Archive for April, 2007This Reader's Digest “Word Power” comes from the April 2005 issue, and is made up of a bunch of words from the American Heritage Science Dictionary. Science. Now, if there's a subject where I should get them all right, this is it. Sigh, I missed four. That still rates as excellent, but it certainly doesn't feel it. How will you do? Choose which of the four possible selections best represents the meaning of the word 1.bayou n. wooded area. narrow bay. [...] View full post » As part of the process of renewing my visa to stay in Japan, I had to make an unplanned trip to Hirakata City Hall (about an hour's drive south) to pick up a copy of Fumie's koseki (family registry). On the way back, I came across the Yodogawa Kasen Koen, the Yodogawa River “Rivers Park” in Yawata City (Kyoto Prefecture), a mile-long raised berm in the middle of where three rivers join to create the Yodogawa River (which empties into Osaka Bay twenty miles later, a good mile in width by that point). The park — the mile-long raised berm — is lined with hundreds of cherry [...] 
View full post » I applied to renew my visa to stay in Japan, today. That means that we've been here almost three years now, which on top of the 8 years I spent when I was just out of college, adds up to making me feel old. What a difference it is dealing with Japan's version of the INS compared with the American version (now called something I can never remember and thankfully, no longer need to). When applying for Fumie's green card in 1998-1999 in San Jose, California, we had to go to the INS office numerous times, [...] View full post » I went out late last night to try a few nighttime long exposures of some cherry blossoms. This was my second attempt at long-exposure shots, the first having been a year ago with some long nighttime shots of the river that runs beside our place. This time I had my Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 (rather than the Nikkor 18-200VR), and also a remote-shutter release with a timer, so I could make exposures longer than the camera's 30-second limit. Kyoto Biwako Canal by Night The image above is a 32-second exposure, boosted a further 2.31EV during post processing in Adobe Lightroom (meaning that it's equivalent to an un-boosted exposure of [...] 
View full post » I tried some long-exposure shots in the same quaint area of Kyoto — Gion — in which I got some night cherry-blossom shots last week. All the photos last week were hand-held, short-exposure shots, so today, I thought I'd try a followup to the nighttime long-exposure shots from my previous post. Cobblestone Street and Cherry Blossoms It was much more crowded now that the blossoms are in full bloom. Pretty much everyone in Japan who owns a camera was there with their camera. But despite the crowd, it was really nice. The only people who didn't have a camera were the geisha and maiko who were walking [...] 
View full post » It's not only cherry blossoms that add color to spring in Kyoto. Kawabata Street, which parallels the Kamo River as it slices north-south through the eastern part of Kyoto (kawabata means “riverbank”), is lively with botanical color. There are blossoming trees of some sort or another pretty much its whole length, and also vibrantly green wispy weeping-willow type trees, and on top of that, the hedge that separates the walkway from the road becomes fiery red for a short time in the spring. The Many Colors of Kawabata Street It's really beautiful, but hard to get a nice picture of because although in real life one [...] 
View full post » Easter Evening in Kyoto After a day of cold drizzle yesterday, today (Easter Sunday) was glorious: sunny, warm, and cherry trees laden with blossoms. The area were I live was crazy-crowded, but I didn't have to endure it much because I was out most of the day. I attended Easter Mass at 10am, which was full of mixed emotions because when I got there, I found out that the head priest, Fr. Asada, passed away this week. Every time I carried Anthony while going to receive communion, he'd pause to bless Anthony, then pat him on the head with a kindly “good kid.” He'd been sick [...] 
View full post » Pleasant Sidestreet in Kyoto We took a meandering drive today to see some blossoms, and then a nice ride up into Kyoto's northern mountains. Some of the areas we visited were so beautiful it just hurt, because I wanted to capture the beauty and I knew there was no way I could. So, instead, I took a few pictures, and just tried to enjoy it. We drove along waterways for a long time, up the Kamo river, then the Takano River, then across to the Kamo river (the 2nd “Kamo river” being written differently than the first). The whole way was lined with cherry blossoms in [...] 
View full post » Having just gotten back from Malaysia, which included something like 10 separate flights (two each direction, and some round-drip excursions within Malaysia), Anthony certainly had plenty of time to absorb the “airport experience.” So I thought it only slightly odd when he wanted me to make a “baggage checker” (baggage X-Ray machine) out of paper and tape. What he did with it, well, I thought amazing. Airport Security Gate, Anthony Style The white paper thing in the center is what I made for him, under his close direction and supervision (of the luggage chute, for example, he animately directed that “this needs to slope down”). The rest [...] 
View full post » Sakura and the Main Gate of the Heian Shrine We ran out of milk at lunch time, and in stepping out the front door on the way to the convenience store, for some reason the view struck me in a way I hadn't noticed before. So I got the milk, then went back to take a picture. Living so close to it, the gate certainly has appeared plenty of times in photos on my blog, including: Two views (snowy and sunny) of the main gate of the Heian Shrine Fire Department Parade, and my new D200 Camera The main gate of the Heian [...] 
View full post » Enjoying the Cherry Blossoms Yesterday evening, we had a mini picnic on the grounds of the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, under the cherry blossoms that overlook the Kyoto Biwako Canal. Fumie prepared a snack and Anthony brought the BBQ play set he got from his Uncle Marty and Aunt Marci (which I could swear I blogged about when he received it, but I can't find it, so must not have.... [UPDATE: I have now] The picture above was taken around sundown, with the help of a tripod and a timer, but during the short noontime stroll I took when taking pictures of the main [...] 
View full post » My blog has been filled with nothing but cherry blossoms for the past week or so, because for the last week or so most cherry trees around here have been hitting their blossom peak. The timing of blooming, though, is certainly not coordinated among Japan's cherry trees. According to Julia's Kitakami Photoblog, the blossoms aren't even close to making their appearance there. Kitakami is a town about 415 miles north-east of Kyoto, and can be quite a bit colder than here. Even locally, the cherry-blossom season varies considerably. The other day we drove a bit north into the mountains, and just 12km (8 miles) away found that [...] 
View full post » We visited Fumie's mom to have some cake for my birthday. Anthony gave me a card that he picked out himself. Mommy wrote “happy birthday” on it for him, and then he drew a picture on it. It was very sweet. Presenting a Birthday Card to Daddy Anthony was still dressed up from the entrance ceremony held that morning at his preschool (wearing the same spiffy vest that he wore to it last year). Milk and Chocolate Cake..... Mmmmmm..... Considering that he was dressed nicely, I'm glad that he ate more neatly than the last time he had chocolate cake. After the cake, Anthony [...] 
View full post » In a post earlier this week about one of our mini outings to enjoy the cherry blossoms, I mentioned that Anthony had brought along a BBQ set that he'd received from my sister Marci and her husband, grillmaster extraordinaire, Marty Kreta. I thought I'd blogged about when he got it, but it turns out I hadn't, so I'll remedy that now, because it shows such quintessential Anthonyness (and quintessential me: I thought the camera was set to autofocus, but it wasn't, so the pictures ar all out of focus until I noticed). First Peek Checking Details Before Even Done Unwrapping Ta da! Checking the Knobs [...] 
View full post » Hmmmm, do you think that might be the exit? Visiting the Kyoto Botanical Gardens in January with Anthony and Shimada-san, we noticed this somewhat funny sign over the entrance gate. The Japanese on it says “Entrance.” The English translation of that Japanese is as standard as can be, so one wonders what events transpired to make them choose the English shown. The botanical gardens was where Anthony had his first preschool field trip (almost a year ago now), and are where I photographed the funky flowers I posted a few months ago. On the trip in January, we saw something (we presumed a plant of [...] 
View full post » At the convenince store today, I noticed this way to get liquored up with a candy bar. The lower-corner says that it contains 1% alcohol, and that those driving a car should be careful. (No comments are directed toward those operating heavy machinery, though.) In the interest of being thorough for this post, I purchased the little package for 150 yen and tried them. (I'll stop at nothing to be complete and accurate for my readers, you know.) They tasted like slighly crunchy, slighly orange-ish cherry cordials, but with only the most mild taste of brandy/alcohol. Hopefully, the can of Yebisu “The Hop” beer I bought [...] 
View full post » I finally solved a problem I was having with Japanese input into emacs, and thought I'd report it for the benefit of others that might be searching for a solution. A month or so ago, emacs stopped accepting kanji in Japanese input, and stopped displaying kanji in files. Hiragana and katakana continued to input/display fine, but kanji no longer worked at all. I spent a month testing all kinds of things (including some printf-debugging of the emacs source code!), but to make a long story short, it seems that all I needed to do was to add (require 'un-define) to my .emacs [...] View full post » During our trip to Ise (pictures here, here, and here) a few months ago, we found ourselves at a beach around sunset. There was a little trickle of a stream running off from the mountains, down onto the beach. There wasn't much water at the time, but where the flow finally decided to dive into the sand, it left behind a deposit of the sand it was carrying. Over the course of a second or two, this sand would build up enough that it would become a little wall, diverting the water to one side or another. The result was a mesmerizing, constantly updated [...] 
View full post » One of the tenets in designing large multiuser systems like Yahoo! Messenger is that one user should not be able to overly disrupt another, or force another to take some action. Yahoo! Messenger generally does a good job with this, but has long had one failing that really bothers me. For whatever reason, I seem to be a popular target for random people wanting to add me to their “friends list.” I wake up in the morning to find a Yahoo! Messenger dialog on my screen that looks like this: 99% of the time, I have no idea who the person is, and [...] 
View full post » Another Sunset Viewfrom our New-Year's trip, from the set shown in the post the other day When a digital camera produces a standard JPG image file, it does so after internally processing its sensor's raw data. This processing includes the mathematical application of various settings for exposure, white balance, sharpness, color saturation, and other algorithms that massage the image data in an attempt to achieve a particular look. Many cameras offer “scene” settings that can impact how this processing is done. For example, a “portrait” setting may reduce the amount of sharpening applied. Raw When shooting in a raw format, this processing is taken out of [...] 
View full post » Heavy Industries on the Kitchen Table We awoke this morning to find that Anthony had built an elevated-highway construction site on the kitchen table. Yes, I'm easily impressed by my own kid, but geez, just look at the detail. Cones and barriers in the proper spots, ladders leading from level to level.... the only thing not true to life is that the workers aren't eating lunch. This is certainly a step up from the airport security gate from last week, and the street sweeper from six months ago. However, he's been doing research on the subject for a long time. 
View full post » Little River in Kibune (in northern Kyoto, Japan) We went for a short drive up to Kibune yesterday, a little area of restaurants and inns nestled in a long, narrow river valley that's been populated for at least 1,300 years. Although I bothered learning the name only yesterday, we've been up that way a number of times lately, with the first few pictures from this blossom & buds post from that area, also passing through on the trip with Kyoto's bridge to nowhere, and not even a month ago, snow and funky icicles. The snow's all gone, of course, and soon their cherry blossoms will be as [...] 
View full post » When I write for public consumption (book, magazine article, blog post....), I try to be a bit careful with how I present myself. I have the most difficult time with misspellings because they could bite me on the nose and I still wouldn't sense them. I tend to be okay with grammar, and I pick up most typos because usually I read and reread many times before publishing. Some often sneak through anyway. Part of this carefulness is evident in the first example I give in my book on regular expressions. On the first page (First edition, Chapter 1, Page 1) I describe how regular expressions [...] 
View full post » Anthony's Bento Today Carrots, broccoli, various hand-made onigiri, shrimp, and as a treat, an apple-flavored kon'yaku jelly. The Japanese school year begins in April, and today was the first day for some of the new first-year kids at Anthony's preschool to have their first bento. (It's a big day for them — see “It's All About The Bento” for the story about Anthony's first bento back when he was a new student last year, and “First Bento of the New Semester” for a mid-term update.) Anthony's mid-year class started having bentos last week, but on the occasion of the big day for his new schoolmates, I thought [...] 
View full post » Computers Can Be So Vexing Yesterday when Anthony got home from preschool, he runs in and says “Daddy, Daddy, I want to build a computer.” Now, I don't know where he got this idea about building a computer, but when Anthony says “I want to build...,” it really means “I want you to build for me...” He's fully capable of building things by himself, as evidenced by the highway construction project from the other day, but when he actually pre-announces that he wants to build something, he's really telling me to do it. I sort of thought the request was a bit odd, since he [...] 
View full post » I renewed my visa today, so I'm allowed to live in Japan for another three years. I'd applied for the renewal three weeks ago, and about a week or so ago, got the “come in and pick it up” postcard. I went today, bought 10,000 yen (US$85) worth of revenue stamps at the little shop around the corner, submitted the stamps, the postcard, and my passport (and with a bit of help from the kind, helpful man at the counter, the application for a multiple re-entry permit), and sat down to wait. Unfortunately, it was ready soon and I was out in less than five minutes. [...] View full post » 10 Gallons of Blossoms on a 5-Gallon Branch Imagine taking 10 gallons of white and pink blossoms, and forcefully shoving them onto a branch capable of holding at most half that amount, and that's the feeling you currently get from two trees in my neighborhood. Approaching Critical Mass I don't know what kind of trees these are. If they are cherry trees, they're blooming long after all the other cherry trees in this neighborhood. Update: thanks to Aaron and Andy for identifying them as “yaezakura” or “botanzakura” cherry blossoms. Current State of Most Cherry Trees Around Here These blossoms range from almost [...] 
View full post » Unlike yesterday when I photographed the voluptuous cherry blossoms of my previous post, today was misty/spritzy all day. One nice thing about such days is that the bed of stones filling some of the alcoves in my building glisten sumptuously, and I enjoy them for brief moments as I walk by. On one such day, I paused to take a picture of them, and I thought some might enjoy such an image as a desktop background, and hence this post. Links below the image above lead to sizes appropriate for common desktops, both standard and widescreen. Personally, I like a background with less contrast (despite the [...] 
View full post » Koinobori Bento for a Four Year Old Fumie is getting extra creative with Anthony's bentos these days. In honor of the upcoming Children's Day holiday, during which koinobori (carp streamers) are flown to symbolize and hope for children's strength, today's bento has koinobori-shaped wieners. As a bonus, there are little fish mixed in with the veggies. We have large streamers that we normally fly from the balcony, but this weekend we're heading to Furano in Hokkaido (Japan's northern large island) for a mini trip. According to Yahoo! Weather, next week's highs look to be about as warm as here (20°C; 68°F), but the lows (freezing) are colder than it [...] 
View full post » Assassin Bug (Orange) Finishing Lunch (Black) Walking back from photographing the hyper-fluffy cherry blossoms earlier this week, I noticed a striking red/orange bug on a tree. I hate bugs — they give me the creeps — but I had my extension tubes, so I thought to try some pseudo-macro photography by using one with my Sigma 30mm. The quality of the shot isn't that great, but it's my best non-blossom macro shot ever (but only on a technicality, because it's my only non-blossom macro shot). A good photographer would be able to make a stunning photograph (see some in this macro shots of the week thread at [...] 
View full post » Kids Love Bubbles On the same evening we took our family self portrait among the cherry blossoms, Anthony enjoyed his new bubble machine. He hadn't played with it since the day we had a nice hanami drive, and so was really in the mood to bubble. (In the background, you can see Fumie and the bench on which we took the self portrait) Bubble-Blowin' Daredevil A Kyoto Evening Laden with Bubble and Blossom We're leaving for a trip to Hokkaido this evening. Will bring the bubbler.... 
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