturally, the most expensive policy will have a zero rate of investment. If the maximum premium is 20,000 yen per month and the policy costs 15,000 yen, then I have a savings of 5,000 yen which is applied to the savings.

The value at any given time of the basket is simple. I take the redeemable policy value (how much my heirs get when I die), subtract the total value of the premiums paid to that point, then add the value of accumulated non-policy assets (the savings I mentioned earlier).

I then calculated the value of the basket up to my estimated death (75). As the policies expire, the entire amount of the premium is then applied to the savings. In the example earlier, I was depositing the surplus 5,000 yen into an investment vehicle, but once the policy payment term expires I would deposit the entire 20,000 yen amount into the investment vehicle.

What I found was that the best ROI by the time I died was the 20 year term policy. This is not surprising. The rates are low and the term is relatively short (for my purposes), so a lot of surplus investment capital is left over to build a large nest egg.

In second place was the Whole Life policy! Coming in at a 122% ROI, it outpaced the lagging Age 65 term policy in the long run. By providing a guaranteed cushion, the whole life plan never ventured into negative territory. Likewise, the fact that the premiums stop when I reach 65 means that I would have only paid 80% towards the 10,000,000 yen policy value. While not spectacular, the returns were steady.

In third place, I was surprised to see that the Age 65 term life plan failed to keep pace with the Whole Life policy in the long run. However, it does far outpace Whole Life for the 30-odd years that the term covers. In fact, this is probably why this laggard isn't such a bad deal once you start thinking about priorities. If the reason that I have insurance is to make sure that my kids are taken care of, then 1) I need to provide more than 100,000 dollars for them when I die, and 2) I expect that they will finally be independent by the time they are approaching 30 (Julian will be at least 32). Therefore, if I die before I turn 65, this policy makes the most sense. However, if I die after the policy expires, then all of this must be considered sunk costs. It does return about 57% in the long run, so that's not too bad.

Coming in last is the pitiful Mixed policy type. It not only didn't provide any return on investment, but actually costs more than the policy is worth as the end of the payment period approaches. The basic idea is that you have a 20 year term life insurance policy for 40,000,000 yen and a Whole Life policy for 10,000,000 yen into which all the premiums are divided. In essence, it provides a way of providing a significant amount of policy value for the years you need it while socking away a smaller amount of money for the twilight years. After the 20 year term is up, the policy can be renewed for another term at a higher rate (31+20 = $$$) or the term policy can be dropped and the premiums drop to reflect that. Since both policies must be paid, the premiums are about a quarter more than the Whole Life policy. If you do the math in your head, you will quickly realize that the policy actually ends up upside-down. You have paid more in than you can ever expect to get out. The best chance for this to pay off is to die right away or at least before the 20 years is up. Once the term policy is over, the Whole Life policy part becomes more expensive than a standard Whole Life policy.

Armed with this information and numbers, I am finally ready to discuss this with Miki. Her Whole Life mindset is not wrong if you only consider the long term, but I'm not exactly sure what she intends to do if I die before Julian becomes independent. 10,000,000 is not a lot of money, especially in Japan. Once we figure this out, we'll call up Ishida-san and get him to hook us up with an appropriate policy.

Insurance basics

2007-05-28T12:02:00.001+09:00

I'm trying to get a handle on all the advice that is coming in from left and right (though unfortunately not from you, dear reader) regarding my insurance quandary.

The basics are easy. There are two types of life insurance. Term insurance and Permanent insurance. Permanent insurance is usually sold as Whole Life insurance, though it is a broader category encompassing several species of policy types.

Term insurance is very simple. It is insurance that provides coverage within a specific term (5, 10, 20, 30 years) from the start of the policy. If you die at any time during the period that the policy is in effect, the insurance company pays your beneficiaries (kids, wife, etc) the value of the policy. If I insure myself for 1 million dollars in a 30 year term policy, I hope (!!) to die before the term ends so that my heirs can get the benefits of the policy.

If the term expires and I do not renew it for another term, the insurance vanishes and no one inherits anything. Many term policies can be renewed, though some do not allow this. Of those that allow renewal, some may disallow renewal in the case that the owner is above a certain age (65). Another issue is that the premiums increase significantly because the policy holder's age at the time of renewal is very high (in the actuary's eyes).

At the other end of the spectrum, we have Permanent life insurance. The big differentiator between Permanent Life and Term Life is that while Term life is only insurance, Permanent life also acts as a sort of investment vehicle. Therefore where you would only pay a small premium for actual coverage (as under Term life), you also need to pay an additional premium to increase the cash value of the investment held in the policy.

Special regulations permit the value of the cash to increase without being taxed (until withdrawal). This provides a means of increasing asset value without getting hit by taxes until the very last minute. Ideally, this means that you can save a large chunk of the principal because it has accumulated tax-free for so long.

A Permanent life policy is just a savings account with life insurance attached. That is the easiest way to describe the difference between the two. Another way to look at it is that a Term policy with a strict savings deposit program would be the same as a Permanent life policy.

Since we can now compare apples to apples, we can easily see that at the end of the term we want to compare, the difference between the two policies should be negligible. For comparision purposes, I will assume that both policies have the same payout. On top of that, the term insurance policy will be supplemented with a savings deposit program so that the premiums (in aggregate) align with each other.

The policies I have been looking at are 30 year payment terms. The permanent life policy is approximately 4 times more expensive per month than the term life policy. If I opt for the term policy and put the remaining 3/4ths in an interest bearing savings account, at the end of 30 years I will have accumulated 22.5 times the premium amount (of the Permanent life policy).

The bare minimum comparison requires that the policy scheme that has more accumulated value at the end of the term be more economically advantageous.

Beyond the basic comparison, it is also necessary to consider that the Permanent policy also provides additional value at the time of death by paying both the accumulated value and the remainder up to the policy value. So the remainder is an additional benefit in favor of Permanent life.

I'll need to look at the numbers again and see how it all works out, but I have a feeling that Permanent Life is a huge racket compared to the more straightforward Term Life policy.

Followup: Insurance for Americans living abroad

2007-05-28T10:59:00.001+09:00

According to discount insurance brokerage QuickQuote, most insurance companies require U.S. residency for at least 3 years prior to application.

I am still a bit perplexed by this Japanese insurance system. I would be paying 4 times more for a policy which pays off 10 times less than if I were insured by an American insurance company. That doesn't make any sense.

I'm going to need to re-examine my options here in Japan. I don't want to get fleeced because I think I have no other options. Apologies to Ishida-san, but I am a little uncomfortable paying those exorbitant rates for a pitiful amount of coverage.

Foreign life insurance

2007-05-27T23:41:00.000+09:00

I'm shopping for life insurance lately and this morning spoke with our insurance agent from AXA. He, as I expected, tried to sell us on whole life insurance, but I am taken aback by the exorbitant rates. The fact that I may be able to get some portion of the premium back at the end of 30 years is small consolation for them to suck my pockets dry during the interim.

So I hopped online this evening to see what sort of rates I can get for term life. It turns out that I'm looking at rates far lower than what I was quoted this morning, and the payout is almost 10 times higher for the same price.

The problem is whether I am only eligible for those rates if I live in the U.S. or whether I can buy the insurance while I am over here in Japan. If I end up staying in Japan, will I still be eligible to buy insurance sold in America? I don't see why it would make a difference, but it was my wife's concern.

Where can I get information about this?

Mailsafe: $8.95 for nothing

2007-05-21T18:39:00.000+09:00

We all know what a pain it is to travel by air nowadays since they took away our privilege to carry stuff onboard. Well, at least now, instead of dumping that explosive extra foam 2 percent latte into the garbage bin or throwing Grandpa's antique swiss army knife into the Prohibited Items canister, you can now have that stuff mailed back to you at your address via Mailsafe!

Why, just look at how happy Cynthia Rooke, the very first customer of Mailsafe in Portland, is to be able to safely travel without all those pesky "prohibited items" in her purse. We're all safer now that we can just mail our own stuff back to ourselves!

Thanks TSA!

Farmer Lauren

2007-05-14T10:48:00.000+09:00

Ichikawa city has a summer program where for 2000 yen, you can learn about farming by planting sweet potatos in a special city-managed plot. It takes a little luck to get approved since selection is based on a lottery system, but we made it through and yesterday was planting day.

The land is divided into 2 plots of 15 rows. Each row is further split into 10 sections. Each section is 6 meters of black vinyl-covered soil. Our section is #218.

We pulled into the lot (if you can call a grass-covered field a lot) a little past 11:00. The program gets underway at 11, so we were a little worried that we would miss any directions from the organizers. It turns out that lots of people thought the same way and showed up earlier than 11. In addition, there was no group instruction, just a little explanation at the check in counter. So by showing up a few minutes later, we avoided the initial rush and were able to get our seedlings and planting stick in just a few minutes.

A nice old guy from the government office walked us out to our plot and gave us a little introduction to the program. Everyone (heh) knows that Ichikawa city's most important crop is Japanese pears, but Ichikawa's land can support a vast array of food crops. The plot we are assigned is near the ocean, so a strong sea breeze will affect how our sweet potatos will grow, so it is important, for example, to plant the seedling sideways so that the wind does not pull the plant out or wither the leaves before it has time to extend roots.

The planting stick is approximately 30cm long, so it can be used to measure off distances as well as poke holes in the vinyl sheet. First you measure off 20 holes at 30cm distance, then you push the stick deep into the hole to form a hole where the seedling can be placed. Then the seedling goes in (sideways, away from the wind) and some soil from the surrounding area (mostly from the walkways between the rows) is placed on top of the seedling like a blanket and underneath the seedling like a pillow. Press down firmly and the seedling is planted.

Julian was with us, we were hoping he'd learn something, but he got to be a hassle walking all over other people's sections that we put him in an ombu himo and I hoisted him onto my back while we did the planting.

Miki took care of digging the holes and putting the seedlings in. I took care of covering the seedlings with soil and tamping them down. In all, it only took about half an hour from start to finish to do the planting.

I was much relieved that it wasn't the back-breaking work it was advertised to be. Julian enjoyed the outdoors and really liked tromping around the loamy soil. We have to go every 2 or 3 weeks to pull weeds and reset any overgrown potatos (they will fall off the vinyl into the row and will try to put roots and potatoes into the hard ground). In three months the crop will be ready and we will be able to take home about 80 potatos (4 per seedling x 20 seedlings). What we will do with 80 potatos, I haven't got the slightest idea.

Down for a week with the flu

2007-03-29T16:54:00.000+09:00

It all started with a little muscle pain in my shoulder last Friday. I figured I had just hauled my bag around with me too much and was hurting from my general lack of exercise.

Saturday I felt the muscle pain spread all through my back from the top of my neck down to my kidneys. It's a heavy bag, so I wasn't concerned about the pain. I took Julian to swimming practice in the morning, so that also gave more credence to the sore muscle theory.

Sunday, I could barely wake up. Everywhere hurt. I was planning on going to the Japan Flower and Garden show at Makuhari Messe, but I couldn't stay awake for more than half an hour at a time. Aches and pains and chills left me huddled under my blankets while everyone else fumed about not being able to go. They ought to have gone. It sounds like a pretty cool show.

I figured by Monday that I would have reached a point where I was over the flu and could go to work. That plan fell apart when I was unable to eat anything for breakfast and the fevers were still high. I went to the doctor instead.

It turns out that I caught the Type A flu sometime last week. Probably on Friday when I was traveling all around on the trains, but it's difficult to pinpoint a specific encounter.

So doctor's orders: Stay inside and away from work for 4 days.

Today is the last day of that staying inside. I'm feeling much better, but I still have pains in some joints. I'm taking Tamiflu to mitigate some of the symptoms, but they still hit me pretty hard. Also, Tamiflu seems to have some bad press here in Japan due to inconclusive links between Tamiflu and strange behaviors and nightmares. Most of this Tamiflu "epidemic" is due to the over-prescription of drugs in Japanese medicine and to a tendency towards hypochondria. But that's not really relevant to my flu, in any case.

Hopefully I can get in to work tomorrow. I think I'm okay, but I took a short walk today and was exhausted when I got home. I will probably pick up some sports drink and carry it with me tomorrow, just in case.

Kirin The Gold

2007-03-19T11:44:00.001+09:00

Kirin Brewery, makers of Kirin Ichiban and other delightful (and not so delightful) beers, is introducing a new brew called The Gold on March 20th. I have a six-pack of pre-release samples!

My wife loves to fill out send-away contest entries and has a knack for winning them. The catch for her is that she only ever wins when she enters for someone else. She almost never wins anything when entering in her own name. So when we bought a case of beer a while back, she sent in the attached postcard to see if we could win an iPod.

We didn't win an iPod. But we did win this six pack of Kirin The Gold. I shared a couple cans with her father last night and was pleasantly surprised.

The typical Japanese beer sharpness is not the main taste like it is with Asahi Super Dry. It is a mellow taste with lots of hoppiness and great depth. The brewers didn't seem too worried about making the aftertaste disappear, so the beer lingers in the mouth longer than most other Japanese beers do. If I had to describe the beer in one word, I would have to call it "full". There is no holding back on the taste of any one flavor, so everything comes through with great clarity yet no taste clashes with any other.

I'm no beer reviewer, so the above paragraph probably doesn't mean very much to beer drinkers. The bottomline is that it is a good beer and a good alternative to the watered-down, tasteless, throat-burning swill that is typically served.

What I'm reading sidebar item

2007-03-14T17:42:00.000+09:00

I just added a "What I'm reading" sidebar item on the right hand side. Since I'm riding the train for 3 hours a day, I get the luxury of indulging myself with books.

The sidebar item is an affiliate link, so if you buy the item I'm linking to I will get a couple pennies. I'll try to keep the link updated in real time with my current readings. This is probably the last time I'll ever mention the Amazon sidebar item. I'm not trying to beat anyone over the head with it.

Books!

2007-03-12T17:13:00.000+09:00

I just received the first of two packages of books from Amazon.com. I ordered from the American Amazon.com this time because the price difference, even with shipping charges taken into account, made the overseas option more attractive than ordering it directly from Amazon.co.jp.

If there's anything that I feel is a weakness in Amazon.co.jp's business, it is the lack of substantial discounts that has come to separate Amazon.com from the rest of the brick and mortar bookselling industry. While the prices listed by Amazon.co.jp are generally lower than the same book at Maruzen, it is not sufficiently low enough to make buying online the more attractive option. Going to the bookstore and holding the book in your hand is still a very pleasant psychic experience. Having the books delivered to your door is perhaps the primary selling point for Amazon.co.jp.

The other problem with Amazon.co.jp is that they simply don't have the inventory of foreign (American, for me) books that I would like. A book that may be out of stock on Amazon.com will probably not even be listed on Amazon.co.jp. The selection is limited to what is currently selling well, and anything outside the mainstream may be left out altogether.

So buying from Amazon.com this time (my first time) I got 6 books. The savings more than make up for the shipping fees, and now that I have a purchase on record with them, I can participate more fully in the Amazon.com website.

The only trouble I have now is that I need to figure out which of these books to read first!

3 more seconds of fame

2007-03-12T10:05:00.000+09:00

A while back, Julian and I were asked to come down for a filming of some baby "手遊び" (hand play) for an educational DVD. After Julian threw up on me during the shoot, I was sure that we were not going to be included in the final DVD.

We didn't get cut! We are on there for a whole 3 seconds. Julian looking quite ill, and I looking like I just got out of a sauna. I'm surprised we were in there at all.

The video itself doesn't seem to be anything special. The producers seem to have wanted to use a lot of English in the video, but for whatever reason the English is all broken and misspelled.

The day we went for shooting, it rained a lot. Inside the studio, the lights were heating the room to well over 80 degrees (F). Julian wasn't feeling so hot since the morning, and the rough play we had to do in front of the camera made him even more queasy. Finally he threw up on set. On me. Then we went back to the green room and he threw up again. After that, we went home. It wasn't the best of experiences.

Car going in for repairs

2007-02-06T14:27:00.000+09:00

After 3 years of driving our Impreza, it is going into the garage for some badly needed body work.

We are looking at replacing the back bumper, repainting the front bumper, and repairing the rear fender and door. It's said that Japanese streets are narrow, but you never really get a good hint of that until you consider how much body damage a car takes in just three short years. In the 5 years I owned my Mazda Protege in Seattle, I only had one scratch and that was because I merged into someone sitting in my blindspot up near the Bellevue bus depot.

The front bumper looks terrible, but it is not really that worse for wear. The paint is mostly scratched off and there is some plastic peeling off where the corner was scraped against a wall. This damage will be repaired and repainted. Cheap as we are, we decided to go with repair rather than replacement to save about 300 dollars.

The back bumper is generally a mess. There's the scrapes on the passenger side where I drove the car too close to a wall. There's the bumper damage where my wife backed into a hard rubber bumper on a wall at the Post Office. There's a bunch of dings and scratches from other things that just happened (no explanation!). But the biggest scratch happened just recently and actually starts from the fender.

The fender and part of the door on the driver's side is dented in and scraped badly. My wife was putting the car into a very tight parking space and just as she had put it in, she noticed a much wider space opening up just across the lot. Pulling out, she turned the wheel too far and ran the back door right against the metal pole dividing the spaces. The scratches pushed in the metal and scraped off the paint, so repair is mandatory. I can live with a scratched bumper, but rusting metal is going to be trouble.

So we're not driving anywhere this week. And we'll be out a big chunk of change. But our car will return nice and new, and ready for us to drive it into walls again.

Dog in a bag Part II

2007-02-06T12:02:00.000+09:00

A couple weeks ago I wrote about seeing a man putting a Shetland Sheepdog in a suitcase in the middle of Shibuya station.

Well, today I saw something similar. A girl was walking out of the Inokashira station with a small satchel that was squirming. Obviously she was carrying a small dog. Perhaps a chihuahua or a papillon or maybe even a puppy miniature dachshund. Whatever the case, it was inside the bag, trying to get out.

I'll never understand why people need to take their dogs on the train like that. It doesn't seem good for the dog, and a taxi wouldn't be terribly expensive if taking the dog is a necessity.

It's also a little worrisome that I don't even flinch when I see this sort of thing anymore.

Mike Ulloa

2007-02-05T00:59:00.000+09:00

Every Saturday morning at 9:30, TBS airs 知っとこ, a variety show about travel and leisure. They always have a "新婚" (newlywed) segment filmed in some foreign locale featuring a faceless bride preparing a delicious breakfast for her still-snoozing hubby.

This week, someone I know was featured! Mike Ulloa, now a professional fighter and television host, is also an old classmate from GCC. A few pounds (of muscle) heavier, and wed to a beautiful bride, Mike looks to be doing pretty well for himself. Not to mention being broadcast across Japan eating Tabasco Spam Salad!

Good luck with your fighting career, Mike!

Serendipity

2007-01-20T01:04:00.000+09:00

Tonight I went to a nomikai with some old and new members of the Teleca Japan engineering group. Two things caught my attention. The first was that it suddenly became frightfully clear that I have readers. Hello Yamada-san!

The other was that the CEO of my current company (UIEvolution), Satoshi Nakajima is widely read in engineering circles. One of the new senior Teleca developers noticed the UIE mark on my namecard and immediately made the connection. What's he like? What's his management style like? I sang the praises of Satoshi, of course. He's got an excellent sense for engineering.

It's a little past 1:00am, so I better shuffle off to bed. But it was good to have drinks with these guys. Teleca has a knack for finding really great engineers. I hope they can keep them this time around.

It's his dog, after all

2007-01-10T11:21:00.000+09:00

Today in Shibuya station I failed a moral test.

After withdrawing some money to pay for my rail pass, I returned to Shibuya station via the escalator nearest to Shibuya Mark City. At the top of the escalator there was a man stuffing a Sheltie into a suitcase. The dog was alive and quietly ducked its head when the man closed the lid.

Several minutes before on my way to the bank, I had seen the two walking outside the station. The dog ran happily before the man and looked back now and then to make sure it wasn't getting too far ahead. It's actually pretty uncommon to see a dog as big as a Shetland Sheepdog running untethered in Shibuya. The dog knew its owner and didn't seem scared of him.

With the lid snapped shut, the man hoisted the suitcase upright and rolled it along into the Inokashira Shibuya station. No yelping or whimpering was at all audible. The dog seemed to know what the plan was and was accustomed to this sort of handling, judging by its behavior.

Should I have said something? Confronted the man? Told the station attendant?

I didn't do anything... Should I feel guilty about it, though? My failure of this test isn't because I didn't act, it's because I don't know what I should have done.

Tobu World Square

2007-01-09T17:34:00.000+09:00

This past weekend was a 3 day weekend, and the weather on Sunday looked bright and sunny, so we took a trip up to Utsunomiya for some Tobu World Square fun and Gyoza delight.
We set out at 8:00 in the morning with Julian still groggy and breakfast still uneaten.

Unlike our last attempt to go up north, traffic was pretty light and we made it to the Hasuda service area on the Tohoku Expressway. It is the first rest area after you leave the Kawaguchi junction from the Tokyo Shutoko highway system. A little more experience with the highways meant fewer harrowing moments during lane changes and merges, but as always, the driving in Tokyo is not for the faint of heart. At Hasuda we stopped for breakfast and a little bit of research before continuing on our way.

The next stop was the next service area because in the rush to get back into the car I forgot to take off my jacket. The temperatures were rapidly dropping, but the sky was still blue and sunny so the change in latitude and altitude was definitely noticeable.

After another 40 minutes of leisurely cruising along at 100kph, we reached the Utsunomiya exit and switched highways to the Nikko-Utsunomiya toll road. Tobu World Square is located near the small town of Imaichi which is about 15 minutes along the highway.

Before actually going to the park we stopped at 7-11 to pick up some snacks and "campaign tickets" for World Square. These campaign tickets are coupons available at any convenience store for any number of things around Japan. The normal ticket price to enter World Square is ￥2,500, but with the discount ticket we only paid ￥2,000 each. If we go on another trip, we will definitely try to take advantage of this again. The machine is usually located near the copy machine / ATM area in just about every convenience store I've seen.

Upon arriving at Tobu World Square, the thing I noticed more than anything else was that we had drastically under-prepared for the severity of the cold. The wind was very strong and we were a little worried that Julian might be too cold. Luckily, he seems impervious to the cold and was a trooper.

Tobu World Square is a miniature park. Everything is miniature. 1/25 scale, according to the flyers available at the ticket counter. While there is a covered area near the entrance of the park and restaurants and gift shops indoors, the main attractions are outdoors where the skyscrapers of New York and the Pyramids of Egypt have room to soar. Being outside, the miniature landscaping around the models are actually living trees and bushes. It's like a bonsai park but in the context of the miniature architecture they don't seem too small at all.

The first area is Modern Japan. The Tokyo Station model, complete with running trains (Shinkansen and Tokaido lines are constantly running), platform announcements, and a busy crowd of people bustling around the station, is the first taste of the miniature world.

The Modern Japan area also features such things as the old Imperial Hotel, Narita airport, and the Tokyo Tower. They have the Yoyogi National Stadium in miniature, and this is where I noticed that the clocks were all running models as well. The Casio clock stand in miniature featured real Casio clocks. The details were amazing.

Still in Modern Japan, but reaching its end, Tsukiji fish market is presented along the waterfront of, presumably, the Pacific ocean. Little trucks looked to be running back and forth delivering tons of tuna to the warehouses for sale.

A bridge over the water led to American shores. New York, actually. (It is a nice touch that as you approach the New York side of the bridge, the signs change from Japanese to English.) A mini-Statue of Liberty greets park visitors and the signature skyscrapers of New York loom just a few yards away. Unexpectedly, the Twin Towers still stood side by side with the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building.

Japanese impressions of New York must not be too favorable because there were at least two incidents of street crime amongst the miniature citizens as well as a car up on blocks and a car which had careened onto a sidewalk. No one calls it like they see it like the Japanese.

A picturesque model of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is there with a working fountain and little bonsai trees inside the main gates. A welcome addition would have been the crazies living in Lafayette Park across the street.

After passing through America, visitors find themselves transported to Egypt and the pyramids. Even at 1/25, the size and scope of these buildings are amazing. The miniatures themselves were amazing too. Little tour groups were visible riding camels and little archeologists were busy digging at sites around the three great pyramids. A very well-done rendition of the Sphinx was on display with the nose broken off exactly as you'd find in Egypt.

The final attraction of Egypt, the Temple of Abu Simbel was unfortunately located along the outside of the snack station, so most visitors will miss its intricate detail, I worry.

Egypt leads to Europe and the level of fine detail goes up another notch as the tiniest things as glass windows and layers of grime are all recreated for our enjoyment. The Parthenon, Versailles, and Buckingham Palace are all there, but there is really so much to see in this one area that you could spend an afternoon walking around the Vatican cathedral, see the works of Gaudi, and pose with a life-sized Buckingham Palace guard.

After Europe is Asia and China dominates the representation. The Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City, and the Temple of Heaven are huge by themselves. Other Chinese monuments like the caves of Dunhuang are equally amazing.

Angkor Wat is incredible in its attention to detail and scope. The Taj Mahal was probably the least detailed of the entire park, but it too is very interesting.

After leaving Greater Asia, we find ourselves back in Japan. This time, instead of the modern Japan which greets tourists in Narita, a traditional Japan is presented with replicas of many Japanese landmarks like Kinkakuji and Nijo castle. A traditional farming village with a wealthy farmer's estate is also on display.

That's as far as we got, although there was a bit more to the park. Snow, which had been sprinkling from the beginning of the beginning of our tour had turned into a full white-out by this time, so we scrambled down to the gift shop and waited the weather out.

After getting gifts and snacks for the drive home, we hurried to our car for refuge. By the time we were out on the main road, the snow had let up quite a bit, but it was still falling and beginning to accumulate.

We drove back the way we came to Utsunomiya to look for some place to eat our late lunch.

Tobu World Square is a bit pricy, even with the discount coupon, but it is really interesting and a worthy detour on a Nikko trip. One recommendation that I've seen is to stay overnight in Nikko and visit the World Square on the way back to Tokyo. Since the park closes at 4:00pm, if you leave Nikko in the mid-morning and spend a few hours at World Square, you can make it back to Tokyo before nightfall and you won't get stuck too badly in the U-turn rush.

World Square also has 1,000 and 1,500 yen point cards which can be used to animate the miniatures. We didn't realize this until about halfway through the park, so we decided not to buy it. However, the airport exhibit is probably a whole lot better when animated. If you have done that, please let me know.

Stubbed my toe

2006-12-12T16:47:00.000+09:00

This post is the reason we all blog. To tell the world that we stubbed our toe.

I was creating some 年賀状(New Year's cards) this past Sunday night with Miki and I heard Julian start crying in the other room. I promptly stood up to go help him and just as promptly fell down on my face.

My leg was completely asleep. I couldn't feel my feet or my toes or the fact that the carpet had just taken a huge chunk of skin right out of my toe.

My foot, crumpled over so that the top of my foot was somehow the bottom, refused to come to and I stumbled my way to the hall where I fell over again bruising the entire outstep of my left foot. Julian continued crying as I dragged myself into the bedroom on my hands and knees with blood pouring out of my lifeless foot.

I gave him back his blankey and he went right back to sleep.

Miki was delighted at the whole spectacle and sat cackling in the living room. Someone will be getting coal this Christmas.

Roaches!

2006-11-24T11:45:00.000+09:00

When I left the house this morning, I had a discomforting feeling. In my shoe.

Sometimes you get a rock in your shoe and it rolls around while you walk making you uncomfortable as it bounces from your toes to your heel. The rock is particularly painful if it rolls under the ball of your foot just as you are taking a step. Today's foreign object in my shoe was more squishy than stony.

I got off the elevator on the first floor and took off my shoe to shake the thing out. My sock seemed moist and a good shake revealed the problem. We've got roaches. The little bugger laid there on his back, his life juices squeezed out of him.

Where did he come from? And more importantly, how many more are there in the house? This is a very bad sign.

I'm so Web2.0

2006-11-01T12:41:00.000+09:00

Check out my new Flickr badge thing over there on the sidebar!

Amazon.co.jp takes a long time to deliver

2006-10-31T11:34:00.000+09:00

There are plenty of bookstores in Tokyo. However only a handful have extensive foreign language sections. The two most notable are Kinokuniya on the Shinjuku Southern Terrace and Maruzen located in Otemachi's Oazo building. Both, unfortunately are too far out of the way for me as to be inconvenient. Additionally, the prices for foreign books is far higher than cover price.

I found that one of the best ways to save money on books here in Japan is to order them from Amazon.co.jp. The convenience is unparalleled and the selection is much better than any bricks and mortar bookshop can provide. The prices are not that special, but with the various discounts that Amazon is always running, books are at least affordable.

My main complaint with them is that it sometimes takes an extraordinarily long time to receive a shipment. For example, I am currently waiting for an order of three books that I ordered about 3 weeks ago. David McCullough's 1776, Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and The Intellectual Devotional.

Estimated delivery: 11/11 - 11/26

That's over a month of waiting!

Until the books arrive, I'm back to reading some of my old books. Currently I'm reading the National Geographic Photography Field Guide. When I bought it just a few years ago it was one of my first photography books and I learned a lot about the topic. Now that I am going back over it again in 2006, a lot of the information seems out of date. The authors barely foresaw the massive digital photography revolution and the upheaval amongst the film industry. While the general concepts behind photography haven't changed very much, the tools with which great photographs are made has changed significantly. There is a NatGeo field guide for digital photography, but with the pace of change in the digicam market, I doubt that they can keep up.

Just the other day I saw a pocket Casio Exilim (I never thought in my wildest dreams that Casio would become a major camera maker) that boasted 10.1 megapixels. That was back in April! It makes my 3 megapixel Nikon Coolpix 3100 seem like a relic.

I know that guy!

2006-10-26T11:55:00.000+09:00

Yesterday and today I noticed the same guy getting on my train at Gaienmae station. He looks totally familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was until this morning.

I interviewed with him at Microsoft KK back in April. According to my notes, he's Teman Clark-Lindh from the MSKK Mobility solutions group. I believe they were working with some big manufacturers to get Windows CE/Mobile onto DVD players. Back then, it was the perfect fit for me, and even with a higher salary and benefits offer than my current employer, I turned them down. As much as I like WinCE and WinMobile, I really felt like I was getting too focused on one single area of software development and was missing out on the benefits that a broader range of experience could provide.

If I see him again I'll have to say hi.

Until then, here's a video of his presentation at MEDC2006 Tokyo: Developing drivers for Windows CE 6.0

Really big refrigerator

2006-08-25T14:05:00.000+09:00

This refrigerator is 6 feet across.

Loss of trust

2006-08-11T11:00:00.000+09:00

Thomas Friedman in his latest book The World Is Flat makes the claim that the key ingredient for the successful development of a flat world is trust. You must trust that your supply chain links will work correctly. You must trust that your life is not in danger. And you must trust that those around you are not out to get you.

Yesterday another wrench was thrown into the works by people who would rather not have us trust each other.

And yesterday we took the bait. Hook, line, and sinker.

The power wielded by the TSA and DHS is very upsetting. As I mentioned before, they are overzealous to the point of thuggery. Now we are restricted from bringing personal drinks onto the plane. This does not bode well for me and my family as we intend to fly to Austria in October for a wedding. Little 1 year old Julian, like all infants and toddlers, have certain requirements that necessitate an array of drinks and food for long-haul trips.

Are they seriously going to take those drinks away? Yes, according to the articles that I've read. The only exception is infant formula which the parent must taste in front of the inspecting officer.

How about, "Screw you officer."

An official with the TSA looked on the bright side and noted how airlines may be able to boost sales of in-flight drinks to parched passengers. Are these people insane? You're looking at the death of those airlines who can't make a buck except by squeezing every last dime out of passengers. There is no bright side, because the airline that provides better service will succeed over those that nickel and dime their customers to death.

Continuing on, did anyone notice that governmental agencies are now able to enable law by fiat? All of a sudden it is illegal to take a drink aboard a flight. But, hey by the way, you can take your 7-inch screwdriver and 4-inch knife onboard with you. What kind of bureacracy can produce this kind of idiocy? We are looking at the worst mismanagement of our freedoms in the name of safety of all time. It's not so much that I think these guys are maliciously trying to make air travel difficult so much as I think that they haven't got the slightest idea what they should be doing.

Meanwhile, their hand-wringing and lack of real leadership is leading to greater loss of trust in that area. Terrorists getting caught today trying to sneak explosives in their Cokes are exploiting this fear and it is working. Welcome to Terror level Elmo, everyone. Enjoy your flight and shut up, sit down, and keep your eyes closed for the remainder of the ride.

I'm on the YouTube!

2006-08-07T20:10:00.000+09:00

A while back you may remember that I was on national Japanese TV as a bad Tom Cruise look-a-like.

Now you can enjoy it in living color! Someone uploaded it to YouTube.

Don't leave the bug spray next to the air freshener

2006-07-31T16:43:00.000+09:00

Let's just say that we have some of the nicest smelling cockroaches in the office restroom.

Julian Bond and Colbert

2006-07-22T20:05:00.000+09:00

After watching this video, I think Julian Bond is quite possibly the best head of the NAACP that they could possibly have at the moment.

Holla atcha!

Jack's wife

2006-07-22T18:36:00.000+09:00

I'm up too late packing just before my flight back to Seattle and for background noise I've got the TV set to the Jack Van Impe show. If you're into his ministry, more power to you, but I think something's up.

His wife, Rexella (what an amazing name!), seems to be getting a little bit disillusioned with the program. Not that she doesn't believe in his eschatology, but that his prophecies and interpretations of current events just don't seem to be correct. Her voice is faltering when she speaks. Her support of Jack's prophecies are less than 100% enthusiastic. After the show, Jack is talking with someone else, not her.

Maybe it's just a normal marital spat that's oozing its way onto the show, but I have to wonder if something else is up. Could she be waking up to the reality that his ministry is based on an eschatology that relies on realities that are always true (and basically have been since the Roman empire)?

One Rat Short

2006-06-30T11:08:00.000+09:00

A friend of mine spent the last year or so huddled over her computer as Lighting Technical Director for the computer-animated film One Rat Short. It looks great and has received quite a bit of attention from the industry, including Best of Show at SIGGRAPH 2006.

It really looks great. The site includes a trailer, so take a look!

Some mobilization going on here

2006-06-29T17:01:00.000+09:00

So I was driving back to Tokyo from Narita Airport after dropping my mom off for her flight back to Seattle. What do I notice is different than usual?

A whole lot of US Navy vehicles and servicemen driving alongside me.

Well, not the whole way, after all, they are following the speed limits while I'm barrelling down the ToKanDo. Still, lots more military than usual making their way to Yokota, Yokosuka, Sasebo, or wherever they are stationed here.

Probably something to do with those crazy North Koreans and their missile.

National pride

2006-06-29T15:02:00.000+09:00

According to a poll done by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, of all Asian nationalities Filipinos have the most national pride.

Here's the report. Page 10 gives the breakdown.

You know, pride rice, pride chicken, pride eggs.

I'll go crawl back under my rock now. :-p

How not to treat guests

2006-06-20T23:54:00.000+09:00

American immigration policy has been a terrible scar on what would otherwise be a relatively unremarkable national foreign policy. Where it's already failing in making friends with its international diplomacy, the American government implements an immigration policy that ensures that immigrants (both resident and non-resident immigrants) are made to feel unwelcome and unwanted.

For immigrants seeking green cards, the process begins and ends pretty much staring down a mountain of paperwork and about $500 in fees. Don't forget about the new law that requires you to submit a fingerprint sample! And after that ordeal, you spend the next 12-18 months unable to travel waiting for your permanent resident visa to arrive in the mail.

Unfortunately, that's only the Conditional Resident Visa and is only valid for 2 years. The conditional status can be removed for another couple hundred dollars by petitioning for its removal. If you forget to do this, you are no longer a legal permanent resident and you will be denied re-entry into this country the next time you try to cross an immigration port of entry.

The reasoning behind making things this strict is to prevent ephemeral visa-marriages and to keep out less than ideal immigrants. In practice, though, it simply puts immense pressure on already-difficult international marriages and near-insurmountable barriers to anyone else attempting to migrate otherwise. The people who would be prime candidates for permanent resident visas are exactly the type of people who aren't especially prone to migrate from their home countries in the first place.

But permanent residency petitions are only a drop in the bucket compared to the numbers of tourists that trudge through the lines of each of our ports of entry. They sit on the airplane filling out their customs declaration form and try to figure out exactly what kinds of things they need to declare. Are personal items required in the declaration? What about prescription medicine? What about baby food?

If our imaginary tourist friend is smart, he's already put checks in the correct boxes and fully declared his declarable items. He's read the entire CPB website and knows, for example, that meat is a prohibited item for import. He knows that they'll be taking his fingerprints at the immigration officer's booth. And he knows that being courteous to the officer (even in the face of outright rudeness and incivility on the officer's part) is his best bet to avoid being sent to the life-draining secondary processing room just out of view of the main immigration counters.

God forbid he forgot to declare something and suddenly risk having to pay a large fine. Or pity the poor American citizen who is forcefully separated from his non-American wife by zealous DHS officers who demand that "Americans must be in this line and everyone else must be in this other line!" Or imagine the shame of the tourist having to walk the red line to the secondary inspection room in full view of everyone else waiting in line.

It's enough to persuade someone to never visit the United States again. After all, there's always Canada, eh.

Viva! Las Vegas!

2006-06-06T23:30:00.000+09:00

Tomorrow I'm taking a long-needed vacation with my wife and kid for a week of desert fun in Las Vegas. We'll be staying at the Bellagio and have tickets to see Mystère on Thursday evening. Other than that, our schedule is wide open.

I'm thinking of taking a trip out to the Grand Canyon while my wife takes Julian to the outlet mall. Friday looks like rain, so it could be a good chance to spend some quality time with the blackjack dealers.

Hopefully I'll take some nice pictures. I'm still debating whether to take the film camera (FM3a) or just stick with the old reliable digital camera.

Well, it's late and I've got a big day of flying and watching Julian on the airplane for hours and hours, so I better get some rest. Maybe more to write later. Probably not until I get back, though.

Future Shock

2006-05-09T15:21:00.000+09:00

I just wrapped up the third book in my selection of Rand's 50 Books for the Future. Having wrapped up The Past, I've moved on to The Future in the Past. Rand holds these selections as useful representations of people thinking about the future, and readers can not only compare the predictions with the present day but also gain insight into how these authors were looking into their crystal balls.

My first selection from this group is Future Shock by Alvin Toffler.

Toffler's first thesis is that the rate of change of society, technology, science, and organizational constructs is accelerating faster than ever and the acceleration itself is accelerating. This was what he proposed 35 years ago. Today, this idea is more appropriate than ever.

His other thesis is that this accelerating rate of change will result in something he calls 'future shock'. This is the future-equivalent to 'culture shock'. Whereas culture shock occurs when a person is thrust into an unfamiliar environment where none of his experience is appropriate, future shock is the similar shock a person would feel as the future rapidly approaches and presents a completely unfamiliar world. Such a condition would result in all sorts of mental maladies, Toffler predicts. From widespread depression to maniacal behavior, the inability of human beings to cope with change would force us all to feel culture shock even in our own culture.

I can't agree.

Here we are in 2006 surrounded by computers and beeping and flashing and buzzing and beeping and flashing and beeping and BEEPING AND FLASHING AND BEEPING...

Sorry. I was overcome with a touch of future shock.

Seriously, though. The problem with his conclusion is that the future isn't thrust upon us as it would be if we were suddenly transplanted in a new country. The type of anomie that is felt when we are out of our element is real, but the crucial difference is that the future (even the accelerating future) is still presented to us as a gradual process. We don't go to sleep and wake up in a completely different world. The next day, hopefully, is simply a continuation of the day before, and if there are changes they are typically easily understood and adapted to. No matter what type of change happens, human beings can adapt. We do not see widespread future shock because humans are more malleable and adaptable than Toffler gives us credit for.

There are exceptions. Sudden and dramatic changes such as the attacks of 9/11 or the stripping of divinity from the Japanese emperor do cause widespread anomie and what Toffler would deem future shock. However, even these events are short-lived though their after-effects may be felt for years. Mentally, we adapt to the new circumstance, though it may take a period of uncertainty, anger, and confusion before we come to grips with the situation.

So Toffler was right in one respect. People need time to adjust to a changing world. His mistake was assuming that there was a limit to that adaptability that was soon to be reached back in 1971. 30 years on and we are doing just fine adapting to the modern world. Future shock as a mental malady does not bear out.

If we redefine Future Shock as the inability to anticipate the future and make valid judgements and correct decisions based on such anticipations, then we may be closing in on the real effects of the accelerating pace of change. It isn't so much that we can't cope with the future, but that it's easier to ride the wave than to build the infrastructure to push the wave in useful directions.

Trip to the south of Chiba

2006-04-25T14:59:00.000+09:00

This weekend marks the beginning of Golden Week here in Japan. We've put together a little family outing with the grandparents to stay overnight in the south of Chiba.

I've picked up a bottle of the prettiest wine you'll find. Sofia Rosé (Let me know if the link doesn't work) My wife's mother is a stained glass artist, so I'll probably let her have the bottle after I polish the contents off.

Rain now, sunny later

2006-04-25T12:18:00.000+09:00

The sky has turned yellow here in Tokyo. The lightning is cracking and raindrops are spattering on the windows.

Hopefully the laundry isn't getting wet at home.

Time for lunch!

The Past, according to Rand

2006-04-18T17:00:00.000+09:00

As I mentioned in a previous entry, I am reading through the Rand corporation's "50 Books For Thinking About the Future Human Condition". Since my reading time is time spent on the train, I can't read all the books, nor can my wallet afford such an expensive habit. I've picked the books that are both portable and inexpensive, and I read those on the train every day.

This past Friday, I finished the first section. The Past. Rand lists 3 books as indispensable in understanding where we come from and where we are going. "Our most common tool for thinking about the future is extrapolations from the past." Thus the books they select as indicative of the past must give a good insight into what Rand is concerned about.

I chose the two Jared Diamond books "Guns, Germs, and Steel" and "Collapse". "The New History of the World" is too large, so I disqualified it from my reading list.

Diamond's thesis is that the environment shapes our civilizations and our management of the environment determines our ability to avoid societal collapse. GGS explains how societies located in resource-rich areas were able to grow and become powerful or integrate into a more powerful society (either by being conquered or intermarriage, and usually both). Societies that arose in resource poor areas were hampered in their ability to grow and remained "stuck in time", so to speak. When the former encountered the latter, the clash of civilizations typically favored the former by a wide margin.

GGS continues on to discuss the importance of urban areas which bred and fed germs with lots of live (and dead) bodies. When sailors who were immune to some of Europe's worst diseases arrived in the Americas, they spread diseases which proceeded to decimate the native populations. Those populations that did not fall to germs were brought down with steel weaponry which the native Americans had not yet developed.

"Collapse" explains the environmental factors that led to the downfall of a handful of selected societies. Diamond shows how certain decisions and short-sightedness led to the over-exploitation of resources and also how unwillingness or inability to adapt to new climates and environments led to the collapse of these societies. He also provides counter-examples that show similar societies succeeding (or at least barely making it) in the same circumstances.

The key theme that ties these two books together is the environment. Diamond's insistence on the importance of the environment in all aspects of politics and society comes across powerfully and crystal clear. In selecting these two books by Diamond, and considering that the other is a general history text, the Rand corporation tells us that they believe that the upcoming crises that humans will face will be primarily environmental.

I believe that is possible. I also believe that we have the ability to work through these crises to a satisfactory end. I recommend these two books for anyone interested in understanding why the world looks the way it does today.

Ghost in the machine

2006-04-12T21:20:00.000+09:00

So here I am late at work, as is typical these days. Everyone else took off about 30 minutes ago, so I'm all by myself. Usually it's pretty quiet and I am able to get a lot of work done without any distractions, but just 1 minute ago the printer started printing.

I'm not printing anything, and as far as I know, no one else is here. I'm going to get some more coffee and go hide in the server room for a while.

No one here but us chickens.

Inundated with work

2006-03-20T23:21:00.000+09:00

For the past 3 months, I've been working solo on a driver project for one of our favorite customers. The first couple months of designing and coding went smoothly and I had a very strong base to work from when the hardware and base sources arrived about a month ago. Since the hardware came, I've just been too busy to think about anything else.

The only time I really have to relax is on the train rides to and from work. I wish it were easy to relax at home, but I leave there in the morning and don't get back until after midnight. But those two hours of personal time on the train are nice, no matter how many people I have to share it with.

In order to not waste my time on the train daydreaming and deciphering Japanese advertisements, I'm trying to work my way through The Rand Corporation's 50 books for thinking about the future list.

I'm through Guns, Germs, and Steel and am slowly working my way through Collapse. Then on to Thinking About the Future In the Past!

At this rate, it will take me about 8 months to finish all the books that I can afford. Happy reading!

More TV pictures

2005-12-18T17:18:00.000+09:00

Only 9 days until the TV broadcast!

Here are some pictures I found in my camera.

Got cute?

2005-12-15T15:40:00.000+09:00

The site linked to here contains very cute images.

Cute Overload

Two more pictures from the TV show

2005-12-12T10:29:00.000+09:00

I just received two more pictures from the TV show taping. I know these guys' real names, but I couldn't for the life of me tell you the names of the people they look like. Luckily, the names were attached to the photos. Too bad I can't read them...

But I can copy and paste!

修二＆彰

Just 修二

If you're out there and have more, please send them to the email address in my post below!

It's a love story

2005-12-07T11:22:00.000+09:00

Did you know Saddam Hussein wrote a book?

Neither did I. But it's available on Amazon.

Zabiba and the King