i have buckets of dumb. i dont actually know where i keep them, as they tend to pop up from time to time. there is no real consistency in their presence. i just get dumbstruck from time to time.
in other news, i really want to blog more. i have some thoughts i would like to get out. many and varied in topic, so a single blog post seems unreasonable.
ill start with whats recent. the golden dragons are a chinese acrobat performance group. the last time i saw them was just a week after my dad had passed away. got to take my family to see the kinds of shows i work on. they came back last weekend just after i found out that my uncle carlos had passed away. the show has got to be bad for me. i know its hard on my cousins. they lost their mother 7 years ago, and now their father, who was a great man, has found peace. unlike my own father who was gone in an instant, he lingered for a year. it was hard knowing how sick he was. he did well for most of the year after his brain surgery. it was just the last couple of months that he really started waning. gladly, i got to see him on thanksgiving a week before he passed.
anyway, it gave me something else to be thankful for.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Back to school
An unexpectedly nice september morning has rendered me ponderous. Also, its a nice way to procrastinate the home work i ought to be finishing. I promise some day ill get around to posting more pics from japan. But nuclear physics and my data analysis project have kept me busy.
Friday, July 20, 2012
tediously trying to temper techniques to traffic in the transmission of tiny things
made it to kyoto for the Gion festival on tuesday. camera died about halfway thru. only a little frustrating.
crazy floats on wooden wheels with 30ish people on them. apparently these ancient automobiles dont corner well. took 20 minutes and an excessive amount of manual labor for each of these monstrosities to turn the corner. the smaller floats were lifted and pivoted.
it was very crowded. and quite warm.
from there we went to kiyomizu temple. gorgeous view. pics to come. (hopefully, takagi-san said he would send the ones he took)
got a new scanner in the lab yesterday. took some figuring and sorting on the part of kohno-sensei, as the OS is all in japanese... but once we got the software worked out, it went pretty smoothly from there. i might go in some time this weekend and get some more scanning done, so that we can spend more time using the TEM next week.
not much else that's too exciting has been going on. so, thats all for now.
crazy floats on wooden wheels with 30ish people on them. apparently these ancient automobiles dont corner well. took 20 minutes and an excessive amount of manual labor for each of these monstrosities to turn the corner. the smaller floats were lifted and pivoted.
it was very crowded. and quite warm.
from there we went to kiyomizu temple. gorgeous view. pics to come. (hopefully, takagi-san said he would send the ones he took)
got a new scanner in the lab yesterday. took some figuring and sorting on the part of kohno-sensei, as the OS is all in japanese... but once we got the software worked out, it went pretty smoothly from there. i might go in some time this weekend and get some more scanning done, so that we can spend more time using the TEM next week.
not much else that's too exciting has been going on. so, thats all for now.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
another week down.
kendo hurts. went to practice monday. im sure my technique is terrible and i was hurting myself. it sucked for 2 days. constant pain. so i didnt make it to practice wednesday. friday i was supposed to go with arenas to the english cafe at suita campus, but he had wrecked his thumb trying to so some hiphop dancing so he went to try to get an xray instead.
m13 prerelease event. 2 stops up from ishibashi station. seems i didnt get the directions right, and i walked around for an hour and a half and coudnt find the shop. my guess now is that it was inside one of the buildings near the station and didnt have any relevant markings on the outside of the building. all this after i find translations for several common phrases used while playing and preloaded my laptop with the card image gallery so that i could make notes about my deck so i could know what i was doing.
while i was making all these notes i skipped the first 2 events and was aiming to make it to the 3rd... i left so that i would get to the area an hour early. still wasnt enough... sad.
about the time i figured i had missed the beginning of the event and was heading back to the station, i see a pair of missionaries on bikes. for some reason i had to convince them to accept dinner. they picked an italian restaurant. imagine being given a knife and fork for a meal in japan... food wasnt bad. elder bailey is on his way home in a week. and elder lyman? has plenty of time left. i had met them at stake conference. they are in some other ward. elder bailey told me where to find lightsaber chopsticks... w00t.
on the way back i decided to wander around ishibashi for a bit. there is a lot of stuff around there. it will take more time to explore. the important part here is that i found and arcade... went 5 rounds on street fighter 4 on 1 coin. im a little out of practice... then i tried a space shooter, but i set the movement speed a little high and it didnt work out so well. the place was simple, but awesome.
ran into marco on my way across campus. felt bad because he was just going out and my feet were sore already. he's an italian physicist doing some computational research here.
tomorrow, there is some sort of summer festival here in my building. the sign said that kimonos would be provided. i think ill check it out after church.
m13 prerelease event. 2 stops up from ishibashi station. seems i didnt get the directions right, and i walked around for an hour and a half and coudnt find the shop. my guess now is that it was inside one of the buildings near the station and didnt have any relevant markings on the outside of the building. all this after i find translations for several common phrases used while playing and preloaded my laptop with the card image gallery so that i could make notes about my deck so i could know what i was doing.
while i was making all these notes i skipped the first 2 events and was aiming to make it to the 3rd... i left so that i would get to the area an hour early. still wasnt enough... sad.
about the time i figured i had missed the beginning of the event and was heading back to the station, i see a pair of missionaries on bikes. for some reason i had to convince them to accept dinner. they picked an italian restaurant. imagine being given a knife and fork for a meal in japan... food wasnt bad. elder bailey is on his way home in a week. and elder lyman? has plenty of time left. i had met them at stake conference. they are in some other ward. elder bailey told me where to find lightsaber chopsticks... w00t.
on the way back i decided to wander around ishibashi for a bit. there is a lot of stuff around there. it will take more time to explore. the important part here is that i found and arcade... went 5 rounds on street fighter 4 on 1 coin. im a little out of practice... then i tried a space shooter, but i set the movement speed a little high and it didnt work out so well. the place was simple, but awesome.
ran into marco on my way across campus. felt bad because he was just going out and my feet were sore already. he's an italian physicist doing some computational research here.
tomorrow, there is some sort of summer festival here in my building. the sign said that kimonos would be provided. i think ill check it out after church.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
eye strain
haven't said much lately... been busy in the lab.
many things to learn... sometimes have a real opportunity. sometimes there seem to be a million things going on at once. we are making some progress, but i think we should spend more time collecting data and less time analyzing it. the analysis can be done at home.
by the time i leave the lab, im usually exhausted. it's not an extra long day or anything; its just draining. so i havent been doing much else. i had plans to go out this weekend, but a terribleness of timing and circumstance made it inconvenient. also, rain. not like home. but when you walk or ride a sketchy bike, wet hills are a little daunting.
spent all saturday afternoon/evening/night 'learning' linux. or at least working with cygwin. making a noob's attempt to set up an ssh tunnel to be able to use hulu, netflix, and pandora from an american IP. ended up making some progress, but it still doesnt actually work.
ended up missing church. odd because i had an alarm set... on my phone... which i dont use... which i hadnt seen in 3 days... so it goes.
havent read so much in a long time. finished, Flowers for Algernon. started Slaughterhouse-5. still need to get back to Ender in Exile. also, i have some comics to read.
many things to learn... sometimes have a real opportunity. sometimes there seem to be a million things going on at once. we are making some progress, but i think we should spend more time collecting data and less time analyzing it. the analysis can be done at home.
by the time i leave the lab, im usually exhausted. it's not an extra long day or anything; its just draining. so i havent been doing much else. i had plans to go out this weekend, but a terribleness of timing and circumstance made it inconvenient. also, rain. not like home. but when you walk or ride a sketchy bike, wet hills are a little daunting.
spent all saturday afternoon/evening/night 'learning' linux. or at least working with cygwin. making a noob's attempt to set up an ssh tunnel to be able to use hulu, netflix, and pandora from an american IP. ended up making some progress, but it still doesnt actually work.
ended up missing church. odd because i had an alarm set... on my phone... which i dont use... which i hadnt seen in 3 days... so it goes.
havent read so much in a long time. finished, Flowers for Algernon. started Slaughterhouse-5. still need to get back to Ender in Exile. also, i have some comics to read.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
time for a new story.
currently there is a typhoon approaching... rock on. as i hear it, the pacific isnt the nightmarish cesspool of weather and hate that the atlantic is, so maybe its nothing to worry about.
but i have lived the majority of my life in florida, so maybe im just jaded.
lots of wind so far. rained earlier, around lunch time. that didnt stop us from walking back to the lab eating icecream cones under our umbrellas. banana chocolate chip. win.
so, i finally got started with an electron microscope today. there was one particular sample that was very very interesting. and the rest... well, im getting paid to be here, so it must be worth it. round about 5 i decided to call it a day. brain was fried.
was able to borrow a bike from a fellow high priest at church. its not in the best shape, but it got me home. needs some work. work that i would be happy to do... if i could turn the rusted nuts. i need to find out how to ask for WD40 in japanese.
currently there is a typhoon approaching... rock on. as i hear it, the pacific isnt the nightmarish cesspool of weather and hate that the atlantic is, so maybe its nothing to worry about.
but i have lived the majority of my life in florida, so maybe im just jaded.
lots of wind so far. rained earlier, around lunch time. that didnt stop us from walking back to the lab eating icecream cones under our umbrellas. banana chocolate chip. win.
so, i finally got started with an electron microscope today. there was one particular sample that was very very interesting. and the rest... well, im getting paid to be here, so it must be worth it. round about 5 i decided to call it a day. brain was fried.
was able to borrow a bike from a fellow high priest at church. its not in the best shape, but it got me home. needs some work. work that i would be happy to do... if i could turn the rusted nuts. i need to find out how to ask for WD40 in japanese.
Friday, June 15, 2012
another couple of days...
so. much. walking. tho my sleep schedule is beginning to normalize, im still waking up at sunrise. ->5am
today, we got amanda packed up and off to the airport so she can make it home.
yesterday: Osaka Castle. freakin' awesome. the grounds we beautiful. the castle itself was smaller than i imagined, at least on the inside. but within there is a museum. with some old samurai armor and swords. i got a little concerned when i saw a man walking the grounds in red samurai armor. SR4 anyone?
lunch on the way home, and dinner at a cafe on campus. nothing amazing. also hit the campus book store.
wednesday. umeda sky building. a ferris wheel on top of an 9 story building. yodabashi umeda, a crazy electronics store. pics to come of all these things.
tuesday? crap. what even happened on tuesday? grocery shopping? recovery from soreness and being a bad tourist? sounds good.
i know on monday i officially got checked in. and we met up with my professor for a quick tour of campus and the surrounding area.
all in all, it seems that breakfast isnt a big deal around here.
so. much. walking. tho my sleep schedule is beginning to normalize, im still waking up at sunrise. ->5am
today, we got amanda packed up and off to the airport so she can make it home.
yesterday: Osaka Castle. freakin' awesome. the grounds we beautiful. the castle itself was smaller than i imagined, at least on the inside. but within there is a museum. with some old samurai armor and swords. i got a little concerned when i saw a man walking the grounds in red samurai armor. SR4 anyone?
lunch on the way home, and dinner at a cafe on campus. nothing amazing. also hit the campus book store.
wednesday. umeda sky building. a ferris wheel on top of an 9 story building. yodabashi umeda, a crazy electronics store. pics to come of all these things.
tuesday? crap. what even happened on tuesday? grocery shopping? recovery from soreness and being a bad tourist? sounds good.
i know on monday i officially got checked in. and we met up with my professor for a quick tour of campus and the surrounding area.
all in all, it seems that breakfast isnt a big deal around here.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
so, sunday in osaka.
woke up too early. with nothing else to do, we decided to leave early. good thing we did because tho we thought we were on the right train. we happened to get on an express, which totally skipped the small stop we needed and went straight to the next major station... then, we got on a wrong train trying to get back. fortunately this gave us enough information that we were definitely able to sort out where we needed to be.
was very nice to run into some english speaking people at church and we even had one fellow, dan who offered to translate for us.
there were a set of sisters and a set of elders. 3 of the 4 were from the states. i had even served in elder wilde's stake in santa clara.
anyhow. we really had learned what we needed to about teh trains. because we made it back just fine. had a lazy sunday afternoon.
unfortunately, when the sun rises, i wake up. and it rises very early here, mostly because they dont use a daylight savings time, so good for them.
woke up too early. with nothing else to do, we decided to leave early. good thing we did because tho we thought we were on the right train. we happened to get on an express, which totally skipped the small stop we needed and went straight to the next major station... then, we got on a wrong train trying to get back. fortunately this gave us enough information that we were definitely able to sort out where we needed to be.
was very nice to run into some english speaking people at church and we even had one fellow, dan who offered to translate for us.
there were a set of sisters and a set of elders. 3 of the 4 were from the states. i had even served in elder wilde's stake in santa clara.
anyhow. we really had learned what we needed to about teh trains. because we made it back just fine. had a lazy sunday afternoon.
unfortunately, when the sun rises, i wake up. and it rises very early here, mostly because they dont use a daylight savings time, so good for them.
Friday, June 8, 2012
720am 7june2012
welcome to the ATL. land of "free internet"
so free im writing this up in notepad and will post it later.
got here without incident. back is okay. got an inflight movie on the next leg of the trip.
leaving for seatle in 50 minutes.
this probably wont be as interesting as it could be.
anticicpation led to a lack of sleep. the 'sunrise' from above the cloud level was pretty cool.
2 50 pound bags and a chock full carry on... hopefully enough for the 17.5 hours of air time and 2 months in a foreign land where i dont speak the language.
some other time. some other place.
ive lost track completely. im in japan. the flight was crazy long. then on a train. then on foot in the rain.
but im here. with my wife.
and now that i am not in a vehicle, im going to crash.
more later.
Friday, April 20, 2012
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