I awoke the other day to find Anthony playing with a street sweeper he'd built. Perhaps every three-year-old does this, but I was really impressed with both the imagination and the ingenuity of the design.
As far as I know, he's hasn't seen a street sweeper like this, so the design is all from his imagination. He did see a street sweeper during the summer, but it had the vacuum/sweeper hidden within the center of the vehicle, and more or less looked like a brick with wheels. I have no idea where he got the idea for this design, but it's spot on!

I've another tech-related photo writeup, this time on NEF (Nikon raw image format) compression.
In it, I look at detail lost during compression in a way I've never seen anyone do it, so if you have a high-end Nikon that can write compressed NEFs, you may find it interesting.
(See my Photo Tech page for more technical writeups related to photography.)
View full post »

I went to America the other day, but I'm already back in Japan.
Actually, it was my shortest trip to America, having been there for less than an hour. In fact, I was back in Osaka eating lunch 15 minutes later.
As part of the paperwork for selling my house, a few of the thick stack of associated documents needed to be notarized, so I had to visit the US consulate in Osaka (officially, the Consulate General of the United States of America, Osaka Japan).
I knew that I was getting close to the building when I saw the police assault bus and a [...]
View full post »

Anthony (left) and Kana-chan (right)
One of Anthony's friends at preschool is Kana-chan, a serious little girl who can suddenly break out a smile that beems from her very soul into any and all who witniss it. When she smiles, her hair smiles. Her toes smile. Her eyes smile.
There's just something, though, about Anthony and Kana-chan when they get together that brings things to another level. You could see some of it in the Anthony Getting Out of Line post from the preschool's Sports Day a couple of weeks ago.
Today's report on unbridled kid/kid chemistry comes from the bazaar that was mostly for the [...]
View full post »

(scroll side-to-side to see more of the picture)
As I wrote in my previous post, Anthony and Kana really make each other spark. Add a very small steam locomotive that they can ride around on, and you've got some real fun.

I'll write about the train another day (the locomotive itself is just two and a half feet long and burns coal!), but as far as the kids were concerned, it was just fun. Anthony rode on it many times; here are some pictures from the several times he rode on it with Kana.
Pretty much anything was occasion for fun
Remarkably, they [...]
View full post »

In my previous post I mentioned that Anthony and friends were riding a mini steam locomotive. The one pictured above is a fully-functional coal-burning replica of a circa 1913 German-made Orenstein & Koppel Steam Locomotive. The model is built by O.S. Engines in Osaka. It's all of two and a half feet long and sits on 5-inch gauge track, yet could pull a bunch of kids and a number of fully-grown adults (me included) with ease. A kit to build one costs about $10,000.

The blue containers in the picture above hold distilled water, and you can see a bucket of coal just above the [...]
View full post »

I was at Yodobashi Camera in Osaka the other day, the largest camera store in this part of the country. It's something like six expansive floors, selling everything from obscure large-format camera accessories to luggage (but, alas, not the out-of-production AF-Nikkor 28mm f/1.4 I was looking for).
They're a national chain, and internationally minded: the “welcome to Yodobashi Camera” jingle that continually plays storewide cycles among a bunch of languages (at least Japanese, English, German, Chinese, and I think Portuguese. Maybe French too? I wasn't paying that much attention.)
So, with that in mind, I found the English in the lower-left of this sign to be funny:

Anthony Turns Four
Anthony turned four today.
Due to a fluke with Fumie's schedule, I made his bento this morning, following simple but detailed instructions that Fumie had left. The result wasn't pretty, but I judged that it probably wouldn't kill him.
Fumie and I both picked him up from preschool, and on the walk back to the car I asked how the bento was. His understated reply was “It was okay; I didn't throw up.” (He used the Japanese ge for “throw up”)
Now, there are a few things you should know about this: we ask how the bento was every day, and his [...]
View full post »

Anthony turned four years old yesterday, but it was a long day, so we put off opening the present sent by his Aunt Natalie and Uncle Alan until today. (We still have presents from both sets of grandparents to give as well.... more fun for another day!)
Natalie and Alan put together a wonderful set of surprises for Anthony. I'll let his face tell the story....
Curious George slippers
They are Curious George dolls before they're slippers, so he hugs his new George friends
As slippers they fit just fine
And some colored pencils
A card with a Curious George drawing by Aunt Natalie

I haven't posted lately because I've had a cold for the last week, but I feel good enough today to continue with the Anthony birthday-presents posts. On his birthday, he got to pick a present for himself and a cake. The next day, he opened a package of gifts from his Aunt Natalie and Uncle Alan. This brings us to the third day.
We hadn't really intended to make his birthday a multi-day event, but I like how it's turned out, with one present each day. It lets him concentrate on the one present, and appreciate it (and its givers) more, I think.
The third [...]
View full post »