Adventures in the Universe

Japan 2009

2009-08-17T18:49:00.000-07:00

Rika and I are fresh back from a 12-day trip to Japan to visit family and friends. It was a fantastic vacation. We met people we hadn't seen in years, hung out with friends from Seattle who also happened to be in Japan this summer, and spent time with the extended family back in the countryside.

The first leg of the journey was a three-day stay in Tokyo with Rika's aunt, and while there we had a chance to get out and see how the busier parts of the metropolis had fared since we had last seen it.

Tokyo has some really cool architectural design. This building's facade was made of stainless steel about a quarter-inch thick, with holes drilled in it to create the pattern you see.

This Nissan showroom, also bedecked in a generous helping of stainless steel and space-age design, was more of an advertising venue than a working showroom. There was only space for two cars inside, and nary a salesperson to be seen.

We cruised on over to Ueno that afternoon because Rika had never seen the National Science Museum there. I visited with my friend Toshi in 2005 (and reported the exploits on this very blog) but it was worth seeing again. There were new exhibits, as well as things I just totally missed the first time.

One of the new exhibits was this spherical theater. (Check out the guy in the upper right for a sense of scale.) This is one step up from the IMAX dome theaters you may have seen at other science museums. This one actually has screens covering the full interior surface of the sphere. But where does the viewer sit, you ask? On a floating bridge with a glass floor.

To get a visual of this, imagine a ping pong ball that has been pierced horizontally through the center with a toothpick. A person standing on the toothpick in the middle of the ping pong ball has a nearly completely unobstructed view of the entire interior surface, especially if the toothpick is made of glass. In this theater, the only obstructutions are really the doors on each side, some of the non-transparent superstructure of the bridge, and of course, the other patrons.

The effect is awesome. You feel as though you are in a glass ball floating through the world. You can look in any direction--even up, where you might see birds flying overhead, or down, where you might see a grassy plain breezing by beneath your feet. It's amazing.

Of course, there are a few problems: 1) The requirement for the audience to stand limits the effective length of a movie, 2) The special filming technology required makes creating the films difficult and expensive, and 3) I felt like I didn't know where I should look--like something important might be happening behind me and I wouldn't know it.

Still, for educational purposes, this is really a great platform. The movie we saw, about dinosaurs, contained the most breathtaking and illuminating illustration of the evolutionary tree of life I have ever seen. Whereas textbooks show it as a two-dimensional schematic and then take pains to explain that it's actually more like a thick bush, this depiction placed the viewer inside the center of a thicket of furiously growing vines, new branches and sprouts shooting off in every direction, some coming to dead ends here and there while others continued their fractal ascent, as names of orders, families, and genera appeared nearby the appropriate lines.

We spent about three hours in this museum, but it was nowhere near enough time. The fossil collection alone is jaw-dropping. This is a collection of ancient flora.

A collection of fish fossils.

Rika loved this baby dinosaur so much she wanted to take him home.

One of the great things about this museum is that they give you a lot of background on how certain deductions are made. For example, how are artist's renderings of hominids made? Can we really have any good idea of how they looked? This exhibit shows the CSI-esque technique of adding muscle, ligament, and cartillage to a cast of a skull, then applying skin overtop to arrive at a best-guess at appearance. Even the color of the skin is probably roughly accurate, since we know hominids got their start in Africa, and we know that skin color is an adaptation related to sun exposure (fair-skinned people didn't appear until people arrived in Northern latitudes). For that matter, we can even make an educated guess about eye color (blue and green eyes also first appeared in Northern latitudes, possibly as a side effect of the skin color changes).

So we really enjoyed the museum. If science and natural history is your thing, I guarantee you will be blown away by the place. Check it out if you're in the area.

For dinner that evening we met up with some of Rika's friends at a very swank restaurant. (Apologies to Konno-san, who was the one taking this photo. We don't have any of you at this restaurant!)

The next day we visited Rika's friend Chie, who is trying to get a foot massage business off the ground. She offered to ply her trade on us free of charge. Now, I should say in advance that Rika and I have a pretty different idea of what constitutes a good massage. But this foot massage definitely elicited different reactions in the two of us....

Utter relaxation is the order of the day for Rika as pressure points are activated and healthy energy flows along its proper channels.

Racked with agony, Brian struggles with the temptation to give up the secret recipe for Coca Cola and make it all stop.

I don't know. All I can say is, the bottom of your feet are surprisingly sensitive. And, Japanese people seem to have a bit of a latent S&M thing going on.

After the foot ~~torture~~ massage, we met up with some friends from Seattle, Masa and Nadia. Masa and Nadia attended BCC with Rika in the same interior design program, and are now living in Tokyo.

We sat on this bench and listened to some street music while we sipped beers. (Yeah, you can do that in Japan!)

Nadia and Masa.

Nearby I couldn't help but notice that someone had totally ripped off the Cream of Wheat guy for their store sign. But why does this guy even belong on the sign for a clothing store? Somebody has got a weird sense of humor.

Some more awesome Tokyo architecture. This is a school of design. The building is actually curved.

We stopped into an arcade in Shinjuku to check out what the kids these days are playing (say that phrase out loud right now and you'll instantly feel twenty years older) and saw something pretty cool. This place had a ton of games that use physical playing cards that the player lays out on a table to control the game. So this guy would throw cards down onto the table, then move them into a row, then fan them out, and so on. Kind of like those old card-based role playing games on steroids. Interesting stuff.

Remember how when you were a kid the expensive games were two quarters, and the really over-the-top ones were a dollar? This Gundum game, which puts you in a cockpit with a 180-degree curved screen, was $5 a pop. It looked pretty fun, but I played Gundum once on Xbox and I totally sucked, and since I didn't want to blow 500 yen to walk around and crash into buildings, I contented myself to just watch as Masa also pretended to play the game.

We met up with a bunch of friends for dinner and drinks at a very cool izakaya that evening. An izakaya is kind of like a bar, except they serve food too, and they look very cool inside, with lots of attention to mood and lighting. This one had the feel of Tokyo 150 years ago, with the corridors between private seating rooms recalling wooden-planked streets. (Alas, the low lighting also means good pictures are hard to come by.)

The reason everyone is busting up in this photo is because when I set the timer on the camera and went to run over to take my place, I failed to notice a large concrete column about thigh-high (the kind that prevents vehicles from entering a pedestrian area) and bashed right into it. I was able to limp to my position in time for the photo, but man, my leg hurt for days afterward.

That was our last day in Tokyo. The next day we traveled out to the countryside to see Rika's family. August 13th is the first official day of Obon, which is a holiday to honor one's recent ancestors. It's akin to Thanksgiving in that there is mass movement of people as relatives return to hometowns. We specifically aimed to be in Japan for Obon so that we could see Rika's brother Kiyoharu, whom we hadn't seen in three years.

We arrived in town a few days before everyone else, so we had some time to ourselves. We found a fantastic cycling trail made by paving over an old rail line that went out of business. The great thing about that approach is that there are no cars, and it has all its own bridges, so it's quiet and safe.

We rode past small farms along the base of Mount Tsukuba.

The red line on this map shows the trail. It connects two still-in-use railway lines.

Is Rika directing air traffic over there?

Long stretches of the trail had cherry trees planted on each side. Each tree had the name of a family who had donated to the project, and the maintenance is done by community volunteer organizations.

More views from the trail.

One of the coolest, and most unexpected, things about the trail was that the old stations were still there. Some had been reduced to mere contrete platforms in the process of being reclaimed by grass and weeds, but some, like this one, had been made into rest areas.

"I've been waiting here all day! When was that train supposed to arrive?"

We ended up riding all the way to the end of the line in one direction, which was a pretty good distance. We figure we rode about 50km altogether that day.

We also did a lot of walking in town. This is an alley street near Rika's house.

Another plot of rice about a 15-minute walk from Rika's house.

When the family was fully assembled, one of the first things we did was go to the aptly-named 10,000-Person Pool. It's a water park with slides, a wave pools, an eternal river pool, and a diving area.

Rika's brother Yuji and his wife Yuko take a lap around the eternal river.

Horsing around with the kids.

From the left, nephews Takuya, Kazuki, and Ryoga, and niece Mayu.

One aspect of Obon is to ceremonially take your ancestors home with you for the duration of the celebration. So everyone visits their family grave site (this structure will eventually hold the ashes of an entire dynasty), where they lay flowers and incense. Then a lit candle, symbolizing the ancestors, is transfered to a paper lantern for transport home.

Big brother Kiyoharu carries out lantern duty.

One evening we made our way to a recreational area that had the most expansive selection of athletic equipment for kids I have ever seen. This contraption was only one of dozens!

Kiyoharu and Rika give in to their inner child.

That rollercoaster track you see is actually a roller-slider. It's like a slide except instead of a metal bottom, there are a series of freely spinning pins, kind of like a conveyor belt, without the belt. You can sit or squat at the top (word to the wise: sitting results in a very ticklish sensation in the buttal region) and ride down at a pretty good clip.

Ryoga demonstrates the proper posture. That's me cruising along behind him.

Yuji and Yuko took us out to a nice restaurant that serves a series of courses from various countries. On this particular evening, we were treated to something like seven courses from France, China, and Japan. It was delicious.

Since the family couldn't attend her graduation in April, Rika brought her cap and gown with her to take a group photo. Congratulations, Rika!

Before we knew it, it was time to head home. But we had a great time hanging out with everyone, and we can't wait to see you again soon!

The Vignola Collective

2009-07-26T21:38:00.001-07:00

Amazing music discovery alert: The Vignola Collective.

In a category something like gypsy bluegrass jazz, these guys are a little off the beaten path for me, but man, oh man, am I glad I found them. Their talent is just mind-blowing, and the recording (on the Gypsy Grass album, at least) is done in such a way that, I swear, if you crank the volume up to live and listen through the air, you can almost feel the cool evening air and the grass beneath your feet as you listen to them at an outdoor festival.

If you've got Rhapsody or some other similar subscription music service, put on a pair of headphones right this minute and check out A Minor Idea, on the album Gypsy Grass, and tell me you're not happy to be alive!

San Juans 2009

2009-07-20T21:37:00.000-07:00

We got a late start with the getting-out-and-having-fun-in-the-sun this summer, but we began in earnest a few weeks ago with some great local kayak outings, and we hit our stride big time this past weekend. We took Friday and Monday off for a four-day-weekend in the San Juan Islands.

Setting out for Friday Harbor. The ferry ride over from Anacortes is always a pretty way to start a vacation.

The San Juans really have a beauty all their own.

We saw a lot of avian wildlife on this trip, particularly eagles and hawks. At one point we saw as many as four eagles at one time, and we had a couple spectacular flybys.

The first day we arrived a bit late due to a misread of the ferry schedule (one demerit for Brian) so we had a lazy afternoon and evening. But our goal for this trip was to stay active and get in some serious kayaking and hiking time, so the next morning we got up bright and early and headed down to San Juan County Park.

Rika was intent on putting in at this location because it's where we saw orcas on our last trip to the San Juans, and she was really hoping for a close-up encounter. The orcas are known to take a path along the west side of San Juan Island as they make their way north in July and August, also passing nearby Lime Kiln State Park, so a route between these two locations seemed a sure bet. Here's the route we took:

As you can see on the map, we made it almost, but not quite, to Lime Kiln. This was our first time kayaking on the open sea, and the experience was enlightening. It is very different from paddling on a lake or even a river. We put in a couple hours after the low tide mark, so as we got underway, the tide came roaring in with ever greater energy, creating strong localized currents and eddies that were hard to read. At one point, about halfway through our trip, we hit what I can only describe as rapids at sea, flowing in the opposite direction from us. We could see the end of them, just a hundred yards up, but it took us a good 10 minutes of hard paddling to exit them. So by the time we saw this nice cove, we thought we should stop for lunch and rethink our strategy.

Yes, that is our inflatable kayak, and yes, we did get some funny looks from other kayakers as they slid past us in their much faster, much sleeker, hard-shelled kayaks. This old girl did pretty well, but I think this will probably be the last that she sees of the sea. More on that later.

From this beach, we paddled back to San Juan County Park. Total distance: about 4 miles.

When we first planned this trip, we were going to be vacationing with our friends Lars and Keiko. In the intervening time, however, Keiko got pregnant and so wasn't able to spend the weekend gallumphing around the island. Not to let the camping reservations go to waste, though, Lars was able to join us for part of the trip.

We caught up with Lars in Roche Harbor, after he kayaked from Friday Harbor halfway around the island. You thought we were crazy for venturing out to sea in our inflatable? Lars took something like a 12-mile journey in a similar craft, using his camping tent as a sail! The strategy worked: me made the whole journey in around four hours.

We did some hiking that afternoon in the lime quarries above Roche Harbor, and in this fantastic little trail system we found near the airport.

We walked about three miles through this trail system, which included wetlands, meadows, and forested area. It was an unexpected and rewarding find, because this is where we saw the aforementioned group of eagles. One of them was smaller and colored differently than the others, so we did a quick search on my phone and confirmed that it was a juvenile bald eagle.

One other surprise: this trail connected to a disc golf course! We didn't have time to hit it up this trip, but next time, we'll be there.

This trail had a lot more junctions than the map showed. Here I try to make some sense out of it using my GPS-enabled phone.

The next morning before we parted ways with Lars, we headed down to Fourth of July Beach, which was completely desolate.

Lars harasses the local wildlife.

Apparently there used to be a settlement here, around what is now called Old Town Lagoon, but the people all moved to the other side of the island 100 years ago, and nary a trace remains.

That afternoon it was time to try out a real kayak. The cabin we stayed in had two available, a single and a two-seater. We hopped into the double and put into Westcott Bay.

Ready to paddle!

This thing really cruised. Our only previous experience in a hard-shelled kayak was, in fact, our first experience paddling anything kayak-like, so we weren't very good at it. But since then, we've been on at least a dozen or two outings in the inflatable, and we're a pretty good team now. So this time in the real kayak was a lot more satisfying. It moved more easily, maintained course better, and kept its momentum longer.

For this trip, we thought we'd putter around Westcott Bay, where we were staying.

As you can see, there's a lot of shoreline to inspect, and it's a nice sheltered bay, so it doesn't get too crazy. However, after about 45 minutes paddling out toward sea, and emboldened by our newfound speed, we decided to try to head all the way to Roche Harbor, which is just north of the cabin, on the opposite side of the penninsula.

Heading out of Westcott Bay.

Here's the route we took. It ended up being a little longer than we thought because every time we came around a point, we thought we would be at the destination. We were especially fooled by the thinnest part of the penninsula, because we could see lots of masts sticking up from the other side, but it was actually just a private dock.

The sudden direction change near the end of the trip occurred because Rika really had to go to the bathroom and we saw a port that we thought might have a restroom, but we were shooed away by a lady who assured us from her yacht that there were no public restrooms here. Rika has since dubbed the place Mean Lady Island.

Happily, we made it to Roche Harbor without any mishaps. Rika was kind enough to snap this pic as she hurried off to the restroom.

Departing Roche Harbor.

Almost back to the cabin. This journey was tiring, but rewarding. The weather was beautiful, and we both loved the kayak. We want to upgrade to something like this one for next year.

Total distance paddled: About nine miles.

Rika shows off her war wounds. Perhaps some gloves would be in order for our next trip.

For our last day, we drove around the island looking for places we hadn't seen on previous visits. This beach is called Reuben Tarte Memorial Park.

All good things must come to an end: heading home on Monday.

Our trip was a little adventurous and a little laid back--in short, the perfect summer break.

Rika graduates!

2009-03-30T19:33:00.000-07:00

A long awaited day has come to pass. After more than four years of grueling effort, starting with English classes and other general prerequisites in 2004, to the beginning of her interior design coursework in 2005, and culminating in some seriously demanding classes and a concurrent 300-hour internship at a local firm through this past winter, Rika has finished her program at BCC and is ready to go pro!

To celebrate, we arranged a multi-pronged stress-release strategy. First, I took her out to a nice brunch the Saturday morning following her last final. What she didn't know was that a group of friends was secretly congregating at our house, ready to surprise her when we got home.

A slightly shell-shocked Rika and some of the friends who helped us make it through the long haul. (And I want to say thanks to all our friends who were not here too -- I wish I could have invited you all but our house is pretty small. We'll be more than happy to party with everyone individually over the next few weeks and months.)

Since I have an alarmingly bad poker face, Rika never suspected in a million years that I would be able to pull off a surprise party, which of course worked in my favor. She was completely surprised and we had a nice little afternoon.

The big celebration, though, was a trip to Hawaii. As has become a tradition for us, we booked this trip during the darkest point in the quarter to give Rika an incentive to make it through the final push. She was literally putting in 18-hour days, working on multiple portfolio books and a huge final project. For one class, the entire grade was based on the final, so the stakes were high.

So last Tuesday, just a few days after Rika's last final (on which she received an A, of course), we took off for sunny Oahu for some well-deserved R & R.

A decidedly more relaxed Rika on Waikiki Beach, on the evening of our arrival.

This beats doing homework, any day.

It was my first time to Oahu, and I was struck by the beauty of this tree, which was growing everywhere.

I've never seen a tree whose branches appear to strive to be so...equidistant...from one another. It makes for a really lovely shape.

One thing neither of us had ever done was to go on a submarine tour. Here we are cruising past Waikiki, on our way out to the dive point.

We took a big boat out to the dive site where two submarines took on the passengers in turn. Here we're preparing to dock with the first sub.

Rika and I were in the second group, which allowed us to snap this pic of the first sub submerging in the distance just as the second sub breaks the surface in the foreground.

The view from under the sea. Cruising at a maximum depth of 110 feet, we saw some pretty cool sights, like the remains of this airplane.

We also passed by two sunken ships.

Another shot of one of the ships. Check out all the fish. This picture makes for a stark contrast with the barren patches of sea where there are no hiding places. It turns out that fish don't like to hang out in the wide open. They really like the shelter of reefs, both natural and man-made.

You're probably wondering by what amazing luck multiple ships and planes could all have hit the sea floor at just the right place to be seen on a 45-minute sub tour. Well, it turns out that they had a little help. The boats were real wrecks that were moved into a more convenient position, and the planes were actually purchased and deliberately sunken by the tour company. I have to admit that learning this fact made the whole thing suddenly feel a little less exciting, but I'm not exactly sure why.

One other big surprise was that you can become seasick on a submarine. I don't know why this hadn't occurred to me, but especially when near the surface, they really bob around, and with no horizon to set your eyes on, a lot of people (including Rika) started to feel it. The feeling mostly disappated once we submerged, but it came back when we re-surfaced, and Rika ended up feeling really ill until we returned to shore. So a word to the wise in case you decide to go on such a tour: Dramamine might be in order if you get motion sickness easily.

Another highlight of our trip was a tour by rented car around the island. We stopped at Pearl Harbor, which will be difficult to summarize briefly here. Let me just say that it is definitely worth a stop on your tour. It is deeply moving to stand on ground that was such a critial part of history, such a short time ago. And the exhibits really do a good job of explaining how events conspired to lead Japan to launch such an attack, and of course what came out of it.

The picture above is of the USS Arizona Memorial, which sits atop the sunken remains of the battleship Arizona, where 1000 men still lie entombed. Atop the memorial, you can look down and see the length of the ship, just a few feet underwater. From the hushed voices of everyone in the memorial, it was clear that the poignance of the place was felt by everyone.

After we left Pearl Harbor, we took a deep breath and continued our tour of the island.

This island is called Chinaman's Hat.

We saw a lot of little birds like this. Here, they appeared to be eating coconuts.

We also stopped by a replica of the Japanese temple Byoudou-in. We found the temple and grounds to be so-so, but one very interesting aspect was a young calico cat who lived there, among large groups of birds and fish. He seemed to be overwhelmed by the sheer multitude of quary. As we watched, he appeared to vascillate between mild interest and the desire to nap. We saw him take a confused swipe as the birds fluttered past him on a few occasions. I couldn't tell if he was living in a cat's paradise or a feline hell (so much food, just out of reach).

Back in Waikiki, we hit the beach, and I decided to take my snorkeling gear for a spin. Rika assured me that there were no fish to be seen from this beach, but I gave it a try anyway. That's me in the photo, wearing a life vest (so I can snorkel for hours with no fear of tiring out - how cool is that, right?). As I walked backwards down the beach, flipper-shod, into the water, it was clear I was the odd man out as the people around me literally stopped to stare. And, true to Rika's predictions, I saw not a single fish. But I did add some laughter to Rika's day, so all was not lost.

On the snorkeling day I forgot to put sunscreen on my legs and ended up getting royally sunburned, so the remainder of our beachgoing days were spent with a towel securely wrapped around my lower body. Here we are lounging at the hotel pool.

The atrium of the Mariott, where we stayed. It's a pretty nice place.

Having a lovely Italian brunch about a block from the beach.

Alas, the week was up before we knew it and it was time to go home. But we had a great time and Rika came back home ready to start her career as a professional interior designer. Today she spent the day putting up posters for an exhibition of work by the senior students that takes place on April 7. She got a great place in the gallery, and we have a nice little display set up. I'll include pictures of that in my next post.

Thanks, again, to everyone for their help and support over the last several years! Here's to the start of a great career for Rika!

Anniversary in Whistler

2008-10-14T22:51:00.000-07:00

It's been a few weeks, but I'm finally sitting down to write about our anniversary in Whistler. We had both heard a lot of good things about Whistler, and boy, are they ever true. Whistler is known for its winter sports, but they have got a million things to do in the summer as well. We had an absolute blast, in spite of the rainy weather that greeted us on the first day.

Determined not to let the rain deter us, we bought some plastic ponchos and rented a pair of mountain bikes. A five-minute ride from Whistler Village is Lost Lake Park, which has miles of mountain biking trails, graded in difficulty from easy (which you see Rika riding on above) to advanced, which had steep, rocking inclines and places where the trail became a narrow boardwalk.

For us, the moderate trails were awesome. Here's a shot of a typical section of one of them. We chose a route recommended by our hotel concierge called Tin Pants. I don't know if it was the fresh air, the awesome bikes (those front shock absorbers make a huge difference), or just the I'm-on-vacation adrenaline, but I had an absolute blast on these trails. I mean, I was powering it up the hills like there was no tomorrow. Rika had a bit tougher a time with the hills and had to push her bike a few times, but she enjoyed it as well.

I was honestly surprised at how much I enjoyed the mountain biking. The trails are so cool here, I think I could actually come up for a few days just for the biking. It would take some serious training, though. After two hours, I was happy, but exhausted.

The view from a dock on Lost Lake. Even the damp weather couldn't hide the beauty of this place.

The hotel we stayed in was fantastic. It's called the Sundial Boutique Hotel, and I highly recommend it. The room was a bit more expensive than what we would typically pay, but it was well worth it. We got an entire suite, with a living room with a gas fireplace, a full kitchen with granite countertops, and a separate bedroom. The place was literally almost as big as the day-to-day living space in our condo, so it really felt like being at home. And because we had the full kitchen, we were able to cook most of our meals in the room, so in the end we probably saved money compared to if we had stayed at a cheaper place.

I can't say enough about the hotel. They really went out of their way to make us feel welcome. We received a welcome email with lots of (actually) helpful information a week before we arrived, and the staff was great during our stay.

Right smack dab in the middle of Whistler Village there is a gondola that you can take to the top of Whistler Mountain. This is no ordinary ride. It takes a full 23 minutes to get to the top. And from there, you can actually hike a few hundred yards and take a chair lift to the very peak.

On our way to the Peak Chair.

The Peak Chair is no misnomer. It actually goes to the tippity top of the mountain, elevation well over 7000 feet. We went on a short hike at the top, but it was so foggy that, aside from brief clearings, we really couldn't see much of the scenery, so we decided to go back down to the top of the Gondola (elevation more like around 5500 feet) and try it there.

As it turned out, that was the right call. The weather was much better lower down, and we had a great little hike there. We saw a lot of wildlife as well, including several marmots, a family of birds that I think were pheasants, and one very shy pika.

We brought our inflatable kayak with us and managed to go for a paddle a couple times. In the photo above, we're about to put in at Alta Lake, which is connected via the (I swear) River of Golden Dreams to the slightly lower Green Lake. Depending on the season, it can be a wild ride, but since water levels were low when we went, it was supposed to be a relaxed float. And it was all going very nicely until we met up with the bear.

Some background is in order. There are a lot of bears in Whistler. We saw two or three in the two days before going on this kayaking trip, so Rika's bear radar was on high alert. She made me promise that if we saw any bears while kayaking that we would turn around and high-tail it out of there.

Well, about a quarter of the way down the River of Golden Dreams, there is a small dam that presumably controls the flow of the river between the two lakes. So you float up to one side and walk your kayak around to the downriver side and continue on your way. We disembarked at the dam and read the sign, which instructed kayakers to run down the trail 300 yards to check the flood stage, as there are some parts of the river that are impassable if the water level is too high. I told Rika to stay at the kayak, and started jogging down the trail.

The trail was actually a narrow paved path, the kind used by rollerbladers and bicyclists. As I was beginning to wind around a lazy curve, I noticed what appeared to be a man wearing a black backpack on the side of the trail, foraging in the blackberry bushes. Because he was partially obscured by the bushes, it wasn't until I was up fairly close that I noticed his large, clawed hands and distinctly bearlike snout.

I skidded to a stop on the trail, which made the bear look up slowly, but he only regarded me with typical bear disinterest. Remembering the umpteen signs I had read on various trails over the previous few days, I backed away slowly. I remembered thinking that I was supposed to talk to the bear, to advertise my humanness, but for some reason I didn't. I was just so surprised that after hearing Rika worry so much about encountering a bear, and after assuring her so many times that no, honey, we'll be fine, that we actually did!

When I got back to the kayak and told Rika, her eyes turned to pie plates. So we hopped back in the boat, paddled back, and called it a day for the kayaking.

But the prematurely terminated kayaking trip notwithstanding, we really had a great time in Whistler. There are so many fun summer activities, it's really a place you can return to again and again. If you haven't been yet, we highly recommend it. We know we'll be back.

Japan 2008

2008-08-02T16:06:00.000-07:00

Rika and I are back from our visit to Japan. We spent a quiet week in Rika's hometown, just visiting with family and friends. Rika's family lives in the countryside, about three hours north of Tokyo, so we spent a lot of time taking walks and enjoying the scenery.

There are a lot of rice growers in Rika's hometown. This is about a five-minute walk from the family house.

Close by is Mount Tsukuba. I actually climbed this mountain with my friends Toshi and Masae when I lived in Japan in 2005. I didn't know then that Rika's family lived only 15 minutes away.

I loved these entrances to the homes out here. Almost all large houses had them, each one slightly different and weathered to different ages.

We made one side trip during our stay in Japan, to Nikko, a resort town famous for its hot springs. It was about a three hour drive from the family house, culminating in an unbelievably switchbacked road. Check out this shot from Live Maps:

Add to that the fact that the fog was so thick you could barely see 10 feet ahead, and it made for hair-raising ascent.

We did finally make it to our destination, which was a beautifully appointed, but almost completely empty, ryokan, or traditional Japenese hotel. Being the off-season, and the middle of the week, we saw literally only three or four other guests. The thick fog was a nice finishing touch that made the place feel like it might belong in some Japanese version of The Shining.

It was like this for the entire time we were there. This is supposedly one of the most beautiful lakes in Japan. Maybe we'll get to see it next time.

Rika gazes forlornly at the fog. I kind of liked it. It felt like we were in some kind of weird Japanese animation. I almost expected a magical talking boar to appear out of the woods.

Back at the ryokan, Rika's dad enjoys the paper in his traditional tatami room.

Rika tries on one of the yukatas provided by the ryokan.

A ryokan is the Japanese version of our bed-and-breakfast, except that dinner is also included. Both meals were gorgeous affairs featuring dozens of different foods served in enough dishes to make even the hardiest busboy grow weak at the knees.

Dinner consisted of something like twelve courses, of which this was one.

The next day we went for a walk through town, but alas, the fog was still in full force. This was the viewing platform for a famous waterfall.

Undeterred, we sojourned on. Fortunately, things were looking a little better at this famous temple, dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu, the man who first united Japan under a single government in 1603.

The woodworking here was exquisite. Here is one of the many bas relief panels that could be found throughout the complex.

Here you can see some of the context for the panels.

This gate leads up 200-some stairs to the final resting place for Mr. Tokugawa. Above the door you can see some more of the ubiquitous woodwork. (Is it awaiting a fresh coat of paint? I was a little unclear on that.)

Back in the day, only the highest ranking leaders had the privilege of ascending these steps.

The tomb of Tokugawa Ieyasu. I have some degree of doubt as to how long his remains actually stayed here, but the signs say he's here.

I'm not sure, but I think this temple might be to the Japanese a lot like the Liberty Bell or Constitution Hall is to Americans. This temple memorializes the person who laid the foundation for the Japan we know today. I really enjoyed having the chance to see this place of history.

On the way back, we stopped by a place called Tobu's World Square. I had never heard of it, but Rika's parents said it was fun, and it was on the way home, so we decided to check it out. I have to admit that at first I was a little surprised by the $25 per person admission, but that didn't last long. Whereas I had expected a rinky-dink tourist trap, what it actually was was an amazing outdoor collection of over 100 models, all executed with fantastically exquisite attention to detail.

It started off merely fun...

Here's the back side of the Narita airport. Check out the tiny cargo vehicles.

Every model was rendered at the same scale, 1/25. This made them small enough to fit a hundred in a relatively small area, but large enough that skyscrapers were still pretty tall. Here (as in the last shot), Rika's got a King Kong thing going on.

The miniature New York was just amazing. There were people everywhere, every one wearing different clothes, taking pictures, driving cars, getting in accidents. And all the vegetation, like the trees you see here, were actually living!

The great pyramid at Giza.

By the way we made our way through the first section - modern Japan and America - and into ancient Egypt, our attitudes and expectations about this theme park were totally transformed. This place was awesome!

The sheer attention to detail was mind-blowing. Look at this line of camels at the top of this ridge.

The place just kept getting more and more amazing. Here Saint Peter's Basillica in Rome, complete with hundreds of tourists!

When you put the camera down low, it really looked like you were actually there.

No matter how many models I saw, I continued to be staggered by the amount of work each one must have required. Look at this thing!

Another shot from below. This park is a great way to do a world trip on a budget.

The Great Wall of China.

Another of the Great Wall. Check out the sheep grazing in the mid-ground.

The final section was on historic Japan. I actually visited many of the temples here when I went to Kyoto in 2005.

Here is one of my favorites, Ginkakuji. This looks so much like the real thing it's just ridiculous. (Well, maybe excepting that Japanese maple to the left of the temple with massive, 5-foot wide leaves.)

We spent over three hours at the park, and still we felt like we weren't giving each model the time it was due. Some models were better than others, to be sure, and age was beginning to show on a few of them, but overall it was a really amazing place.

Back in Rika's hometown, we met up with our friends Toshi and Masae and rode the gondola to the top of Mt. Tsukuba.

Atop Mt. Tsukuba, we did a short hike to this observation deck. From here we could just about make out Rika's house.

Mount Tsukuba figures pretty heavily in this trip. We ended up coming back the next day to do some more hiking, this time with Rika's brother and sister-in-law (in the back in this photo) and her friend Michiko (at left).

It was during this trip that I realized something: I'm an uncle! I don't know why it didn't dawn on me the first time I visited Rika's family, but these two kids here are my nephews, Kazuki and Takuya.

These guys nearly gave their dad a heart attack by sliding down this rock to the edge of a precipice. Here they are, completely unaware of any danger.

On our last night, we went out to karaoke.

Rika's brother belts one out while Takuya shyly offers backup support.

So we had a great time in Japan. And I'm enjoying my new role as uncle. I've started writing the kids, sharing news stories on science (Takuya was interested in the Phoenix mission), and helping Kazuki out with English. Hopefully the famly will be able to come out to visit us in Seattle the summer after next. We're looking forward to it!

Better run for now. I've got to update Takuya on the latest news from Mars.

ウィンドズアップデート

2008-07-26T12:09:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

This post is to show Rika's mom how to install Windows Update to keep her PC up to date. Everyone who already knows how to use Windows Update, or who doesn't speak Japanese, can safely skip this entry. :-)

マイクロソフトは定期的にウィンドズのために色んな更新を出しています。中には、セキュリティのための更新も時々入りますので、それらを定期的にダウンロードして、インストールすると一番安全な状態を保てます。早いインターネットを使っていると、コンピュータが自動的に、背後でしてくれるが、電話線を使っている場合や、あまりインターネットに接続しない場合は、手動でしないといけなくなります。次の手順を追って、更新をインストールすることができます。

まずは、ウィンドズアップデートのアプリケーションを開きます。そうするのに、スタートのボタンをクリックしてください。

この写真では、赤い箱を書きましたが、その中で、「ウィンドズアップデート」あるいはWindows Updateを入力してください。そうすると、上のほうに、ウィンドズアップデートのプログラムが出てくるはずです。上の写真では、一番上の、ハイライトされているアイコンです。見つかったら、クリックしてください。

次のような画面が出てくるはずです。

ここで黄色になっている棒があるでしょう。黄色の場合、インストールしなければいけないアップデーがあるということです。

この写真では、また赤い箱を書きました。インターネットに接続したまま、そのボタンをクリックすると、更新をダウンロードしてインストールする過程を開始できます。一旦始まったら、ほうっておいてもいいです。

インターネットが比較的遅くて、更新のサイズが比較的大きい場合は、これは何時間もかかるかもしれない。また、インターネットの接続は断続したりすると、何回かやり直さなければいけないかもしれませんが、黄色いバーが青になるまで、頑張ってください。

大体一ヶ月の一回くらい更新すれば、安全な状態を保てますので、どうぞこの手順を資料にして、定期的に更新する習慣をつけてください。

Rika dot com

2008-06-08T23:44:00.000-07:00

It's been live for a month or so now, but let this be the official launch of Rika's first professional web site. Check out http://R2design.braksoftware.com to see the site, including a portfolio of some of her work.

Rika's been hard at work in her interior design program at BCC since 2005, and with only two quarters left, she's getting close to entering the real world. We put together this site to help her in her efforts to find an internship.

Incidentally, my experience in observing Rika work through three intense years has been to come to believe that interior designers have totally under-appreciated job. First of all, a lot of people mistake interior design with interior decorating, so they assume that an interior designer concerns herself mainly with picking out drapes and wall colors. Actually, interior design would be better described as the architecture of the interior. An interior designer must concern herself with electrical, communication, lighting, accessibility, and of course, aesthetic, issues.

Seeing the amount of work that goes into interior design has left me wondering exactly what an architect does. If anything, it seems like a much easier job. From where I stand, it seems like the architect's job is to imagine up some overarching ideas for the structure of the building. But of course the real engineering (that is, the work of making the thing actually work) is done by the engineers. And the interior, which is clearly the most important part of the building for the people who will use it, seems to be in its entirety the purview of interior designers.

So here's to the under-appreciated interior designers out there, working to make all of our daily experiences in buildings more pleasant and productive. And here's hoping Rika finds a great internship!

Treasure trove moment: Singers Unlimited

2008-05-17T00:11:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while you make a totally shocking discovery of something that has been sitting in plain sight. Mine today: Singers Unlimited. Wow. These guys are an a cappella group that pretty much paved the way for the amazing voicings that we take for granted in jazz vocal harmony today. They are technically close to perfection, but they're not uptight or stuffy like technically solid musicians can sometimes get. The lead female singer has a voice that is somehow pure like Karen Carpenter and at the same time a little flirtatious like the lead singer from the Cardigans. But the real magic comes from the awesome arrangements by Gene Puerling, which felt familiar to me because they have obviously influenced the generation that has followed this group, notably in my experience Manhatten Transfer (compare their A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square).

I had been wanting to find some close harmony in this style, and man, did I find it. Rhapsody has a 7-disc box set containing nearly 150 songs, plus a couple other albums and compilations to boot. I feel like I just found a box full of gold and jewels that had been lying under my bed all this time. I've got my work cut out for me. I could listen to these guys for ages.

Los Cabos

2008-04-02T22:39:00.000-07:00

Winter quarter was a really long one for Rika. She had some demanding classes. For one of them, she did architectural drawings of an entire retail space, including floor plans, built-in furniture details, lighting plans, and schematics for communications lines. Altogether she did about 350 drawings, all of which had to be checked against applicable building codes and rigorously vetted by her teacher.

Now, Rika's the kind of person who, if she has a choice between finishing her homework or sleeping, will take the former. So by about week six of a ten-week quarter, she really needed to have a reward in view to help her make it through the final push. So we bought two tickets to Los Cabos. Neither of us had been to Mexico, and Los Cabos seemed nice because it's nearby (just a four-hour flight from Seattle) and there are no time changes, which is good if you have a shorter vacation as we did.

So after several weeks of anticipation, we set out for sunny Mexico on March 20.

Leaving the gray Seattle skies.

Later that afternoon, we were sipping margaritas in an open air restaurant. Ah, the miracle of modern air travel!

That little blue wristband we're wearing is the resort ID tag. It gives you access to things like the all-inclusive food and drinks.

It seems that most people think of Cabo San Lucas when they think of the southern tip of Baja California. We actually stayed in San Jose del Cabo, about a 30-minute drive from San Lucas. San Jose is a much quieter town, which is actually what we had in mind, so it worked out great.

If this beach looks deserted, it was. This was not really a swimming beach. It sloped very steeply down to the water and had massive breaker waves that you could hear hundreds of yards away. A sign posted nearby strongly advised against swimming, but I think it was scarcely necessary given the furious-looking waves. This wasn't a big deal for us because we don't really swim much, but it was a little disappointing since we had brought our snorkel gear.

We got talked into a timeshare presentation at the airport, and even though I grumbled about it for a while, we did get a free trip to San Lucas and some free activities, and Rika really enjoyed touring the ridiculously gorgeous place they were trying to sell, so it was a good time after all.

The timeshare had giant domed ceilings and marble floors, infinity pools where the water comes all the way up to the rim, and even putt-putt golf which actually looked like a miniaturized golf course (not just some Astroturf laid out in rectangular grids), so it was quite exquisite.

We didn't take too many pictures, but this place, Playa Grande, was really stellar -- if you plan to come back to San Lucas a lot and have a spare 20 grand sitting around. That didn't really describe us on either count, so after surviving the onslaughts of three progressively pushy salespeople (they sure do take the charm off as they progress, though, don't they?), we excused ourselves and got back to ordinary, normal-person vacationing.

Our comparitively much more homely resort, the Presidente InterContinental, did nonetheless have some nice tennis courts which we used a few times.

The weather down here actually was perfect for sports. It was clear every day, not too hot - perhaps 75 degrees - and not humid at all. We looked like lunatics coming off the plane carrying down jackets, but hey, we knew we'd have to go back home at some point! (Incidentally, it actually snowed in Seattle the day after we got back.)

One of our prizes for enduring the timeshare ordeal was a free snorkeling cruise. We rolled into San Lucas a little early that day and killed some time at this cafe, where the proprieter (er, the guy shouting out to tourists) was advertising two margaritas for $5! Rika went with a non-alcoholic drink, and it seemed that the deal applied only to margaritas, so I ended up getting this double margarita in a giant styrofoam cup. Hey, when in Mexico, right? ...or something like that.

Our tour took us by the famous arch, El Arco.

A little further out, you can also see Lover's Beach, to the right of the arch in this photo, which is one of the only beaches in the world that faces two seas, in this case the Pacific and the Sea of Cortez. I'm not sure if that's really as incredible as they make it out to be, since if the arch and the connected mountain weren't in front of it, it would just be a continous stretch of sand that happened to go around a penninsula, but that's its claim to fame.

The snorkeling tour was pretty fun. It was nice to be out on the water. We saw lots of birds, including a ton of pelicans, and even one whale. The snorkeling itself was so-so. The water was kind of sandy and we didn't see a lot of fish. It was definitely much better in Hawaii. But it was still a great way to spend an afternoon.

By the fourth day or so, we had found our vacation rhythm. Our true goal in this whole thing was to have a really laid back time, so we spent most of the latter half of the vacation sitting by this pool and reading or listening to music. This was definitely the best spot at the resort.

My afternoon agenda: Drink mango daiquiris, listen to music, and read some science fiction. Yes, that is a ridiculous-looking robot on the back cover of that book, which is a collection of Isaac Asimov's short stories from the 1950s. It's the first Asimov I've ever read, and I'm really getting into his style.

As if I didn't look like enough of a nerd with that book, when I went to buy my copy of Scientific American, as I always do when I fly somewhere, the only issue they had was a special edition on robots. So I was sitting around reading a book with a big honkin' robot on the covers (both front and back, so there was no hiding it), and a special edition magazine all about robots. I must have looked like some kind of freak. I'm not really that into robots. Really.

I wouldn't strongly recommend the hotel because it had limited amenities and the food was pretty ho-hum, but it was certainly adequate and allowed us to meet our main objective of just chilling out for a week.

All in all, we had a really great time. I think next time we want to check out the Caribbean side of things. The water looks much calmer over there, much more suitable to snorkeling, which we really enjoy. So we have the slightly guilty feeling of already starting to wish for our next vacation even though we've been back for less than a week. I guess a week in the sun will do that to you when you come back home to gray, gray mornings here in the Northwest.

So Los Cabos was great. Now it's time to buckle down and get back to work!

Human Japanese number three on Amazon?

2008-02-05T19:33:00.000-08:00

For weeks I've been bemoaning the poor visibility of Human Japanese on Amazon. I understand, of course, that they don't want to put a new and unproven (from their perspective) product at the top of the search results, but seriously, I was coming up dead last. After all the Japanese products. Even after the French and German and Arabic language products, and even a programming language book or two. It was only with the Next button clicking finger of a virtual beachcomber that a real Amazon user (or a proud author) would ever find Human Japanese, except when searching for it specifically.

Well, imagine my delight when I performed my ritual search this evening and this came up.

Note that this is a completely general search. There's no funny stuff here. I'm not searching by ISBN or even title. The search is just on "japanese" in the Software category.

My only guess is that I have passed some time threshold (today would be four weeks since first appearance), and Amazon has decided that I pass muster and can exit probation. I haven't yet seen thundering legions of Amazon shoppers ordering up my product, but the night is young. Now it is time to wait and see what happens.

Human Japanese gets physical

2008-01-22T23:50:00.000-08:00

After years of toil, months of planning, and weeks of anticipation as my order progressed through manufacturing, I have finally taken delivery of Human Japanese 2.0 in physical form. My business partner and friend of many years, Shane, did the design, and a beautiful one it is. Here are a few shots:

I have to say, by the way, that I have a new respect for product photographers. I had a devil of a time taking these shots and making them resemble, even remotely, the beauty of the packaging as seen by the naked eye.

The moment I had the product, I made it available on Amazon.com. Check out its product page here. The initial sales have been promising, so I'm excited for its future. My goal is to be in bookstores such as Barnes & Noble by the end of this year.

Honestly, this is a dream come true for me. When I originally wrote the software, I was one guy with not much experience and no access to a designer. I did the best I could, but it was always my dream to revisit the project and make it come alive the way I knew it could. This version is exactly that. It finally marries what I have always known is great content--now revised and expanded--with a deeply attractive design that extends from the physical packaging throughout the software itself. Thanks again go to Shane for believing in the product and spending countless days and weeks with me putting it all together. A big thanks to Rika for spending dozens of hours in front a microphone recording all my vocabulary and example sentences (some of which sounded pretty strange when uttered devoid of context). And thanks to all the other people in my life (you know who you are) who have helped and encouraged me in various ways on this long and winding road.

Here's to a great 2008!

Snowshoeing

2008-01-06T11:19:00.000-08:00

For our last adventure of 2007, we did something I've wanted to do for some time: snowshoeing. I've been talking about going since last winter, but with Rika's school and my cranking on Human Japanese, we just never got around to it. But this year, the timing was perfect: Rika was in a break between quarters, and I was taking a few days off work. So when Lars emailed and asked if we wanted to go, we jumped.

Rika and Mariko get strapped in. We rented these snowshoes in Leavenworth for just $12, and they worked great. They were smaller and lighter than I imagined, and the bindings allow much more freedom that I thought they would. You can easily run in them.

Lars, the main organizer for this trip, and his wife Keiko. We always joke that Lars is Mr. Prepared, but he really outdid himself this time. He brought hot chocolate (still piping hot when we drank it!), cookies, and chips for everyone, and even a mat for people to sit down on. I think he had survival gear and stuff in that pack too.

Do I look like I'm about to hurl a snowball at these guys in this picture?

Rika joked that Mark and Mariko looked like a couple from an Eddie Bauer catalog. Thanks to Mark for the more awesome of the photos in this collection.

The scenery was just amazing. The trail followed a river that was littered with these cylindrical rocks, giving rise to this beautiful "melted marshmallow" effect.

This trail is called Icicle River Trail, just a few miles from Leavenworth, Washington.

Here's the complete gang (Mark is taking the photo).

So snowshoeing was a blast. I really want to go again. It's so quiet and beautiful, and it's easy to do. Next time I think I'd like to find a cabin to hike up to and stay overnight there. It really is a great way to spend a day or a weekend.

Forest is back in the USA

2008-01-06T11:08:00.000-08:00

After spending a year in Korea, Forest is home. He arrived back in Texas in November, and came up to visit in late December.

We took him out to our favorite local hiking spot, Cougar Mountain.

We also swung by the Red Hook brewery, where $1 will get you a tour and probably more beer than you can drink. Unfortunately I stuffed myself on Thai food before the tour, so it was all I could do to down a couple of these short glasses.

We had a nice couple days in Seattle and then we all spent some time visiting the family in Longview. It was a pleasant holiday.

After visiting us, Forest left for a two-week trip to Costa Rica, and it sounds like he's having quite an adventure down there. He should be back to his base in Texas by Friday.

Major photo installment

2007-12-16T16:45:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been ages since I posted about what Rika and I have been up to. I apologize for the long silence, but I will make up for it with a mega-installment of photos. Here we go...

At the end of August, Rika's parents visited us from Japan. It was their first time to the American mainland, and they had a great time. We took them to their very first live baseball game, ever. Rika's dad was so caught up in the excitement of getting a better view, he slipped away on us at one point. Since we hadn't yet arrived at our seats, and he didn't have a ticket, we spent a frantic 20 minutes searching for him. Thankfully he spotted me walking around looking for him from a level up (now how did he get up there?) and found me.

Rika's old host family had us over for drinks and deserts. The Thomas family has known Rika since her first homestay, back in 1998, so they were eager to meet her parents. Ryan proudly introduced us to his pet snake, and Madison showed off a little cubby that the family had renovated into a little play world for her dolls.

We gave Rika's parents a tour around the Microsoft campus.

Rika's parents were really impressed by the natural beauty in Seattle. Of course, we did have the weather on our side. They might not have been so impressed in February. But Summer/Fall sure is pretty here.

In the evenings, Rika's parents watched hour after hour of Japanese TV dramas that a friend had loaned us. During their stay with us, they wiped out three whole series, or about 33 hours!

Here we are at my favorite Thai restaurant, Typhoon. I think we really expanded their food horizons while they were here. During the week, we took them out to Thai, Indian, Greek, Italian, and Mexican restaurants!

Rika and I celebrated our first anniversary while Rika's parents were staying with us. Here we are pretending to eat a saved piece of wedding cake. (What can I say--the cake was a year old, and we had had a five-day power outage about nine months ago--we were too afraid to eat it for real.)

After Rika's parents went back to Japan, we decided to take a short trip for ourselves. We took three days and drove down the Oregon coast. Here Rika stands before the wreck of the Peter Iredale.

Incidentally, what is it about shipwrecks that makes them so fascinating? I think maybe it's the closeness we feel to history. In books, we just have words, and in museums, we see recreations, but with an exposed shipwreck, you can touch the actual metal that ran aground all those years back. The worries of the captain and crew, the heroic efforts of the rescuers, the ire of the financiers--they all come back so vividly with a giant physical artifact to remind you that it really happened.

In Astoria, we stopped at Fort Clatsop. This is a recreation of the place where Lewis, Clark, and their expedition stayed during the winter of 1805-1806.

Rika's favorite part of the Oregon Coast was Cannon Beach.

The southern extent of our trip was Florence. We stayed at this really nice little cabin about 100 yards from a lake. If you're ever traveling down that way, I highly recommend the place. It had a kitchenette, a big selection of movies, and even wireless internet access for a very reasonable price. I think we paid around $80 or $85, a steal compared to the bed and breakfast where stayed the previous night. Their web site is here.

We had this sunset beach almost entirely to ourselves.

From the cabin, we were able to walk down to a lake that connected to the ocean through a short river. We rented a boat and rowed for couple miles. We would have been able to make all the way to the ocean if we had paddled a few more hours, but we decided to cut it short this time. Still, it was a really relaxing time.

Rika was shocked by the Oregon Dunes. It was kind of like a cold Sahara.

A few weeks later, with the Seattle summer fast waning, we decided we needed to get out one more time this year, so we headed up to the San Juan Islands with our friends Lars and Keiko for an overnight trip.

The San Juans are incredibly beautiful. Every time we go up there, we're just amazed. This picture was taken in Roche Harbor, which is on the opposite side of the island from Friday Harbor. There were some really cool bungalow-style houses for sale in a picturesque little neighborhood that got us thinking about whether we couldn't find some line of work that would allow us to live here. Who knows? Maybe someday.

Rika and Keiko pose as Lars takes their photo from another angle.

Lars brought up his inflatable kayak, and we all got a chance to take it out for a bit. Lars has this weird style of sitting where he dangles his legs over the edge of the kayak. He swears it makes you more stable. Meanwhile, I struggled just to paddle at all. I still don't quite have my brain around the weird little half-rotation you have to do every stroke. The paddle always ends up facing the wrong direction for me.

One really cool thing was that Rika and I got to actually paddle while the Orcas were out. We weren't right in the midst of them, but they were close enough we could see and hear them coming up for air. Man, it was exciting. Kind of scary, actually. But fun.

This was Rika's first time camping in more that 15 years. We had a great time. Thanks for having us along, Lars and Keiko!

Recently, we've been hiking a bit at a county park near our house called Cougar Mountain. It's crisscrossed with old mines and quarries, so it makes for a fascinating place to visit.

Check out this old mine entrance. (It's plugged with cement to prevent poisonous gasses from escaping.) This baby goes down 1750 feet, diagonal the whole way, through a coal seam called the Ford Slope. Now take a look at the photo on display at the top:

These guys are standing at the entrance to the mine, about 100 years ago...

...right about where I'm standing in this picture. And back behind me, the steam hoist that was used to raise and lower the carts to and from the mine is marked in the distance. It's really amazing to stand here and think about the entire economy that sprang up and then shut down on this very spot, ultimately leaving only a few traces, over the course of a 100 years or so.

Also a part of Cougar Mountain. This is a trail that leads to an old quarry. All in all, there must be 50 or 60 miles of trails to explore. Near the top of the mountain is an old air defense installation that was used in World War II. So the place is really brimming with history. We're really happy to have found such a gem of a park, so close to home. It's literally 10 minutes from our house.

So that's what we've been up to for the last few months of 2007, besides work and school. We hope everyone had a good 2007, and we wish everyone a happy and healthy 2008!

Human Japanese 2.0.2 released!

2007-10-10T21:19:00.000-07:00

I've finished my first service release of Human Japanese. In this release, I fixed a variety of minor issues like typos and the occasional (well, one) broken button, and I added support for 64-bit flavors of Windows. I'd like to say a big thanks to Dan for his help in diagnosing the 64-bit issues and testing my solution. I wouldn't have been able to do it without ya! (Literally, I don't have any 64-bit hardware.)

Human Japanese is slowly but surely starting to get traction. Depending on your exact search query, it comes up pretty consistently between pages 1 and 3 in both Google and Live Search. Alexa now lists my traffic ranking as the 918,000th most popular site on the web, which ain't too shabby considering I started out near 3 million!

I also recently added the ability to instantly try the first seven chapters of Human Japanese in your web browser. This was an important step, for several reasons: First, it allows people to take a look at Human Japanese with the lowest possible barrier to entry. Nothing to download, no forms to fill out, nothing. Literally, click a link and start learning Japanese, free.

Secondly, it is a lot of real content for search engines to find and index. I'm hoping that this helps my ranking to continue to rise.

And thirdly, I hope that this high quality, free content spurs more links, creating a virtuous cycle of greater and greater visibility for the product. (And, by the way, if you have a blog and are so inclined, I'd be forever grateful if you were to link to the site!)

The strategy appears to be working. Traffic on the site has increased by more than 50% since I added this feature, and we are on track to hit another new record in October. So it's exciting times. Human Japanese represents a huge part of my life. Here's hoping it finally becomes the success I know it can be.

Alaskan cruise

2007-07-08T11:59:00.000-07:00

We are back from a fantastic week-long cruise to Alaska. It was our first cruise, and we both enjoyed it so much that we're already thinking about future trips. As usual on this blog, I'll tell the story through pictures.

Our compact, but completely sufficient, cabin. There was enough space to put all of our clothes in dresser drawers and the closet, and to stow our luggage under the bed. The bathroom was more spacious than we expected, and the water pressure and temperature in the shower was great.

We paid a bit more for a cabin with a balcony. The other choices were ocean view (through a porthole), or no view at all (inside cabin). Having our own private balcony was totally worth it. It was so nice to be able to get away at any time, sit on the deck, and read a book or just watch the scenery go by.

We set sail from Seattle at 4:00 on Saturday, and the party started literally the moment the boat started moving. On the top deck, there was a sailing-away barbeque with a live band.

By the second day, we were well into Alaska, enjoying views like this from the balcony.

Alaska is some beautiful country.

The ship had, among its many amenities, a two-story live theater, where there were singing, dancing, and comedy shows just about every night.

To the left of the door, you can see a hand sanitizer dispenser. These things were ubiquitous on the ship, and at restaurants, they had people planted in front of them giving you friendly reminders to use them. They really want to avoid virus outbreaks.

There were many restaurants on board, ranging from grills with barbeque food, to buffets, to themed restaurants like Italian and Japanese, but in our opinion, the best restaurant was the Versailles, this opulent French-style restaurant. The four-course meals here - available morning, noon, and night - were all included in the price of the cruise, so the value was really superb.

Our first port of call was Ketchikan, where, as you can see, several other cruise ships also stopped. The effect of this was one of my only complaints about the way the cruise system works, which is that the part of town near the dock is pretty much dedicated to selling tours and souvenirs to tourists. There must have been a hundred jewelry shops lining the shore.

In Ketchikan, we escaped the shoreside madness by taking a boat excursion into the Misty Fjords National Monument.

A look at the map makes clear the extent of the effect of glacial activity in this area. All of the arms you see here are gigantic gouges that glaciers carved out before succumbing to the warming effects at the end of their respective ice ages.

Our tour took us into Rudyerd Bay, circled on the map above.

I always understood in a hazy sort of way that glaciers were responsible for shaping the landscape of much of the world, but this trip really drove it home in a much more real way. We watched a really interesting presentation onboard the ship by a geologist who explained that as a glacier picks up rocks that slide down the mountainside onto it, they heat up in the sun and eventually burn their way down to the bottom of the glacier, so in the end, the glacier has this rocked-studded bottom. You can imagine how much damage it would do as quadrillion pounds of force grind down the mountain, scraping up still more of the landscape into its terrible cutting edge.

Here you can clearly see a glacial channel cut into the mountain side.

Our second stop was Juneau, the capital of Alaska and, incidentally, the only U.S. state capital accessible only by sea or plane. We took a tramway up to the top of Mt. Roberts, providing a scenic overlook and some nice hikes.

This far north, it was light well past 11:00 at night.

In Juneau, we also visited Mendenhall Glacier, which is easily accessible via land.

Back on the boat, we began sailing up a narrow fjord that ends in a glacier. As we approached, the water became littered with bits of ice that had broken off.

Here's one of the chunks we glided by. In the end, we came to a dead end where we could see the glacier coming down into our fjord. It turns out we had deliberately gone up a blind alley just for the sake of seeing the berg-laden water. After reaching the end of the line, we turned around and headed back to the main waterway.

In Skagway, the last port of call before heading back toward Seattle, we rented a car and drove up the scenic Klondike highway. This roughly follows one of the gold rush routes, but of course the stampeders didn't have the luxury of this nice road. In fact, it took 80 years, counting from when they started planning it back around 1905, to build this thing. The bridge in the picture was built entirely from one side of the canyon, as they snaked the road up the mountain.

The most beautiful scenery we saw was right at the US-Canada border.

The water flows continuously here, but changes from a dark blue (at right) to a bright blue-green. It was really pretty here.

On the way back, we actually encountered bears on the road!

This guy walked a few feet from my car. Don't worry, I had my windows rolled up (and one foot on the gas).

On the last day there was a huge chocaholic buffet, complete with ice (and chocolate) sculptures. By this time, though, we were so stuffed from the week-long cycle of eating, sleeping, watching shows, and then eating some more, that it was all I could do to eat half a piece of cake.

In case anyone is interested, we traveled with Norwegian Cruise Lines, and though we can't make comparisons to other cruise lines just yet, they certainly seemed to try hard at NCL. We think we'll try another line next time, though, just to see how the competition stacks up.

All in all, we had a great time. Considering that you get transportation, lodging, food, and shows included in the price of admisison, we found it a really great value, too. My only complaint had to do with the ports of call. I think the optimal cruise would stop in cities that are large enough that the cruise ships don't make or break the local economies. Perhaps a European cruise, stopping in larger cities, would be nice sometime. But in any case, the complaint is minor, since there is so much to do on board and via shoreside excursions.

So that was the trip! Now comes the hardest part...returning to normal life.

Rika does retail

2007-06-18T20:50:00.001-07:00

Rika has just finished up her spring quarter, and I thought I'd show off some of her work. This quarter, she was tasked with designing a fictional retail space for the real brand Manolo Blahnik, a maker of high-end ladies' shoes. At first, she had no interest in retail, but as the quarter progressed, she began to enjoy it more. Here are some pics of her labor's fruits:

An early sketch. This two-story space features retail space and an office on the ground floor, with a corporate apartment on the second floor. The apartment can also be used to entertain visiting celebrities. (These shoes are very high-end.)

Corinthian columns and two-story ceilings in the main retail space add to the luxuriant feel.

Guests on the second floor will have access to a stone fireplace, a grand piano, and a soaking tub.

The main entrance way also doubles as a runway for models to show off the shoes. The white squares can have video projected onto them. The motif for this place was "expensive Euro-style fashion-show club."

The second story offers an overlook into the retail area from one side.

Physical 3D model of the space.

Rika gave her final presentation last Thursday, to a great reception. Her teacher said that, while he's not a fan of this style of design (and for the record, neither is Rika), if you're going to do it, this is the way it should be done.

So it looks like Rika is doing well. Several of her teachers so far have said she has a real eye for rendering (bringing floor plans to life via models and color drawings), and she enjoys it quite a bit. So we're hoping she'll be able to do it professionally when she graduates. Go Rika!

Radiohead finally on Rhapsody!

2007-06-10T22:16:00.000-07:00

Well, partly. The Bends, Amnesiac, and Hail to the Thief are available. Someone who holds some critical rights to their best album (in my opinion), OK Computer, is apparently still holding out.

First, let me clarify. When I say that a band is "on Rhapsody," I don't mean in the lame iTunes sense, where you can buy the music. I mean that the band has joined the subscription music revolution and opened their vaults so that subscribers can have their run of it.

In case you're not familiar with subscription music, it's a system by which you pay a flat monthly fee - usually between $10 and $15 - and get to listen to anything you want in the catalog of millions of songs. The all-you-can-eat nature of the system changes the way you consume and even think about music. Instead of hearing a cool song and thinking, "I'll have to check those guys out sometime when I have some money to blow on music," you just log into Rhapsody and listen to their stuff. It's all legal, artists get paid for their work, everybody wins.

But alas, a few artists (or producers, or whatever) are still unconvinced, so here and there you still see stuff that isn't yet available for subscription listening. Radiohead has been one of the last holdouts on my list.

Of course, I could just buy it, but once you've tasted the freedom of not having to worry about media storage and maintenance, it just becomes a matter of principle. I never want to own media again. I want to rent it on-demand and not have to worry about it. I'm convinced this is the direction media of all types will go eventually. (Think: Netflix. Why would you ever buy a DVD again when you can rent it whenever you want?).

So, whoever is refusing to give permission for OK Computer, please, I'm beggin' ya, let me listen!

Busy weekend

2007-06-07T21:18:00.000-07:00

Hey folks! Sorry it's been so long since my last post. After finishing Human Japanese, I've been in relaxation mode. But up until now, the weather hasn't been that nice, so relaxation mostly meant just lazing around the house. But this past weekend, Seattle shone forth its full summer glory, so it was time to get out there and play!

On Saturday I attended the wedding of my cousin Sabrina. Unfortunately, my car got a dead battery for the first time in its eight-year life on the way down, and I missed the ceremony. (Sorry, Sabrina!) But the reception was great, and it was good to see some family I hadn't seen in a while.

The cake had Princess Leia and Han Solo figurines on top. Sabrina is a huge Star Wars fan.

On Sunday, we went sailing in Lake Union with our friends Lars and Keiko. The Center for Wooden Boats will let you rent their sailboats for very reasonable fees if you can prove you know how to sail. Lars did a check-out a few weeks back, so we were good to go.

Lars and Keiko.

Couldn't ask for a better day in Seattle.

Lars mans the helm.

Lars gave us all a lesson in the basics of sailing. Of course, turning the rudder is easy, but there's this sail thing you have to worry about too. After a few minutes, I was an old salt, as you can see in the picture.

Rika tries her hand at steering the boat while Lars mans the main sheet. Her reaction? "Wow, this rudder really works!"

(Incidentally, I'm not just trying to use the lingo, calling the sail a sheet. The main sheet actually refers to the rope. Weird, huh?)

The crew after our journey.

We finished up with a barbeque back at Lars and Keiko's place.

Chilling on the deck after a good, long, summer day.

So, summer is finally upon us. I hope we'll have many more sunny days to share here!

Human Japanese 2.0 is done!

2007-04-08T14:06:00.000-07:00

Wow. It has been a marathon last few months for me, but Human Japanese 2.0 is finally done. We have a brand-spankin' new web site up at http://www.humanjapanese.com, and you can download it now from CNET's Download.com site. Now the challenging part will be driving the downloads. I've started the first volley of advertising for it, but I'm sure it will take some fine-tuning before the software really has the visibility it needs.

And of course, if anyone out there wants to link to the site, or, better yet, write a nice review for Download.com, that would be totally okay too! :-)

It's kind of a funny feeling being done. I've been wanting to get to this point for so long, and for so long it has seemed like a distant mirage, that it's hard to believe I've actually arrived. Now I can finally do all those things I told myself I'd do after I finished Human Japanese.

First up on my list is to spend some time writing music. I've really been wanting to get into this, and I haven't done it seriously since high school. Yesterday I purchased Sonar Home Studio and a keyboard that hooks into my computer via the USB port. I'm looking forward to learning the ins and outs of the software and cranking out some tunes!

But this weekend, I guess I'm mostly just basking in that wonderful feeling of being done.

Almost there!

2007-03-17T21:36:00.000-07:00

My software is getting very, very close. Wrapping up all the loose ends feels like a neverending task, but I think we're looking strong to finish tomorrow.

Among many other things, we nailed down the logo today:

Great work, Shane!

Back to work for me!

Nose to the grindstone...

2007-02-25T18:01:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

I've just had a killer weekend. I took a floating holiday on Friday and put in three solid days on my software, Human Japanese 2.0. I've been working on this ground-up rewrite in earnest for the past year, and it's rapidly approaching completion. I'm shooting for having it on sale via digital download by the end of March.

Here's what she's looking like right now:

It has been a lot of work, but seeing it all come together has been extremely satisfying. I'm in the home stretch now. Another month of evenings and weekends, and this baby will be out the door!

Dad's birthday

2007-02-05T22:29:00.000-08:00

My dad and his wife Myrna were up last weekend for his birthday. I showed him around the Microsoft campus and then we went out to eat at a pretty cool alehouse that had 160 beers on tap!

It was a nice little party. Happy birthday, Dad!

In other news, I sold my house. My neighbor, Guy, has had his eye on the place for some time, and it has become clear to me that maintaining it as a rental is not what I want to be doing right now. The time was right to sell, and it was a painless transaction, so it worked out well for everyone.

Guy wasted no time getting to work on renovating. Here's a picture he took two days after the transaction closed.

This used to be my kitchen!

And, finally, a picture from Rika's recent efforts at school. For this assignment, she had to take a floorplan and illustrate it with furniture to show would it would look like as a finished house.

Her teacher said she could go to work tomorrow if she wanted to. Go Rika!

Otherwise, not too much is new with me. I've been working like crazy on my software Human Japanese. I'm pushing hard for a Spring release, and I think it's doable. Must...keep...working...

Snowflakes and natural laws

2006-12-14T12:08:00.000-08:00

The other day, a friend sent me a link to a web site containing pictures of snowflakes. As everyone knows, snowflakes come in an incredible variety. But what you may not know is that they can be classified based on structural features, which in turn relate to the specific conditions under which they formed.

But as I was thinking about the snow crystals, I realized that they were a good way to understand evolution. We all accept that an incredible diversity of ordered shapes spontaneously arise from a few natural rules, such as the crystalization process of water. Not even the most hardened creationist would suggest that God is sitting in heaven, specifically creating every indivudal crystal of snow. Surely, most everyone can accept that the creation of snow crystals on a day-to-day basis is the inescapable product of a few natural processes. We can argue about whether these processes and rules were set in motion by God or not, but the fact is that once set up, the system runs automatically.

This should aid in understanding evolution. Evolution is also the natural effect of a few basic laws: reproduction, heredity, and an environment that causes non-uniform reproductive success of competing organisms. Once these ingredients are in place, evolution is as natural as the creation of snow crystals. Of course, we could debate whether God set up the laws to begin with, but the process of evolution itself is as inescapable as snow.

Freeman Dyson

2006-12-06T20:50:00.000-08:00

One of the insanely cool benefits of working at Microsoft is their visiting speaker series. Every week interesting people come and talk about all manner of interesting topics. But this week was special. We didn't have just anyone. We had Freeman Dyson, one of the pre-emminent scientists of the 20th century.

Mr. Dyson talked about the future of biotechnology. He focused around a distinction between what he called green technology and grey technology. Green technology is essentially any technology that concerns itself primarily with living things. So, for example, the advent of agriculture, the domestication of maize and other grains, the husbandry of livestock, these were all breakthroughs in green technology. And they caused wealth to be concentrated in villiages, because the number one stock and trade of green tech is land, sunlight, and so on.

However, the last 5,000 year have seen a shift to grey technology, which is a term he uses to describe non-biological tools. For example, machines as we know them today are all grey technology. The 20th century represented the height of grey technology, and the enonomic impact of grey technology is that it causes wealth to be concentrated in cities.

Dyson believes that the era of grey technology is over. In his opinion, the most exciting discoveries of the 21st century will be in the area of green technology. In the past 30 years, our understanding of biological systems has grown exponentially, and we're just starting to hit the "knee of the curve" when it comes to our ability to manipulate genes and proteins.

If history is any guide, this suggests that wealth will move back out from the cities into the countryside, or at least that a homogenization will occur. This gives cause for hope, since rural areas account for most of the poverty and population problems we are facing currently.

Incidentally, I think another driver that will lead to a homogenizing effect between rural and urban areas is the Internet. Traditionally, people have moved to the city to work together in high paying jobs. But when telecommuting becomes commonplace, there will be no need to move to the city. The value of land in the city will therefore drop since demand to live in such crowded conditions is no longer there, and the value of land elsewhere will rise slightly.

At any rate, getting back to Dyson's talk, he believes that the big, exciting discoveries in physics are mostly behind us, and that the 21st century will be known as the century of biology. He envisions the domestication of biotechnology, so that, just as computers have been domesticated to the point that they are now toys for children, biotechnology will soon be used in households. There will be an explosion of new species of plants and animals, as consumers design custom flowers or puppies.

Perhaps even more interesting, the domestication of biotechnology would create a world where horizontal gene transfer is commonplace. Currently, all gene transfer occurs vertically, that is, from parent to child. In the distant past, there is evidence that bacteria and viruses engaged in horizontal gene transfer, sharing genes between themselves, from peer to peer. Biotechnology is essentially a revival of this "open source" approach to genetic knowledge sharing.

Finally, Mr. Dyson talked about whether biotechnology can or should be restricted. He illustrated that we should not attempt to stop or censor it by the following logic: Anyone who was adequately qualified to be in the role of a full-time censor would be extremely well-educated and balanced of mind. But such a person would find such an occupation to be a terrible waste of their potential. So such positions would tend to be filled by ill-qualified political hacks. The types of decisions they would make would be totally incompetent.

The best approach, therefore, is to proceed carefully, with openness and transparency. Biotechnology, including experimation on all manner of viruses and bacteria, has proceeded 30 years up until now with no deaths because of the self-imposed stringent controls that scientists voluntarily accept and the open nature of science. Going forward, openness and public debate will be even more important.

All in all, Mr. Dyson's speech was enlightening and enjoyable. And I think that in large part, his sketch of the future will turn out to be accurate. I, for one, am certainly looking forward to what's to come.

Graduation in Texas

2006-11-06T18:32:00.000-08:00

I've just got home from two days in San Antonio to see my brother's graduation from his medic training. He's now fully qualified as a combat medic who can engage in incredible feats like inserting IVs in the dark! (This was actually part of a final test.)

Here we are before a family dinner for the graduating class.

After dinner, we headed out to downtown San Antonio. Plopped right in the middle of the city, it is hard not to "remember the Alamo."

At one of Forest's favorite haunts. This bar is a cool place on what's called the Riverwalk, a canal that runs through San Antonio with restaurants and bars on either side. This table was actually set inside a gigantic cut-away keg.

Here, Forest practices his pose for the statue that will be erected in his honor. Above, you can see a street going overhead. The entire Riverwalk is about one story below street level, giving it a really cool secret-city feel.

Forest was doing great and getting all geared up to ship out to South Korea! He'll be heading over in less than a week, after a final weekend here in Seattle. Good luck, Forest!

Mini-honeymoon 2

2006-09-13T20:49:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, we finished the final stage of our multi-leg wedding/honeyhoon project in Friday Harbor, in the San Juan Islands. (If it seems like we take a lot of honeymoons, it's because Rika is going to be starting school soon, and once that starts, she'll be head-down in her homework for the next three months. So this was our last hurrah before settling down into a more frugal life for a while.)

The San Juan islands are accessible only by boat. We took the ferry from Anacortes. That morning, it was raining torrentially on the way up to Anacortes, so we thought we'd be in for a miserable weekend, but my sunny girl pulled off yet another amazing victory. By the time we arrived in Friday Harbor, it was perfect weather.

On the opposite side of the island from the ferry terminal is a place called Lime Kiln State Park. The park is known as a gathering place for orcas. In fact, a video being shown at the visitor's center showed the orcas playing literally feet from the shore. They didn't show up for us, but the park was beautiful and had several miles of shoreline trails.

This is one sight we did not expect to see on the island. While tasting wine at a local vineyard, we noticed what appeared to be a camel across the street. The bartender assured us that we were not drunk - the camel was real, and very friendly.

We were supposed to stay in this lodge, but Rika pulled the "it's our honeymoon" technique to get an upgrade to a cabin. (We're wondering how long we can milk this.)

In front of the lodge, there was a lake where you can rent rowboats. We went out on the lake around dusk for a very relaxing cruise.

Our cabin was pretty nice, as cabins go.

However, the next morning, a tragedy occurred that would not have happened if we were staying in the lodge. The cabin had a private deck with a nice lake view in the back. What better way to start the day than to grab a cup of coffee and breathe in the fresh mountain air right at your back step? It was a bit nippy out there, and I didn't want to waste the heat inside, so I prudently closed the door.

A few moments later I realized my mistake. I had to walk barefoot in swimming trunks and a t-shirt up a freezing, razor-sharp gravel road to get the spare key from the front desk. Plus, they put us in the absolute last cabin. I couldn't feel my feet by the time I got back.

Near the south of the island. This place looked like it would be amazing for snorkeling, although it's probably a bit cold. A resident we spoke to said that people do scuba dive here. We're thinking we might like to pursue that someday.

The Cattle Point lighthouse.

As you can see, Friday Harbor is beautiful. We had heard about the San Juans before, but this was our first visit. We're completely sold on them, and can't wait to visit the other islands in the future. If you get the chance, we heartily recommend them.

Mini-honeymoon 1

2006-09-07T23:37:00.000-07:00

Since we knew we wouldn't be able to travel internationally after our wedding due to visa status issues, we took our real honeymoon to Japan and Hawaii before the wedding. But having a wedding and reception, and then not going anywhere would feel a bit anti-climactic, so we decided we'd take a mini-honeymoon.

Since our thing is hiking, we naturally decided to take a two-day trip to Mt. Rainier.

This was what our car looked like the morning after the wedding. Our friends took the liberty of "decorating" it for us.

The balloons inside were a nice touch.

On the way down to Rainier, we stopped in at Northwest Trek, a safari park that we had both wanted to see for some time. The way it works is, you get in a tram and drive through a free-roaming area, where you can see elk, big horn sheep, mountain goats, moose, and bison. You'll notice that these animals are all prey animals. The predators are all in enclosures. (I had been wondering about that.)

We stayed at a bed and breakfast about one mile from the entrance to Mount Rainier National Park. The room was mediocre, but the service and the breakfast were decent. At any rate, we got up early the next morning and headed to the mountain. Here we are near Paradise.

It was a beautiful day.

The Skyline trail took us 5.5 miles past the Nisqually Glacier, through alpine meadows and further up.

Near the peak of the trail.

There was a very well defined line where the alpine meadows stopped. I prefered the mountain at the mid-altitude, where sights like this were common.

We saw several chipmunks, or as Rika took to calling them, "chimp monks." This one was kind enough to pose for a shot.

And what's a trip to Mount Rainier without a visit from a friendly marmot?

When we got back, we were pretty tired, because there is a lot of climbing on this hike. But the sights made it well worth it. So we had a great mini-honeymoon.

Stay tuned - the next post will have pictures from Friday Harbor!

We're married!

2006-09-07T21:56:00.000-07:00

After weeks of fretting over every last detail, the big day went off without a hitch. I mean, really, it went amazingly well. The food was great, the music played, the wine flowed, and people seemed to have a good time.

We wanted to say thank you to all of our guests, but also, to our dear friends who we could not invite, there were some very difficult decisions we had to make as we tried to keep the list under our agreed-upon headcount, so please know that we missed you.

And now for the pictures!

Our wedding was held in this historic building, called the Winters House.

We came across this house at the last minute, when we began to realize that our first venue would not work out. We originally planned to have a very small wedding at our friends Scott and Ginger's house, but the guest list grew a bit (despite our best efforts to keep it small) and it soon became obvious that it would be a tight squeeze trying to fit everyone into the house.

The Winters House came to the rescue! It was exactly what we wanted - a nice older house with an outside terrace - and it was available despite the short notice! I'd like to give a special thanks to Sue at the City of Bellevue for her help in getting us all squared on such a tight timeframe.

Julia helped make this sign.

The blushing bride all ready for pictures.

The bouquet arrives! Thanks to Ginger for her amazing work with the flowers!

The family of the bride and groom. On my side, that's my dad, my step-mom, and my brother Forest, up from Texas! On Rika's side is the host family with whom she stayed when she first came to Seattle: Scott, Ginger, Ryan, and Madison.

The Rak men.

Rika's friends Mitsuhashi-san, Konno-san, and Kita-san came all the way out from Japan!

Mari, Iku, Rika, Chrissy, and Jackie.

Yuko, Kaoru, Rika, and Midori. Midori was kind enough to lend her wedding dress to Rika.

Some of the gang we hang out with in Seattle. Middle-right are Mace and Brandi, who came out to visit from Iowa. Thanks so much to Sam on the right for her awesome work on the cakes!

The wedding had a beach theme.

The actual ceremony took place in this outdoor terace. When we first saw this terace, we knew this was the perfect venue for us.

Mindi zips Rika all up for the ceremony.

The girls take a time-out and a glass of champagne before the big moment.

Ready to get married!

Scott delivered the wedding speech with a great poise. Everyone loved the ceremony. Madison, on the left, was our flower girl, and Ryan, on the right was the ring bearer.

"You may kiss the bride."

The happy couple makes their getaway!

A few of our dear friends.

A huge thank-you to Scott, Ginger, and family for all their help, from the planning phase all the way through rehearsal and the day of the event!

Our MC for the toast, Chuck, entertains us with a little soft-shoe while Shane gets the video all set.

My dad offers sage words in the first toast of the night. Thanks, Dad!

Ginger recounts her advice to Rika some years back when Rika asked her about how you know whether someone is right for you.

My brother rips up the stage with a toast that was both hillarious and heartwarming. Love ya, man.

Rika's friend Robin offers a haiku:
Brilliant, radiant
May your love grow all seasons
As big as your smile

Shane regales the crowd with tales about me and my fruitless attempts to find love online.

Rika prepares to toss the bouquet. The careful reader will notice one Cousin Sabrina in the background, cracking her knuckles. This contest was over before it began.

Sabrina nails the bouquet in an amazing adrenaline-soaked leap!

Not to be left out, the younger girls catch their own smaller bouquets.

We had a chance to showcase our tremendous lack of dancing ability. But we had a good time trying.

For desert, we had a chocolate fountain (yes, an actual fountain of liquid chocolate) and individually-sized wedding cakes with candy seashells on top and brown sugar "sand" around the bottom. (I apologize for not having a better shot than this.) Thank you so much to Sam for her amazing work. You should go pro!

Rod, Shane, Rika, and Brian share a moment while eating desert.

And thus the evening gradually came to a close. (Actually, there's an interesting chapter about the way we found our car "decorated" by our friends, but I'll have that in the next post.)

We also wanted to thank Mindy and Ty who somehow managed to escape the watchful eye of our camerawoman but who contributed majorly to the setup and teardown. Thanks so much!

So the wedding was a smash success, thanks to the help of all our friends. We thank you all, and we're so happy you could share the day with us!

Hawaiian Honeymoon

2006-08-02T18:29:00.000-07:00

This post continues the previous one, regarding our week in Japan, so I'll just jump right in.

After our very busy week in Japan, we were both excited to get to Hawaii and have some time off. We flew Northwest to Honolulu and then hopped a small Hawaiian Airlines flight to the Big Island.

The weather was beautiful, and we cruised at a low altitude for this short flight.

My first glimpse of the Hawaiian island. The Big Island is the newest of the Hawaiian islands, so it looks the roughest, as so much of it is still unabashedly raw lava rock. If you examine a map, you'll notice that the islands are laid out in a line. That's because the plate they are on is moving very slowly in a straight line over a hotspot which is forcing magma up through the surface. The island on the northwest end is the oldest, and the Big Island on the southeast end is the newest, with active volcanos still increasing its size. About 15 miles offshore, in the same line as the rest of the islands, a new volcano is forming underwater. In 10,000 years or so, it will become the newest Hawaiian island.

At the Kona International Airport. This tiny airport is comprised of about five or six huts in a courtyard. If you're wondering how this airport qualifies as "international," it's mainly because so many Japanese visit Hawaii that Japan Air worked out a direct route to the Big Island. So it's basically an international airport for the sake of one country.

The baggage carousel was in a hut next to the street, raising serious concerns in my mind about the possibility of our luggage being stolen. When our bags did indeed fail to show up, I thought my worst fears had been confirmed, but Hawaiian Air had just mis-sent them. Apparently they do this all the time (it's Hawaii, man!), and they delivered them free of charge to our house later that evening. Seems like it would be easier to get the destination right the first time, but that's just me.

On the beach the first morning after we arrived.

The beaches here really looked like they came right out of postcards. The water was beautiful, the palm trees swayed gently, and the sun beat down with what I was later to discover was slightly more intensity than I was prepared for. For natural beauty, Hawaii is hard to beat.

For the first couple nights, we stayed with Rika's cousin Tomoko, who has a house near the airport. Here she is, pictured with her adorable baby, Amanda.

This scenic black-sand beach reminded me of the Oregon coast, with its overcast skies and a few haystack rocks out in the offing.

Getting ready to snorkel. Yes, I'm wearing a shirt, because by the third day I was already completely burned. I guess I'll have to be more liberal with my sun protection next time. At any rate, snorkeling was awesome. Rika, my bikini-clad teacher, was already a pro.

It was suprising to me in two respects: First, it was kind of scary, which I didn't expect. I mean, for one thing, you're breathing underwater in this tube apparatus, and it just seems like water could splash in at any moment, and your own breathing is so loud in your ears, you sound like Darth Vader, so you can hear the nervousness in your breathing, which sort of heightens the nervousness, and so on, so it takes a little while to get used to that. And then on top of that, at this beach, to get to the really good stuff, you had to float over a little sea urchin village. There must have been hundreds of the spiny things, just a couple feet below you, and you know if you need to take a rest you can't set foot down there. So there was a certain anxiety at first.

But the second surprising thing to me was how amazingly fun it was. I just didn't expect it to be so incredible. You know how great the water looks in photos of Hawaii? It's 100 times more interesting right below the surface. You could be standing in waist-deep water, and you just look below the surface, and there are all sorts of tropical fish swimming all around you. And once you get further out, there are vistas and canyons. It's like being able to fly over an underwater miniature grand canyon. Honestly, it's probably the closest to unaided flying that humans can experience.

Besides fish, we also saw sea turtles and a manta ray, and further out a group of dolphins was flipping around (literally, they were doing backflips out of the water, doing the typical dolphin shtick). Some more experienced people who were snorkeling on the same beach went out and actually swam with the dolphins, but we felt like we weren't quite ready to go that far from the shore.

After working up a huge appetite snorkeling for two hours, we walked up the Kona coast and found this great seafood place. Their breaded scallops were spectacular!

Rika poses near the restaurant.

This is Amanda, Rika's cousin's daughter (niece once removed? something like that?). Cute kid.

On about our fourth day, we took an overnight trip to the opposite side of the island, to visit Kilauea, the most prominently active volcano. On the way, we stopped at this beach, where a few turtles were resting.

The sand, composed of ground-down lava, had a very curious property: it was very clean. There were no little bits that would get in your fingerprints or the cracks in your knuckles. When I shook my hand off, it was like I had never been holding anything at all.

At Volcano National Monument, we walked out over about 3 1/2 miles of hardened lava. Some of it was from flows as recent as a few years ago. The goal was to reach the current flows and see some actual lava!

The lava obliterated what was once a costal road.

About half a mile in, the lava field got a bit more wild, so there were six beacons, spaced about half a mile apart. After dark, these beacons showed the general way back. And it was a pretty good thing they were there, because without them, it would have been pitch black.

Walking over harded lava is actually pretty tough, so by the sixth beacon, we were exhausted. We had a decent view of the lava, but those who chose to walk another mile or so could get even closer. Even here, though, we could see the power of the lava. Occasionally big chunks would break off and erupt into dirty steam as they hit the ocean. The steam actually contains millions of tiny glass fibers, so it's important not to get too close!

This caldera was filled for fifty years with a boiling lava lake! It's dry now, but it could come back someday.

We were able to trek through the bottom of one of the larger craters. This landscape looked ready to collapse even further at any moment, and steam rose from countless spots all over it, reminding us of what was happening below the surface. Kilauea will probably erupt here again someday, and we mused that someone would probably be in this bowl when it happened. It was kind of nice when we reached the other side.

Rika sips a lemon drop at a nice French restaurant we went to on the way back from Volcano.

The food here was unbelievably good.

On our last night, we went to a luau. In addition to the great food (the pork was amazing!), there was a two-hour show featuring the dances from various Pacific cultures.

Tomoko's husband Rick happened to be working at a server at the luau that night and hooked us up with free drinks! Go Rick!

One of the dances. The finale was a fire-eater who threw flaming swords, ate fire from them, and spun them around like a madman. It was pretty amazing.

So all in all, our trip to Hawaii was great. We saw some beautiful scenery, learned some new things, and generally a relaxing time. Thanks again to Tomoko and Rick for their hospitality!

Japanese Rika and Hawaiian Brian

2006-08-01T19:24:00.000-07:00

Rika and I have just returned from our mega-trip to Japan and Hawaii. It was only two weeks long, but we saw so many people and did so many things that by the time we got back to Seattle, we both felt we had been gone for years.

The purpose of the trip was twofold. The Japan leg was mainly to meet the friends and family who would not be able to make it out to our Seattle wedding in September. The Hawaii leg served as a sort of pre-honeymoon, because several constraints (school, work, visa considerations) prevent us from being able to travel extendedly after the wedding. So we ended up having a very busy first week, and a fairly relaxing second week.

First stop in Japan: Rika's house. Rika's hometown is about an hour from Tokyo by express train. Here, we enjoy some Japanese hospitality. Rika's mom fed us non-stop.

I was worried about getting on Rika's dad's good side, but after we split a few bottles of beer, it seemed I was in.

The nearest city of any size to Rika's hometown is Tsukuba, which is the location of the Japanese equivalent of NASA. They offer free tours, so we decided to check it out with my friends Toshi and Masae (with whom I stayed for part of my last trip to Japan).

Out the window here, you can see part of Japan's contribution to the International Space Station. Actually, the one here was just a test copy - the real one had already been packed up and sent to America, and will be launching this year. But several other prime-time components, including a giant manipulator arm, were visible, wrapped up and ready to ship out.

These space suits apparently cost 10 million bucks a pop.

This is the kindergarten Rika went to.

One our last night at Rika's parent's house, we went out for some karaoke. Here, Rika's dad belts out a Japanese classic.

Rika's nephews Kazuki and Takuya were naturals.

After five days in the countryside, we headed to Tokyo for a few days to stay with Rika's aunt (pictured above) and meet some more of her family and friends. Rika's cousin Tsuyoshi took us to this awesome Chinese restaurant. It was a singular experience for me - the flavor was completely different than anything I had ever had before.

Tsuyoshi works at an audio shop for extreme audiophiles in Akihabara, the electronics capital of Tokyo. The equipment he sells literally costs tens of thousands of dollars per component. I asked him how it compared to, say, Bose, and he just laughed at me. His equipment, he explained, was simply on an entirely different plane.

Now, I've heard Bose before - in fact, I visited one of their showrooms recently - and it sounds pretty darn good to me. It was hard to imagine anything sounding leaps and bounds better than that, so I decided I'd better have a listen.

I had two reactions. First, it did sound very, very good. I should clarify that. It sounded very realistically live. Especially when he played a live jazz recording. It really felt like we were in a restaurant, listening to a real performance. But honestly, without any side-by-side comparison, it was hard to tell how much better it was than any other high-end system. And even if the stuff he was selling truly was empirically better, the real question to me was, can the human ear really discern between 99.9% accurate sound reproduction and 99.9999% accurate sound reproduction? I'd really like to do a double-blind test on this...maybe next time.

From there, we headed to Yokohama to meet Rika's cousin Miki and her husband Maa-san. On the way, however, I spotted something I had to take a picture of: the world's most expensive fruit. Take a good look at these grapes. Now think for a moment about how much you might spend on these at your local supermarket. Three dollars? Maybe five if you buy the organically grown, pesticide-free, fair-trade ones at PCC?

These bad boys costed 4725 and 6300 yen, or about $40 and $55 respectively! I saw a box of nine flawless, individually wrapped peaches that costed over $100. They had Okinawa-grown mangos on sale for $55 each. What kind of lunatic would pay that much for fruit?

It all comes down to gift-exchange season in Japan. Twice a year, in summer and winter, Japanese are expected to buy little gifts for their close friends and colleages. Typically, they exchange small consumables, such as tea, chocolates, cookies, and fruit. But no one wants to be seen as insulting the boss by giving him a $3 bag of Oreos. So this industry of incredibly overpriced, but fantastically beautifully prepared and packaged food has sprung up, giving those who can afford it the opportunity to impress with expensive nothings.

In Yokohama, Miki and Maa-san took us out to a very nice Thai food restaurant. Miki is a specialist in the symbolism of kimono, and Maa-san is a Buddhist priest. Since I have an obvious scientific bent, it made for some interesting conversation. Their son Ryoga, only seven, is already quite good at English.

In front of Tokyo University. Rika's aunt lives near here.

At lunch with some of Rika's old colleagues from her days at Goldman Sachs and before.

Two of Rika's friends from Goldman, Yoshio and Machiko.

That evening we went out for drinks with some more friends from Goldman. This little bar had a super cool atmosphere and Okinawan cooking. Rika's friends, from the left are Michiko, Mashil, and Akiko.

The next day, we met up with some of Rika's high school friends. From the left, they are Katsumi, Kumiko, Akiko, and Mari. These girls were in rival bands in high school - it was Katsumi, Kumiko, and Rika versus Akiko and Mari. Katsumi actually went on to play professionally, and is currently an actual rock star drummer.

And that was our trip to Japan. It was a lot of fun, but especially toward the end, it got very busy, so we were both looking forward to our week in Hawaii. Since this post has gotten so long, I'm going to save those pictures for tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Architecture by Rika

2006-06-11T22:24:00.000-07:00

Okay, okay, I have to brag about my fiance. Rika is just finishing up an architectural drawing class, and the stuff she did this quarter is simply amazing. Just ten weeks ago, she was just learning how to do these drawings, and now she's virtually a pro.

Her main project for the quarter was this Japanese cottage.

This model is 1/24th scale.

A conceptual drawing of the interior.

This drawing shows where the cottage would fit into the larger landscape. The cottage goes in the upper left corner.

Sure would be nice to live here!

And finally, a project I had little hand in. For another class students were assigned to create a painting of a room in the style of one of the masters, and to incorporate that master and his work into the painting. Rika chose Vincent Van Gogh.

In this painting, Van Gogh sits in a room where two of his most famous works are exhibited on the walls, while a scene from another painting is portrayed outside. My role in this was to create a 3D model of the room to be used for the sketch. Also, the paintings on the wall are actually photographic representations that have been skewed to the correct trapezoidal shape for the perspective.

Rika says she's accepting commisions for reproductions of this one. :-)

Me, I'm just a lowly programmer. But I enjoy having a hand when I can, or just standing back and watching the design unfold.

Rika gets a surprise

2006-05-30T19:58:00.000-07:00

Rika and I went hiking on Memorial Day, and what an adventure it turned out to be. It rained all weekend long, but the forecast for Monday was improved to only cloudy, so we decided to make a go of it. Rika prides herself on being a hare-onna, or sunshine girl, and she was indeed able to exercise her weather powers to part the clouds and give us five good hours of sunshine just as we hit the trail.

The trail we intended to go up turned out to be closed due to snow, but we two intrepid explorers were able to find another trail of comparable length nearby. This trail ascends three miles to Crystal Lake.

Along the way, we had beautiful views of Mt. Rainier and White River.

We encountered snow on the trail in spots about two thirds of the way up.

Rika shooshes through the snow. She has no idea what's waiting for her at the end of the trail.

Near the top, the trail was covered in solid snow, but another family on the trail told us we were close, so we kept on.

This little bird was totally fearless. He's literally five feet from me here. He seemed to enjoy the bits of salmon rice-balls we threw his way.

This alpine lake sits in a shallow bowl near Crystal Peak.

Aside from the little girl and her family who took this photo for us, there was no one else around.

And that's when Rika got her big surprise: a diamond ring. Even though we've been planning it, she wasn't expecting me to have purchased a ring yet, because, in her words, "I never thought you would go to the store alone!" Well, actually, I went with my friends Chuck and Sam.

She's still in shock. Later that evening, I heard her tell her friend on the phone, "I never expected something so romantic from Brian!" Hey!

Rainier nodded approval nearby.

So that's the big news: We're getting married! We are planning on doing it in three stages. We're taking care of the legal bits in June, going to Japan and Hawaii in July, and having a small ceremony in Seattle in September. Exciting stuff!

So Dark The Con Of Man

2006-05-22T22:53:00.000-07:00

Okay, okay. This is my token entry about The Da Vinci Code. Rika and I saw it on Sunday morning, and we walked out happy that we had only spent matinee cash on it.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the book, and the movie was well-acted by Tom Hanks and the adorable Audrey Tautou. But somehow the movie felt styrofoamy. You can't really compress hundreds of pages of novel into a screenplay without leaving out lots and lots of details. But in a story where each link depends on the previous one, skimming over vital information or just plain leaving things out can lead to a sketchy plot development at times.

That hasn't stopped people from turning out in droves to see the film. Its worldwide opening weekend revenues of $234 million surely evoked a "Jesus Christ!" or two from the critics who thought it wouldn't do very well. The champagne corks must be a-flyin' at Sony Pictures.

Personally, I think the film has value by increasing awareness of several key facts regarding Christianity. Specifically, I'd be willing to bet a majority of fundamentalist Christians are unaware that many more than four gospel accounts were written, and that the ones that were selected to be in the Bible were chosen for political reasons. Had different people been in power, we might easily have had the Gospel of Phillip and the Gospel of Thomas. It certainly makes you reconsider what you think is the "gospel truth."

At least that's the discussion that I hope the movie sparks. The recent rise in fundamentalism is troubling to me, but I see it as a short-term surge, the last throes of zeal for a worldview that is losing ground in the Age of Information. Extremism of any variety is untenable when anyone anywhere can easily fact-check its claims.

Or here's hoping anyway.

Boulder River Trail

2006-05-01T23:24:00.000-07:00

What with moving and getting settled this month, we didn't have a lot of time for much recreation. But last Sunday we were able to set aside the entire day for a little mini-vacation. As per usual, the story is best told in pictures.

We started out by heading up to see the tulips in Skagit Valley. Skagit County is a huge producer of tulips, and if you hit it at peak season, you can see the entire valley blanketed in them. Unfortunately, it was the last weekend, and there was only one field left! It was beautiful, though.

What a cutie.

After seeing the tulips, we went on to the main event: a nice seven-mile hike up Boulder River Trail. This trail is a forested path that follows the river mostly from about 30-50 feet above the water.

The trail wound around spectacular waterfalls.

It had been raining recently, so everything had that brilliant glistening green that only the one-two punch of showers plus sunshine can bring.

Look at this place - you gotta love the Northwest. It's like living permanently in the land of Myst.

Rika and I hope to go hiking at least twice a month this summer. It feels so good to get out, and you feel so rested at the end of the weekend when you make the time to get away. So hopefully we'll have lots more picture in the weeks and months ahead!

Spring is here!

2006-03-25T14:28:00.000-08:00

Ah, spring. That time each year when a young person's fancy turns to...getting outdoors! After being cooped up for the past three months - and doubly so because of our current cramped living quarters - Rika and I have been itching to get out and do something active. And with her having just finished her finals this past Thursday, this weekend was it: our first real hike of the season.

This picture is taken from atop Rattlesnake Ridge, about 30 miles outside Seattle. This is why I love the Northwest - you always have a million outdoor recreational activity possibilities within an hour radius of any given point. I'm hoping to take good advantage of that this summer.

Skiing, Microsoft-style

2006-03-06T23:24:00.000-08:00

One cool thing about Microsoft that I had forgotten about is their "morale events" - little day trips meant to strengthen bonds between team members and generally keep everyone's spirits up. Last Friday, we had a very cool morale event - an all-expenses-paid ski trip to Steven's Pass. Let me tell you, my morale was definitely boosted. :-)

I'm a novice snowboarder. I made the switch a couple years ago (when I was a novice skiier), and I'm just starting to round the bend from the point where I concentrate mostly on not falling, to the point where I'm able to concentrate on enjoying myself. I think I made some good progress Friday. I'm really starting to get the hang of it.

Here are a couple pics of the trip:

All suited up and ready to...rent some gear!

The weather was beautiful on this lovely Friday morning.

Heading up "Skyline," the highest blue square run at Steven's Pass. My officemate insisted I go up to "Seventh Heaven," a black diamond, but I just don't think I'm quite there yet. Maybe next time.

So that was my skiing trip. I'm liking this -I'm definitely going to have to do more.

Scratch that....Bellevue-bound

2006-03-01T21:47:00.000-08:00

So the big news is that I have purchased a condo. Now that I'm working full-time at Microsoft, I knew that I was going to be living on the Eastside for the foreseeable future, so I started looking for a place a few weeks ago.

Turns out, houses are way too expensive around here. Not that they'll be getting any cheaper anytime soon. But I didn't want to be spending 75% of my paycheck on my house. So I decided to go the much more affordable route of buying a condo for the time being, and hopefully I'll be able to upgrade a few years down the line.

Well, we were out last Saturday morning and we found a great little place in Bellevue. It's only five minutes from work for me, and 10 minutes from school for Rika. It's a brand new conversion, which means that it is an apartment complex that has been converted to condos. The unit has been totally remodeled, with new carpet, new cabinets, and new appliances. At 1000 square feet, it's not exactly a palace, but it's more than enough living space for now.

Here are some of the photos:

The main living area. Notice the new carpet and crown moulding.

The kitchen really sold this place. These are real granite counter-tops.

Note the nice new cabinets and fridge.

The kitchen has Pergo flooring. The rest of the living area is carpeted. Back behind the kitchen is a pantry area with tile flooring. There's a nice glass door between the pantry and the kitchen (open and thus not visible in this shot).

So...that's the place. I was hoping to find a cool condo at a decent price, and I think we've found it. We close at the end of this month, and then it's just a simple move-in. The hardest part will be finding some furniture to go in there....More news as events warrant!

Redmond-bound

2006-01-28T09:31:00.000-08:00

Hi there, everyone. Sorry for my long absence. I've been back in Seattle since December 26th, mostly concentrating on finishing up a few projects so that on February 13 I can start at Microsoft! That's right! I am Redmond-bound once more, and this time I'm in as a full-timer.

I'll be working on a very cool team in the Real-Time Communication group, the group that makes Office Live Meeting, an online collaboration tool. My team is working on a new, related product, and I'll be writing code to test some of its core components. This will be the first time I've ever worked on a product that will actually ship to the world. In my last position, I wrote tools used by people testing Live Meeting, but I never actually touched the actual product that shipped. So it's going to be exciting to actually see a product go out the door that I helped create. Plus I get a nifty little award when the product ships.

So that's the big news with me right now. Oh, and I'm getting close to finishing up a very sexy website for a yacht engine company here in Seattle. More on that when the site is up.

The Raks roll into town...

2005-12-21T20:50:00.000-08:00

...my dad and brother, to be specific. They arrived in Japan last Thursday and spent one week here, seeing the sights, trying new food, and generally experiencing a brand new culture.

I had been looking forward to their arrival for some time. It was the first time either had been overseas, and certainly their first exposure to something as completely foreign as Japan. It was interesting to observe their reactions to things that I had grown accustomed to seeing. In a way, I was able to relive some of my own first experiences here in Japan.

I've selected a dozen or so pics of the trip....

Dad and Forest in my apartment parking lot the first morning after arriving. My dad was blown away by the small cars and the fact that almost everyone hangs their laundry out to dry, as you can see in this picture.

My dad couldn't get enough of the size of cars here. It's true, they really are smaller.

My brother was totally fearless when it came to new foods. Here he's eating a locust. For the record, even most Japanese people would pass up locusts. They're mainly eaten by older people these days. I didn't let him in on that until after he had eaten it though. :-) His reaction? "Tastes like barbeque Bugles, but crunchier."

My brother loved the fact that you can walk around drinking beer here.

At the entrance to the park area of Narita-san.

We saw this sumo wrestler eating lunch at McDonald's (so that's their secret!) and had to get a photo together. If you look carefully, you can see the sumo wrestler's cell phone tucked into his sash there. Is that a Hello Kitty trinket dangling from the antenna?

On the observation deck of the Mori Art Museum building.

Shibuya, or a little place I like to call the Times Square of Tokyo. This place was packed.

At the famous Kaminari-mon. Through the gate is about a quarter-mile walk to the main temple. It was so crowded it was like swimming through people.

My friend Toshi's mom very graciously took us sightseeing the day before Dad and Forest returned home. Here we're in the city of Sawara, taking a boat ride down a historic canal. The boat had a kotatsu, or a table with a heater underneath. A blanket comes out of the table, so you can sit under it and stay nice and toasty.

Some of the sights on the boat tour.

Dad and me.

This was a recreation of an Edo-era town. It was very cool. They had an entire street that looked like the Japanese equivalent of an old western movie set, as well as replicas of samurai houses and a farmer's villiage.

So all in all, we had a busy and eventful week. It was great having them out, and I think they had a good time as well.

Drunk on language?

2005-12-13T05:53:00.000-08:00

Part of the reason for my trip to Japan was to study Japanese intensely. I have always felt trapped at a sort of pseudo-adult level of speech. I understand Japanese grammar with no difficulty, and on day-to-day matters, I can speak easily, but on matters like politics, science, and current events, I was often confounded by a lack of vocabulary. The only way to attain fully adult language prowess is to read, read, read. If you consider your own language development as a native speaker, you will probably recognize that a key turning point was when you began regularly reading the newspaper.

So one of my primary activities here has been reading. I have been reading the newspaper a bit, but I have found books of essays to be more helpful for a variety of reasons. First, essay collections are often organized by subject matter and allow you to dip your toes in a wide variety of serious subjects, one at a time, for maximum learning effect. Second, essays are bound by the language of logic - premises, reasoning, and conclusions - and this is an area where I am strong in English but weak in Japanese, a situation I have been wanting to correct. And thirdly, a book is much easier to tote around and work out of at your own pace than a pile of newspapers.

But I've discovered an interesting sensation lately. I find that, as I'm reading, at some point I begin to feel a slight tingling sensation in my forehead. It progresses to a feeling of very slight pressure that extends in a band from my left temple all the way across to my right temple. And it is accompanied by a slight lightheadedness.

In other words, it feels almost exactly like being mildly intoxicated.

I've been observing this in myself for several weeks now, and it always happens as a direct result of reading Japanese. Many times in my life I have experienced that feeling of your brain being full, of studying or thinking so hard that nothing more can fit in. But I don't recall the sensation being quite like this. I wonder, am I turning some new neurological page, or is my brain just getting old? (Obviously, I strongly hope for the former.)

At any rate, I figure if this keeps up I can stop buying sake and instead just have a 20-page nightcap before going to bed. That way, I save money, get the same pleasant buzz, and learn all in one shot!

Kyoto

2005-12-10T06:52:00.000-08:00

I've just returned from what must surely be one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Kyoto boasts literally hundreds of temples and gardens, of which I visited a few in the three days I was there. As has become my habit, I'll tell the story through some of the pictures I took. Unfortunately, due to space constraints I'll only be able to share a small fraction of my pictures, but these should give you some idea of the trip.

Boarding the shinkansen, known to English speakers as the Bullet Train.

The inside of the shinkansen. As you can see, it looks much like the interior of a plane, and it really does feel analogous.

I've ridden this train before, but I have to say, it is really cool. It has a top speed of somewhere around 300km/hr, which is significantly slower than a jet in absolute terms, but I think it is competitive with air travel in terms of convenience and total door-to-door time.

With the shinkansen, there's no showing up two hours prior to departure. You can show up at the station like you would for any train, even seconds before your train departs. When you arrive at your destination, you can disembark and be out on the street within minutes. On long journeys, the train will make a few stops at stations on the way, but these "layovers" last on the order of two minutes, and then you're back to zipping along at top speed.

And, although I don't have any hard numbers, the shinkansen is said to be significantly more energy-efficent than air travel. I did some quick math and calculated that about 1450 people can fit onto one 16-car train. So this thing can move a lot of people, fast, for a little energy.

So I have to say, I think high-speed rail transport is a really promising technology for the future. I learned a few weeks ago that Japan is making serious strides in MagLev technology, wherein the train hovers over the tracks. In tests, they have gotten trains up to 545km/hr, at which point wind resistance becomes too substantial to be energy efficient to go any faster. But if a tube were constructed which could be depressurized, such a train could travel at jet speed. So there are some cool things on the horizon.

On a city bus in Kyoto. This sign is advertising the fact that the bus is running on biodiesel, which is made from used cooking oil collected from citizens.

Okay, now for the real goodies....

A common design motif in many of the temples I visited was a series of rooms encircling a garden-courtyard. The rooms all have connecting verandas, so it is possible to walk all the way around the courtyard on the inside of the complex.

At Nanzenji.

At Tenjuan. This is one of my favorite shots. I began to notice during this trip that I have a thing for open doors and paths. I think it is the symbolism and the questions that are inherent in both of them. What lies on the other side? Where does the path go?

On our first night, we went out to find an izakaya - a traditional Japanese bar. Kyoto has these amazing entrances from the street that lead through a small, beautiful alley to the real door 10 meters or so back. Every one was different. It was amazing.

Another really cool thing about Kyoto is they have all these little pedestrial alleys. It's like a secret city, filled with bars and restaurants.

Toshi and Masae at the izakaya.

Another group at the bar. When you sit at this kind of table, your feet actually go below floor level. So this group is not sitting cross-legged. Their butts are on the floor, but they are sitting normally, with their legs below the table. I really like this design.

Back to the temples....

We were the first customers at this small restaurant.

At my favorite temple, Ginkakuji.

This temple is known for its luscious moss.

This is the main building, the actual Ginkakuji. The name means "Silver Temple," which is a reference to a different temple called the "Gold Temple." The latter is actually plated in gold, and the builder of this one intendend to put silver plating on it, but he died before that could happen. I think it looks great the way it is, though.

This is the entrance to a massive temple called Chion'in.

Kiyomizudera.

What photo collection of Kyoto would be complete without the girls in kimono with white faces (maiko)?

Kyoto is an amazing city. Even for a person who has grown accustomed to Japanese design sensibilities, it is stunning, so it is difficult to imagine what it would look like to someone coming from a completely Western experience. The temples, the streets, the food, the nightlife - it was a great time, and I hope to visit it again.

The ride

2005-11-30T02:23:00.000-08:00

Today I set off early for one of the longest bike rides in recent memory. All told, I think it was about 70km (44 miles). I originally intended to go to the ocean, but I decided to change course about 30km into it, because I came upon a sign describing a nice trail to a lakeside park, which sounded better than just staying on the same path all the way to the ocean.

Anyway, here are the photos:

This bridge spans the Tone River and leads into Rika's home prefecture, Ibaraki. I spent a good deal of time riding around in Ibaraki today, but I took a different bridge than this one. (For my readers with a knowledge of the local geography, this is looking backwards (to the west) after I passed the bridge, still on the Chiba side.)

Along the mighty Tone River, this time on the Ibaraki side.

Check out this bus stop I found while riding around through the countryside.

Care to take a seat? C'mon, take a load off!

Most of the way to my destination, I came upon this bird reserve. This is marshland attached to a huge lake, just inland from the Pacific Ocean.

Another shot of the marshland. You can see the clear lakewater in the distance.

Is it just me, or does this feel like a shot out of Myst? Still in the bird reserve.

This is a park called Wada Kouen, on Kasumi ga Ura lake.

Plotting my way back. I bought a map at a local minit mart, and it's a really good thing I did, because otherwise I would have had to backtrack, which would have been painful. See, I traveled east 30km before finding the path to this location, which took me northwest in roughly the shape of an equilateral triangle. To get back to my starting point, I needed to travel southwest, definitely not southeast, which is where I would have gotten by taking the path that got me here.

So, I decided to try my luck at following the country roads back. It was harder than I thought it would be. First of all, virtually none of the streets run north-south or east-west, and a lot of them are really curvy, avoiding obstacles like mountains and irrigation rivers. But I knew that if I basically tried to keep a southwesternly course, eventually I would hit the major river. You can't very well accidentally cross that.

What a journey it was, though. I don't know how this is possible, but the entire way back, no matter which way I was facing, it seemed like the wind was intentionally blowing directly against me. At one point it seemed to let up, but a few minutes later I realized that I had taken a wrong turn. Doh!

In the end, I wasn't able to make it all the way home by bike. About 20km away from my apartment, I broke down and parked my bike at a train station and took the easy way back. Tomorrow I'll go back and ride back the rest of the way.

But it was a good time, seeing the countryside, out riding on a sunny day. Hope you enjoyed the pics!

Google Earth rules

2005-11-29T01:44:00.000-08:00

Okay, check this out. Remember that super-long hike I went on last week? I was tracing the path I took using Google Earth, which allows you to fly over landscapes and view them as you would from a plane (as opposed to looking directly down), and I found this very cool shot:

Here's the photo that I took on the ground at that exact location:

You can even tell exactly where in the arial shot I must be standing, based on the location of the greenhouses on the left and the street intersecting at the right. Is that cool or what?

More photos

2005-11-28T23:55:00.000-08:00

This is a collection of photos I've taken over the last week or so. Most were taken on a walk today, but I had a few others that were worth posting that I hadn't put up yet. So today will basically be a huge photo dump, organized more or less by subject.

Looking down my street toward a daily destination: the local 7-11.

The 7-11. Not too many days go by that I don't stop in here at least once. I know that probably sounds crazy, but convenience stores here are much more useful than the ones in the U.S. This place has really good food - I'm talking fresh salads, sushi, bento boxes, and more - for reasonable prices. I like to get up in the morning and take a walk down here and maybe grab an onigiri (rice ball) or a cup of coffee. I'm serious. 7-11 rocks in Japan.

Here's a map of my town. Notice the train line pictured in the lower left (with the black and white lines). Out from there is a green road that winds up through town, hanging to the left in this map. Notice also that a similar green road intersects with it and runs left-to-right in the map.

These two roads are extremely cool. They are exclusively set aside for pedestrians and bicyclists, and they're very wide and well maintained with trees and flowers. The setup is really nice because it means that you can take a quiet, traffic-free road from almost anywhere in town to anywhere else.

Here's a shot of the green road I described above. This is on the way to the supermarket I use.

I discovered this temple today. There was a sign in the main area that described the significance of the name of the town, which had been puzzling me for a while. Ajiki is written with two Kanji, one meaning "peaceful, assured," or "cheap," and the other meaning, "to eat." My friend and I joked that this place must have been known for cheap food, but it turns out the meaning of the first character in this case is actually "assured."

It seems there was major flooding from 1113 to about 1151, causing major famines and generally making life really hard for the people here. In 1151, they built a temple at this site and started praying to a new god, and wham-o, the next year they have a bountiful harvest. So they decided to name their town "Assured Chow," perhaps more as an incantation than a historical record.

I still like to think of it as "Cheap Eatsville," though. :-)

Every shrine has one of these. Believers use the ladels here to scoop water up and rinse out their mouths before going into the main shrine area.

A rice field slightly outside of town.

This island in the sea of rice is a small burial plot.

Another small shrine just outside of town.

This is Tone River, which separates my prefecture (Chiba) from the neighboring one (Ibaraki). This cycling road runs along the top of the dike and apparently runs all the way to the Pacific Ocean, which is about 65km from here. Tomorrow I might try to get an early start and see if I can make it all the way there.

Last weekend, my friend Toshi and I went to the Future Science Museum in Tokyo. It was really cool. The exhibits were all about emerging technologies and how these are being applied to improve our lives while at the same time being less impactful on the earth.

Unfortunately, I took almost zero pictures. I'll have to write about the exhibits later.

Nothing like a little digital thermal imaging to add some coolness-factor to a photo gallery. This is at the Future Science Museum.

And now for a couple interesting signs. I've seen this sign in several places, and although I know the subject matter isn't that funny, it just seems weird to see it on a sign. It says, "Beware of Perverts."

I saw this sign a couple weeks ago. I realize that the swastika was a religious symbol long before the Nazis co-opted it to represent their cause, but it still looks a bit strange to see it on a sign. "Nazi Party Headquarters this way!"

So that's it for today! Stay tuned, as I'll probably have some more photos tomorrow!

Riding in trains with ploys

2005-11-25T17:31:00.000-08:00

I think I just got the best value ever from a train ticket.

My train station is called Ajiki. I travel by train regularly, but because I live in the countryside, my journeys always start by heading in the direction of Tokyo. Not once have I ever been to the next station down in the opposite direction. I've been kind of curious about what's down that way.

I was out this morning, taking a nice walk in a new direction. I figured I'd walk in the general direction of the next train station and then ride back from there. But while I was walking, I thought of something even better.

The Japanese railway system is a huge network of different lines, and on long journeys, you might have to change trains several times. You purchase a ticket and go through a gate as you enter the station, and you are not required to prove that you paid the proper fare until you leave your destination station. So this means that if you buy a ticket from station A to station B, but you accidentally miss your stop and go to station C, all you have to do is get off, walk to the other side of the tracks (without leaving the station), and take the train back to B, and everything is cool - no hard feelings, and no need to buy another ticket.

This system also means, however, that you could (hypothetically speaking) buy a ticket from station A to B, but then go to stations W, X, Y, and Z, basically touring the local area, without ever having to pay an additional cent, provided that you finally exit at station B. This is what I did.

After a brisk walk of about two hours, I arrived at the station one down from mine and bought a ticket back to Ajiki for 180 yen (about a buck fifty). But I then deliberately took a train in the opposite direction and spent the next few hours exploring that neck of the woods. I got as far as a place called Tsuchiura, and I see now (looking at a map) that if I had gone a bit farther, I could have made it all the way to Mt. Tsukuba, where I went hiking several weeks ago.

I just used Google Maps to get a rough estimate of my total distance traveled today, and I think it was over 100km, which works out to about 1.8 yen per kilometer. Now that's traveling on the cheap! So I had an interesting day, albeit one defined by the boundaries of the train stations I visited. But I got a better view of the lay of the land, and I learned a bunch of new place names. So all in all, it was pretty enjoyable.

Gmail

2005-11-23T19:56:00.000-08:00

I'm going to take a break today from recounting my adventures in Japan, because I have finally discovered what everyone I know has been raving about for months: Google Mail is officially awesome.

If it's hard to imagine going nuts over a webmail client, believe me, I understand. But Gmail solves all of my email-related problems elegantly and flexibly, and this makes me very happy. Specifically, it solves these problems: consolidation, organization, access, and protection.

The problems
I have many email addresses, because for each new business venture I become a part of, I pick up a brian@ or admin@ address or two. I can't just funnel these to one main email address because when I reply to a mail sent to admin@mybusiness.com, I can't have the return address change to brian@totallydifferentaddress.com. So up until now, I have been using Outlook Express on my desktop, with separate accounts for each of my email addresses.

The main problem I had been thinking about recently was the fact that my email archives were bursting. At 500MB, they are no small affair. Keeping these backed up is difficult, because for me, the ultimate form of backup (and the only one I really trust) is backup to a remote location, so that if my laptop is destroyed or stolen, my data is still okay. However, keeping a huge archive backed up and synchronized at a remote location is difficult and potentially expensive.

Another problem that nearly everyone has is keeping their mail organized. Without counting spam, I receive tens of emails a day from friends, family, and clients. Of course, I have a complex hierarchy of folders for keeping all of this stuff organized, but every time I start a new project or add a new client, I need to create a new folder, and my folder hierarchy is becoming unwieldy, with over 100 folders. Also, what about those messages that could legitimately go into multiple folders? For example, if I get a mail from my business partner Shane about project XYZ, does it go into the XYZ folder, or the Shane folder? If I say XYZ, then it means that I have to manually filter all mail from Shane to determine whether it goes into a project-specific folder or into a generic Shane folder. But if I say that all Shane mail goes into the Shane directory, then when I'm trying to find that thread on the XYZ project, I might not remember where I put it. I end up wasting cycles on decisions like this.

And of course, using a desktop email client means that I can't access my mail while away from my primary computer. Up until now, there was no good way around this, so I just had to live with it.

Enter Gmail
In one fell swoop, Gmail has solved all of these problems and brightened my email life.

Once you prove that you are in control of an email address, you can send mail from Gmail using any return address you like. This enables me to set all my other email addresses to forward to my Gmail account, since I can respond using any return address I need to. I have just simplified my life to one email address.

This allows me to move to a web-only email approach, which means that now I can access my email from anywhere in the world.

Moving to a web-only approach means my email is not tied to my physical laptop, so if it is stolen or destroyed, my email is safe. And I get this benefit without any conscious intervention on my part (e.g., I don't need to perform regular backups).

But the biggest thing about Gmail is their next generation organizational capabilities. It automatically knows when a series of emails is a related thread, and it groups the messages as a single conversation. So those 23 emails you exchanged with Grandma about her famous apple pie appear in your inbox as one conversation, rather than two dozen separate messages.

When you're done with a conversation, hit the Archive button, and the conversation disappears from your inbox. You can find it by viewing All Messages, or (much more conveniently) just forget about it and when you need it again, search for "apple pie grandma," and Google's legendary search capabilities will bring up the candidate matches with your search words highlighted.

But if that isn't enough for you (and it wasn't enough for me) and you insist on having some folder-like entities, Gmail has you covered with its labels concept. At first, labels seem almost remedial. You create a label like "Grandma" and attach it to emails as desired. At this point, you're probably wondering how this is better than a folder. Here's how: you can attach multiple labels to the same email message.

So, let's return to my example about my business partner Shane and my project XYZ. I get a message from Shane about the XYZ project. Normally, I'd have to make a value judgement about whether this email is more about XYZ or more just generically Shane. In the label paradigm, that's not necessary. I attach two labels to the message, one for Shane and one for XYZ. The message disappears from view, but by viewing messages by label, I can see it again. This is like being able to put an email message in multiple folders. And of course, search is always there to help you refine things further.

Perhaps the biggest paradigm shift, though, is the concept that it really doesn't matter how you organize your emails, since a very intelligent built-in search function is waiting to instantly assist you in finding them again if you can remember anything about them. This allows you to dismiss email from your inbox with impunity. With a wave of the hand and a "don't call us, we'll call you," you can clear your plate and mind without worrying about how you're going to find this stuff two months from now when the people from XYZ need to know how to bake your grandma's famous apple pie.

The big news this week is that search is the new killer application of the internet, the number two activity after email. In this Information Age, memorization of everything we need to know is not an option. In order to work effectively, we must be able to keep our minds clear of the minutae that doesn't really matter so that we can concentrate on accomplishing real work. Search, along with smart, automated organization, is the key that unlocks this door.

In this writer's opinion, Google has hit a grand slam home run with its email client. Technologies like this will allow us to move more freely into the Information Age. And that, ultimately, is transforming the world.

The walk

2005-11-21T21:39:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been several weeks since my last post. I apologize for my long absence, but I will make up for it today with a huge photo edition. I decided to take the day and go for a long walk into new and unexplored territory. The adventure turned out to be a more-than-six-hour walk through some beautiful countryside, and a bit of city at the end. Let the pictures begin!

The starting point, my apartment.

Still very near my apartment, looking down the road to the river.

Approaching the river, which you can see in the distance. In the mid-ground, notice the garden set at a diagonal to the road. I really like this about Japan. In America, we tend to block things out in huge grids, but in Japan, houses are frequently set at non-perpendicular angles to the street, and streets rarely come together at 90-degree angles. This is probably a function of the land. Being formed by volcanism, the livable portions of Japan are the areas between mountains, which are always narrow and irregular.

In practical terms, this lay of the land is often confusing, but in aesthetic terms, it is very pleasing.

On the river road proper. In the distance, you can just make out a bridge we will be crossing.

Believe it or not, this bridge is open to vehicular traffic. A full-size car takes up almost the entire width, with just enough room on the sides to squeak past any pedestrians that happen to be on the bridge at the time.

From the center of the bridge. Notice the antenna tower in the distance. We will see this on a map soon. The tower belongs to a dam whose main building you can just make out beneath the tower.

Just past the dam, the road splits into a bicycle route and a vehicular road. At this point, we have walked about 3km. Incidentally, a bit past this point is the farthest I have walked in this direction so far. So everything else is new to me!

Here's the map I promised. I've marked an X where I live. You can see the bridge we crossed, as well as the dam and tower we saw from the bridge. However, I can tell you that I have NOT seen the gigantic strawberries, lobster, frog, and trout they have pictured. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough, but I'm starting to think this map might be incorrect.

Our current position is on the road that the girl is cycling down, but off the map a bit. At this point, we have traveled a total of about 6km.

Further down the trail. This is totally new territory for me. At bit past this shot, I found a plaque talking about a set of fossil elephants that were found here during the construction of this road. Apparently, the elephants lived about 30,000 years ago and bear resemblance to modern African elephants. The big question is, how the hell did they get to Japan? There must have been some kind of land bridge?

Lunch! Having walked 12km by this point, I was starting to get a bit dizzy and was quite happy to find a small town with this nice little restaurant. Japan has a reputation for being an expensive country, but it's really not true once you get out of the city. This chicken dish cost 800 yen, or only about $6.50 at today's exchange rate. Plus, tax was included and there is no tipping in Japan, which means that this meal was equivalent to something more like five bucks in America. And it was really good!

Back on the road. We're only a month from winter solstice, so the sun was already well along its descent, casting a lovely yellowish glow on the rice fields. I'm walking along a small country road with rice fields on both sides.

We're out of the rice fields, heading toward the city of Sakura. Incidentally, this city's name sounds like the word for cherry blossom, but it is written differently. I asked my friend whether this was an intenional pun, but he didn't think so. I don't have any hard facts on it yet, but I have my suspicions, especially considering the symbolic value of the sakura in Japanese culture.

Coming through the city of Sakura.

Only half a kilometer from the train station I was heading to, I found a sign pointing to this shrine and decided to check it out.

Sakura Station. By this point, I had walked at least 20km (12 miles) and was nearing my physical limit for distance traveled by foot in one day, so the station was a welcome sight.

On the train, looking out over rice fields close to my apartment.

The final stop on my journey: a hot bath filled up to the neck, back at my apartment.

All in all, I walked over 20km through some very scenic countryside. I love walking, through both countryside and neighborhoods. It puts you in a different frame of mind, and lets you think about life, the universe, and everything. Hope you enjoyed being a part of it!

Narita-san

2005-10-29T20:30:00.000-07:00

This weekend I decided to go back to Narita-san, a temple I visited when I first arrived in Japan, and take some proper photos. The first time I saw it, I was struck by its size. There are many kilometers of paths, and they branch out in such a way that it would not be easily possible to take them all in one visit. So each time you return, you might try a branch that you haven't tried before, and see a new side of the park. I really like this.

Here are some of the highlights of my journey:

A bridge near the main entrance. As you approach the railing, you see...

Turtle Rock. The rock is not only inhabited by ten or twenty turtles, but it also looks like one. I wonder if the turtles realize this.

After ascending a stairway from the turtle area, you come to the main temple area. Inside this temple is a setup typical of this kind of place - a giant Buddha in an ornately decorated room, surrounded by incense and candles. (Unfortunately, you're not allowed to take pictures in such temples, so you'll just have to come to Japan to see it yourself!)

The entrance to the park area (as opposed to the temple area).

In the middle of the park is a beautiful lake on two levels. This is the upper level, which is more enclosed and secluded. The lower level, separated from the first by about a 1-meter waterfall, is more open and bright.

I really liked this tree in the background. One cool thing about Japan is that since their culture is so old, they have trees that have been kept for centuries. I'm not sure if this particular one is that old, but this temple was built in the year 940.

I had to take some koi shots for my dad....

This older couple threw bread crumbs to the koi...

...evoking this frenzied response!

Looking out over the lower level. You can see the waterfall at the back where the upper level begins.

I really like Japanese gardens. I like the asymmetrical design, the rough hew of the land. Whereas European gardens seem intent on bending nature to mathematical models, Japanese gardens seem to try to perfect the design already present in nature itself. Each methodology, of course, involves reworking nature to fit the designer's goal, but I think in Japanese gardening, the goal is to make it appear that human hands have not drastically affected the landscape - sort of a foley approach to landscaping.

In any case, Japanese gardens are, to me, stunning for their beauty and sense of eternity.

In December I'll be going to see Kyoto, which is world-famous for its temples and gardens. I saw a commercial for it (Autumn is the tourist season - imagine a Japanese garden in Vermont) and my eyes just about popped out of my head. Hillsides filled with brilliant red and yellow maples, dear meandering among ancient temples, moss-covered stones sitting with grandiose permanence in rock gardens. I asked my friends if the real thing looked as good as the commercials, and they gave an unhesitating yes. So I'm looking forward to seeing it for myself.

As we move into autumn, I hope to go on many more day trips such as this, so I'll keep the blog updated with pics!

Bet your toilet can't do this...

2005-10-26T18:16:00.000-07:00

Just when you thought you had it all.

The Japanese toilet manufacturer Toto has just announced a new toilet that can play MP3s. This new functionality is an addition to Toto's already ultra-advanced toilets, which feature such functions as auto-flush, remote controlled operation, variable temperature seat, bidet & butt wash (the toilet distinguishes between female-only and unisex needs), blow dryer (for after the wash), and even auto-open, a friendly (if useless) feature where the toilet seat automatically opens when you approach.

Seriously, I'm not making this stuff up. Here's Toto's web site for any who disbelieve.

The funny thing is, Americans see this stuff as over the top, but Japanese see American toilets as primitive. Personally, I think I'll stick with your standard, baseline toilet technology and keep the extra $1800 in my pocket. Even if it does mean sitting on a cold toilet seat that I had to open manually.

Mt. Tsukuba

2005-10-23T23:32:00.000-07:00

Today I went hiking with my friends Toshi and Masae, and their dog Toto, on Mount Tsukuba, which is about an hour and a half from where I live. Mt. Tsukuba doesn't seem very big from a distance, but from the top you can see that it is clearly the highest mountain in the area. From the top, I could see all the way to the Pacific Ocean in one direction, and to Mount Fuji in another. Mt. Fuji is almost exactly 100 miles away from Mt. Tsukuba, so the sight radius was at least that.

(If I go ahead and calculate the total visible area from my vantage point, I should be able conclusively seal my nerdhood here...let's see...I believe that I could see at least 31,400 square miles' worth of Japan from the top of Mt. Tsukuba.)

As always, though, the story is best told in pictures....

Toshi, Masae, and Toto starting the ascent.

About halfway up, stopping for a rest. Incidentally, all three of us are enjoying a drink called Pokari Sweat. I've known about this drink since I was in high school, and yet the name still sounds weird to me. It's just hard to imagine that anyone would want to associate sweat with a beverage.

Is Masae offering Toto some delicious Pokari Sweat?

About midway up, we came upon this small shrine. Even though I'm not religious, I really like this aspect of Japan. The shrine showcases traditional Japanese design, which I find thoroughly enchanting.

From close to the top.

Another shrine at the very top of the mountain.

From here, it was possible to see tens of thousands of square miles of Japan.

With Toshi atop the mountain.

Sunset from Mount Tsukuba.

Mount Fuji in the distance, about 100 miles away.

This is the ropeway that we did not take down. Unfortunately, Toto (the dog) was too big to fit into their mandatory dog carriers, so we had to hike back down. That wasn't such a big deal, except that sunset happened (as you can see in the pictures above) while we were on the top of the mountain, so we had to hike back down in the dark. But of course, the descent is always much faster than the ascent, and we made it safely back to the car within an hour.

It was a great day, but it was also nice to get back home. I just took a hot bath, and am now relaxing with some sake. Life is good. :-)

Dinosaurs!

2005-10-22T22:08:00.000-07:00

Okay, forgive the cheesy title to this blog entry, but as you will see, the highlight of my trip to the National Science Museum in Ueno, a district near downtown Tokyo, was the fossil gallery. The museum had a total of six floors of exhibits, including some that I found very interesting from a vocabulary standpoint (I learned how to say "platypus" - kamonohashi - today), but the simple fact was that I had never seen actual dinosaur bones before, so that section was the most interesting to me.

Here we go:

My friend Toshi. (He's the one in front.)

The mighty T-Rex. I think the primary reason he was so pissed off was his tiny little arms. Look a' those things!

A family of dinosaur fossils frollics playfully amid the speakers and lights of their natural habitat.

I don't know what this dinosaur was, but apparently it could really chow down on all manner of extremely narrow animals.

Okay, I have to switch to being serious here. I was pumped to be able to see actual trilobite fossils. This place has a ton. One of the interesting things about trilobites is that they are found all over the world, and they come in all different varieties. It's easy to see evolution at work here.

I found these fossils especially interesting because they preserve the fact that trilobites had flexible bodies, and some had soft heads.

Seriously, this place has an unbeatable selection of trilobites. If you're ever in the market, this museum is your one-stop shop.

So I had a great time. I'm definitely glad I didn't rush it last week but came back and gave it the time it deserved. Plus, it was fun to see this stuff with someone.

Next time it's on to the art museum!

Sake on the go

2005-10-20T20:40:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across something pretty funny today. I found it in my neighborhood 7-Eleven, and I couldn't stop giggling. Check this out:

This is package of sake. But take a good look at the container. It's one of those little lunchbox-size cardbord boxes, like a TreeTop juice box, complete with a plastic straw. Like you're just going to pop one of these guys out on a break and take a few tugs.

I mean, don't get me wrong - I like my drinks just as much as the next guy - but this just struck me as hillarious. I can see the marketing right now:

For the alchy on the go, Oni Sake now comes in new fun-size packs!
Because the world doesn't take a break just because you need a
drink.

or maybe,

Stock up on new grab-and-go size Oni Sake.
Because lunch only comes around once a day!

Now, before I get a rash of nasty messages from my Japanese friends, let me just explain the other side of this issue. Japan is pretty liberal about where you can drink. They have no problem about drinking alcohol in parks, for example, so this package would actually be pretty convenient for picnics and whatnot. In fact, the other day I was at the train station and noticed that they were selling beer there. I never thought about chilling on the train with a beer before. But I guess that's cool. You're just sitting around anyway. Might as well have a nice adult beverage in your hand, right?

Earthquake!

2005-10-19T21:43:00.000-07:00

I'm officially in Japan. I just had my first earthquake.

I was listening to music with my headphones on, chilling out after a hard day. I was actually lying on the floor at the time, so when the trembling started, I could feel it all over my body. But it was very slight at first, and it felt more like someone pounding on the ceiling of the first floor. I thought I heard someone shout, too, so I took my headphones off to see what all the commotion was about.

About that time it started picking up, rattling my closets and the outside paneling on the apartment, producing that sort of ultra-3D rumble that only earthquakes can make. Omigosh! It's an earthquake! I started to get under my desk, but suddenly I thought of all those people in Pakistan trapped under their apartments and decided to bolt for the door. I ran down the stairs, slammed the door open, and triumphantly leapt out into my parking lot...only to find that no one else was out there. It was just me and my socks.

I guess everyone else was following the rules. You have a much better chance of being hurt from something stupid like a falling antenna than from a building collapsing on you, especially here in Japan, where they know how to build earthquake-resistant buildings.

Turns out the earthquake was a magnitude 6.2, but it was 40km down, out in the ocean, so it was more like a low 4 here. Here's a chart:

I'm at the south side of the line where the green triangles become blue-green ones, just inside the green. What really blows my mind is that this graph was up, with information about intensity, depth, epicenter, etc, within 11 minutes of the quake. These guys don't fool around!

My friend Toshi promptly IM'd me after the quake and, of course, made fun of me for running out of my apartment like a lunatic. "You have to learn to enjoy them," he told me. I guess when you live in a country that has had earthquakes almost daily for as far back as recorded time, you get used to it. But the whole "get under a desk" thing...it just feels so passive. Oh well. I think I'll do better next time.

Reporting live in fault-laced Japan, Brian Rak, signing off.

Food propaganda?

2005-10-17T23:32:00.000-07:00

I've been watching TV recently. And I've noticed a very conspicuous fact. A huge portion of broadcast time is spent on food. Just about every time you flip on the TV, you see someone eating, within a matter of minutes.

I'm not just talking about casual shots of restaurants which happen to include a few random folks eating out. I'm talking about entire shows devoted to eating Japanese food. They all follow a clear pattern. Some local dish from a famous restaurant or ancient village is served, and the members of the tasting squad each take a bite, followed by a ridiculously predictable sequence:

1. Eyes widen.
2. Non-words gush: "Mmmmm?" "Ah!" "Haaaaaaaaa!"
3. Profuse praise: "Oh my god!" "This is incredible!" "I have never had anything like this before."
4. A description of why it is incredible: "This is so fresh." "It really just melts in your mouth." "It has a salty start, with a bit of a seaweed turn near the end."

I used to laugh about these shows and make fun of them with Rika. But now I see the true magnitude of the situation as never before. And I have to say, I'm blown away. Not a single day goes by in which food does not occupy center stage for at least a couple hours per channel.

I've been thinking about this, and the first thing I must say is that the Japanese are really amazing food photographers. I've never seen food on the TV look so incredibly scrumptious. They have the art of the close-up on the bowl of rice down to a science.

But part of me wonders, might we call this "food propaganda"? It is true that Japanese good is very good. However, if you were to ask 100 native Japanese which country's food is the absolute best, I would wager that the vast majority would unhesitatingly answer Japan. I don't think the answer would be so clear cut in, say, America or Europe.

I hold that a systematic culinary re-education campaign is being conducted here in the land of the rice and salmon. Think about it: millions of nodding heads led every day in the mantra, "Japanese food is the best....Japanese food is the best," over and over. The masterminds? Who else but the Council of Rice Growers and Seaweed Farmers. Not content to rely on natural demand for their products, they must engineer it. Dastardly, if ever I saw a dastardly thing!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a sushi show I need to watch.

My own little piece of Japan

2005-10-16T22:55:00.000-07:00

After staying with my friends Toshi and Masae for a little over two weeks, I've finally got my own place. At a cramped 250 square feet, it makes my house back in Seattle look like a palace. Still, as Japanese apartments go, it's really pretty nice. Everything is extremely clean and new. There's lots of innovative storage (not such a big selling point for me, since I don't have anything except luggage, but interesting anyway).

Here are a few pics:

Looking into the bedroom/main living area from the kitchen. I just bought the chair this weekend because the ones that came with the place were totally lame. Check out the tubular pole that forms the back of the chair to the left. Can you imagine working all day on that bad boy? So I plunked down a little cash and got me a nice chair. My friend Toshi loaned me the desk.

Inside the room, in the TV corner.

In the closet-side corner.

Standing behind the lame wire chair that we saw in the first shot (not pictured here). The bed is raised, creating a pretty large storage space underneath it. Also, the little stairs to the bed flip open for more storage. I think these particular storage areas would be ideal for people who have a lot of triangular-shaped objects that normally just don't fit anywhere naturally.

The kitchen. Not part of the kitchen. This is the entire thing. (I think they added the shiny aluminum backsplash behind the stove to make it look bigger.) Incidentally, most people actually get by with kitchens this small, at least until they get older and have enough money for a house. But lots of families live in apartments with kitchens only slightly larger than this for their entire lives. I tried cooking here tonight and found it frustrating not to have any counter space to put food in various stages of completeness. This'll teach me to complain about my kitchen space in my Seattle house!

Anyway, so this is my place! Brian Rak, reporting live from his small but comfortable apartment, Japan.

Mori Art Museum

2005-10-13T22:10:00.000-07:00

Today I forayed into Tokyo for my second time since arriving. The target this time? Mori Art Museum, atop the fabulous Roppongi Hills building in the heart of downtown Tokyo. Rika lined up free tickets for me through an old co-worker at Goldman Sachs, which makes its Tokyo headquarters in the same building.

I arrived at 12:00 under a giant bronze spider, which was the agreed-upon meeting place. Mr. Nakamura showed up a few minutes later and I was off to the museum. My first stop inside the museum was the observation deck, which offered a 360-degree view of Tokyo. Here are a couple of the pictures I took:

Tokyo Tower.

The more astute readers will notice that you can actually see the curvature of the earth in this photo. That's because I'm on the 832nd floor of the world's highest building. At just over 2 miles in height, Roppongi Hills sways up to 30 feet in any direction.

Okay, sorry, none of that is true. I think the horizon appears bent because of the weird angle and the hilly lay of the land in the distance.

After seeing Tokyo from above, I progressed to a small exhibit on the progress of walking robots since the 1980s. The coolest part was that they actually had a working Asimo there. Asimo is Honda's most advanced walking robot to date. It can easily walk around unaided, avoid obstacles, recognize faces, and pick things up. Here are some pics:

The little guy showing off a bit. I watched him for quite a bit, thinking about the engineering challenges that the Asimo team had to overcome. He's really quite a feat. As he moves his limbs around, he smoothly shifts his weight to maintain balance. So in this picture, where he has his arms out to his left, he has subtly shifted his body posture to the right.

If you're wondering about size, Asimo is about the proportions of a 10-year-old kid. Er, a 10-year-old kid in a space suit.

Asimo giving us a "Banzai!"

Me and my buddy. Doesn't it look like he's trying to get out from his little glass prison? "Help me! Hey, you with the camera! I'm trapped in here!"

The art museum was really cool, but unfortunately I wasn't able to take pictures of anything, so I'll just have to tell you about it. It was an exhibition of the life work of a photographer named Hiroshi Sugimoto. His work was quite compelling. One of the interesting earlier series he did was black and white photos of stuffed animals (the kind you see in natural history museums) against flat painted dioramas. The weird thing was, since as soon as you take a photo, the entire scene becomes flattened to 2D anyway, you can't really tell that the background was only a painting, and the whole thing takes on a sort of super-real, but simultaneously surreal, aspect.

In another series, he took cameras to movie theaters all over the world, set the aperature very low, and opened the shutter for the entirety of a 2-hour movie. The screen, of course, is gleaming white. But the rest of the theater glows softly, lit up with something reminiscent of the blue glow that lights up living rooms during late-night TV-viewing sessions.

But I would have to say that almost as much as the art exhibited, the exhibition areas themselves were works of art. Each new room felt breathtaking as you walked into a new area whose space and lighting had been expertly arranged to produce a certain mood. I'd definitely like to go back again soon.

After the art museum, I visited a place called the Mori Urban Future Research Center. This place had giant scale models of New York City, Tokyo, and Shanghai. Each city's downtown area was represented by a model about the size of an average living room. It was really amazing. All I could think about was how long it must have taken to build these things! Again, I wasn't able to take pictures, but I got one of me on the outside.

I had planned to go to the National Science Museum as well, but by the time I got there, it was already near to closing time, and I didn't want to rush through it, so I decided to save it for another day. But I did take a few pics from the area:

A nearby temple.

Turned around, looking back out toward the street.

A Tokyo cat. This guy was just hanging out in Ueno Park, amid science and art museums. I guess he has a thirst for knowledge. You gotta admire that in a cat.

So that's about it for today. I was exhausted by the end of the day, but it was a great time. I can't wait to get back and visit the many museums I wasn't able to see on this occasion!

Change the world

2005-10-07T11:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to the Cea-Tec International Technology Expo at the Makuhari Messe Center in Chiba. It consisted of eight huge arenas filled with vendors such as Sony, Toshiba, and 3M showing off their latest and greatest wares. For years I had seen such expos on the news and in my Nintendo Power magazines (yes, I was once even more geeky than I am now), but this was my first chance to see one in person, so I was pretty excited.

I think the story is best told in photos, so let's get right to it.

On approach to the expo center. It may not look it in this picture, but the place is enormous.

Looking out over one of the eight expo halls. In each of the halls, there were typically small booths around the outskirts and large interactive displays in the middle. The folks at Sony, Toshiba, NEC, Hitachi, et al, spared no expense in producing immersive displays, complete with live-action shows every 20 minutes or so.

It was interesting to observe the marketing techniques to get people to stay for the entire show. After all, technology is cool, but watching the smiling actors from NEC gush over how great their product line is can be a little...well, like a living-color commercial. So, how to get the people to stay?

Of course, there were plenty of girls wearing matching outfits emblazoned with their respective sponsors' names. But that alone won't get you to watch the show. The girls would work through the crowd near the beginning of each show and pass out coupons for a free gift that was redeemable at the end of the show. I fell for that once, figuring it might be some cool little piece of technology. No such luck. I'm now the proud owner of a plastic cell phone holder for my car.

One of the key products at this year's expo was flat panel, high definition televisions. And let me tell you, they were out in full force. No lie, there must have been 1000 TVs in one hall alone. I spent some time examining the LCD and plasma pictures, and they truly are some stunning machines. A few companies (notably Sony) were still holding on with rear-projection technologies, but they just don't compare to the bright and beautiful images you get from LCD these days.

As a side note, I saw some cool prototypes of the promising Organic LED technology from Pioneer. OLED is promising because it has a very low power consumption and is easy to make, but it can't be produced in large panels or with many colors yet. (One prototype display could produce 4000 colors - enough for only a crude representation of video.)

I'd have to say one of the strangest devices on display was this talking rabbit from Hitachi. It was technically amazing, but the silliness factor was almost off the charts. The rabbit is sort of high-tech home concierge. It manages your AV system and communicates with its human users by voice. It looks at you when you speak and recognizes which user is talking to it. So, you can ask it if there was anything interesting on TV, and it will tell you if it saw anything it thought you would like.

I have to say, the voice/face recognition and voice production qualities were really good. And it tries to be easy to interact with by blinking and wiggling its ears contentedly when you praise it. But the gimmicky quality of it being shaped like a rabbit was almost too much to bear. Unless Japanese consumers are very different from American ones, I'm afraid this product - at least in this package - is doomed to failure.

Back over at the Pioneer R&D section, there were some cool 3D technologies, such as a TV monitor that showed images floating in front of you. Perhaps the most striking one was this little secretary sitting behind a physical plastic desk. She is a moving hologram, Princess Leia-like, that moves around, presumably shuffling papers and making phone calls. There is no medium there - you can actually pass your hand right through her.

I should say, however, that all of the 3D technology was sort of pseudo-3D. She did appear to be floating in space, but it was more like a 2D cutout floating in space. She was not fully 3D, in that you could not look around and see her from different views. Still, it was pretty cool nonetheless.

A random shot to give you a feel of what it was like to walk around here.

One of the most interesting ways that the expo affected me, however, was in a way opposite to what you might expect. The place was loaded with really awesome technology - from consumer goods to components to be used in new gadgets. However, I realized that I don't want to be on the consumer side. I want to be on the side that's creating these things, throwing new technology out there that changes the way people live and work.

I guess this all relates to my more overarching goal, to personally have a hand in reshaping the world. Technology is a good way of doing that, but for me, technology is a means to communication, which is the primary means of changing things. Technology speeds communication and access to information, which in turn makes the world a smaller place, which in turn defeats provincialism and ignorance. I'd like to see the day when people truly consider themselves citizens of the world.

Personally, I believe that my contributions will be chiefly in terms of education. I plan to re-publish my Japanese textbook/software in widely expanded form within the next year or so. I am beginnig work on a science textbook aimed to explain the more compelling and accessible pieces of evidence for evolution in nugget-sized portions. And I have other software projects lined up that I believe will contribute in some way to this general theme of education and information access.

So all in all, the expo was interesting and served to re-invigorate me toward my goals. Now to get down to work!

Alive and well in Japan

2005-10-03T19:25:00.000-07:00

Well, I've made it. I had to fight with an upgrade-happy airline check-in terminal which upgraded me to business class for a non-refundable fee of $550.00 - which I successfully fought to have refunded - but aside from that, the flight was basically unremarkable except to say that I was incredibly tired when I arrived at 2:20 pm local time, Friday, September 30.

The good thing about travel to Japan is that you arrive really tired, but you usually get to your final destination about evening time, so you can just hit the hay a little early and be mostly recovered from the jet lag by the next morning. Coming back to Seattle is just the opposite. You arrive at 8:00 am incredibly tired, but if you dare go to sleep before evening time, you'll be turned around for good. So as far as jet lag goes, I'm basically recovered and working on local biological time.

I spent Saturday taking care of a few logistics issues like getting power and internet connectivity for my laptop. This was much easier than I expected. Power here is 100v @ 50Hz, whereas in the U.S. it is 120v @ 60Hz. However, if you look at your transformer for most consumer goods such as cameras, laptops, etc, you'll see that they typically accept an input range of 100-200v @ 50-60Hz, which means you can use them just about anywhere, although you might need an adapter to physically connect them to the wall. In my case, there were no three-prong outlets here, so I needed an adapter / power strip for that. But otherwise, it was a snap.

Right now I'm staying with my friend Toshi and his wife Masae. They have been incredibly generous hosts, to the point where I almost feel guilty accepting such royalty-like treatment. Many thanks go to both of them.

On Sunday we went apartment hunting for me. Toshi and Masae insisted that I could stay at their place as long as I liked (and there are certain culinary advantages to that, to be sure!), but of course privacy is hard to come by in small Japanese apartments, and since I'll be at home most of the time working (as opposed to traveling for days or weeks at a time), I felt like I should get my own place sooner rather than later so as not to outstay my welcome.

We found a company that rents furnished apartments on a weekly basis, which was perfect for me, since I really don't have anything but a suitcase full of clothes, and I didn't want to have to buy appliances, dishes, etc. The apartments also come with broadband internet, which was of course a key requirement no matter where I stayed. It's a flat rate for the rent plus all utilities, so at $850 a month, it really isn't too bad. The place I settled on is a bit out of town, so it's open and scenic, but at only five minutes from the train station, it will be easy to get into town to see Toshi or to travel about.

I don't have much in the way of photos yet, but here are a couple to give you an idea of what I'm seeing as I look around.

View from the parking lot of Toshi and Masae's apartment building.

Near my new apartment. I don't have pictures of the new apartment itself because I can't move in until the 14th, and I didn't want to just post pictures of the outside. But, as I was walking around nearby today I snapped this picture of a neighboring lot. You don't see a lot of lawns in Japan. Where there is open space, it is usually being used for some kind of useful agricultural purpose. Note the cool traditional house in the background. People really live in houses like this!

About a five-minute walk from my apartment. A nice paved trail goes through open fields like this. This is one reason I chose to live away from the big city. I like this view much better than a noisy street.

So that's it for my first installment from Japan! I hope to post updates at least once a week, so stay tuned!

Mid-Summer Update

2005-08-01T23:10:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been quite a busy summer for me so far. Here's a quick rundown of what's happened:

Yard
Over the last two months, I rented all manner of equipment including pickup trucks, a 9-hp rototiller, and a dump truck and have successfully transformed most of my yard from the wilderness it was to something more closely resembling a human residence. Sometimes when I drive by, I still can't believe that this is my house. Keep in mind that this is a yard in which my neighbor cut a crop circle last year as a friendly reminder to mow. Only my cat seems a bit saddened by the yard improvements; I think he felt more in touch with his larger cousins when stalking birds through head-high grass.

Recreation
I'm pleased to report that I've been hiking several times in the past two months. The reason that I'm pleased to report this is that although I frequently list hiking as one of the things I enjoy most in life, I believe that in the last three years or so, the grand total of time I actually spent hiking was less than the time I spent describing it as an interest.

Here are a couple recent pics:

Atop Mt. Townsend in the Olympic Penninsula. This was a short hike, but brutally steep in the beginning. It was a 2000 foot ascent, with the greater portion of that coming in the first mile, which made that first leg almost a constant 20% grade. The view at the top was amazing, though, even for a misty day like this. On a clear day you can see Canada and the Puget Sound!

With Rika at the Ice Caves near Granite Falls, Washington. These are not actually caves but simply a huge mound of compacted snow and ice that hollows out due to a stream flowing from behind and an attendant rush of warm air. Since there is no actual structural support besides the ice itself, when the weather heats up, the caves fall apart from within. While we were there, we saw several huge pieces come crashing down. In fact, it seemed hard to believe that they would last much more than a few days longer. However, apparently the lightly trickling waterfall behind them is just what they need to stay repleneshed. I'm guessing that even during the summer they get built up again each night. They have been here a while: The first trail to the caves was created in the 1920's.

Oh, and uh, don't go inside.

Work
It's been crazy busy, but I have really passed a lot of milestones on my biggest project. We released a beta version of our web-enabled PC application today, and we're already getting positive feedback. I'm now working on the handheld application, which will run on PocketPC devices. It's exciting because I've never written anything for handheld devices before.

After this project is done, I have two more web sites on the horizon, and after that, I want to start my re-write of Human Japanese. The software is now six years old and rapidly approaching retirement age. It's a wonder it still works on modern computers. So far, it has sold over 60,000 copies worldwide (of which I receive, of course, only the tiniest royalty). My graphic designer and I have hatched a plan to create a product capable of generating revenue after the initial sale from retail outlets, by selling add-on modules through the web. So I'm eager to get started on this project. I'll probably work on this in earnest while I'm traveling.

Travels
The elusive travel plans are still on the table. All along, they had been dependant on me finishing my current project, which I mentioned above. So there hasn't been any real change - the project is just taking longer than anticipated. However, with the beta out and the handheld the only real component left, I am seriously on the final leg. I am intent on getting to Japan, which will be my first stop, this September or October.

So that's the update! More news as events warrant.

Life software upgrade

2005-06-06T21:42:00.000-07:00

My friend Shane has this thing where every year on his birthday, he says he's upgrading to a new version of himself. So if he's turning 29, he's moving to Shane version 2.9. I like this concept, so I've adopted it for myself.

I'm pleased to report that Brian 2.7 is almost ready for release. Like most software projects, we're a bit behind schedule, but we have a stable version in beta testing, and it's looking pretty solid. We plan to ship a release candidate to selected customers in mid-July, with a final build by early September.

New features in Brian 2.7 include:

New yard management algorithms
Improved cooking performance, including several new recipe modules
All new extended travel capabilities
Improved optical recognition due to recently upgraded lens prescription
Many bug fixes

Thanks to broad support for open standards such as LifeML, Brian 2.7 should work seamlessly with more systems than ever before, for increased reliability and robust living.

If you're currently using Brian 2.5 or earlier, this is a recommended upgrade, as it addresses several potentially serious logic errors present in earlier versions.

While we work hard to get Brian 2.7 out the door, we are also busy on our next major upgrade, Brian 3.0 (codenamed Treinta), which we expect to ship in mid-2008. Brak Software thus remains committed to working over the long term to bring you quality software for all your Brian needs.

Rockery basically complete

2005-05-23T21:19:00.000-07:00

At long last, I have completed my back yard rockery. There are still a few loose ends to tie up, and certainly a lot of landscaping to be done around the rockery, but the rocks have been set in place; the thing is basically done.

As promised, I have a series photos prepared to show you all the painstaking effort that went in to this. Keep in mind that it was not only seven tons of rock to move, but a similar amount of dirt to excavate before I could place the rocks. So I'm pretty happy with the pace at which I completed this project. Something like 14 tons moved by manual labor in 10 weeks ain't too shabby!

Here are those photos...

Laying out the path of the rockery using a sophisticated rope-on-ground mechanism.

Staked out the path because I didn't want the rope to be in the way of the pick axe while I excavated. The two strings you see are remnants of my plan to plot the path using a Cartesian coordinate system, which failed as a result of the fact that the ground is not a plane, but a 3D surface.

I think getting the turf up was the hardest part.

After a few days removing turf, the sight of pure dirt seemed like enough of a milestone to take this shot.

Done with excavation! Ready to rock!

Hard to believe, but those rocks right there weigh 14,000 pounds.

Notice the new stairway on the left.

The yard is looking a little less ugly all the time.

I'm really glad we only required three steps!

The finished rockery.

So the yard is coming along. The next step will be to get rid of the huge pile of dirt on the upper level, as well as all the clods of turf I excavated (currently lying in an attractive pile in my side yard). I think I'll rent a front-end loader for that, because I'll need to rent a truck too that day, so I won't have the leisure of moving it an hour at a time. So stay tuned for pictures of me driving a Cat around my yard! Yeah!

2005-04-04T22:30:00.000-07:00

I've been having a tough time typing recently. I find with rising frequency that I rattle off several words before noticing that they're not words at all - they contain strange punctuation marks and totally incorrect letters. A quick examination of my keyboard reveals the cause:

You know those little nubbins that identify the home keys? Yeah, mine are completely gone. Actually, the one on the J is still ever so slightly there, in bas-bas-bas relief. But the one of the F key leaves only a halo where it once stood in helpful majesty. This is one of those times when you realize that you never really appreciated something until it was gone.

The nubbins - if I may lovingly call them that - are more than mere markers. They are guides, familiar landmarks on a desolate sea of flatness. As our fingers slide into place, ready to transfer thought into digitized form, the nubbins anchor us, give us solid foundation from which our fingers may soar into ethereal heights of lexicon. Ah, nubbin! How my keyboarding life has changed without you!

At the same time, I marvel that the plastic from which the nubbin was made has melted away so rapidly. I've only been typing extensively on this keyboard for about a year. I wonder how long it will be before I actually wear holes through the most oft-used keys.

And who says plastic isn't biodegradable? The answer for what to do with all our plastic bags should be clear now. We'll craft them into millions of computer keyboards. Then we'll sit millions of monkeys down in front of them and have them start hammering away. A couple million years, and all our plastic woes will be a thing of the past. The bags will be totally degraded, and we'll get the complete works of Shakespeare out of the deal to boot!

I wanna be like Leo...and other ramblings

2005-03-28T23:57:00.000-08:00

Whew! What a month it has been. I've been working really hard on my current software project, as well as putting a lot of time in on my yard. Both are progressing nicely.

The end of this month represents a milestone because I will have completed a major part of the application I'm working on, and we will enter crunch mode in which we will be pulling out all the stops to launch the application by the end of April.

And then: Japan. It's going to be so nice to just kick back for a month, sip tea, read the paper, do some hiking. I will have earned this vacation. But for now, it's crunch time!

I've been writing so much lately. Seriously, I must write for 12 hours a day. I write code and documentation for work. I write on a couple discussion boards. Lately, I've been writing a science series for one of the discussion boards, and that has kept me busy as I respond to questions which require more research and writing. But I've always wanted to be a writer, so maybe my dream is coming true.

I was thinking tonight, with the advent of the blog, are people becoming better writers? Are more people honing their craft by writing daily and getting the kind of live feedback that a blog provides? Yesteryear, only a few writers had their work published because of the high cost and risk of printing, which led to the established writers getting yet better, and the new writers facing a great barrier to entry.

But now, anyone can start writing and pick up a following. Even if that following is only friends and family, writing to an audience sharpens one's craft. Will we, on average, become better communicators? Or are we merely seeing the phenomenon of those that are already skilled writers rising to the surface?

I often wonder what place the blog will fill in our history. Already, blogs hold a tremendous wealth of serious information, as people write about their specialties in the fields of science, technology, current events, personal histories, and so on. What will future anthropologists make of this utter flood of human communication? How will they even sift through it?

I was talking to a friend the other day about Leonardo Da Vinci. I don't think it's possible to consider this man's accomplishments and not feel a little jealous. He was brilliant at everything, goddammit! How can we aspire to be even remotely like him?

My friend mused, "I wonder what Leonardo would be doing if he were alive today." But it then struck me that we do have modern-day Leonardo Da Vinci's. Every so often humanity produces a shining torch who changes the way we understand the universe. Today, Da Vinci's analogues are creating tools like Google, pushing the bounds of medical science, making intelligent discussion of news and art available to the masses, working in new media to produce films and interactive content that thrill and educate us. We are surrounded by people who shine every bit as brightly as Da Vinci!

And it occurred to me that there is no reason whatsoever that I should not myself hold my torch next to the great Leonardo's. Let us stand on the shoulders of those who have come before us and hold the lamp yet higher. I realized that it is not a pipe dream, nor an arrogant self-indulgance, but rather a hope-inspired imperative that I should try to be like Leonardo, in whatever way I can.

It is such optimism that drives me of late. I can change the world. We are changing the world. Da Vinci's torch burns on.

2D grids 'n' compound curves

2005-03-06T22:55:00.000-08:00

Turns out they don't go together all that well. As I described yesterday, I set off taking measurements and setting up reference lines in my yard. I then moved to my computer, where I crafted the perfect path for my wall using a drawing tool, and then wrote down the coordinates for some of the key points on the curve. Then I scaled the coordinates to actual feet and inches. So far, so good.

However, short of projecting a laser grid down from directly overhead, there really is no easy way of plotting points from a 2D plane onto a compound curve in real life. Seriously, it's really hard. By about the third point, I realized that all I was going to get were very rough approximations, and if that were the case, I may as well just use a rope to lay out a line that looks right and call it good.

So that's the story with my mathematical landscaping aspirations. I ended up climbing on my roof and looking down as my friend Rika adjusted the rope on the ground. Apparently, people are able to landscape without computers. Who knew?

After the fun part was over, I set about actually digging. Interestingly, my layout assistant mysteriously had to leave about this time to take care of some "homework." No matter though. I got a good couple hours in, and it's looking fine. I'm taking pictures, so I'll be able to post a series soon to show the thing from start to finish.

Well, I should get going. I have this really cool laser grid projector idea I want to work on.

Computers 'n' yard work

2005-03-05T22:02:00.000-08:00

Mmm mmm. Nothin' goes together quite like 'em.

Seriously. After a good stretch writing code for a while, working in a strange world where nothing is real, there is something satisfying about moving around some actual, physical, really heavy, dirt. Also makes me remember why I enjoy my day job.

But for my challenge tomorrow, I shall be employing my computer to actually assist in the yard work. Yes, that's right, Lappy will have hand in reshaping my yard.

Here's the situation. My backyard is on two levels, one about three feet higher than the other. The two levels meet in a slope that runs the length of the yard and that, unfortunately, fails to form right angles to anything in particular. It's just a random curved line meandering toward the street.

If you squint at it hard enough, though, you can almost see a nice sine wave trying to get out. I've already started a retaining wall at the far end, which I needed when I put a shed down there. My plan has been to continue the wall out to the street, roughly following the curve of the slope, but helping it to be a little more mathematical.

I should stop right here and say that I actually am not a big fan of straight angles and symmetry in landscaping. I'm much more attracted to Japanese techniques, and long-term, that's definitely what I'd like to do. However, I have no idea whatsoever how to accomplish that, and my main goal at the moment is just to get the house into shape so I can rent it out and go to Europe. So we'll be going with the boring design for now.

What the design will be is this: Imagine a sine wave. Trim it to half a cycle, from crest to trough. Now stretch it out, make it nice and soft, and attach straight lines leading into the crest and out from the trough. The two straight lines will be perpendicular to the street, but staggered from one another. (Man, I hope at least someone out there can visualize this.)

I went out to lay out some rope today, to mark out where the wall will be, so I could start digging. It was harder than I thought. See, the slope between the two levels not only curves as it winds toward the street, but the degree of the slope changes too. No matter how I laid out the rope, nothing seemed quite right. It was hard to imagine the slope cut away like it will be.

So here's my plan. I'm going to plot out the curve using Bezier drawing tools in a drawing program. I'll get it to the proportions I like and then put it on coarse grid. I'll mark about 12 key points that crudely (but adequately) describe the curved section. Then I'll go out to my yard and create a similar coordinate system with stakes and string, just enough to establish the system and make it easy to use as references. Maybe two lines, y = 0 and y = 8, something like that. Then I'll be able to transfer my points from the computer to points in my yard and set stakes that describe the curve there! Voila! Perfect b-spline curve.

I'm pretty excited about this, actually. Can't wait to try it out. I'll be sure to report on the results tomorrow!

Got to admit it's gettin' better....

2005-02-24T18:46:00.000-08:00

I continually marvel at the new things humans keep coming up with. If you keep an eye on the science and tech section of your favorite news source, you can't help but notice that every week there are several startlingly cool developments.

Just this past week, Intel announced that it had figured out a way to create a continuous laser on silicon. This will make lasers cheaper and more powerful. Possible applications are many, but they include better fiberoptic routers, faster interconnects between components, and use in tools. One early application being explored is use in dental tools.

On a different front, today I read an article about a new form of solar energy called a Solar Tower, or Solar Chimney. Here's how it works. A large, hollow tower is surrounded by an arry of solar receptors which heat up air. The air from all of these receptors is funneled into the tower, where it blasts upward on its way out. On the way, it turns turbines, generating electricity.

This is proven technology, but it has never been attempted at the scale at which an Australian team is trying to do it. They want to build a tower almost twice as tall as the CN Tower, making it by far the world's tallest structure. The array of solar receptors would be spread over 25 thousand acres, heating air that would turn 32 turbines in the tower. The energy output is estimated at 200 megawatts, enough to power 200,000 homes.

The cool thing about the technology is that, after it is built, it produces basically free energy, so long as no one is charging for sunlight. Also, although it can work 24/7 thanks to cells that save heat and release it overnight, it produces the most energy at the hottest time of the day, which is when people use the most energy for air conditioning. Desert areas are ideal locations, since they are hot, and there is a lot of open space.

I love science and technology. It's all about progress. Taking what you have been given and making it better. I like that.

Six tons, and what do you get?

2005-02-10T23:20:00.000-08:00

I bought six tons of rock today for my dry riverbed. Actually, it’s for a drainage ditch that runs along one side of my property. The city owns it and gets to call the shots (like saying I can’t put in concrete pipe and cover it over), but I have to take care of it. The thing used to be overrun with blackberries and junipers, but I have denuded and planed it to a pretty nice looking shallow V-shape, about 45 feet long. And once my rocks arrive and are lovingly set in place, I will have transformed an ugly ditch into beautiful and functional creekbed.

I started thinking about this purchase, and the more I thought about it, the weirder it seemed. First, I thought, Wow, I guess I’m not a kid anymore. “Hey Brian, what’d you get with your allowance?” “Oh, I bought twelve thousand pounds of earth. Had it delivered, too!” That’s just not something I imagined saying ten years ago.

But then it started to seem strange that anyone should be able to just order up tons of rock. I mean, that’s some kind of power. You got the money, you got the space, you can have dump trucks bringing you loads of stuff tomorrow. My yard’s big enough, I could probably have 100 tons of rocks delivered. I could landscape my yard into a huge faux quarry. I could actually do that if I wanted to. That’s crazy!

Anyway. I’m pretty pumped about getting my delivery tomorrow. I got the black plastic down, I’m ready to rock! Hee hee. More news as events warrant.

Re-analysis, take two

2005-02-10T23:10:00.000-08:00

Okay, in my continuing review of The Language Instinct, we’re now going to take a look at the phenomenon of re-analysis, which I promised last time but failed to deliver because I spent so much time talking about “laziness” in language.

When we hear language, we are parsing an uninterrupted stream of sounds. The stream does not contain breaks between words, let alone between intra-word units of meaning (morphemes). We must determine where those breaks go by parsing the stream into chunks based on our knowledge and experience of the phonology, morphology, and grammar of our language. Inevitably, however, there are going to be times when the same stream of sound can legitimately be parsed multiple ways. Such is the occasion for re-analysis.

Re-analysis occurs when a listener parses a sentence in a different way than the one intended by the speaker. Little kids do this all the time, to the great amusement of adults. When a child says she wants to go with you to visit your ammy, you may be puzzled for a second before you realize she re-analyzed “Miami” as “my ammy.” This is quite legitimate. After all, if you didn’t recognize Miami as a place-name, the only legitimate parsing of that sound stream would indeed be “my ammy.”

This phenomenon happens among adults, too, and actually changes language. For example, when oranges were first introduced to the English, the name was taken from the Spanish word naranja: the name was norange. Seriously. Oranges used to be called noranges.

Unfortunately for our fledgling pronunciation, a single norange, “a norange” sounds indistinguishable from “an orange” when spoken naturally. It’s kind of like the phrase “a nice cold Coke” – or did he say, “an ice cold Coke”?

Now, even if someone analyzes “a norange” into “an orange,” it should still be possible to correct the parsing by making a comparative analysis of other uses of the noun, such as in, “I’d like three noranges, please.” Don’t ask my why this didn’t happen. Maybe the name was still novel enough not to be found often in everyday conversation. All I know is that apparently, in the case of our friend the norange, the newly re-analyzed name stuck.

And that’s how the norange lost its n: Re-analysis. It could happen to you.

"Lazy speakers" and reanalysis

2005-01-31T20:16:00.000-08:00

This is the latest installment in my continuing series in which I review some of the more interesting points from Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct. In this edition, will be looking at two forms of change in language, "laziness" and reanalysis.

We've all heard people complain about other peoples' language habits. Whether it's dropping the g in -ing gerunds ("Where are you goin'?") or collapsing a more specific contraction into ain't ("He isn't going" -> "He ain't going"), the popular notion is that the reason for such changes is laziness on the part of the speakers.

Humans, it seems, are adept at criticizing other groups of humans based on any perceivable differences. British English speakers and American English speakers have famously criticized each other's departures from "correct" English.

As an example of "laziness" that has become enshrined in Standard American English, consider the prevalence of the schwa. The schwa is the name of the vowel sound that is represented in American dictionaries as an upside-down e. It makes an "uh" sound, and shows up in place of almost any unstressed vowel in SAE. For example, in the word police, the first syllable is pronounced as a schwa. The important thing to note is that in the word police, the first syllable is conspicuously not an o sound. (In fact, it sounds funny to hear the word pronounced with both vowels given full value, as in the dialectical pronunciation pólice.) As it turns out, any vowel in SAE can be pronounced as a schwa.

Some more schwa examples, one illustrating how each vowel can morph:

capitulate
telephone
California
some
unnerve

English used to be quite careful about its vowels. In fact, it used to contain long and short vowels, vowels distinguished from each other literally by being pronounced for a longer or shorter duration of time. So the change into our current system could definitely be called a change for the lazy, if one were inclined to call it that, and if one didn't have all the facts.

Let's look at another far-reaching, apparently lazifying, effect in SAE. When a t occurs in the middle of a word, we reduce it to a non-stopping flap, in which the tongue lightly brushes the roof of the mouth, but does not stop the flow of air like a t usually does. Thus latter and ladder are indistinguishable in SAE.

So what gives? Why are we so lazy? Is human language progressing downhill, destined to become a mindless cacophany of grunts and screeches?

To start, we should consider what makes people want to abbreviate in the first place. It turns out that the equipment required to make language is pretty hard to move around. The tongue, the most crucial player, is not an insignificant muscle. It takes time to move it around in the mouth, and in order to speak fluidly, we must anticipate where it will need to be next and begin moving into position there before we have finished the current sound.

For example, notice in the pronunciation of the word width that we do not pronounce the d in its normal position behind the teeth, but right at the tip of the teeth, blended into the th. Try saying it with a normal d and you'll see how awkward it feels. Or try saying the name Cape Cod. You should notice that the body of your tongue touches a different place on your palette for each of the c's, to facillitate the vowels that are coming next.

By doing this, you are able to produce an economy of motion that allows you to deliver smooth, fluid speech. The schwa and the flapping t changes were shortcuts that sounded good and caught on.

But we needn't worry that English will continue to be streamlined until it is an unintelligible stream of vowels. The reason for this is that every reduction of work on the side of the speaker requires a corresponding increase of work on the side of the hearer, who must reconstruct the sound stream into recognizable language units. It's kind of like a check-and-balance system. You can't shortcut too much, because your goal is to get your point across. So the need for intelligibility counteracts the need for efficiency.

This counter-force is so strong that it can affect new features in a language. For example, English used to be a strongly case-driven language, meaning that verbs had endings on them that indicated who was doing them. We still have an artifact of that in the -s agreement on present tense verbs. For example, we say that "She goes", but "They go." The verb contains information about what kind of subject executed the action.

The case system in Middle English was complex enough that word order was freely swappable. That is, "The tiger killed the lion" could mean the same thing as "The lion killed the tiger," so long as the players were marked in the correct case. (Many modern languages, such as Japanese, continue to have highly movable word order because of similar markers.)

Why the change? Well, the case information was stored in the last syllable of the verb. So in the word make, the case information was in the final e, which was pronounced, and which could take different forms. But people began dropping final syllables, pronouncing make as we do now. It probably felt like a natural shortcut, because the final syllable was unstressed anyway, something like "make-uh."

Unfortunately, dropping the final syllable resulted in a huge loss of verbal information sent to the listener. Now it was not possible to tell based on the verb alone who the actor was. It was at this point that English grammar took on the unusual aspect that it has today of requiring fixed word order. Since pronunciation no longer encoded the necessary information, another means had to be found. In modern English, the noun phrase that occurs before an active verb is taken as the subject, and the noun phrase that occurs afterward is taken as the object. Therefore, in the sentence, "The lion killed the tiger," the dead cat is the tiger.

So what we see is that there are two competing forces at play. The first is a desire to move the speech muscles in the most efficient manner possible, and the second is the requirement to have clear, intelligible communication. The human mind does not settle for unclear communication mechanisms and so invents new forms as they are required. As I've shown in previous posts, this usually occurs across generation lines, with children supplying or hardening new grammatical devices.

So we really don't need to worry about laziness in pronunciation. Language has evolved for thousands of years - it will continue to do so. Pinker notes that "most linguists believe that after 10,000 years, no traces of a language remain in its descendants." And through all of this change, contemporary speakers will always have a full toolset available to be able to communicate clearly.

Well, this post has become long enough. I'll have to tell you about reanalysis later. Stay tuned!

The end is nigh

2005-01-25T17:55:00.000-08:00

I've just completed the 364th day of my 365-day contract at Microsoft. It's a strange sensation, finally arriving at the last day. On the one hand, I'm incredibly excited about the year ahead, almost crazy with anticipation at times. But on the other hand, it means giving up working in a fun and engaging environment, with intelligent and interesting people, not to mention having a paycheck you can count on.

But I suppose adventure comes at a price. You only live once, and there are some things I really want to devote time to while the window of opportunity is open. Extended travel is one of them, and putting time into a few private software projects is another. With regard to the latter, I've wanted to rewrite my software Human Japanese for the past four years now. The stars have finally aligned correctly for me to do this stuff, and I've got to jump while I can.

But here's a tip of the hat to all the folks who know me at Microsoft. It's been a pleasure working with you, and I sincerely hope we'll meet up again someday.

Language pipeline

2005-01-24T18:41:00.000-08:00

It's time for the next installment of Brian's review of The Language Instinct. My first review was a week or so back, titled Whence Springeth Grammar.

This time around, we'll be considering several interesting questions. And, as is becoming a pattern for me, there will be a description of an experiment on children at the end. (Those kids sure do tell us a lot about language!)

As a disclaimer, I should note that the brilliant examples that follow are from Pinker, not me.

We all remember prefixes and suffixes from grammar school. These tags such as fore-, -able, and -ness allow us to do things like change verbs to nouns, nouns to adjectives, adjectives to nouns, and so on. Collectively, we can refer to all such things as affixes.

Affixes attach to stems, which are uninflected nouns, adjectives, and verbs. For example, we can attach -ian to a noun to mean, "pertaining to that noun." Thus Darwin can render Darwinian, "relating to Darwin." However, affixes work somewhat arbitrarily. You can stack affixes together in certain orders, but not in others. For example, we can stack -ian and -ism together in Darwinianism, "the characteristic or quality of relating to Darwin," but if we put them together in the reverse order, we get Darwinismian, which definitely feels wrong.

Also, affixes produce words whose meaning is not entirely predictable. For example, the -ity suffix changes an adjective into a noun that means the state of being that adjective. Thus complexity is the state of being complex. But electricity is not the state of being electric. You would not marvel that the best thing about your new can opener is its electricity.

Another problem with affixes is that you can't just attach them to any old word willy-nilly. For example, we can't attach the -ity ending to academic to get academicity, at least not without sounding pretentious.

It turns out that affixes are language elements that have been borrowed from other languages such as Latin. However, English is, in fact, not Latin, so when the borrowing occurred, we kept only a vague notion of how the underlying rule works. The Latin rules cannot be applied consistently on their new host language.

Therefore, even though we sense intuitively that electric, electricity, and electrical all belong to the same family and are related somehow, there is no algorithm that can reliably perform tranformations one on to get to another. So these words are stored as separate base terms in our brains and are not created by a word-synthesizing pipeline.

A contrast to the non-algorithmic affixes is the pluralizer -s. There is evidence that cup and cups are not stored as two separate entries in our brains, but as one entry, with a tag indicating that it can be pluralized using the -s algorithm. What evidence could there be for such a thing?

One famous example is the wug test. If plural nouns were stored as separate entries, rather than being formed by a rule, then we should expect that children exposed to a word they have never heard before would not know how to pluralize it.

In the wug test, researchers showed children pictures of a cartoon character with a made-up name. They would say something like, "This is a wug." Then they would show the child a picture with two of the characters and say, "Now there are two...?" Any preschool-age child will enthusiastically and correctly answer "Wugs!" Clearly, the child arrived at the answer by applying a general transformation rule, not by looking up a discrete entry in her mental dictionary.

This helps resolve a particularly interesting conundrum first noticed by Paul Kiparsky. In English, we can attach affixes to plural irregular nouns, but not to plural regular nouns. For example, we can say a house is mice-infested, because mouse is an irregularly pluralizing noun, but we cannot say that it is rats-infested. In the case of the regular noun, we must use the singular: the house is rat-infested.

The logical explanation for this is that because irregular nouns have quirky plurals, the plurals must be stored as separate entries. There is no rule we can apply to mouse to get mice, so we store both mouse and mice as discreet stems. Affixes can attach to any stem, so mouse-infested and mice-infested both sound okay. But since rat is a regular noun, the plural rats is not stored in the brain but produced at run-time by applying a rule. Thus, we cannot affix to rats.

To see whether children were aware of this rule, Peter Gordon performed the following experiment on children. He showed them a puppet of a monster and said, "This monster likes to eat mud. He is a...mud-eater." He then showed the children other puppets with varied and sundry diets, and the children gleefully described them as mice-eaters, rat-eaters, and so on.

It turns out that three- to five-year-old children have mastered this rule completely. When the meal was an irregular noun such as mice, the children correctly called the monster a mice-eater. No one ever called the monster a rats-eater. As Pinker notes, "Even children who made the error mouses in their spontaneous speech never called the puppet a mouses-eater."

But the most interesting part is the question of where children acquire this rule. Gordon studied the language that children are exposed to and found that it contains few, if any, examples that would allow a child to formulate such a rule.

This is an example of what is called knowledge despite "poverty of input." It suggests that children automatically distinguish between discreet dictionary entries and words created by a rule.

The next section of the book deals with how we extract discreet words from an unbroken sound stream. I hope to have some interesting things to post on that topic soon.

Shameless plug for my dad's site

2005-01-21T18:33:00.000-08:00

My dad has a new site he's trying to use to market signs to loggers, but so far Google has not discovered it. This may have something to do with the fact that no one is linking to it. So I thought I'd do my part and chip in a hard link. Here ya go. Check it out:

www.LoggingSigns.com

Hope that helps!

Previous post updated

2005-01-16T21:16:00.000-08:00

For those that read my incomplete post below yesterday, I have updated it with the promised case studies showing that children supply grammar to language. I updated the existing post rather than create a new one so that it would be one, coherent entry.

Enjoy!

Whence springeth grammar?

2005-01-16T21:15:00.000-08:00

Anyone who is more than superficially acquainted with me knows that I am a language nut. I just find the stuff fascinating. Although I find the study of languages for the sake of being able to speak them interesting, lately I'm the most interested in psycholinguistics, the study of how humans acquire and use language.

In a previous post ("Babies as Miniature Scientists"), I talked about a book I read that dealt extensively with how babies learn language, and, more specifically, how they don't do it. (It turns out to be much easier to show that the mind does not work by a certain process than to show exactly by what process it does work.) This book left me with months' worth of geeky conversation-fodder.

As it turns out, there are a lot of people interested in language at Microsoft. In fact, there's an entire organization called the Natural Language Group. A member of my team was there for three years previously, and we got to talking about language the other day. Seeing my excitement over what I learned in The Articulate Mammal, he recommended I read The Language Instinct, by Steven Pinker, which he said is basically required reading over in NLG.

Well, I started reading the book today, and it is fascinating! I expect that I'll have a lot to say as I move through this book over the next couple weeks (it is fairly lengthy), so I thought I'd start with a first installment here.

The topic is grammar, and where it comes from. There is a very curious fact about human language: Every known forms of it is grammatical - that is, conforms to a fixed set of rules established by the community that shares it. Even dialects that are looked down upon have grammars every bit as full and complex as any other.

For example, in America there is a form of English called Black English Vernacular (BEV), which has a substantially different grammar from Standard American English (SAE). Speakers of SAE typically believe that speakers of BEV simply don't possess a proper knowledge of "real" English grammar, that they are misusing "real" English.

However, BEV has its own, fully-formed grammar that is capable of expressing the same amount of precision of thought as SAE. In fact, it contains constructs that allow for precision not possible in SAE. Take the following sentence, for example:

He be working.

Speakers of SAE would mistakenly conclude that this is an incorrect version of the SAE sentence, "He is working." However, in BEV, "He be working" and "He is working" are both valid sentences, and express different concepts. The former means that he works routinely, as a habit (e.g., he has a job), where as the latter means that he is working at the exact momemt the sentence is uttered. That is to say, in BEV it would be grammatically incorrect to say "He is working everyday," because that construction (present progressive) is incongruent with the modifier "everyday." In SAE it is not possible to discriminate between the two senses without additional qualification.

If BEV and SAE came from the same source, where did the different grammar come from? Indeed, where does grammar come from at all? Children supply it. And in this we find evidence for the most compelling aspect of all: Humans have a burning need to be able to communicate with precision.

In order to understand how children create grammar, we first need to consider two language phenomena: pidgins and creoles. A pidgin is a choppy, ungrammatical "language salad" that results when populations that do not speak each other's language are forced to work or live together. One good example of this was on a Hawaian sugar plantation, where workers were brought in from Japan, Korea, the Phillipines, China, Portugal, and Puerto Rico in the late 19th century.

Pidgins consist mainly of basic words immediately necessary to meet tasks at hand, and are terribly inadequate for describing concepts, as they have no set grammar. There are certain concepts that are simply not possible to express without grammar. For example, take the sentence, "The tiger was killed by the lion." Using only "tiger," "kill," and "lion," we cannot describe the direction of the kill without a grammatical device, in this case, the passive voice.

But here's where it gets interesting. Children born to people who speak pidgins apparently can't stand the crude simplicity of the available language, and actually invent their own grammar. Fully-formed languages born out of pidgins are called creoles. In many cases, fully-formed languages have been born from pidgins in a single generation. The new grammar is rich and complex enough to describe anything a human using any other language might need to express.

There are many examples of this principle at work. Probably the most compelling is the case of the rise in the space of a single generation of a new language in Nicaragua. In 1979, a new government created the first schools for the deaf. However, there were no sign languages in Nicaragua because up until that time, deaf people were largely isolated from one another.

The teachers thus had no sign language to teach the children. As the children played together, they began to form signs, inventing their own sign language. Eventually, they were able to speak with varying degrees of fluency using this pidgin. However, it was not a full language. Pinker remarks:

--
Everyone uses it differently, and the signers depend on suggestive, elaborate circumlocutions rather than on a consistent grammar.
--

However, when new, young children joined the school, they elaborated, stylized, and systemized the language, supplying a solid grammar. They have introduced complex grammatical devices, including something similar to verb conjugations, in which a word stem is modified to indicate a particular grammatical function. Pinker describes it thus:

--
[The new language] is very expressive. A child can watch a surrealistic cartoon and describe its plot to another child. The children use it in jokes, poems, narratives, and life histories, and it is coming to serve as the glue that holds the community together. A language has been born before our eyes.
--

A similar phenomenon is seen in deaf children born to hearing parents. Sometimes the hearing parents will learn sign language in order to communicate with their child. Usually, however, the parents speak stilted and grammatically incorrect sign language. Even with this inconsistent input, however, the children are able to extract a consistent grammar and speak fluidly and full-formedly. The childish mind, it seems, is bent on organizing its language environment into a structured, precise system of expression, even if it was not that way to begin with.

So as to the question of how language arises, it seems that given the intelligence and drive to communicate, it is impossible not to have language. In fact, if ever a group of humans was totally deprived of language and dropped onto an isolated island, the evidence is that they would regain full language abilities in the space of a few generations at most.

The next section of the book deals with the question of "mentalese." Do we think in our language? Or is there an underlying, universal system by which we think, which must be translated into exterior language when we speak?

Stay tuned for the answer to this, and much more!

Mission statement

2005-01-12T23:18:00.000-08:00

I recently read Google's mission statement for the first time. I'm not normally a fan of mission statements - they usually strike me as cheesy, propaganda-esque phrases that are supposed to sound motivational. But I like Google. They seem to work hard to do the right thing. Google's site gives their mission statement here:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/index.html

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

I like this mission statement. A lot.

See, I identify with Google's outlook. Sure, they've got a pretty outrageous mission lined up. But that hasn't stopped them from doing a pretty damn good job so far. They don't seem to mind that their mission statement is totally ridiculous. In fact, it seems to spur them on.

Case in point: Google's latest project is to digitize the libraries of five major universities - that's right, actually scan millions of books - and put them online. This collection will be available at print.google.com. They plan to concentrate on books whose copyright has expired and which are thus in the public domain. This is expected to cost tens of millions of dollars.

Another new Google service is scholar.google.com. It's basically the same as the normal Google search, except that it searches only within scholastic sources - you won't get hits from companies or personal web sites. It's the ideal tool for doing serious research.

I'm excited by all of this, because, like the folks at Google, I strongly believe that access to information is the key way to make the world a better place. I hope to do my part by contributing knowledge of various sorts to the world pool: I will be re-writing my Japanese software soon; and I hope to teach at the university level someday, probably in my later life.

These certainly are exciting times! And it doesn't look like things are going to slow up anytime soon. I'm glad to be along for the ride!

Math is rad!

2004-11-10T21:19:00.000-08:00

The last math class I completed was about six years ago. It was Analytical Trig, which basically means trigonometry without the pictures. I found it interesting, and actually quite useful because trig functions are helpful in writing video games, which I was interested in at the time. But that was about the extent of my interest in math.

However, a friend of mine has been taking some Pre-Calculus courses lately and I've been helping her, and I've had the unexpected experience of being totally enthralled by it! I've always been a person who learns most effectively when I can see the direct relevance of the subject matter to my life, and I guess it was difficult to see how functions and graphs were really useful when I was in school. But now that I have much more experience in the real world, I can see exactly how useful this stuff is, and it's thrilling.

I've always used math in my daily life to get work done. But in the past couple months, I feel like I'm understanding it in a totally new way. Kind of like, previously, I was seeing the individual letters in words and using them reasonably effectively, but now I have taken a step back and can see that the letters form a story. It's like seeing meaning at a new level.

So now I'm thinking seriously about writing software to teach math. I find it immensely enjoyable to teach subjects that people find difficult, because I feel that if the subject can be broken down in the right way and made to be interesting and relevant, most people will be able to understand it, and have a great time in the process.

This also relates to my feeling that my long-term calling is to teach. Right now, the subjects I'm most interested in teaching are Japanese, Computer Science, and Math of various levels, but I've also thought about Philosophy, because I think that teaching young people critical thinking is extraordinarily important.

In any case, one thing is clear: I need to get me back to school.

Babies as miniature scientists

2004-10-31T15:41:00.000-08:00

I just finished this really interesting book on psycholinguistics. It's called The Articulate Mammal, by Jean Aitchison. It's published by Routledge, so you know it's going to be good. I've read a couple of other books from them, and they seem to be exceptionally good at publishing interesting, enlightening material.

This book is an introduction to psycholinguistics, which is a field sort of halfway between psychology, which is concerned with how we think and how the brain works, and linguistics, which is concerned with how languages work and change. Psycholinguistics is concerned with how we acquire and use language.

One of the most interesting questions is how babies learn grammar. Obviously, no one sits down and teaches a baby grammar. They are exposed to a stream of sounds, and somehow they manage to extract the grammar from it.

One of the interesting studies showing that babies figure out grammar for themselves was one in which it was demonstrated that parents who tried to correct their babies speech ended up stunting their growth. For example, take a practice called "expansions." This refers to the practice of expanding something a child says into the nearest fully-formed English sentence. So if the baby says, "I go room?" the parent may respond by saying, "Yes, you can go to your room." Parents usually find it very difficult not to do this, but it turns out that it can be unhelpful.

For example, say a child says, pointing to a clock, "What time it is?" A parent may respond with, "Yes, it tells what time it is." If, however, the child is actually trying to ask what time it is, this answer is likely to confuse her. Since parents often misinterpret what a child is asking, their responses can often provide a high level of inconsistent data.

But the evidence that babies work as miniature scientists, forming hypotheses and then testing them, was very interesting. Here's one piece of such evidence:

At a very young age, children learn the irregular past tenses by simple rote. Verbs like "go," "write", and "come" have irregular past tenses, "went," "wrote," and "came." But at some point, children listening to English notice that you can add "-ed" to the end of verbs to make them past tense. They extract this out of pure air, just by observing patterns of speech around them.

But here's the interesting part. Although they previously had been using the correct past tenses for irregular verbs, at this point they actually revert to incorrect past tenses: "goed," "writed", and "comed," etc. And the critical point is that these are not forms that they are likely to have heard before, so they are not simply repeating what they have heard. They are applying - a bit too broadly, in these cases - a rule that they have deduced themselves.

Eventually, they realize that the "-ed" rule does not apply to all verbs, and they make corrections as necessary.

I found this fascinating. The book is filled with interesting studies like that. Really worth a read. I heartily recommend it.

My fingers hurt...

2004-10-31T15:27:00.000-08:00

...from playing guitar. But this is new. My fingertips on my right hand, the strumming/picking hand, hurt! I've been listening to this new Crosby & Nash CD, and they've got some songs on there with really great fingerpicking. I showed them to my instructor, and he charged me with transcribing and learning them.

So between last night and this morning, I've been tearing my fingers to shreds learning them. I never even considered that your right fingers could need to build up callouses. But it's been a lot of fun, and I'm finally starting to get the hang of the pull-offs and hammer-ons and stuff.

For the record, though, the two-disc Crosby & Nash CD is so-so at best. The first and last songs on the first disc are excellent, and there are a couple keepers on the second, but the rest feel like filler. Oh well. I really bought the set for the first song, so anything else is gravy.

Welcome to my blog!

2004-10-31T14:14:00.000-08:00

Okay, this is the requisite "Yay, I have a blog and I'm going to post really awesome things here so come back often, y'hear?" post. As such, it shall be impossible to include actual content here, so I won't even pretend I'm going to.

So how about those Red Sox, eh?

Does anybody else thing "blog" is a really ugly-sounding word? As much as I hate to admit it, I think I had at least some degree of resistance to blogs - both consuming and producing - just because I thought the name sounded stupid.

Okay, I hereby decree that this blog is officially open. Let the real posts commence!