Being a Dad in Japan
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Odd man out
Sitting in one of my last phone calls at work last night, I looked around the participant list and saw I was the only man. Looking forward to the next year, it won’t be so different. Or will it? I have a hunch that the all-virtual environment of work gives us a wonderful anonymity where…
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Bystander and origins of boujin
The online handle name I’ve gone with for some time is boujin. I started using it back in college many eons ago and have stuck with it. I can’t say that I ever had a an extreme interest in Japanese culture or language, but my wife and I were dating back in college and I…
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The Talk
Sat down on the couch after a peaceful day at home. Had just gotten up after getting the two older kids to bed. Dove into my book, the third installment in The Expanse, “Abaddon’s Gate”. I’m nearly through the book at this point and the minutes are flying by as I get to the climax…
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Baby steps
I’ve lived in the marketing world for the past 10 years. This March, I’ll embark on a new journey. I’ll become a stay-at-home dad for the next year. In Japan. While you may be fascinated to read about baby feedings, house cleanings, and meal preps, I’m looking more to chronical my adventures in the land…
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The Silver Lining On My Silver Week
Silver week in Japan is in full swing. Hisako and I celebrated the extended weekend by dividing our days into three distinct themes. Day 1: Apartment huntingDay 2: Sight SeeingDay 3: Shopping Silver week varies from year to year, but the Japanese government has done its best to bunch together a number of Japanese holidays…
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Curse of #1 Rankings
As a long term addict to suffering, i.e. a Cleveland Indians (Cleveland sports in general) fan, I can’t help but feel a little superstitious about the fact that the turning point in Cleveland’s season this year just so happened to correspond with the exact week they got a #1 ranking on ESPN’s power rankings… After…
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Sweaty GPS?
Very strange data from my run today. Somehow my phone was out of sync with the satellites and gave me bogus data for the run. The sun was pretty intense and I was sweating a lot, so thought maybe the water was messing with the device in some way it shouldn’t be. When I finished…
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The Sengawa Trail (仙川遊歩道)
By far my most meandering run to date, but found some hidden gems along the way. Found a great little path called 仙川遊歩道 (Sengawa Trail) that starts just down the road from where we live. This trail appears to be part of a much larger network of trails that follows the Sengawa river. Would love…
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Close to Pukey Time
Maybe it was the hard push that I did at the end of the run or my higher pace overall today, but I was awfully close to what Bode Miller so elegantly phrased Pukey Time. Enjoy. And of course the run that did it. View Kyorin – Sengawa : 5.4 km, 10.3 km / hr,…
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South Side Run
Today’s run :4.7 km, 9.3 km / hr, 00:30:15 A typhoon is approaching today, so some strong head / tail winds during the run. The route today hit too many stop lights / railroad crossings. Often found myself jogging in place or standing around. Need to figure out a better route if going to the…
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Currency Online versus PayPal
Following up on an earlier post on international money transfers to Japan, I’ve now decided on the best method to get money to Japan from the US. For transfers for more than 40,000 JPY, use Currency Online. If the amount is less than 40,000 JPY, you’re better off using PayPal. Currency Online would win out in…
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General Gripes and Praises for Lion
I’m working hard to get Lion to work for me. Seeing as this is supposed to be the “most advanced operating system in the world” I’m a bit surprised that the workflow doesn’t come more intuitively. Maybe I’m just becoming an old dog… Window Swapping Is it too much to ask to be able to swap…
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Off And Running Again
2nd run since surgery. Trying to get back into the swing of things with running. Was doing a fair bit before having surgery on my leg and then took a break for about a month and a half. Since that surgery, I’ve found some freelance work and picked up an Android phone. That means GPS!…
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Intergrate Twillio and the Yii Framework
For anyone that wants to integrate the Twillio api with the Yii Framework, here’s a rough guide. Overview: Download the Twilio php api Place the Services folder into your components folder Update your controller Those should be all the steps you need, although I’m looking for a solution to get the code out of the…
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Image search with images
So this blew me away today. Google’s image search now supports searches… with images. Give it a try with some of their demo images or try uploading your own. I found it working with images that are fairly recognizable. Ahh, more food for the Google-is-only-going-to–make-us-dumber fodder. Give these pictures a go: Success: Fail:
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Power consumption in Tokyo since the quake
Since the quake, the people of Tokyo and across Japan have been working hard to reduce power consumption because of the crippled nuclear power situation. The work has been paying off. Comparing to last year’s statistics, Tokyo is being far more efficient with it’s energy. Even on the hotter days, Tokyo has been using less…
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PHP: Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_VARIABLE in…
Yikes, round kick me in the face because I didn’t realize the cause of following error:Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_VARIABLE in….If you’ve gotten a similar error be sure to look for one thing first. Your semicolons (;)I was missing a semicolon at the end of the line, one line above the one which PHP was reporting…
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XML Output with the Yii Framework
My quick solution for getting the Yii Framework to display XML data. I’m just going to give the code from a project that I’m working, so substitute in your own names where necessary. OverviewFiles to create: protected/views/[your_class]/[your_action].php protected/views/layouts/[your_xml_layout].php Files to modify: protected/controllers/[your_controller].php In general, the approach is as follows. Create a layout that wraps our…
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Rebuilding Picasa Folders on OS X
This fix will only work for those who’ve copied files from a Windows machine and are having trouble getting then to appear in Picasa. Pictures Not Appearing In Picasa After Copy I just imported 40,000 pictures from a Windows box to my MacBook. These were pictures that were taken on my round the world trip…
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Should I sign up for an unlimited data plan for Japanese cell phones?
If you’re like me then you want to know if it’s worth signing up for the unlimited data plans offered by Japanese keitai companies. I use KDDI and conveniently lost my old phone somewhere between South Africa and Hong Kong, so upgraded to a smartphone when I got back to Japan. I spent awhile digging…
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