Hope

this is last day of the rest of that life.
The difference between giving up and letting go.
I'm done feeling sorry for myself.
I'm done pining over someone I don't know.
I'm going to live my life for me.
There's more to endure, so I know I'm not done yet.
There's nothing I cannot do. Nothing can stop me now.
There are things passed. So much in the past.
There are opportunities missed. Sometimes just squandered.
There are regrets. Anyone who says otherwise is lying.
There are experiences. Good and Bad.
There are lessons. Learned. Carried forward.
Preparing for the future but not at the expense of the present.
Progress. Progress. We have progressed.

Thanks to all the inspirations out there.
Get ready for a brand new me.
I'm coming for you world.
Be prepared.

Charmed existence.

been a while. usually is between posts.
been home from japan nearly two months.
while i was in japan, i knew i wanted to live in riverside when i got home. had even been shopping around on craigslist. prices seemed a little high, but i love the neighborhood and the people here. a few weeks later a friend of mine sends me a message that says, "i dont know when you are coming home, but we need a roommate at the end of august."
as it just so happens, i was coming home at the end of august.
i love my roommates. i love this place. and we even have a great cat named Victor.
just last week we all ended up sitting on the kitchen floor playing with the cat.

had spent some time pining for a girl who was possibly more aloof than anyone i'd ever met. got to be friends. got to be friends with her friends. then a Target B shows up on radar. i get confused. after only minimal effort, she's responsive and fun seems to be interested. at this point we are a few dates in, let's see where this goes. did i mention that she's really pretty too?

a UNF alum sent an email to the physics department asking for a recent graduate to come work for her for a space of about 6 months. without hesitation he gives her my name. she and i exchange a few emails and i start working for her about 2 weeks ago. i tear down lithium ion cells, looking for the root cause of failure.

Went to see TMBG friday. great show. celebrated a friend's birthday afterward. woke up with a serious pain in my throat. feels like something is out of place. ive given it two days now. some progression, but im going to the doctor after work tomorrow. it's odd and concerning.

too much for facebook...

it seems today, that the internet is full of awesome and wonder.

we'll start here on the topic of the pain of loss and saying goodbye.

even with the new opportunities ahead, it is still difficult to say goodbye to those places, things and people that have been good to us.

up next is an impressive act of nerdery.
http://www.toplessrobot.com/2013/08/nintendo_64_transformer_made_of_lego.php
just... wow...
the artist http://baronvonbrunk.com/ is pretty amazing and has been commissioned by Nintendo for a few projects.

Then, this caught my attention. not much to say.

and finally. because i love these guys and they helped me waste over an hour this morning.

it's a magical world

to possibilities,
thank you for reminding me to be magical. some things can be so mundane. we truly must shift our perpective. there is wonder all around us. i break hearts. i break molds. i divide by zero.
i belong to an adventuring guild that is frequently called on to clear out local ruins. i cast spells of light set on contingency triggers. i wrestle hydras of copper and steel.
i am a member of a group of powerful clerics. science and magic and religion really can coexist.
i have studied the inner workings of the universe that i might be able to better understand how to break them.
i dream of worlds unknown.
i work to become strong that i might endure to see the future of brighter, more magnificent and more beautiful truths.

invincidwarf

3 birthdays, a going away party and a day at the beach.
Andrey, Ieva and Riccardo, cheers!. Hitomi, farewell.
Beaches in japan are kinda worthless. Maybe i just hadnt realized how spoiled ive been having grown up in florida. i am not even an especially big fan of the whole beach experience, but i will certainly be taking a trip to the beach when i get home just to show appreciation.
the following day, after perhaps 12 hours of sleep (it was late when i got in, never bothered to check the time) i woke up a little bit groggy but was generally feeling okay. i supposed i didnt realize how dehydrated i was after a long day and playing in the sun. i got some 'breakfast' which included some sushi... some of which must have been off because a bit later it came back. a few hours later i tried a banana and nearly as soon as it hit my stomach, it came back. sushi coming back is a terrible experience. and it came with a vengeance. cthuluhu is not my friend. anyway. i suffered thru the day trying to get a little liquid in me. it was difficult to get the correct flow, but i managed and i even got a little bread in me and tried to pass out. Special thanks to Dylan Moran for keeping me entertained.
any time i closed my eyes, i started seeing things in the empty blackness. people. in varying degrees of clarity. never anyone i recognized.
finally got to sleep. doing much better now.

graphene mobius strips...

i had a goal of posting a pic to fb every day while i was here. that fell by the wayside pretty quick. my scenery just doesnt change very much. rolled my ankle again on friday, so took the rest of the weekend easy. i feel like we have so much to do and there is only a month left. ive applied for a couple of jobs. hoping to hear something next week. made arrangements for living space upon my return. quite excited about being back in riverside. it means ill need to get some real lights for my bike. when it comes down to it i really can live a spartan lifestyle. i think as much will be thrown away as moved with me to the new place. definitely time to clean out.
no, the post has nothing to do with the title, but that's what our current goal is.

once more, in the land of the rising sun

so, its been a few months since i posted last... im great at this.
im back in japan. same research. graduated at the end of april.
a lot more gaikokujin around this year. easier to be social. feels a bit slower on the research end, but we are making progress.
fortunately, part of what i have to get done, and what helps fill the down time is finding a job. lots of options, just not a lot in jacksonville. mildly disappointing doesnt quite cover it.
somehow, i made a pile of new friends while reconnecting with some old ones just before i left. almost seems a tragedy, but... i will return.

mr bucket

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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, 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.

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.

gaming is a way to turn statistical probability into defeat.

-jane espenson

Avengers

As nerds are wont to do... i have put this new trailer to the test.

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/marvel/avengers/

While I'm super excited, this movie will never be everything I want it to be.

The hype, in my mind, is epic. still, I'm Super Excited

Issues: contained entirely within the 49th second of the trailer is Cap hitting a punching bag.

The bag explodes before he punches it. And the reflection in the background doesnt match either. The left hand is open in the close up and closed in the wide angle.

In the 53rd second, we see Hawkeye's Bow. The mechanism is pretty awesome.

1:11 we see some sort of magic-weapon thing. blades, blue glowing bits. for 8 frames at 1:31 we see Loki using it to cause destruction.

1:21 Fury is firing some sort of rocket launcher. due to some weird timing it shows blast after he has shot it.

1:23 Hawkeye firing an arrow which lets loose before his fingers move.

I hate most of the costume changes. namely Cap and Thor. And I think Widow's hair looked better long as seen in Iron Man 2.

I love the use of NIN in the background. The wit is there. I really can't wait.

because someone told me to

and that person isn't even the one follower that i have.

went to 80s night at Eclipse for a friend's birthday after Friday Night Magic.

another friend asked me for my top 5 favorite musical artists of all time were...

apparently i am growing to hate these kinds of lists...

there is so much out there its so hard to pick. and the slow and ponderous answer i gave probably isnt actually correct.

stabbing westward, didnt have to think about this one at all.

nine inch nails, because well, its true

kmfdm... maybe... probably not. She Wants Revenge should go here.

Pop Will Eat Itself. this is closer than kmfdm, but once i get to this point, maybe MC chris would replace it

Voltaire. sure, ill stick with that

there are other top 5s. all of which i have the same amount of trouble listing.

favorite movies of all time

star wars

the princess bride

and here im already having trouble... Fight Club

Equilibrium

maybe the Avengers Franchise... i dont know if it will stand the test of time tho.

now i think i need a break from listing

in response, i asked my friend what his super power was. failed to respond. i win.

so, i never watched "My So Called Life" when it was new. browsing netflix today i thought i would give it a try.

first, it looks like the streaming version was ripped from an old VHS. the quality is crap.

second, it appears that there is a fundamental disconnect between the 'adults' that were apparently writing this show and the teenagers it attempts to portray.

it is as if someone said, "here, let's use words that sound 'hip' (albeit in an age of grunge)"

in biology(maybe it's "science" class) they are dissecting hearts and call it vivisection, then they start babbling about hypotheses... nope. we can't afford teaching or science consultants to make us not sound super dumb.