This is not the most ridiculous advertisement I have ever seen, but it's the most ridiculous advertisement I've ever seen on the front page of Yahoo! Also, it's perhaps the most vague as well:

What do issues affecting young women have to do with “what defines my generation”? (Note to the new reader: I am not a young woman.... not even close.)

An online exhibit of what? Of young women? Well, sure, I'm up for that.

Music and community resources? What on earth does that have to do with the above??? Oooooh, wait, is this a MySpace ad?

I have no idea what it's all about, and from the look of the person in the ad, neither does she.

In any case, there's certainly nothing about the ad that makes me want to click to find out (not even the oh-so-inviting “GET INVOLVED” button), but at least the discussion is “global”, so they've got that going for them. Sigh.

Anthony's hair can get wild, but it doesn't grow very fast. He was over a year old by the time he had his first haircut. Here's a screen capture from the video:

Anthony at 1 year 17 days (Nov 2003), ready for his first haircut

More than two and a half years later, he's had only a few more haircuts, twice in the place down the street where Fumie and I often get our hair cut, but mostly by me. Yesterday, we went to a kids-only haircut shop with racecars for chairs and videos of trains and such in front of each station.

Anthony at 3 years 7 months 28 days (June 2006), ready for his sixthish haircut

View in the mirror

Washing out all the little hairs

Blow Dry

It was a very smooth experience (unlike any previous haircut), half due to the racecar, and half to the skill/experience of the cutter in dealing with kids. She was very good, and very fast (it's only 14 minutes between the first picture and the last).

It actually looked much better today than it does in the just-after photo, probably because we could give it a decent shampoo at home. In any case, the results are much better than when I first tried.

My arm hurts, but I had a fun day today.

This morning, I played real, indoor volleyball for the first time in 10+ years. (I'd occasionally played sand volleyball at Yahoo's corporate headquarters during my 8-year stint as a Yahoo, but that doesn't really count.)

Apparently, there's a little Mommy League for volleyball, of moms at various Kyoto preschools. I don't know many details except that I'm not allowed to actually play in the games (I lack appropriate Mommyness), but I can still practice with them. Anthony's preschool doesn't have a lot of volleyball moms, so they need all the warm fee-paying bodies they can get. Today was the first practice day.

I was not surprised to find that despite 10+ years passing since I last played, I was every bit as horrible as I was before. I know how to play correctly, but I'm just not good at it. People are surprised to find out that I'm not a pro, for they assume that anyone who is 192cm tall must be great at every sport but horse jockey, but let me tell you, height is a poor substitute for skill.

Still, I served a noble purpose: I infused confidence. When these ladies got a ball past my block (or, as happened once, spiked the ball into my face), they felt a huge David vs. Goliath type of confidence. So I felt satisfied with a job well done.

Practice lasted for two hours, but having been given bad directions, I got there late. I'd ridden my scooter and was driving around looking for the place when at a stop light a mailman stopped beside me. Mailmen know where everything is, don't they? So I asked where the Central Ward Community Center was. He didn't know.

He did mention that the “City Hall” type administrative building for Kyoto's Central Ward was right there on the corner at which we were stopped, and that was good enough for me. I went in and asked. They'd never heard of the Central Ward Community Center, because, it turns out, no such place exists. (I refer you back to the bit about “bad directions” for the root cause of my predicament.) I mentioned “volleyball” and the kind man made a bunch of phone calls.

He eventually looked up from the phone, and in a voice that said “I'm about to ask the most stupid question I've ever asked”, asked ”the Mommy League?”

“Yes, I'm a Mommy.”

I ended up arriving 15 minutes late, but that's okay, since no one had really started practicing yet. It's a Mommy league, after all. There were two infants crawling around on the floor.

After practice, despite having worked up a good sweat, I felt good, so continued on to the gym. 25 minutes into my 30 minutes on the elliptical cross trainer I hit the wall and suddenly became very tired. But the “cold plunge” bath afterword felt great. And very much to my surprise, my post-bath weight measurement hit 91.32kg (201.33 pounds), the lowest I've been in many years. And this, despite having put on a bit of upper-body muscle along the way. Nice.

Afterwords, I went to a supermarket elsewhere in the mall where the gym is, and got a package of sushi, and some Coke (happy with my reduced weight, I opted for Diet Coke), and brought it to the food court to eat. As I was eating it, I noticed that two old ladies nearby were looking at me with amused faces. I instinctively knew what it was about -- it's not that I was eating sushi, nor that I was drinking Coke. It's that I was doing both at the same time. I just smiled, and said “yes, it's an odd combination, isn't it”. I explained that I'd just come from the gym and was dying for a Coke, and that I liked it. (I didn't explain that since I can't get the caffeine-free version in Japan, I don't have Coke very much, so when I have a craving for it, I indulge myself.)

They seemed to have ignored my explanation and suggested that tea would be a better choice for sushi. I acknowledge the correctness of their obvious statement, and smiled some more.

I think they took pity on me, because they brought me a cup of water before they left.

After I got home, we took Anthony to get a hair cut. But that's its own story, for another day when I'm not so tired and my shoulder doesn't hurt. Maybe tomorrow, but maybe not: volleyball practice starts at 10am.

I do a lot of stupid things, but it's been a long time since I've been as shocked with myself as I was last night when I read the comment by Sam on the post about Anthony's new bike. Sam suggested we consider getting him a helmet. Prior to his comment, I hadn't even thought of it this time. (We had a couple of years ago.)

Thanks Sam. We got a helmet today.

This is the tracklog for his second bike trip, yesterday.

He was much more adventurous than the first time, and enjoyed using the bike as transport to get places as well. The most northern reaches of his trip were into the Heian Shrine grounds (the entrance to the far back right of this picture), where he got off the bike and played for a long time (while the GPS unit stayed on the bike).

The big square loop on the right is around a baseball field. The oval loop center-left is where he went round and round on the first day.

Yesterday's total was only 3.2km

Anthony's First Bike
Fumie (R) and her mom (L) in the background

Fumie's folks have been wanting for some to get Anthony his first bicycle as a present for his starting preschool (which is a “big boy” milestone). Fumie's Dad was in town (from Malaysia, where he's stationed for work), so today was the day.

We went to the store, and Anthony picked out his present. He had a choice of silver, yellow, and red, and had not a moment's hesitation when picking red.

We went to a park near the house, and gave it a try. The seat came a bit too low. It was much easier for him once it was raised a few inches.

Off we go!

The little park we were at had an oval walkway around it, as you can sort of see in the center of this satellite photo if you zoom up (if you switch to the “map view”, it's more clear, but smaller).

Anthony went around the oval -- a distance of about 200 meters (220 yards). It was slow going, as he wasn't used to it, and there were slight slopes to contend with. It took over 6 and a half minutes to make that first 200-meter circuit. Of course, Fumie or I followed along with him the whole way (the whole time he was on the bicycle, actually).

Then he went again. And then again, and again and again, with one of us in tow.... 18 times, for a total of 3.6 kilometers (2.25 miles)!! And then there was the third-of-a-mile ride home -- he/we really got a workout.

He'd also gotten better at riding, because by the time he was toward his 18th cycle around the park, he'd cut the time down to 100 seconds (for an average speed of 4.5 mph -- that's a trot for daddy!).

By the way, I know all these statistics because I'd left my GPS unit in the bike's basket, and it recorded a tracklog of the whole thing. (That's the map view of it there in yellow).

I used the GPS data to geoencode all the photos here, which you can see if you view their Exif data.

In the end, he was tuckered out, but was still able to ride home and park his bike in his own spot, which, of course, made him feel quite proud. Thanks Obaa-chan and Ojii-chan (“Grandma and Grandpa on Mom's side”)!