"Walking in San Francisco & Hakodate"

A friend working in San Francisco wrote this bit:

Re: "My manager let me get off early today, and I took some time to walk all the way down to the Ferry Building, following the concrete ribbon structure along the way.  It was a beautiful day outside, and as I walked I watched the ocean.  I had a great view of Treasure Island and the Bay Bridge.  Along the way, I briefly skimmed the little informational bronze plaques and square towers, read a poem from an Angel Island inhabitant, and walked and walked and walked.  It was fun, but am I tired!"

This reminds me of the two years I lived in San Francisco (mid-1982 to mid-1984).  I would typically go out with three rolls of 36-exposure film (Tri-X B&W) to take pictures of one area or another of San Francisco.  I would walk and walk, and while I did get tired feet, I didn't get overly hot and I didn't get very thirsty in the pleasantly damp ocean scented air.  Walking in Tokyo can be like that, but only for a very limited number of days in the spring and autumn, and on a day after a typhoon or at least a strong wind (to blow away the effects of the fire-breathing automobiles).

On the same line of thinking, I went up to Hakodate in Hokkaido this month, and the port city with its hills, low lying clouds that engulf the tops of the hills, pleasant and clean air, old street cars brought out for the summer tourists, and old brick shipping warehouses converted into shops and restaurants... had me daydreaming about moving up there and settling in.  Before making such a move though, it would be a good idea to visit in the winter and see if I could bear the (according to the taxi driver I talked with) -10 temperatures.

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

An Amazing Sky...

This evening in Tokyo, from about 6:00 to 6:15, there was the most amazing sky....  I took a few pictures from a high-rise at about 6:10, and the color of the sky looks very unreal, but it really was that color.  Well - it was stronger and stranger in person - the photo is a very poor substitute for how it really looked (and felt), but it does at least give a small idea of the strange/powerful/wonderful colors that were filling the sky and lighting the land then.  If I hadn't seen it myself, I probably wouldn't have believed it, but maybe I'm just mega-city ruined to beautiful sunsets?  Out in the natural world, that sort of thing is just the way it often is?  I'm not sure, but I don't remember a sky striking me in quite that way before....

What else.  Ah!  An upgrade to a 2GB SD memory card for my camera, which should help out - I sometimes run out of memory in a day of intensive recording.  The whole computer, digital camera, MP3 player thing... I often feel like I'm riding a wave that I wish had come sooner, but still happy to be on the wave and have it carrying me forward.  When my computer's hard drive was filling up, along came larger hard drives!  When I was running out of space for photos on my camera's flash memory card, along came larger flash memory cards!  I'm happy to have this technology, but every once in a while I envy people around sixteen years old - what I could have done if I'd had these tools from when I was sixteen!

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"80-Degree Virtual Assault"

Fun at work.  Just when I was thinking things were going fairly well in the tower, I was virtually assaulted by a raging lunatic in the section kitchen (which is the tea and coffee drinkers version of the proverbial water cooler).  There's a water heater in the room that heats water to about 95 degrees or so, and there's a five-liver electric pot that heats it a few more degrees to 98 from there.  The pot also has settings for 80-degrees and 90-degrees.  (Apparently some kinds of green tea are best prepared with 80-degree water, but - hey - most of the people in the office are drinking coffee or western tea anyway, so the rule of "majority rules" calls for standard nearly boiling water.  There is this one insane monster though - Mr. 80-degree Lunatic - who is constantly going on about 80-degrees being best....)

People tend to let the pot run nearly empty, so I've gotten into the habit of topping it up when I get hot water for tea myself.  The prelude to the virtual assault happened on Thursday last week.  I was filling up the plastic jug that is used to ferry water from the wall-mounted water heater to the electric pot, and since Mr. 80-degree Lunatic was rinsing out his little round special 80-degree teapot on the left side of the sink, I positioned the jug as far to the right as possible, just out of range of the water heater overflow pipe (that never seems to emit anything anyway) and began filling it up.  He reached over and pulled the jug over by his bloody 80-degree teapot, so I pulled it back over to the right and said that it would be better not to have his splashing getting into the drinking water.

Then, as the jug was nearly full, Mr. 80-degree Lunatic reached over and turned off the tap.  I was thinking "Mind your own business you bloody sub-human 80-degree lunatic!" but instead I turned the tap back on, put on a plastic smile and said "It's not full yet" to which Mr. Lunatic started in with a very irritating chant "Achi!-Achi!-Achi!-Achi!-Achi!-Achi!-Achi!-Achi!-Achi!-Achi!-Achi!" (a mutated form of "atsui" - hot) said many more times than I've taken the trouble to write down here.  I poured the hot water into the pot to the continuing "achi!-achi!" chant and went back for more, but Mr. Lunatic had the hot water pouring into his bloody little 80-degree teapot, so I waited until it was full... and then looked on as the hot water was just spilling over the completely full teapot... so I held the plastic jug over the lunatics little pot and put in some more water.

Then - as I filled up the five-liter pot - Mr. 80-degree Lunatic started making faces and noises about the pot being too full.  I was carefully keeping the water below the full mark, so it was a load of nonsense, but (I later surmised) I think the lunatic likes to pour cold water into the pot to drag the temperature down to his beloved 80-degrees.  Being a dishonest and nasty creature though, he would never be straightforward, so instead of saying "Sorry to be an 80-degree pest, but could you leave some space in that?  I would like to pour in some cold water to get my beloved 80-degree water", he instead was acting as though I were about to spill a can of gasoline onto an open flame.  (Incidentally, from time to time the pot is set to 80-degrees... until one of the vast majority of us who like boiling water for our tea or coffee turns it back to 98.)

I came out of that feeling a little odd, but I had fought off each insult, so I didn't feel bad about the outcome and the incident quickly faded to the back of my mind.

Then came Friday.  I was in the section kitchen with the lid open and pouring hot water into the five-liter pot when Mr. 80-degree Lunatic rushed in and said "No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!" - again, said many more times than I've taken the trouble to write down here.  Stupidly falling into the swamp of that lunatic's world, I said "What do you mean 'No!-No!-No!-No!-No!'?".  He then launched into a lecture about how "Water hotter than 80-degrees will hurt the tea leaves!", punctuated with his putting his hot and evil feeling right and left paws on my arms, the way you would with a lover.  I had a strong impulse to throw scalding water onto his face when he did that, but I put on a plastic smile and tried to get out of the swamp in some civilized way.

Mr. 80-degree Lunatic seeing that I wasn't convinced of the leaves being hurt (I pointed out that they're going into the trash anyway and that he was inconveniencing the rest of the office with his selfishness - I was fast losing diplomacy), he then said "The whole world knows that 80-degrees is best for tea!  Only Russia likes boiling water and that's because they're poor!".  I replied that I was poor too, and he - predictably - said "No-no-no-no-no - you're rich!", while putting his filthy stinking paws on me again, once more producing an urge to dump my 98-degree mug of hot water onto his nasty face.

I finally got away from Mr. 80-degree Lunatic feeling like I had been molested and needed to de-tox my arms, but two-minutes later, I went back to the tea-room to check on a hunch.  I saw Mr. 8D Lunatic leaving, so I followed him to find out where his desk is (enemy reconnaissance).  Making a note of where Mr. 8D Lunatic sat down, I went back to the section kitchen and saw that the pot that had been completely full of 95-degree water two minutes before was now working to get the pot past 80... he had obviously poured out some of the hot water and poured in cold water to get his beloved 80-degrees... the rest of the office be damned (there are about 100 people on the floor that use that same area kitchen).  Nasty creature that.

Mind you, I don't actually have a problem with little round teapots and special green tea that likes to be made with 80-degree water, but I believe in majority rule for a communal thing like this and see no reason for everyone to suffer for one bloody lunatic!  Besides, we're not talking about a tea room in Kyoto, with kimono-clad damsels being cultural, we're talking about a glass, steel and aluminum office tower full of working coffee drinkers in Tokyo.  Anyway - the unwanted physical contact is the most upsetting aspect.  If it continues, I'll make a formal complaint.

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

Boso Peninsula (Continued)

I found a little time to get another page up on the Boso Peninsula - this time covering Mt. Nokogiri and the largest Buddha statue in Japan (at Nihondera Temple).  Pictures are here:
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/PhotoGlryMain/pgb/b/Boso08.html

And what else is new?  Eleven-hour work days, three-and-a-half-hour multi-train rides, and about four or five hours sleep a night.  Ah... the Tokyo life!

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"80-Degree Virtual Assault"

Fun at work. Just when I was thinking things were going fairly well in the tower, I was virtually assaulted by a raging lunatic in the section kitchen (which is the tea and coffee drinkers version of the proverbial water cooler). There's a water heater in the room that heats water to about 95 degrees or so, and there's a five-liver electric pot that heats it a few more degrees to 98 from there. The pot also has settings for 80-degrees and 90-degrees. (Apparently some kinds of green tea are best prepared with 80-degree water, but - hey - most of the people in the office are drinking coffee or western tea anyway, so the rule of "majority rules" calls for standard nearly boiling water. There is this one insane monster though - Mr. 80-degree Lunatic - who is constantly going on about 80-degrees being best....)

People tend to let the pot run nearly empty, so I've gotten into the habit of topping it up when I get hot water for tea myself. The prelude to the virtual assault happened on Thursday last week. I was filling up the plastic jug that is used to ferry water from the wall-mounted water heater to the electric pot, and since Mr. 80-degree Lunatic was rinsing out his little round special 80-degree teapot on the left side of the sink, I positioned the jug as far to the right as possible, just out of range of the water heater overflow pipe (that never seems to emit anything anyway) and began filling it up. He reached over and pulled the jug over by his bloody 80-degree teapot, so I pulled it back over to the right and said that it would be better not to have his splashing getting into the drinking water.

Then, as the jug was nearly full, Mr. 80-degree Lunatic reached over and turned off the tap. I was thinking "Mind your own business you bloody sub-human 80-degree lunatic!" but instead I turned the tap back on, put on a plastic smile and said "It's not full yet" to which Mr. Lunatic started in with a very irritating chant "Achi!-Achi!-Achi!-Achi!-Achi!-Achi!-Achi!-Achi!-Achi!-Achi!-Achi!" (a mutated form of "atsui" - hot) said many more times than I've taken the trouble to write down here. I poured the hot water into the pot to the continuing "achi!-achi!" chant and went back for more, but Mr. Lunatic had the hot water pouring into his bloody little 80-degree teapot, so I waited until it was full... and then looked on as the hot water was just spilling over the completely full teapot... so I held the plastic jug over the lunatics little pot and put in some more water.

Then - as I filled up the five-liter pot - Mr. 80-degree Lunatic started making faces and noises about the pot being too full. I was carefully keeping the water below the full mark, so it was a load of nonsense, but (I later surmised) I think the lunatic likes to pour cold water into the pot to drag the temperature down to his beloved 80-degrees. Being a dishonest and nasty creature though, he would never be straightforward, so instead of saying "Sorry to be an 80-degree pest, but could you leave some space in that? I would like to pour in some cold water to get my beloved 80-degree water", he instead was acting as though I were about to spill a can of gasoline onto an open flame. (Incidentally, from time to time the pot is set to 80-degrees... until one of the vast majority of us who like boiling water for our tea or coffee turns it back to 98.)

I came out of that feeling a little odd, but I had fought off each insult, so I didn't feel bad about the outcome and the incident quickly faded to the back of my mind.

Then came Friday. I was in the section kitchen with the lid open and pouring hot water into the five-liter pot when Mr. 80-degree Lunatic rushed in and said "No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!-No!" - again, said many more times than I've taken the trouble to write down here. Stupidly falling into the swamp of that lunatic's world, I said "What do you mean 'No!-No!-No!-No!-No!'?". He then launched into a lecture about how "Water hotter than 80-degrees will hurt the tea leaves!", punctuated with his putting his hot and evil feeling right and left paws on my arms, the way you would with a lover. I had a strong impulse to throw scalding water onto his face when he did that, but I put on a plastic smile and tried to get out of the swamp in some civilized way.

Mr. 80-degree Lunatic seeing that I wasn't convinced of the leaves being hurt (I pointed out that they're going into the trash anyway and that he was inconveniencing the rest of the office with his selfishness - I was fast losing diplomacy), he then said "The whole world knows that 80-degrees is best for tea! Only Russia likes boiling water and that's because they're poor!". I replied that I was poor too, and he - predictably - said "No-no-no-no-no - you're rich!", while putting his filthy stinking paws on me again, once more producing an urge to dump my 98-degree mug of hot water onto his nasty face.

I finally got away from Mr. 80-degree Lunatic feeling like I had been molested and needed to de-tox my arms, but two-minutes later, I went back to the tea-room to check on a hunch. I saw Mr. 8D Lunatic leaving, so I followed him to find out where his desk is (enemy reconnaissance). Making a note of where Mr. 8D Lunatic sat down, I went back to the section kitchen and saw that the pot that had been completely full of 95-degree water two minutes before was now working to get the pot past 80... he had obviously poured out some of the hot water and poured in cold water to get his beloved 80-degrees... the rest of the office be damned (there are about 100 people on the floor that use that same area kitchen). Nasty creature that.

Mind you, I don't actually have a problem with little round teapots and special green tea that likes to be made with 80-degree water, but I believe in majority rule for a communal thing like this and see no reason for everyone to suffer for one bloody lunatic! Besides, we're not talking about a tea room in Kyoto, with kimono-clad damsels being cultural, we're talking about a glass, steel and aluminum office tower full of working coffee drinkers in Tokyo. Anyway - the unwanted physical contact is the most upsetting aspect. If it continues, I'll make a formal complaint.

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Wordless Thinking"

I believe an individual is capable of finding some way of expressing themselves, no matter what language they were born into, but that language pushes people in one direction or another (since the culture of a country is largely enshrined in its language and encourages certain lines of thinking).  Truly free thinking requires getting behind the language and realizing that the words themselves have no meaning, but rather are representatives of real (wordless) meaning.

So... the meaning is between the lines, not in them.....

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

Formal & Stiff to Loose & Sloppy

How to achieve balance?  Who can say - society I have seen go from uncomfortably stiff and formal to uncomfortably loose and sloppy.  Well, okay - it's more comfortable overall loose and sloppy, but there are times you find yourself wishing for more order and... dare I use the word?  Respect!  Auuuugggghhhhhh!!!!!  I have become old!  I'm actually lamenting the lack of respect in the world!  But I dress sloppily on weekends!  Uuuuuuu......

Whatever!

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

Creative MP3 Player - Banzai!!!

After having trouble with a Cowon MP3 player (broken hardware) and a Sony MP3 player (breathtakingly bad software - to the point where it's nearly useless and I'm tempted to smash it into fine dust with very heavy sledgehammer), I'm quite pleased with my new Creative MP3 player, which seems to have both good sound and sound design (double meaning semi-intended).

Some more details:  The really bad thing about the Sony is that the term "MP3 player" is actually a misnomer for their horribly designed machine - it does not in fact play MP3 files at all, but rather has some very badly designed software that converts them into a native Sony format that sounds muddy and is hard to work with.

Well - enough on that - but if you're in the market for an MP3 player I really do recommend that you avoid Sony and buy Creative instead.  Creative is the same company that's been making sound boards for computers all this time after all - they should know something about making electronic sound parts!

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Sleeping on your Feet"

Part of life in Tokyo is that it's a crime to sleep more than five or six hours.  A truly good citizen of Tokyo only sleeps four or five.  So... how to stay alive and not keel over from lack of sleep?  Sleep on the trains!  Standing up?  No problem!  If you start to fall, you'll just bump into the person standing next to you (not even that in the morning, when you're firmly wedged between six or seven fellow sardines) - there's no danger of actually hitting the floor.  There's hardly space for your feet down there as it is - a whole body?  No - not unless you've just come from a too-fun night drinking and literally end up on the floor of a train of low enough people density that you can take that much floor space.  (Not common, but I've seen it a few times - most recently about three weeks ago.  The idea of being down there on the floor horrified me, but everyone was being careful to not step on the guy, so I suppose he got home without any boot marks on his back.)

Anyway - the top three photos on this page (at the link below) are of a fellow train sleeper on the Yamanote Line (one of the most difficult lines to sleep on incidentally):
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/PhotoGlryMain/pgb/CityDreams01.html

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Powerless Camera..."

I pulled out my camera battery and put it into a spare charger I have at work today and then... forgot to put it back in my camera before going home.  %#$%#%$!!!!  I've been in a stormy frame of mine ever since.  Already there are missed pictures and I'm mentally berating myself for being so stupid and careless.

I can't believe I'm in a hurry to get back to work, but that's about how I feel.  "Must... make the camera whole again!  The sooner the better!"  Aauuuuuugggggghhhhhh!!!!!

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"More Card Trouble..."

Just when I thought everything was behind be trouble-wise regarding the company security card (they issued the first one with a woman's photo on it instead of my own), when I tried to use my card with the new IC chip entry system (you hold your card up to a sensor for a second or two instead of swiping it through a slot), I got a low tone beep (instead of the higher tone "Okay - you may enter" beep) and a red light lit up next to "NG" ("No Good") - off to the security office I was sent, where I got in line with several people who had forgotten to bring their new cards.

Feeling a bit miffed after all the trouble I'd already been through with my card, after I finally got a temporary security card for the day, I went immediately to General Affairs (not sure if that's English, but that's the way they generally translate that section from Japanese) and complained with a bit of a head of steam, but at least I was able to force a smile on my face and pretend to be joking about it still.  Once up on my floor, I was happy to discover that all of the contract workers on my island (island of desks that is - two pairs of six desks facing each other for an island of twelve - no partitions) were having the same problem.

But... one by one their cards were fixed and mine still wasn't working (you have to use the new cards constantly now, not just when leaving the building, but when going from floor to floor and even to the break room on the same floor) and I got up a new head of steam when I went by the company store and the money I had prepaid into the card last week had gone missing (according to the cash register computer that is).  I marched back to the General Affairs Department in a new and merry frame of mind (the first impulse was irritation, but then the comedy of errors began to seem funny and I switched into a "the worse the funnier" frame of mind.

Finally, just fifteen minutes before leaving for the day, the card began working.  It took them a good five hours longer to mix mine than every other person on the island though.  Why?  I have no idea, but thinking of that, my merry good laughing frame of mind is conjuring up new dark storm clouds.  Someone in General Affairs having a merry time of causing me trouble?  Probably not, but why I am having so much more trouble with my bloody security card than everyone else?

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Outside the Boxes"

Generally being sealed into boxes on wheels when riding modern trains, my camera takes a quick look at the world outside of one speeding box:
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/PhotoGlryMain/pgb/Outside01.html

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Bob Dylan - 1966 Concert"

The only things I had heard of Bob Dylan's until a week ago (when I began listening to a live recording of Bob Dylan on my MP3 player while walking around Tokyo), were what was broadcast on the radio.  The recording I'm listening to these days is the digital version of a double album of a 1966 concert, and something about that recording very strongly stirs memories of the better side of that era for me.  I was only six years old in 1966, so I wasn't exactly part of the scene, but I still picked up on the feeling in the air and heard the music on the airwaves (thanks to my older brothers).  The stuff of Bob Dylan's that I grew up hearing on the radio sort of bored me, so the excitement this live recording generates has come as a surprise.


"'Sweet' - July 2006"

I previously complained about the new use of the word "sweet" - now being used pretty much like "cool" used to be used, but now it's time to apologize for that rant!  There's a guy I'm working with who is around 25 years old and he says that - and other new things - very naturally, and I have to face the fact that 47 is not just an abstract number, it's really how many years I'm been walking around on this planet.  Just as I'm getting used to being "middle-aged", I look ahead and see that in a decade or two I will no longer be "middle aged", but will be "old" and looking ahead another two or three decades, I'll likely be dead.  Life is short.  Enjoy the "sweet", "cool", "subarashii" (or whatever) moments and do what you can to be constructive - it'll be over before you know it.

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Freedom From Tubes...."

Freedom from tubes - florescent tubes that is!  (I don't mind the underground train system in London!)

Florescent tubes are very popular here, and my office is typical, with at least twice as many of them as would be sensible.  It would be nice to just leave the bloody things shut off all day and make use of the light from the windows.  Someday in the (hopefully not to distant) future, it will become known that florescent lighting is bad for your eyes, bad for your health, etc., and bipeds will finally scale back on the use of this horrible form of lighting.  Until then, we suffer or are happy fools destroying our eyes and health in glee.....

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"One Evening at the Temple...."

Distant voices

Distant forms

Bridged in a timeless moment

Calmly watching cat to the side

Mechanized noises faintly heard

Crows strangely not irritating

The wind blowing... by, but still connected - the feel of it on my face brings back memories of childhood summer evenings....

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

--
The shortest way home is the longest way 'round....

"Bad News, Company, Cameras, & Time Zones"

Re: "Saturday again and I am just about numb from all the terrible things in the news such as Global Warming, worse hurricanes on the way, assurance that Los Angeles will experience a bad earthquake, no end to the drought but maybe an end to water, war in Iraq getting worse, Iran building Nukes, North Korea testing intercontinental missiles, and now my newspaper points out that the number of close friends that Americans have has shrunken drastically."

I just realized one advantage to working too much lately - I haven't had time to find out what's happening in the news lately!  All I know is what's happening in my own apartment and somewhat at the company I'm working at....

Re: "And that's true, I recall childhood and youth when TV hadn't come along, and people were not so busy.  We had friends.  Visiting was our entertainment.  Now with the Internet, we have friends across the ocean and don't know the name of the people next door.  And NOBODY anymore ever drops in for an evening of talking."

Now you mention it, I remember reading how people are skipping having a living room at all and instead using the space for a home office.  I remember my parents entertaining people from time to time, but - come to think of it - I very rarely do the same.  Actually, Tokyo makes it hard anyway, since most people are living in small apartments for one thing, and often lives hours away from each other on top of that, so get-togethers, when they happen, tend to occur in restaurants, coffee shops, and drinking places - generally in a middle ground between where the people meeting live.

Re: "You are correct when you ask, why can't people have both money and time?  Yes, I'm afraid that having enough money to live, and maybe even enjoy some of the good things, requires all our best time and energy at some job we learn to hate.  The unlucky man will eventually grow feeble and sick and unable to work and so dies a very poor man.  The lucky dog however simply drops dead while at work."

I laughed when I read that.  I'm definitely spending more time working right now than I would like to, but it has enabled me to recently get a new camera (a Ricoh GR-Digital), so at least I'm having some fun taking pictures with that.  The only irritant being that work ties up most of the day, so I end up with too many night pictures.

Re: "Sounds like the bad news on CNN has me depressed, but not so. I find time for comical films of all kinds and a few drinks... and talking with you (via the Internet of course!).  Tell me about your work these days."

Work is going okay, but the projects I've been assigned have been delayed, so I've been filling up the time with reading about past projects and trying to find out the definitions of the very large number of acronyms the company uses!  Some of them are international, some of them are specific to Japan, some of them are specific to that company, and some of them are even specific to engineers within the company!!  It's incredible, but there I am right there under the same roof as the authors of material I'm reading and many of the acronyms seem to be unknown to everyone!  And they still use them!!!  I've begun to irritate some of the foreigners I'm working with regarding my quest for acronym definitions, so I guess I better be more quiet about it, but I do strongly feel that you can't really write properly when much of the vocabulary is in code that no one can explain!  Rather than "XYZ" and "MNO", they might as well assign their special codes numbers "Attach the 729 to the 503", etc.  On the other hand, one of the old-timers who's been in the translation and technical writing business here for several decades has talked with me and told me how he fully understands where I'm coming from and he's given me some database material he's built up while working on projects for the company....

Oh - incidentally, I have a few new pages at my website.  Two that were uploaded today are:

Nenogongen Mountain Area
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/i_i_v/s/NennoG1/pg1.htm

- and here:

Tenryuji Temple (Tokyo)
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/i_i_v/s/Tenryuji1/pg1.htm

Those were taken with the same camera on the same day (a Pentax, in May of this year).

This page was taken with my newest camera - the Ricoh GR-Digital:
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/i_i_v/s/HigYukiG01/pg1.htm

4:11 a.m., and the sky is growing light.  It gets dark at 7:30 p.m.!  When the sun comes up at 4:15 a.m. and sets at 7:30 p.m. - you are (Tokyo!) in the wrong time zone!!!

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Me, a Young Japanese Woman?! What-What-What?!?"

The company I'm doing some contractual work for decided to issue new security cards to everyone, including the contractual workers and they had us print out A4 cards with our name and employee number, and then we had our pictures taken one at a time while we held the cards in front of us, like so many criminals - so when it was my turn in front of the camera with my card and number , I couldn't resist saying "I didn't do it!  I'm innocent!".  Ho-ho, funny me, but I guess they got their revenge.  Today I trooped over to the building where the photos had been taken to pick up my new security card and when they handed it to me, I looked down to see my name and employee number married to a photo of a young Japanese woman!  I pointed out the error and they told me they would "Look into it"....

In hindsight, I realize that I should have just kept the card!  It would have been a great joke, and I doubt the guards would even have noticed, unless they stopped me for some reason, and anyway, it had my correct name and employee number on it.  Oh well - I missed my chance to have a daily ongoing joke running and now I'm (it seems) the only person of several hundred who doesn't have a spiffy new security card.

If they don't get it reissued by Friday (it took two months to make them in the first place) and they don't give me some way of getting into the company, I will be locked out of the building and unable to get to work come next Monday.  Well... something will be worked out I'm sure (signing in daily as a guest?), but I sure wish I'd kept that card now!  But since I didn't, I now have to suffer through the humiliation and embarrassment of being the odd one out of the club.  An expensive joke it was!  Oh well, land of subtlety,hey!

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Higashi-Yukigaya, June 2006"

Further exploration in Ota-ku (here in Tokyo) brought me to an old temple and house, several photos of which can be seen here:
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/i_i_v/s/HigYukiG01/pg1.htm

Incidentally, this is the first page of photos taken with my Ricoh GR-Digital camera.  Of note is how the 5.9mm lens (28mm lens equivalent on a 35mm camera) handles lines very well without distorting them - which is evident in some of the close-up pictures of the temple.

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Temples, Here, There, (Nearly) Everywhere!"

Just when I had thought that the area I had decided to walk through in quest of a temple (marked on my map) was going to be completely nondescript, Tokyo came through for me - as it generally has on such a walk.  There were several small shrines and temples along the way; a factory I didn't know about, a small shop making the increasingly rare tatami mats; a river; and... um... a few other things!  This has long been the attraction of Tokyo for me - if you begin a multi-hour trek through this mega-city, all sorts of things come up seemingly at random.  Zoning?  What's that?

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Bloody Electric Lights!"

I had a chance - a near chance anyway - to take a really amazing photo of a dramatically stormy-looking sky over Tokyo this evening, but I had to look at it through glass and the interior lights of the building I was in couldn't be turned off (not by me in any case) so I had to take the picture through the glass, and try to shield the lens from the very unwelcome and unwanted electric lights inside.  Who knows, maybe a picture or two even turned out decently, but how much nicer, more dramatic, more memorable, more human, more-more-more better things it would have been had I been out in the open.

Sealed boxes - I hate them.  How can you connect with the world when you have to look at it through thick glass all the time, as though it were just another version of watching TV or a movie?  Where are the winds?  The subtle connections with the rest of the world?  Out there, on the other side of the glass, that's where!

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"(Subway) Train Yard, Etc."

After looking into it a little more, it appears that the old train car factory/maintenance shed was for wide-gauge subway cars, which the Toei subway system uses, and not in fact Shinkansen cars, as I had initially thought.  In looking into the logistics of that old factory, I was led to a new-looking and fairly large train yard about a fifteen-minute walk away - see:
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/i_i_v/s/TrnYrd01/pg1.htm

 - where evidence strongly pointed towards that old factory being an extension (or vice-versa) of the new factory building.  At the large train yard, there is also an older building similar to that old disused factory building, so I suppose those two were a pair and the new building replaced the separate and recently shut-down one.

Not far from the train yard and factory/maintenance sheds is Honmonji Temple:
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/i_i_v/s/Hnmnji01/pg1.htm

All of the pictures on the two pages above were taken with an Olympus 810.  I'm working towards getting some pictures from the Ricoh GR Digital up next.

4:35 a.m. .....  I need to get some sleep.

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Ricoh GR Digital Camera"

I recently began using a Ricoh GR Digital camera (the model name "GR Digital" is a reference to Ricoh's well-regarded GR film cameras) and it's an interesting design.  It falls right between the low end of the digital SLR market and the top end of the compact fits-in-a-pocket digital market - or more precisely, it is the top end of the fits-in-a-pocket digital market (based on my observation of what's for sale at Yodobashi Camera in Shinjuku - not on extensive Internet research).  What makes it worth considering as something worth shelling out your hard-earned cash on, is the quality of the lens.  Being a fixed focal length (thus avoiding the tradeoffs inherent in variable focal length lenses), Ricoh was able to design a lens that is more akin to a quality SLR lens than a typical cheap and fuzzy compact 5X (or whatever) zoom lens.

I don't have any photos from it posted to the site yet, but when I get some up, I'll make a mention of them so you can see for yourself how pictures from the camera look.  The camera name and exact specs are:

Ricoh GR Digital
CCD: 8.1 million pixels
GR Lens 5.9mm f2.4

The 5.9mm lens is comparable to a 28mm lens on a 35mm film camera.  I only put in a limited amount of time using the camera to date, but I'm very impressed so far - enough to recommend buying one if you're at all interested in taking quality pictures with a pocketable camera.

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Ricoh GR"

Hmmm.... yet another camera?  Not exactly!  But I borrowed a Ricoh GR today and tried it out for about 30 minutes.  I like it, which is a problem, maybe, since in the past couple of months I have already bought two cameras!  Buying a new camera every month is a bit much, but, um... when it rains, it pours, eh?

What's intriguing enough about the Ricoh GR that I might go for a third compact camera?  The lens, which seems to be a rather good fixed focal length one....

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

A Kimono in a Crowd... there's a reason you see a lot of such pictures of women in Japan - when one passes by, everyone leaps for their cameras! The result is that people outside the country still (still!!) have an image of Japan as a place where Japanese women wear kimonos. No - it's not true. I mean... there are some women wearing them for sure, but the vast (and I do mean vast) majority of women here never ever ever ever wear them. Everyone likes them - but they're rather difficult to wear, and the expense and rarity of them excludes them from general use. But... but, but... they are interesting and beautiful at the right time and on the right occassion... worn in a certain way by women who are comfortable in them.....

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Choonji Temple" (First batch of Olympus 810 photos.)

I stumbled upon a temple I'd never visited before - Choonji Temple - and I've posted some photos I took of it here:
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/i_i_v/s/Choonji01/pg1.htm

Other than that, are some photos taken in the usual places... I aim to start focusing more on posting pictures of areas not yet covered on the site, but, for now, here are the links to some typical Shibuya, Shinjuku, etc. images:

"Shibuya - June 2006"
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/i_i_v/s/Shibuya03/pg1.htm

"Iroiro #2 - June 2006"
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/i_i_v/s/Iroiro02/pg1.htm

"Ebisu - June 2006"
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/i_i_v/s/Ebisu04/pg1.htm

Incidentally, if there is anything you notice about these pictures taken with the Olympus 810, let me know - I'm trying to figure out precisely how it differs from the Ricoh R4, so I can best divide their use accordingly.

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Near Iidabashi Station"

This was taken in Iidabashi one hot, summer day....

Lyle

"Iidabashi"

Iidabashi - might be a cool place to live, what with its central location and narrow side streets....

[2013/01/19 Update] - I just stumbled into this old post.  I can't believe I posted a one-line comment!  Just to add something to it, here's a video from Kagurazaka - which is the area I was really thinking about when I wrote "Iidabashi":

Kagurazaka Sanpo - (F) - (111207)

http://youtu.be/mSZOC7uvbuA

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Olympus 810"

Oops... another few yen landed in my pocket, so I rushed off to empty my pockets towards another new camera - this time an Olympus 810 - a cool looking camera that is interestingly nearly opposite my Ricoh R4 in what it can and cannot due, but that was the idea in buying it after all!  The Ricoh has a lot going for it - it's fast to start up, fast to take pictures, and fast to process them, allowing for fairly rapid image recording.  What's not to my liking is how it works in artificial low-light situations, which is where the Olympus works well.  But after taking about 1,800 pictures with the Ricoh, the Olympus feels really really slow!  It takes a couple of seconds to take a picture and takes a few seconds to process each picture taken.  Rapid recording of a high volume of images is best left to another camera... unless this issue is due to the memory card being slow, in which case it could be remedied by buying a faster card....

In any case, at the moment, I'm thinking that I'll be dividing the use of these two cameras along those lines - speed for the Ricoh and available light night pictures for the Olympus.  What I really want, by the way, is a camera with a good f1.4 (or f1.2 or f1.8) lens that is still convenient to use otherwise.  In the highly competitive camera market, price is a big issue and the lens is where the manufacturers are saving money.  They have to buy the CCDs and can't hide the pixel count, but since most people only understand the focal length of lenses and not the aperture, that's what gets shortchanged....

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Banzai Ricoh!"

I bought a Ricoh camera (the R4) about a month ago and it's turning out to be a really great camera for close ups and daytime photos.  Unfortunately, it's not so great for night photos, but - at the moment anyway - that's okay, as I'm generally using it as a daytime camera.  In some situations it takes passable night time photos, but not if it's overly dark or the lighting is a little bit odd - both of which produce disappointing results.  But the closeups!  Clicking on the macro setting enables close-ups as close as 1cm, which is really good for a compact and reasonably-priced camera.

Anyway... if you have any information about Ricoh cameras in general, I'd be interested in hearing it.  Drop me a line or two.

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Mechanics"

"Mannin-densha" is a term that conveys that not only are all of the seats in a train taken, but indeed every 800cm square - or whatever the absolute minimum a standing body requires - is also taken.  The last few souls to get in have to back in, simultaneously pushing with whatever strength the legs below, and arms above (pulling from the inner upper edge of the door frame) can muster, compressing the standing bodies within.  It's not pleasant.

Now - on to the "mechanics" bit....  Some people try to get themselves some space by moving their feet into someones feet space either behind or in front of them.  The stupid thing here is that when you've got people up against you on all sides, there is nowhere to go!  So... if someone takes the space you could have used to resist (a little - there's only so much you can do) having to lean into such a would-be space-grabber.  The result?  You have you lean into them much harder!  In a bid to grab space, they end up forcing you to lean into them harder.  Every time it happens, I mentally shake my head and think "Mechanics... if only you understood mechanics, you would be space-thief you!".

You folks living in less crowded cities - enjoy your space!  You don't know how lucky you are!

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Seven Pages, 367 Photos..."

Making use of some automation, I put up seven new "Photo Batch" pages today, as follows:

"Iroiro #1 - May 2006"
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/i_i_v/s/Iroiro01/pg1.htm

"Yamanote Line - May 2006"
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/i_i_v/s/Yamanote01/pg1.htm

"Ebisu - May 2006"
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/i_i_v/s/Ebisu05/pg1.htm

"Nakamagome - May 2006"
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/i_i_v/s/NakaMagome01/pg1.htm

"Shinjuku - May 2006"
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/i_i_v/s/Shinjuku11/pg1.htm

"Ikegamidai- May 2006"
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/i_i_v/s/Ikegamidai01/pg1.htm

"Hatanodai - May 2006"
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/i_i_v/s/Hatanodai01/pg1.htm

I would rather have gone over those and arranged them the way I have most of the pages in the Photo Gallery:
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/PhotoGlryMain/LHS_PhotoGallery.html

- but have decided that if I'm ever to get a more comprehensive coverage of Tokyo actually up there on the screen, I have got to go with the speed of automation.  Once I've got a certain coverage completed and have some time, I'll go back to putting up custom-built pages.  (Note that these photos are on the "PhotoBatch" page, and not in the "Photo Gallery".  The direct link for the "PhotoBatch" page is here:
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/i_i_v/s/PtoBtc1.html

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Bloody Computers!!!"

In trying to fix a problem with a macro problem in Word, I tried rolling the system back and ended up with so many weird problems that it looks like I'll need to vaporize everything on the hard drive and start all over again.  The IT man isn't going to be very happy about having to reinstall Notes, but... if he wants to complain, he should aim it at a certain monopolistic software company.....

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Memory... or the Lack of It"

I rented a DVD over the weekend and was a bit surprised to have no idea at all that I'd seen the movie before until a scene that I remembered from near the end of the movie.  I looked at it and thought - ".... You're kidding... there's nothing else in this movie that I remember?  Nothing at all?".  It makes you wonder how much of your life goes missing as time passes.  I mean... what happened, really happened, but if you can't remember it....

It just seems weird...  It's also a good reason to write things down.

Something else though... could it be that my perception now is so much different from when I saw that movie about fifteen years ago that it is in effect a different movie?

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

--
The shortest way home is the longest way 'round....

"Analog - A Closer Connection?"

I've always liked the clarity of digital recording, but every now and then
I'll listen to an analog recording and find myself thinking it sounds
better in some way (at least until I get tired of the muddiness of it and
then end up thinking that digital is better after all). The most recent
example of this was a tape I made in 1984 while living in San Francisco -
of different stuff pulled off the FM airwaves. I made the recording by
going from FM station to FM station riding the San Francisco airwaves, and
recorded bits and pieces of what I heard, including bits of some of the
commercials and a little from AM radio as well. I made the 90-minute tape
to send to a Japanese pen-pal to show her what radio in the US was like,
but that tape has turned into quite a bit of nostalgia for me 21 years down
the road. The analog sounds, the intervening years, and the Pacific Ocean
make the recording some as though it's from another world... and in a
practical sense, it really is from another world....

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Asakusa - May 5th, Children's Day"

I walked through Asakusa on one of its busier days - on May 5th, Children's Day, in the middle of Golden Week on a day with beautiful weather.  If you go to Asakusa, chances are it won't be quite as crowded as in the pictures:

http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/i_i_v/s/Asakusa01/pg1.htm

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Trying to Clear the Drive..."

It used to be that getting a drive free and clear (vaporizing all the
data on it) was no big deal, but I've spent the whole morning trying to
eradicate all the junk from Brand-W so I can put in... er... more junk
from Brand-W! (I would go with Brand-L, but it's not my computer, so I
- unfortunately - have to go with what the owner of the machine wants.)
A newly purchased and quite-legal version of Windows-XP in hand, it is
not offering any options for vaporizing everything on the hard drive so
I can do a new and clean install.

Not being able to clean up the hard drive with W-stuff, I downloaded
Ubuntu Linux, but the built-in CD-R/RW software for XP doesn't recognize
an ISO file the way my L-box does, so while I'm able to burn a disk with
that one file on it, it's not a bootable image.

Next try - some old CD burning software, but no luck - it doesn't run on
XP....

There's a DVD with Linux on it from a magazine, but this computer
doesn't have a DVD reader in it.

Now? I'm downloading a trial version of Nero, version 7.2. Will it
know what to do with an ISO image? Hopefully it will!

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
--
Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
lylehsaxon@fastmail.fm

--
http://www.fastmail.fm - The way an email service should be

"Hibarigaoka-kita - March 9th, 2006"

Views from a walk around the north side of Hibarigaoka Station on the Seibu-Ikebukuro Line.  Very early in spring, the trees were still mostly bare - it has (surprise) a warmer feeling in the spring and summer:
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/i_i_v/s/Hibari01/pg01.htm

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Traditional Japanese Restaurants & Traditional Japanese Food"

It's not often that I am lucky enough to visit traditional Japanese restaurants, so I took a few photos of one I ate in earlier this year:
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/PhotoGlryMain/pgb/TradA.html

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Friendly People & Angry-Young-Men"

I see a couple of trends in the way people are thinking/acting - one very welcome and one very alarming.  The good news first....

Japan has always been a country of manners and most encounters with people were civilized (exceptions existed for sure - like people out of their element away on vacation who often decided not to bother being overly polite while away from their home area), but form was usually adhered to.  Polite form is one element of a civilized society, but being overly formal can interfere with true communication and empathy when dealing with those who have come from afar.  So, in the eighties, I often wished that people would relax more when interacting with me.  Now, in the year 2006, I am realizing that this wish has been granted!  Much more than before, it's possible to communicate with a lot of people in a relaxed, open, and informal way.

Now for the flip side of this trend....

Three times in as many weeks, while walking through a crowded station, I had the same type of encounter with three different angry-young-man types.  Walking through train stations like Shinjuku Station (with vast numbers of people entering & exiting the station and vast numbers of people changing from one train line to another within the station), it's nearly impossible to avoid lightly bumping into a few people and being bumped into by a few other people as you walk through the dense crowds, but usually you try your best to avoid bumping into people and when the inevitable collision does happen, the two people generally nod, say a quick "Sumimasen" ("Sorry"), and go on their way (or just go silently on their way if there's no time for a nod).  So, after 21 years of that scenario playing out over and over, I was a bit shocked to have an angry-young-man aggressively throw out his arm towards me as if to shove me with his forearm.  It was an alarming moment, because he had a look of blood-lust in his eye and if I had taken a swing at him (which his provocation seemed to be begging for) then we probably would have jumped into the insanity of doing as much physical damage to each other as possible.

The next week, the same thing happened, and again the next, three different angry-young-man types, all with that outthrust arm and look of blood-lust in their eye.  The provocation?  None really, just the usual situation of accidentally getting into the same physical space in a very crowded situation.  (Did a movie "hero" do some "cool" people bashing that way?  It's just weird how they did exactly the same thing as though they were looking for a chance to try it, and it's something I had never seen in 21 years of being in the thick of things here.)

Well... there you go - nothing is free.  One advantage often comes with the price of a new disadvantage.  I'll enjoy talking with friendly types on one hand and be on the lookout for dangerous angry-young-man types when changing trains on the other.

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"Mountain Breeze at Ontakesan"

Walking around near Ontakesan Station on the Ikegami Line on April 21st, I wandered into the grounds of a shrine and began walking down the stone path leading to the wooden shrine building.  As I was about mid-way down the path, I looked to my left and was greeted by a mesmerizing sight, so I stopped to take it in - standing there in a half-trance while an older woman prayed at the shrine down the path.  The actual sight itself wasn't remarkable - just part of the roof of a traditional shrine building seen through some trees and with a backdrop of deep blue sky with white cotton clouds floating through the blue.  The view was nice enough, but what was really mesmerizing was a powerful flashback I had to standing among the trees in the Rocky Mountains as a child way back in the late sixties.

I stood there transfixed by my old feelings and wondered how and why they could come back so strongly in Tokyo!  I looked around quietly and figured it out though - April 21st was a dry day with a comfortably cool breeze blowing (and singing) threw the trees, clean air, deep blue sky with very white clouds, there was nothing in that wonderful view but wood, earth and sky - no concrete, no asphalt, no plastic, no glass, no exhaust fumes, no engine noises, no computer screens - and upwind to my right was a large old pine tree scenting the air with the pine smell I've always associated with the time I spent in the Rocky Mountains during a few childhood summer vacations.  It was such a nice feeling, that I wanted to linger within it longer still, but the siren call of concrete, exhaust gases, florescent lighting and mind-numbing CRT computer monitors dragged me back to "reality" or - perhaps more accurately - dragged me away from reality and back into the nightmare.  On the way back to the machines (and I - very ironically - like machines), I walked down the tree-lined shopping street leading to Ontakesan Station, taking in the warm spring feeling from the trees with their new green leaves, and pondering how much better any street is with trees than without them....

And then today (April 22nd), I go out for a walk around my apartment, and I discover that someone has cut down the exotic fruit tree (loquat) that was growing by my apartment building.  Asking around, I discover that some imbecile on the first floor was afraid insects might be attracted to the tree, so they had it cut down.  I can't begin to convey to you the rage I feel in contemplating this kind of thing.  You've got a tree that produces fruit that tastes great (for those who are lucky enough to grab it in the few days it takes to pick the tree clean), and there was no insect problem at all, but the idiot is deathly afraid of any kind of life other than bipeds, and thinks the tree needs to be murdered in order to prevent the remote possibility of there being (gasp!) insects.  This type of an idiot should move to the desert and starve - they could sit in sterile bliss while they drift over to the other side - presumably to a place with no insects or trees.  It's bad enough to have such an imbecile living in the same building, but it's depressing that the rest of the tenants didn't stand up for the tree and tell the idiot to either shut up or move to the desert.  well... maybe they're all in state of shock today like I am, but the building maintenance people apparently agreed and actually paid to have someone come out and kill the tree.  It's just so... wrong!

Well... sorry for liking trees so much, but I really don't understand why so many people seem to prefer barren dirt to living, green, oxygen-producing trees.

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

Suburbia

I had to visit a company today, so I looked up their address on a detailed map and figured out the on-foot part of the journey.  After getting off the train (train number four), I took the easy route there, walking along a main street - sharing the air with the trucks and getting a bit of a sore throat in the process, so for the journey back, I decided to take back streets that ran more or less parallel to the main street.  Doing that sort of thing is an excellent way to get lost, but it worked out this time and I found myself walking through suburbia with the only people on the streets being mothers with their pre-school children (one each, most people only have one or two children these days).

It's a strange thing about suburbia... you get the feeling that you're doing something wrong by walking through it.  Just about everyone you see is with children, so you find yourself wordlessly defending your presence and reminding yourself that you're conducting business and are just passing through.

That's it?  Hmmm... well, what can I say?  It was a wordless feeling after all.....

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

Switching-Power-Supplies

I called an old friend who works as a technician and his take on the capacitor problem is as follows:

The power supply is a switching power supply, which is smaller, lighter, and cheaper than a more conventional power supply, but is also considerably less durable.  From the beginning, the output has ripple AC current that the motherboard capacitors have to deal with, and as the capacitors within the power supply degenerate, there is an increasing amount of ripple current that further stresses the 6.3V 1500mF capacitors on the motherboard as they clean up the dirty voltage from the power supply.  Low quality capacitors are part of the problem, but the use of a switching power supply is the actual root cause.  Even with good capacitors, the design is not a long-lasting one.

If this is indeed the case, do any high-end computers use the old type of very solid (and very heavy) power supplies?  With all the extra copper involved, this would probably double the weight of the machine, but if longevity is the goal, it would be an interesting option for those who could afford it.

I suppose machines that don't have to be left on 24/7 ought to be unplugged when not in use.  Going back to my 25-year-old Sony TV.  How long would it have lasted if it had been on 24/7?  Not 25 years for sure!  It's also a pre-remote control model, so when the power button is switched off, there's no current going to the circuitry inside.

What else.  A few hardware things just in case anyone might be interested.

My remaining Dell Dimension-C's motherboard capacitors are bulging upward.  I hadn't noticed earlier, as there is no leaking or hint of linking and they look fine visualy down inside the computer.  By reaching in and touching the tops however, I can feel that they are bulging upward.  After talking with my friend about power supplies, I had a look inside the 80W(!) power supply of my dead Dell Dimension-C.  All looks fine visually... and most of the caps have a "K" on the top instead of an "X".  I read somewhere that the "K" capacitors are better?  I also read though that the capacitors can look fine visually but still be bad, so - without an oscilloscope - it's hard to say what condition the output power from that power supply is in.  It certainly is a low-capacity power supply though!  (By comparison, the custom box I have has a 300W rating.)

I dragged an old Epson box out of storage and installed the new board I bought last week in it.  The power light comes on, but there is no other sign of life.  I'm tired of wasting time on that board, so I think I'll just write it off.  One good thing though, is that the old motherboard of the Epson machine has ten of the "K" capacitors that seem to be in good condition, so maybe I'll try putting them onto the board of the custom computer that is working with bulging capacitors that are just beginning to leak sightly (with black in the middle of the "X" on their tops).

The old Epson has a floppy drive and cable that utilizes a missing prong on the male side and a blocked over hole on the female side.  The old cable thus would not plug into the board, so I had to change the cable to a newer type with no blocked over holes.  What technical shift in floppy drives does this represent, if any?

New boards seem to be more square, while the board in the custom box I have is narrower and longer.  This creates a mechanical problem, as the corner of the board competes with the CD/DVD drive for space.

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"You Get What You Pay For"

I was given a custom-built computer that is... about three or four years old I think.  It has an AMD 700MHz CPU and came with a five-inch floppy drive and a mediocre video board.  I put in an ATI Radeon 9600 video board (with 256MB DDR) that had been sleeping in a closet for a couple of years, and replaced the five-inch floppy drive with a CD-RW drive (it already had one, but it wasn't reading some of my disks).  All seemed well and it was working fine with SuSE 10.0, but then I took a more detailed look at the motherboard and discovered that the large capacitors are ballooning....

Muttering "Tada-hodo takai mono wa nai" ("Nothing is so expensive as that which is free"), I marched off to Yodobashi Camera in Shinjuku (I should have gone to Akihabara, but didn't have time) and placed myself upon the mercy of one of the guys working in the basement of Minami-kan (I think - the one that is internally connected to the main store).  I had removed the board with the disintegrating capacitors and brought it with me, so I showed it to him and - after confirming that the CPU and memory in the old board would not be usable in a new board - asked what they had in the way of replacement motherboards that used AMD and are cheap.  The shopkeeper looked at my old board, thought for about three seconds, and then went into a back room, soon returning with a spiffy-looking green box with AMD written all over it.

Thinking "How much are the three separate components (motherboard, CPU, & memory) I'm about to buy going to cost?", I was surprised to hear that the spiffy-looking box contained a set of all three of those for Y9,800.  "Well... that's cool!" I stupidly thought, envisioning only the off-new specifications (not a problem) and forgetting there was the not-so-minor issue of mechanical design to deal with, not to mention my own personal theory (and experience) that a spiffy box wrapped around a cheap product generally is indicative of garbage inside.  Looking at the box now, I note that "AMD" is proudly written large in 24 places all over the box, and the board name "DFI" just twice in small letters on the back (once as "DFI K8M800-MLVF").  One could be forgiven for suspecting (in hindsight alas!) that they are trying to hide a bad name with a good one.

But back to Yodobashi Camera and before the storm - I stepped out into the rain and proudly carried the box home and set about installing it in the custom box.  (Incidentally, what do you call a custom box with no name that you are given?  Do you give it a name like a pet, or just call it a "box" forevermore?  Suddenly I understand why custom computer owners call their machines boxes - I sometimes call my OptiPlex GX-1 a box, but generally think of it as "OptiPlex-2".)  First step was to plug in the CPU, its heat sink & fan, and the PC3200 memory boards (the kit 256MB & a separately bought 512MB, both in "CFD Sales Inc." boxes - "Memory Module for EXPERTS" it says - He-he!)  And then....

"What's this?  The board isn't sliding under the overhanging wiring the way it should be - what's getting in the way..?" I mutter, and then discover that - rotten design - the power connector for the board is at the top corner by the CD-ROM drives and the cable connector and other parts prevent it from being installed without taking the side screws out of the CD-ROM drives and sliding them halfway out of the machine.  "Well, that sucks!  But I guess I can still use it even with the CD-ROM drives hanging halfway out and in harm's way..." think I as I push on.  Next thing is the rectangular panel that should snap into place and then match up with the external connectors of the motherboard.  It's so flaky and uncooperative that I decide to skip using it - it doesn't provide any mechanical support for the connectors anyway and I know what they are without the labeling - "What's a little extra space around the plugs in the back... maybe it will provide better ventilation..." I think as I begin sinking into an unhappy and stormy cloud.

I was pretty disgusted with the project by the time I got the new motherboard bolted down, so the discovery of the flaky and nearly impossible to decipher pins and their bad labeling didn't come as a shock, but just another wave washing into an already sinking boat (the old board, by way of contrast, was infinitely more intelligently designed).  I made my best guess with the wiring, plugged in the power, and the machine seemed to come to life, but the only effect on the monitor was strange flashing of the setting lights, so with visions of the bloody thing not only not working but damaging innocent external equipment as well, I cut the power, removed the now hated board and put the old one back in.  It works fine again, but those ballooning capacitors will not last long.

I thought of taking it back and exchanging it for a more expensive and better board ("You get what you pay for"), but as I looked at the pile of packaging around me and the new board with the CPU in place, I realized it wouldn't be ready to just put back on the shelf, so I put the board back in the static-free bag, tore up and threw away most of the internal packing and put the board aside with a feeling of disgust as I noted the time - 4:00 a.m.  "Another night's sleep stolen by computers - the greatest sleep deprivation device known to mankind!" muttered ten-year veteran of the Equipment War Used-Machines-Lyle.  Methinks I'm about to become "New-Machines-Lyle" as I dream of an all-new custom box with parts beginning life under my command.  What I'm wondering now is what to do with the CPU - is it one I should put to work for me or should I shelf it and go for something newer?  It's a... I'm not sure what - there's the name "Sempron"; the box says "2600+ Socket 754"; and on the chip it has "AMD 2001"(!), so does that mean it's five years old?  It can't be that old... can it?

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"There's No End to IT..."

Once upon a time, long long ago, I thought that the day would come when I would get my computers all arranged nicely and they would work for me without mishap while I concentrated on writing, taking photos, etc.  While I have not absolutely and completely given up on that dream, I have gotten to the point where I pretty much expect computers to endlessly cause me problems.  The latest?  I was given a "free" computer....

It's a custom-built box that I was initially happy to use - for all of three hours, and then I had a good close look at the motherboard.  Ballooned capacitors met my horrified gaze.  "Oh no... you've got to be kidding!  Not again!" I silently screamed.  I had just lost a Dell Dimension-C to a leaking capacitor-induced sudden death.  Oh well - "Tada-hodo takai mono wa nai" ("Nothing is so expensive as that which is free"), and so I rushed off to an electronics store to spend money on my "free" computer.  I expected some sympathy from the shopkeeper,but he just explained that's what what happens.

Well... it may happen, but does it really have to?  Dead mother boards in only a few years?  I think they should last a bit longer than that....

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

"More Details"

Very interesting site:

http://www.siliconchip.com.au/cms/A_30328/article.html
Motherboard Capacitor Problem Blows Up
By Peter Smith.


Quoting from that page:

     "Initially, there were only two clues to the mystery. First, the failing capacitors were more often that not to be found in the power supply section of motherboards. The capacitors used in this area are characterised by their need to have very low ESR (Equivalent Series Resistance- see panel).
     Second, most of the failing capacitors were identified as Taiwanese in origin. That's not too surprising at first glance, as Taiwan manufactures about 30% of the world's aluminium electrolytics (22.5 billion a year).
     In September, "Passive Industry Components Magazine" published a story that exposed the reasons behind the unusually high failure rates. They reported that the failures were directly related to the use of faulty electrolytes in the manufacturing process.
Industrial espionage?
     The story describing how the electrolytes came to be faulty reads like a lot of fiction. It begins in Japan, at a major capacitor manufacturer. A materials scientist for the Japanese company resigned and went to work for a Chinese capacitor manufacturer. While there, he reproduced one of the electrolytes used in his former employer's premium (low-ESR) aluminium electrolytic products.
     Staff working with the scientist then defected, taking the secret electrolyte formula with them. They used the formula to manufacture their own electrolyte, which they subsequently flogged to major Taiwanese capacitor manufacturers at bargain prices. Unfortunately, their reproduction of the formula was flawed and the rest is history."

Espionage!  Japanese scientist defect to China!  Trade secrets leaked to Taiwan!  Why isn't this in the mainstream news and on TV, with reporters crowded around the Japanese manufacturer (Nichicon, of Kyoto?) and with other reporters being sent to China and Taiwan to track down the scientist who defected and the company (companies?) in Taiwan which bought the technology from China?  If it's true, it's better than fiction.  If it's not true, let's here the companies involved refute it and give the real reasons!


     "As mentioned earlier, these capacitors are of a specific type; they have very low ESR. To understand the need for this requirement, let's take a brief look at the circuitry involved.
     Low-ESR capacitors.  Probably due to the fact that CPU core voltages change so often, designers have been forced to implement sections of the power supply circuitry on the motherboard. The standard power supply box still provides the usual 12V, 5V and 3.3V rails, but the lower voltages for the CPU core are provided by further step-down circuitry on the motherboard.
     This on-board switchmode step-down circuitry runs at high frequencies (over 100kHz) to minimise the required inductance and filter capacitance. A key ingredient in this recipe is physically small electrolytic capacitors that can handle high ripple currents at high frequencies. In short, they must have very low impedance at the switching frequency."

Here we go.  Just as I suspected!  They are not just any old capacitors, but rather of a special type!


     "The "Rubycon" (Japanese) brand ZL and ZA series ultra-low impedance capacitors will be suitable in most cases. They're available locally from Farnell Electronic Components - see Farnell's web site at www.farnell.com for more information.
     Caution: the standard ZL and ZA series may be marginally larger in diameter than the original parts (10mm versus 8mm).
     All electrolytic capacitors have a finite life, measured in thousands of hours. Unlike the exceptional cases discussed in this article, there are usually no external signs that a capacitor is nearing its end of life. However, it is possible to determine whether a capacitor is serviceable or not by measuring it's ESR (Equivalent Series Resistance)."

So... where to get the replacement capacitors for my new custom-built box?  Any recommendations?

Lyle

"But What's the Precise Technical Reason?"

As I've been told in a computer user group, it's a well-known issue that many computers built from around the year 1999 are now having their capacitors ballooning, blowing up and/or leaking.  I've always used the word "shocking" as a sarcastic joke, but this time I really am... shocked... to discover that the sudden death of one of my computers (a Dell Dimension-C - a model that was only sold in Japan) was due to such a mundane problem!  I had thought that capacitors lasted far longer than just a few years.

When I did an autopsy on the Dimension-C, I found nearly all the capacitors (other than the really tiny ones) with ballooned tops and a couple of them had leaked goo across the circuit board!  And then yesterday, I was given a custom-built computer that is working fine, but when I took a close look at the main circuit board, I discovered that all of its large capacitors (something like 14 of them) have ballooned tops.  So how long does that computer have to live?  There are very few specific model names listed, but so far we have Dell Dimension-C, Optiplex-GX270, and Optiplex-GX280.  I also had an Optiplex-GX-150 suddenly die on me, but the visible capacitors seem to be okay (something in the power supply then?).

Anyway, let's look into this via the net a bit, with links and some quotes from a few different sites:


http://www.badcaps.net/
"...... the bad capacitor problem has been plaguing computer motherboards since about 1999 to the present day.  It now being 2006, I am STILL seeing later model P4 and Athlon boards with this problem.
     Over the years, there have been massive quantities of name-brand, high quality motherboards failing prematurely due to these faulty electrolytic capacitors used in their manufacturing process.  This has doomed many popular and expensive brands of motherboards, including: Abit, Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, Supermicro, DFI, Dell, Hewlett Packard, IBM, and many more!"

Those first six names - Abit, Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, Supermicro, DFI - are they all manufacturers of component mother boards made for custom computers?  That might explain the reluctance of some people in user groups to name specific companies they're having trouble with.  In the case of the custom box I was given, I haven't yet discovered who made the mother board.  Probably it's written somewhere not visible until removed from the box.


http://news.com.com/PCs+plagued+by+bad+capacitors/2100-1041_3-5942647.html
Published: November 10, 2005
     "Last week, Dell announced it was going to take a $300 million financial charge on its earnings to cover costs associated with the replacement of motherboards with faulty capacitors in some of its Optiplex workstations. The Dell system boards in question were manufactured from April 2003 to March 2004, according to several contract computer repair firms that are starting to replace the systems.
     PCs from Hewlett-Packard and Apple Computer and other PCs using Intel motherboards have all faced similar issues, according to the companies, contractors and several online bulletin boards."

Dell, HP, Apple "and other PCs using Intel motherboards", and Athlon (got one sitting beside me as I write this).  The manufacturers are doing a good job of hiding information on this.  It's not a "mystery of the universe" type of thing.  The capacitors came from somewhere and there is some scientific cause for their early demise!  But from reading the stuff on the Internet, you'd think we were talking about distant galaxies or something that could only be surmised with a loose theory and not pinned down to good science and investigative journalism... "some", "many", "and others"....


     "At issue are faulty capacitors on motherboards that store power and regulate voltage. Defective capacitors found in the Dell Optiplex workstations, some Apple iMac G5s, HP xw-series workstations made in 2004 and PCs with the Intel D865GBF motherboard have been found to bulge, pop, leak and crust over, causing video failure and periodic system shutdowns.
     Photos showing Dell's Optiplex GX270 and Optiplex GX280 with defective capacitors have been widely reported on Web sites such as Badcaps.net, PowerEdgeForums.com. Pictures of other faulty capacitors have been spotted on Apple's own discussion boards, MacOSG.com, and G5Support.com.
     Only HP would identify the maker of its faulty capacitors: Nichicon, of Kyoto, Japan.
     Nichicon, which has been in the business of making capacitors for 50 years, has a strong track record, and the majority of Nichicon's products have no problems at all, HP representatives and enthusiast sites said."

And of course Nichicon is not supplying any information about WHY this is happening.  I - for one - would like to know.


     "The bad capacitors are found in some motherboards, video cards and power supplies for PCs, monitors, video tape players and televisions."

I had thought only in motherboards!  In monitors and power supplies as well?  This is becoming a bigger issue all the time it seems.


     "Experts say that if capacitors are not made right, they start to deteriorate after three or four years, rather than lasting the expected seven years."

Seven years?!?  I look over beside my computer and see my 1981 Sony TV - full of capacitors - that has never been serviced and is still working fine after 25 years on the job.  Seven years?  Okay, how about some detail here!  Maybe it's something along the lines of: "High performance capacitors with ultra thin insulating layers and in constant use are only expected to last around seven years and large batches of substandard capacitors are failing after only two or three years of use."  So, were the "experts" quoted in the article in fact experts, or just lawyers and/or PR types engaged in damage control with the media?  I suspect the later!


     "'Faulty capacitors were attached to Intel D865GBF motherboards, which are sold to computer manufacturers and in some electronic retail stores.'  Intel has acknowledged previous problems within the capacitor manufacturing industry and has an advisory posted on its site talking about electrolytic capacitor leaks on some 875-based and 865-based desktop motherboard products."

Okay, "previous problems within the capacitor manufacturing industry" - but what problems exactly and with precisely which manufacturers?  Why no details?


    "In August, Apple issued a limited recall of some of its first-generation iMac G5 models sold between approximately September 2004 and June 2005 featuring 17- and 20-inch displays with 1.6GHz and 1.8GHz G5 processors. The official cause was blamed on an unnamed 'specific component failure.'"

Fear of product liability lawsuits seems to rule the day.  A friend of mine had his iMac die on him....


http://news.com.com/Bulging+capacitors+haunt+Dell/2100-1003_3-5924742.html?tag=st.ref.goo
Published: October 31, 2005
     "Blackburn said Dell receives its capacitors from a variety of vendors and declined to specify which supplier was responsible."

Why?  Why does the manufacturer get anonymity  The parts didn't come from the outer galaxy, they came from a factory right here on earth.  Why not own up to the problem and shed more light on what's going on?  Damage to the company's reputation?  Oh, right - mustn't harm the companies responsible, never mind the users, they can just buy new computers.


     "A picture posted by a Dell Forum member shows two black- and gold-colored bulging capacitors with "1500 hF 6.3 v" printed on the sides."

Sloppy!  The capacitors are black, with gold lettering saying "1500 uF 6.3V +105C" on one side, and large polarity markings on the other.  (I know, because I have the dead motherboard from my dead Dell Dimension-C sitting right by me now - I just had a good look.)


     "As for a possible industry-wide problem caused by the faulty capacitors, calls to various PC manufacturers were not immediately returned."

What people don't know can hurt them but not the manufacturer, so they're hiding everything.  About the only information that seems to have come out is via user groups.


     "A person familiar with the problem said Dell's capacitor issue is unlikely to be related to any specific Intel processor used in Optiplex systems, but did note that similar bulging issues from some Taiwanese suppliers have been observed."

Better than nothing... does anyone else out there have additional information?  It's not going to come from the manufacturers responsible, so it has to come from us.

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon

Spring & the Boxes...

Spring... the cherry blossoms are still out in Tokyo, although about 20-30 percent of the pedals have fallen like a pink snow on the ground in parks around the city.  It's still cold though... and while most of the city's residents are looking fashionable in their light spring clothing, I'm looking stodgy in my down coat - but I'm warm and they're cold.

I watched a movie from Finland last week called "The Man Without a Past", or at least that's what it is in Japanese ("Kako no nai Otoko"), and today I stumble upon an ad for a place in Omotesando Hills for a fashionable shop selling fashionable fashions from Finland.  Let's see... the name was "marimekko".  Every heard of it?  I don't know anything about fashion myself.  Just I like what I like and don't like what I don't like, even if it is fashionable (like those really ugly brown bags that so many woman like to throw their money away on).

I found that website again - it has photos of the fashionable shops at Omotesando Hills, and also a few pictures of the complex when it was still under construction, etc. - here:
http://www.beyes.jp/omotesando/

Not much more time to see the cherry blossoms, so maybe I'll have another look tonight.  On the other hand, I've already seen them in several different places and I'm not feeling especially like I really need to go out of my way to see more of them - beyond the one's I come across on the usual routes anyway.  The next thing I'm looking forward to is warmer weather!  I do not like the cold....

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/

Boso Peninsula & Yushima Seido

Boso Peninsula - Pg. 6
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/PhotoGlryMain/pgb/b/Boso06.html

Continuing the Boso Peninsula series on my drive along the Pacific coast....

Yushima Seido
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/PhotoGlryMain/pgb/Yushima01.html

A piece of old Japan in central Tokyo - strangely unknown by most of the city's residents.

LHS