Locally Famous?

There is nothing quite as wonderful as the feeling of being On Vacation. This is Day Two of On Vacation, and we are slowly packing for our trip to Bali. This afternoon Brian and I were out doing a few pre-departure errands such as purchasing train tickets to the Kansai International Airport. The weather was lovely - sunny and warm - which encouraged us to walk rather than drive. As a result, while walking toward home, we were approached by a young man who asked in very fluent English, "Don't you guys have a blog?".

"Why, yes," I said, "we do!" It seems that he stumbled upon our blog and reads it occasionally. How about that? I guess we're a little famous in Susono at least. Now we'll have to make sure to post more interesting tid bits!

But we will be away for about a week, soaking up some sunshine in Bali. Look for us then!

Staying Organized but Still Procrastinating

There are more websites about how to stay organized, and tools to stay organized, and how to ensure you make the most out of your time than anyone can possibly have time to use.

Do you need to set some goals for yourself? Need some motivation to achieve those elusive dreams? Or don't even know what you want to do? Visit 43 Things (http://www.43things.com) and join the masses. Check out other people's goals and achievements, and volunteer some of your own.

Or do you already have a mental list of things to do, but nowhere to keep track of them? Try some online tools like Remember the Milk (http://www.rememberthemilk.com) or Tada List (http://www.tadalist.com), both useful “to do” lists that you can maintain online to help keep you and your many things organized. For something a bit more simple but clear, log in to the Google Calendar (www.google.com/calendar) .

Are you having trouble keeping up with all the blogs and other news feeds that you like to read? Set up the feeds in a feed reader, such as Bloglines (http://www.bloglines.com) or Google Reader (http://reader.google.com) and have all your blogs and news feeds in one place, and know which ones have been recently updated.

Or perhaps you are simply disorganized overall? Don't know where to begin? Try adding Zen Habits (http://www.zenhabits.net) to your new Bloglines or Google Reader page to get a steady stream of healthy habits to keep you organized.

Personally I have yet to find the Holy Grail of staying organized. Really there is plenty of choice out there – too much choice, even. It brings to mind Barry Schwartz' excellent book, The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less. Um – actually, I'm saying that it's an excellent book because I'm sure it will be. However, it is still sitting on my bookshelf, reminding me that I have yet one more thing to do...

Onsen

Of all our ekai obligations I may have enjoyed this evening's the most - six of us when to Kirakubo onsen at the Gotemba Kogen where we soaked nakedly in the rotenburo, and wore our yukata to dinner before plunging back into the baths.

Last night we had a dinner part with people who work in our office. The food was lovely and the nihonshu delicate; it was a nice evening, though rather more formal as it entailed wearing clothes for the entirety:-)

Tomorrow I'm out of town for the day and will have dinner with a colleague after work before getting back on the highway and heading back home.

However - we are on holiday starting next week and, better yet, we've secured a flight to Bali. Woo hoo...

Password Protect Firefox

I love my Firefox 2.0 and now I'm anxiously awaiting version 3.0. I only occasionally use Internet Explorer 7 - which is better than version 6, and has better CSS compatibility – but still not as good as Firefox.

I also use Firefox Portable on my little USB drive. This is very useful – but I haven't password protected or encrypted my portable drive. Hence, if I were to lose it or leave it laying around carelessly, then prying eyes could surf my bookmarks and even pages where my login info was saved. Luckily, I've found a little Firefox extension that lets you add a password to your profile, which basically means nobody can launch Firefox without having that password. It's down-loadable here:

http://nic-nac-project.de/~kaosmos/index-en.html

Now, actually, this extension is not really heavy-duty, and there are plenty of warnings that people can still hack into your browser settings. Since I'm not really worried about hackers, though, this is just right for me.

Another toy I've incorporated onto my USB drive is TrueCrypt, which allows you to create protected and hidden volumes in which you can store sensitive data.

Two simple, portable workarounds for protecting your portable drives.

A Photo of Us

My "do nothing" sickness is passing (if slowly:-) and I'm back to blogging.

We had yet another enkai (party) on Friday night and, since we both wanted to imbibe a little, we got a hotel for the night in lovely Shimada city. Saturday was a beautiful day and we took some photos at the now-under-construction* Horai bashi.

I had brought my large Gorillapod SLR Zoom** tripod, so we actually got another photo that shows us together (so friends and family can now rest assured that Brian is not, in fact, my imaginary boyfriend!).

This photo was actually taken when we stopped during a drive through the mountains; it had some terrible lens flare, so I tweaked it in Photoshop Lightroom...




*Typhoon number 4, that caused the massive landslides around here, also knocked out the old Horai bridge; it looks like it should be crossable again soon, though.

**The Gorillapod for the SLR Zoom is super strong, and totally adaptable. This is my new favourite accessory. Oh and the 30mm lens we bought ourselves for Xmas!

Nani mo shitakunai byo

Nanimoshitakunai byo; literally, this means “(I have the) I-don't- want-to-do-anything sickness”.

Though tough to translate the nuance, I would have to say that “malaise” comes pretty close. I first encountered this term when my nihongo sensei told me that she'd like to cancel my weekly lesson for two weeks. Upon re-starting our lessons, she explained that she'd been suffering from nanimoshitakunai-byo, but now she was feeling a bit better.

I bring this up because I don't think a little malaise is a bad thing. We as a society are always on the go, and simply always “on”. At the office we pass the day in a flurry of checking and responding to email, surfing for info to stay up to date on the newest theories and technologies relevant to work, being unfailingly nice to everyone we meet; then comes the “finally home” part, where we pass our time in a flurry of checking and responding to email, surfing various sites trying to stay up to date with the newest info and technologies relevant to personal interests and hobbies, and being relatively nice to everyone we meet. We are inundated by non-stop information in greater amounts than we can possibly handle, attacked by banner-ads, drawn into email adverts... How far can a person continue before something gives? Before some introspective part of you puts on the brakes and screeches, “enough”?

Lord Byron said that we are least alone in solitude. I get that. And sometimes putting the whole world at bay for just one day is not such an evil thing. Is it?

Exotic Kanagawa

While we live in Shizuoka Prefecture, we are actually at the very eastern edge, the border being along the rim of a collapsed volcano (Hakone). The neighboring prefecture is Kanagawa, which stretches to Tokyo. The limits of geography in such forbidding terrain limits access across the rim, but we know a narrow track that isn't on the maps, and we took it yesterday morning early to catch the morning light from "the far side".

The caldera of Hakone now contains a lake (Ashinoko); here is Tracy at the waterline:

















The inside rim on our side is still active, releasing steam, gases and hot sulfur-stinking water. There are trails here, but they are closed due to the dangerous concentration of emissions. We went as far as permissible:
















And looked back to see the visitor's center and cable car terminus. We live just on the other side of the right side distant visible ridge:


















One of the reasons for the trip was to test the new lens we went 'halvsies' on: a Sigma fixed 30mm f1.4 lens, with HSM (to auto-focus even with my D40x). It can practically shoot in the dark due to the light-gathering glass, and allows a crazy amount of DOF. It arrived by mail the night before the shoot, so it was truly untested. It stayed on my camera all day, but I promise next time will be Tracy's turn!

Here is the area as seen from space:

Wild Monkeys in Susono

We got a bit of a late start on this morning's bike ride, but being Saturday and chilly and cloudy, we weren't really in a hurry to get going. Turns out we had good timing, and, for a change, also had the camera handy for our most recent monkey encounter.

Probably about a kilometre or so from home, in the bushes alongside Rt. 246, we found ourselves surrounded by a pack of wild Japanese macaques. The locals warn never to make eye contact and basically to stay well away from the little buggers - but we couldn't resist getting at least one shot of this dominant male who seemed to be the leader and protector of the pack. Not long after, they fled into the protection of the trees.


I shot this with our little Lumix LZ1 (a small point-and-shoot camera), but Brian takes credit for cornering the beast!

Living in Darkness

Japan does not have Daylight Saving Time. While in the summer, when it would actually make the real difference by giving more daylight in the evenings, I don't miss or even really want Daylight Saving because I enjoy waking up at 4 or 4:30, and the rising sun facilitates that. However, I wouldn't mind a bit more daylight somewhere in the autumn and winter. Like now - I find we are sleeping in until 6 or even later these days because the sky is still dark and the apartment chilly; meanwhile, the evenings are given to lackluster laziness and a sense that it is too late to do anything because the sky has been dark since 4:45 p.m. No- in this case Daylight Saving Time really wouldn't make a difference - you can't actually increase the daylight.

Anyway- this "bla bla bla" was just to say that we're sleeping more and doing less:-) To combat this, I'll have to start setting the alarm for a change.