Last night my dad and I went to BW3's in Kent to play NTN Trivia. The main game last night, played simultaneously by 10 to 20 thousand people in bars across North America, covers science, geography, “shows” (plays, TV, movies), history, sports, and the arts.
Dad is excellent with history, science, and, in particular, geography. I am worthless with everything but the occasional science and Japan-related question. We sat with trivia regulars Ted, Bill, and John, who are truly awe-inspiring in their depth and breadth of knowledge. They can effortlessly deal with questions on 1960s American TV, ancient mythology, who won what kind of literature prize when, [...]
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I had the most interesting peek into my past recently, when the Rootstown Water Company asked me to look at a small issue with their billing software. I originally wrote it back in 1986 (19.5 years ago!). They're still using it, unaltered except for one bill-formatting routine which needed to be updated for a new printer some years back.
It's really pretty much in the state I left it, except that the machine is running Windows 3.11 now (it had been running only DOS 2.11 when I was there — I know the version number because they still have the original “IBM DOS 2.11” manual). Yes, [...]
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After a long but uneventful trip, Anthony and I are back in Japan.
We took off from Cleveland a bit after 10am Saturday, and after an hour an a half in the plane, and an hour in the terminal in Chicago, we were on a flight for Osaka.
13.5 hours later, we arrived. The flight took off at about 1:30 in the afternoon Eastern time (noon-thirty Central time, as we were in Chicago, but my body was on Eastern time), and arrived at about 2am. It was a long, long flight. Anthony slept for an hour or so a few hours after takeoff, and for [...]
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It's wonderful to be back. I awoke this morning as I did yesterday morning: awake, refreshed, ready for the day. Unfortunately, this morning, like yesterday morning, it was still morning, as in 3 am. Sigh, I hate jet lag.
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Today I got the first look at the completed condo we're moving into in two weeks. They had a little event in the morning at which we picked up keys and such (some people showed up with suitcases), and then the place was ours. It was wonderful to be able to finally see inside, and while I'm sure I'm looking at things with rose-colored glasses, that's just fine with me. I love everything about this building, the company that made it, and about our unit within it.
I'd been a bit worried about the lack of a view, being on the 2nd floor (out of [...]
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Anthony is often quite sleepy/fussy by the time his nap time rolls around, which makes getting him down all the more challenging. Today was no different, but it was wonderful three hours later when he awoke and came into the living room and said...

"I slept a long time. I had a good nap. I feel happy."
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Technology is wonderful, but I'm fairly used to it, and it's rare these days that I'm surprised by it. Today, I was surprised by something.
My wife has her Yahoo! Mail Japan account set to alert her via cell-phone text messaging when she receives a new email message. Thus, when she gets a new email, her cell phone eventually chimes. This is pretty standard stuff.
So, when I sent her a message about a friend's blog with some spectacular photos, I wasn't surprised to hear her phone chime. I wasn't surprised that my keystrokes on my Mac laptop in my living room in Kyoto went via [...]
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