My server is back.

I was down for the better part of the week due to a bit of stupidity on my part. Much thanks to Peak Hosting for extracting me from my mistakes!

今回は二年毎の宮島旅行の写真。

Last week I caught a cold that absolutely lay waste to me... I think it was the worst cold I've ever gotten. I'm mostly recovered now. Somewhere along the line I heard a friend was headed to Miyajima, and that reminded me that I've got plenty of photos I've not yet posted, so while I recover, here are a few photos from a trip to Miyajima two years ago...

I've posted photos of the famous gate many times, including in:

• Main Gate of the Itsukushima Shrine, at Night
• Why I Shoot Raw: Recovering From Disasters
• Miyajima at Low Tide
• Itsukushima Shrine at Low Tide
• The Richness of Miyajima’s Itsukushima Shrine at Dusk
• Pre-Typhoon Low-Tide View of the Itsukushima Shrine Gate at Sunset

Those posts started over eight years ago; in comparing the early ones to the last one, I can see the quality of my photographs improve. So I'm not sure what happened with the shots on this current post...

Eight years ago I posted a bunch of views of this tower, here.

Most visitors to the island visit the main Itsukushima Shrine, but a short 15-minute walk off the beaten path brings you to a wonderful gem of a temple...

The path to the entrance has what looks like “prayer wheels” similar to those in a different part of the same temple, seen and explained here.

Once you get to the top of the stairs, you can continue forward into the temple, or look back to see the big pagoda and the rest of the main part of the island behind you...

Miyajima's Daisho-in Temple is built on a mountainside, with stairs going all over, and it's easy to miss interesting parts. For example, the main path is seen heading up in this next photo...

A quick glance at the alcove makes it appear entirely skipable, but if you venture into it, you're rewarded with a hidden entrace to the cave-like room seen in this post's lead photo...

Tripods seem to be allowed, but I didn't have one, so I had to make do.

This scene above was the title subject of “Finding a Rainy 25-Year-Old Memory on Miyajima Island” two years ago.

Making my way back to the hotel, the tide was already going down at the main shrine...

I'm looking for recommendations on getting a US phone number on my Japanese cell phone, via VOIP. I currently have such a thing with Skype, but their app and feature design are gratuitously stupid... just amazingly dumb.

My needs are simple... I pay a fee to get a US-based phone number, and when someone dials that number, it rings on an app on my iPhone. And using that same app, I can dial out. Voice messages a bonus.

I'd like to use Vonage's app (I've been a normal Vonage customer for a decade), but it doesn't work with Japanese phones.

Recommendations?

Going through some closets in our childhood home, my sister came across some software she bought fresh out of college. It's a blast from the 22-years-ago past, when software came with massive manuals.

In this case, the box weighs 30 pounds (14kg), and the manuals are 9" (23cm) wide.

This was back when “Windows™” was just “Windows™” (it was a year or two before “Windows 95™”). She paid about $500 for it, in 1994 dollars no less.

I've been feeding the birds at my folks' house while in town, and so would like to post a few more photos beyond what I included in earlier posts (here and here).

A lot of birds come by, but these photos are mostly bluebirds.