I played a bit of ping-pong today with a family friend, 91-year-old Vernon Weingart. I almost didn't lose.

今日は９１歳の友達と一緒に卓球をさせてもらいました。 もうチョットで勝ちそうでしたが、結局負けました。 約十年前、高齢者オリンピックでアメリカの二位だった方です。 今でも強いです！

He was the USA National 2nd-place champion, back when he was younger (in his 80s), and Ohio State Champion five or six times along the way. Some of his trophies and medals...

He is the personification of "kindly grandfather type", who walks slowly and with purpose, always has a kind word and an easy smile.

We all knocked the ball around for a while, then as we were about to leave, he suggested an actual game. A real [...]

Last month before heading off on my trip to The States to visit my folks, I did a nice little bicycle to Onyu Pass and back, an 85 mile (137km) round trip over two other major passes each way. I was joined by veteran riders Arthur Lauritsen and Neil Holt.

My first visit to Onyu Pass had been during a day of incessant rain a month prior, and as such the supposedly-spectacular views were shrouded in clouds. I hoped for something better this time, but was left disappointed due to the extreme haze of the hot (35℃/95℉) humid air.

At [...]

The other day I got to witness the most amazing experience of watching a lady in her 70s touch an iPad for the first time, and right before my eyes the delight and sparkle on her face transformed her into a young girl again. It was magical.

Yet this experience at an Apple Store in Ohio was marred by some shockingly un-Apple bumps in the road.

I'm in America visiting my folks, and took the opportunity of being here to help Ann, a family friend in her 70s, buy her first computer. Until now her most technically-advanced electronics were a [...]
View full post »

If you ride a bicycle for long distances, as I have been wont to do lately, you want to feel comfortable on the bike and ride with a posture that doesn't lead to injury. If something is so obviously uncomfortable that you notice it right away then of course you correct it or at least try something else, but it's the subtle poor riding posture that can insidiously lead to long-term injury.

I often get numbness in my fingers after a long ride, and my own brother had to give up cycling after a long ride left him with chronic [...]

On a morning bicycle ride other day to Kyoto's western mountains, I made a few snapshots of Hirosawa Lake. It feels like it's a million miles from anywhere, but it's actually just one mile northeast from the teeming tourist crowds in the Arashiyama area.