Beware of Gropers

In various places we find signs warning "ちかんに注意" (chikan ni chui) which can be translated as "be careful of perverts/molesters/gropers". I'd say that "gropers” might come closest to the actual nuance. I suppose it's good to see that at least there are warnings of these things and an emergency number to call just in case.

Here's a photo of me in a small city on Friday night (yes, Friday night...I said it was a small city) outside of a public washroom (please note the lack of vandalism!);I am standing beside one such warning sign.



Anybody see any perverts?：ー）

And here is a photo of a shrine from that same night, converted to black and
white using Adobe Lightroom

.

You Suck at Photoshop...

and why you simply must tune in!

It seems that no matter how much you read/see/eat/do, you're never quite up to speed. I mean, what IS a TiVo anyway?

But at least we do have some handy sites that keep us mostly in the loop and have tons of fun along the way. One of those sites is Digg, a user-generated news-site. Thanks to Digg, we found the You Suck at Photoshop videos (hosted on YouTube) which had to have been put together by a genius. The series is now up to episode seven; you can tune in anywhere, but you may as well start with episode one (here), though number four may be my personal favourite. The entire series has achieved quite a cult following and truly deserves it.

Another case of, "Why didn't I think of that?"

Something in the Mail

It's always nice to get an unexpected package in the mail; it's even nicer when it's a book, and nicer still when it has been autographed to me!

Last night when I got home from work, there was just such a package in my mailbox; my awesome friend, Cheryl, had gone to a reading by Roddy Doyle in New York in January; thinking of me, she picked me up and had him sign a copy of The Deportees and Other Stories, the author's just-published work. So even if I couldn't be there, at least I got the book!

I'm looking forward to reading it - I know it will be good!

The Dude Abides, and other old movies

Every now and then we feel nostalgic and crave some of the old, great movies. Recently, we've re-watched "The Big Lebowski" - a modern classic if ever there was one. Jeff Bridges is awesome as "The Dude" - a character whose recreational activities include bowling, driving around and "the occasional acid flashback". Fab movie.

We also recently re-watched another Cohen Brothers movie - Fargo. That was such a great movie, too.

Tonight, though, we're planning to watch "The Great Escape", a truly old movie (1963) with Steve McQueen and James Garner among others. What's got me craving this flick is that I've been watching Season One of Prison Break and now, in episode 8, the prisoners who are digging their way out dispose of the dug-up concrete by dropping and burying it in the prison yard - same as from the movie.

Though I can just about recite the script from The Great Escape, Brian hasn't seen this movie yet - I'm looking forward to introducing him to it.

Snow Riders- Susono Fire Road

Despite tired legs from a rare two-days-in-a-row of riding, Brian and I got out for a third ride today. And it was a long, hard ride; a GOOD ride.

We went up to the Fire Road via "Factory Route" (a moniker we've given to one of the routes up to the Fire Road). The ride up was tough because our legs were already pretty used up, and one might think that once we reached the Fire Road, we would have searched for the nearest, quickest way back down and home. No - not us!

There's a ride we'd been wanting to try for a while. Years ago, we used to ride up a trail behind our beloved Gotemba Kogen Beer hall. Then, suddenly, construction crews were present and building a new road. Finally - that newly constructed "road" which is really just gravel and dirt and, now, snow, goes all the way to the Fire Road.

We discovered this two weeks ago or so, when we decided to re-explore one of our old haunts and rode up to the Fire Road via the Kogen. So today, we opted to ride along the Fire Road and to descend via the Kogen...

Now, the FR makes getting from A to B a lot longer than it otherwise would be, since we're riding along a mountain ridge. The ridge is above the "snow line", so it actually snows here while it only rains in Susono; and so we covered more and newer territory than in a while - not only had we not gone this way in many years, we hadn't actually ridden in snow in more years than that! And today, despite the fact that the sun was shining and we were comfortably warm, we had to ride uphill and downhill in a fair amount of snow.

Here's Brian riding through the snow:


And here's me with Mt. Fuji in the background:


The novelty of it all was wonderful. The scenery was great, the ride was invigorating, and we had no flat tires today; and, happily, we enjoued a couple of German beers while sitting in the sun outside at the beer hall at the end of the ride! (Which was, obviously, below the snow line:-)

Dual Monitors on Ubuntu with Nvidia 5200

Every now and then I figure out something new with my Ubuntu set up. Ubuntu is a Linux operating system - completely free and totally cool - which I have installed on a separate hard drive so I have the dual-boot option with Windows.

Yesterday I spent more time playing in Ubuntu - the new challenge was getting Ubuntu to recognize and utilize my dual-monitor setup. Yes - in Windows it was a snap; not so in Ubuntu. But I found success at last.

My external graphics card is an Nvidia Geforce FX 5200 - a pretty low-end but 3D-capable graphics card. So first, I had to install Envy, which "is an application...which automates the installation of both ATI and Nvidia's proprietary driver on Ubuntu" (Envy can be downloaded here). Anyway, even if you already have a driver which works under Gutsy (Ubuntu 7.10), you'd be better off using Envy and "upgrading" the driver that way. I spent too much time trying to configure the screens and graphics in Ubuntu, but my Nvidia driver at the time did not have any options for me to setup multiple monitors. After installing and running Envy, I then had more options in my Nvidia settings.

After installing Envy, I went to the Terminal and entered the command line:

gksudo nvidia-settings

This is important! Although you can launch the Nvidia settings dialog from Application - System Tools, you have no authority to alter the settings and nothing will be saved. Therefore, it must be done as "Super User" via the Terminal.

In the Nvidia settings dialog, I set up my monitors in the X Server Display Configuration. In there, I set Ubuntu to recognize two separate X-screens; I set the resolutions for each monitor; it's important to set one monitor's position as absolute (the default monitor) and the other as relative. Anyway - trial and error, some playing around, and now I have this:



Once I had everything properly configured, I realized that I could not have Firefox running simultaneously on two monitors (and the setup I have achieved means I can't drag the windows across the monitors). Not feeling like playing too much under the hood, I found a simple work around: I installed SwiftWeasel (which can be found here)- an Open Source Firefox cousin. The interface is identical to Firefox, it installed beautifully, and even imported my Firefox profile.

So now as I type this blog post, I'm also watching some streaming episodes of Prison Break on monitor number two!

Bicycle Breakdown

Since the weather has been cooler and we therefore don't need to drink as much water, a few weeks ago on one of our weekend rides we'd headed out without our Camelbaks, figuring it would be nice to be unhindered for a change. Unfortunately, our Camelbaks are also where we carry our tire pumps, tire irons and patch kits... Of course, that outing sans tools was the first time in at least a year that one of us got a flat tire. That one of us was, of course, me. Since then, I haven't gone out without my Camelbak and tools.

So - today when I got another flat tire we were prepared! Well - mostly. With any kind of regular flat, we would have been back on the road in a quarter of an hour. However, Fate must have it in for me because this flat tire was the result of a faulty valve on my tube. And of course, I was not carrying a spare tube.

Here, Brian, who'd wisely been carrying a pocket knife, is cutting a small hole in an old-fashioned rubber patch.



This patch he then slathered with glue and slipped over the valve, in an attempt to stop the air from seeping out of the base.


Brian tried valiantly to repair the gap at the base of the valve, but to no avail. I couldn't ride the bike back home without shredding the tire (a fabulous Little Albert) or, worse, ruining the rim. So, after five kilometers of slogging uphill, we turned back and began the long walk home.

Oh, and at the beginning of what we had intended to be a Very Long Ride we saw these ducks chilling out in a "river" (I use the term loosely!).

Old Hitachi Iron and Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

My stint in Tenryu was fun, but coming home was good. We had an enjoyable night in last night, then when this morning (Saturday), dawned cloudy and chilly, we spent a couple of hours getting my Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon to run on dual monitors (more on that later). We then went for a bike ride (very enjoyable), and finally went out about town to do some errands.

One of our errands took us to a recycle shop, where Brian picked up another monitor, and where I scored a fabulous old Hitachi clothes iron.

Why, you may ask, am I delighted by finding an old clothes iron?　Am I so dull that I love nothing more than ironing clothes in anticipation of my next business trip? No - of course not! But I have been homesick for some good, old-fashioned grilled cheese sandwiches, which, for me, means cooked under a clothes iron.

Newish clothes irons (anything made in the last decade or so)just don't get hot enough, and they have an insane auto-off safety switch that keeps them from getting and staying hot enough to make a decent grilled cheese sandwich. What were the manufacturers thinking, to deprive me of my grilled cheese sandwich??

So, when I found the old-style (I'm not sure how old) iron, that looks like it has never been used, for sale at the recycle shop for a mere 650 yen (about 6 dollars), I snapped it up. And this afternoon we dined like...well, like people who loved grilled cheese sandwiches!



The recipe?　Two slices of bread, a slice of sliced-cheese; put the cheese between the bread, and place a very hot iron on top!! No margarine, no fuss, no mess:-)

PS - this also works great if you want to "toast" hot dog or hamburger buns!

Goen - ご縁

ご縁　（ごえん） - Goen.

This is a word and a concept that I met with last night. The gentleman translated it for me as "few limited chances to see each other in the world". I suppose I would interpret this as "destiny", or perhaps karma. On the other hand, it could also be interpreted as a chance encounter.

I'm away on a business trip again and staying in a hotel in a suburb of Hamamatsu. There is not much in this area, and the best restaurant is an izakaya in the basement of this very hotel. While having dinner and a glass of wine last night, enjoying but not being overprotective of my solitude, a businessman struck up a conversation with me in English. His name was Matsuo. He has lived in the States for 10 years, working in the auto industry; he is now in the process of emigrating to the States. He says that his children have Japanese faces, but don't fit in here in Japan, since they argue with each other in English.

Matsuo-san said that our meeting was goen. It was perhaps fate. Or perhaps a mere chance encounter.

Either way, the meeting was a pleasant one, and is one of the things I enjoy when I'm on the road.

Matsuzaki and Weekend Recap

OK.
We are getting back into our prime fitness stage. Sort of!

This weekend was great - yesterday we got out for a really really good ride. Up to the Gotemba Kogen Beer hall, and then behind, up a "secret" trail which we used to ride years ago but which didn't use to go all the way up to the Fireroad and now does. A good, vigorous ride, lots of uphill with a cold beer for a reward at the end.

No pics from yesterday. But a few more photos from Matsuzaki last week.

A view from Dogashima:



Our room at the Toyosaki Hotel:



Me, off-roading in my Pajero Mini:



Thanks to the Gorillapod, we got another photo of us together. Here we are at a little restaurant in Izu:



And here we are at one of the Kawazu waterfalls: