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/
Saturday, July 29, 2006
"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/
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/
So... the meaning is between the lines, not in them.....
Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
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/
Whatever!
Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
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/
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/
Monday, July 10, 2006
"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/
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/
Thursday, July 06, 2006
"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/
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/
Monday, July 03, 2006
"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/
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/
Sunday, July 02, 2006
"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/
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/PhotoGlryMain/pgb/Outside01.html
Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
Thursday, June 29, 2006
"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/
"'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/
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
"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/
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/
Monday, June 26, 2006
"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....
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/
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/
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
"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/
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/
Sunday, June 18, 2006
"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/
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/
Thursday, June 15, 2006
"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/
Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
"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/
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/
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/
Saturday, June 10, 2006
"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/
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/
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
"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/
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/
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