Getting back on track...

Whew! It's been one month since my shin surgery, and I have been 'taking it easy' during the recovery, to keep my blood pressure down. This has to be longest I've gone without riding, and definitely the longest without doing any kind of workout.

I worked in Tokyo yesterday, and then spent the night in my favorite 'business hotel' there so I could meet my surgeon early today. He seemed as tickled with the results as I am, and proclaimed that I am ready to resume any and all exercise, including biking and weight training. He explained that I had a rare type of varicosity, caused by multiple 'holes' in my lower leg, which is the cause of 20% of these cases. The other 80% are caused by backflow in the one Greater Saphenous Vein, which can be easily ligated at the groin; a much simpler procedure than what he performed on me.

To celebrate the coming of spring as well as my last non-active weekend, I tried again with some High Dynamic Range photography. This time, I used my Lumix fully-automatic LZ2. I was able to take an automatic-mode picture, then reduce and increase the EV by +2 AND -2 for the second and third exposures. This isn't as good as using a camera with manual controls, but I wanted to see if it was even possible. It is, but a limiting facor was bright white things, and since I chose snowy Mt. Fuji and three local waterfalls, I got poor results.

This shot of my friend Chris's bike against my truck, in front of our Landlady's house fared better, though:















To make this, I needed only my digicam, a tripod (ours cost about $9), and Adobe Photoshop 9.0, which is part of the Creative Suites 2 (CS2) package of software. I have read that another free program, Photomatix, gets similar results, but I haven't tried that yet.
More soon!

More High Dynamic Range

The weather cleared for a nice, though still chilly, Saturday. We went to a car wash early this morning to give the Pajero some TLC, but plenty of other people had the same idea. Car washing is an art form here, more than the job I see it as, and we didn't want to wait for the geeks with toothbrushes flossing their wheels. As we had driven halfway to Mishima, a visit to a newly-opened computer shop yhere seemed like a good idea, although neither of us really needed anything.

It turned into a whole day out, getting back just in time for a quick shot of Mt. Fuji at sunset... this was a set of three exposures taken with a Lumix FZ10, and then merged in Photoshop:





















If the weather holds tomorrow we'll go out to find some more exotic scenes (this is from our front door), maybe down to the ocean or to the river.

Thanks for visiting!

Yahoo Testing New Home Page

And I am, according to Yahoo, "among the lucky few who get to try it out".

Here is a screen shot of the new page (click on the image for a larger view):



I rather like the bubble-like design, and I like having the news in the center of the page, with tabs to choose "world news" and "video".

I'll have to surf around on Yahoo a bit more before I confirm my liking for it!

High Dynamic Range

After working in and out of town, on weekdays and weekends, I finally had a day to relax and catch up on some projects of personal interest. What I have been thinking about is the photographic technique known as HDR, or High Dynamic Range. As I have only point-and-shoot experience, I realized this would be a bit of a reach with only one day to devote to it.

Well, the day proved to be the darkest and rainiest in recent memory, seriously hindering my enthusiasm, but I was able to finally get some results indoors...














The idea is to take several shots varying only the exposure, and then merging them together to reveal the intricacies lost in a single exposure. This would have been way above my skill and patience level, except for Adobe Photoshop (CS2), which has a one-click 'merge to HDR' feature.

I am using Tracy's LUMIX FZ10 as my compact doesn't have any manal settings.

Please stay tuned for some improved attempts, but for examples of what is possible, Flickr has a pool of pictures devoted to the style: http://www.flickr.com/groups/hdr/pool/

Photoshop Elements Experiments

I always wake up with great expectations (a great way to start the day, by the way) - "Today I'm going to go for a ride, organize my photos, clean the apartment, study Japanese, send off some packages, go shopping, cook a nice dinner, read this month's Atlantic, redesign our website...". As you may guess, maybe one of these things actually gets done.

Recently, Brian and I have been learning how to use Adobe Photoshop Elements, a powerful photo-editing tool, and today, Sunday, I spent some time experimenting in Elements - at least something got done between the three hours that I spent watching the National Geographic Channel!

Here is a photo of Larry that Brian made (and edited):





And here is one of mine:



This post was edited for drunken spelling errors:-)

TGIF

Sometimes time seems to go too fast, slipping through our fingers like cool water. Other times, we can't make time pass fast enough.

This week has been both long and fast - and busy. But it's Friday today, and we are working out of town and then spending tomorrow exploring a city bigger than Susono.

Partied Out!

No biking recently, for which I have several excuses: the cold mornings, running, and my riding partner being out of commission. I did a good run on Saturday – 5 k in 34.26 minutes, with an average heart rate of 162. Not bad, considering I hadn’t run in a while and that I was running hills. Although I undid the health benefits with at the house party we went to on Saturday night at our neighbor’s place, and the end of which I only vaguely remember. We were feeling unwell enough on Sunday, too, to be deterred from any kind of physical exertion!

Guys and Drinks:



Brian plays with Larry's new camera (a Lumix FZ30):

Not for the squeamish

Wow, the weekend is finally here, and again I don't know what to do with it... Usually we spend our time off outdoors, or at least out of the apartment, but I, at least, am in forced stay-home mode for a few weeks. The 'home theater' is one week old today, but we haven't watched more that 1 hour of TV in that time. I don't want to waste a sunny day sitting in front of the tube, so I'll post this from my pc by the window.

I stitched (pardon the pun) together my (self-taken) 'before and after' photos of my leg. I'm not generally squeamish, but I still fnd both of these images disturbing! Here goes:















Before the surgery it was supposed that the problem was mostly the vein and junction in my upper thigh, but during the procedure the GSV (greater saphenous vein) was examined and found to be 90% OK (although some unnecessary vein was tied off while they had that area open). So, the problem actually started at the knee, and the LSV (long saphenous vein) and junctions below there were removed in the three-hour procedure. I ended up with 7 wounds, one in the groin and the rest on my shin...

Instead of general anesthesia and a long stay, I had an epidural. The first try resulted in perfectly paralyzing my right leg, but only made my left one feel warm. I consented to another attempt under sodium pentathol, or some such relaxing shot in my shoulder, without the paperwork and signatures required for the first consent. The second shot in the spine worked immedately.

I remained awake for the procedure, which went a bit longer than expected and longer than the anesthesia, so the operation was completed with a few local anesthetic injections. Ouch.

At the end, as I was being readied for the trip back to my 'room', my surgeon excitedly brought me the veins he had removed, like a fistful of Twizzlers. I wish I'd had a camera for that...

Once in my tiny recovery cell, I realized that this wasn't going to be a hotel stay... I had exactly 3 feet by 6 feet of space (I'm 6'2), and although I had left my cellphone, digicam and MP3 player within inches of the bed, I couldn't reach anything in my still paralyzed and IV'd state. It was the longest night of my life, as the painkillers wore off and I became aware of the agonizing catheter and headache; I slept for about 15 minutes total, I think.

The nursing staff was composed of 4 complete angels, who soothed my whimpering while tending to a never-ending stream of real bedside emergencies from the long-staying patients.

In the morning I took a practice limp down the corridor, had a few more liters of saline, glucose and antibiotics pumped in, and then checked out. Hopefully I'll not need to return for anything like that again, but the experience was good and the results even better!

Blogaversary - One Year and Still Going Strong

Today marks the one year anniversary of Japanrider - The Blog! You've seen us buy our Rigs and sell our FSRs; you've seen some bad photos, and some good ones; you've been with us for the ups and downhillings.

So here we go - aiming for another year of riding in Japan; well - Brian will start riding again when his leg allows (his painful varicose veins were removed about a week ago - see yesterday's post). In the meantime, stay tuned for more pedestrian updates!

Slow Lane?

Hello devoted readers!

Many folks may be wondering why 'Japanrider' hasn't been posting about crisp rides or other two-wheeled adventure lately. Well, I surveyed the year and decided that the coldest winter months might be the right time to attend to the increasingly bothersome vein in my leg. I had a doctor refer me to a surgeon in Tokyo, and after a few trips to meet and check the particulars, I scheduled myself for surgery.

Because Tokyo is far from my home and I seemed healthy enough otherwise, the doctor worked out a plan to reduce the procedure and hospital stay from 5-7 days to just one day (surgery) and an overnight, with 'check-out' after breakfast. It seemed like a great plan, and in the end it worked out just right, although it took some wrangling with the incredulous hospital staff and some easing up on the pain medication. (Ouch.)

Last Tuesday I went in, and Wednesday around noon I left, after most of the medicines had worn off. (I don't remember the trip home, but somehow I managed two subways, a train, a bullet train and finally a taxi. I then ate and slept until Friday.)

Since then I've had to keep my left leg elevated, and reduce walking or standing as much as possible. I won't be able to 'exercise' for a few weeks, which I'm sure includes biking (um, I ride a single-speed) and lifting weights; hopefully spring weather will arrive as I'm able to get out again, with a minimum of teasing!

I do have before and after pictures of my leg, but I'm not sure anyone wants to see that much detail, so for now I'll post a 'recovery mode' picture, featuring our newly refurbished home theater: