Yesterday was another day of travel, as we moved from Ohio to California.

Due to jet lag, I got about three hours of sleep and awoke at 3am. Fumie didn't do much better. Anthony awoke at 7am just as we were starting to drift back to sleep. Oh well, it looks to be a loooooong day ahead.

In the end, we arrived without too much trouble, but it was somewhat of an ordeal at times.

We called the hotel's front desk for luggage assistance (we had a lot) at 11am, but it was a busy time and they [...]
View full post »

My baby brother Alan got married yesterday (July 14th), to Natalie Raiti. "Baby brother" may be somewhat of a relative term, though, as he turns 35 next week. Natalie, though, was definately worth the wait.

Anthony was a ring bearer, along with a new friend, Kenneth (nephews of the groom and bride, respectively).

The bear that Anthony holds is Tuffy, Alan's best friend prior to meeting Natalie. Notice how Anthony tries to help out Tuffy by covering, with his right (our left) index finger, the ugly plastic bloch on Tuffy's face. (My bear, Tubby, does not have this defect.)

I haven't posted lately because I've been traveling.

We arrived in Ohio (for my brother Alan's wedding, on Friday) after a two-hour trip to the Kansai International Airport, checking in, an 11-hour flight to Chicago, half an hour of taxing on the runway, three-and-a-half hours of immigration/customs/layover, another hour and a half to get to Cleveland, then the 45 minutes to the hotel, and then another hour sorting out the room (there was the small matter of water dripping from the ceiling in our first room). In all told, it was about 24 hours between leaving Kyoto (at [...]
View full post »

I like the little Apple iBook I bought in 2002 (just before Anthony was born), but the iBooks have a design flaw that causes a wire leading to the screen's backlight to become frayed and fail. It manifests itself with a "flaky" backlight that flickers when the screen angle is adjusted, getting worse and over the course of days or weeks until the screen just won't come on anymore.

It's a common problem.

My iBook had this problem while it was still under the extended warranty I'd bought, and was fixed, but then started acting up again [...]
View full post »