photos

Well just as soon as I post about the iPhone photo blog, the application dies. Won't open. So here are a couple photos from today's festival, old school upload style. I would describe this festival as a a bit of a counter culture event, far from the traditional festival format.

The was a skate park set up, some bike jumping, wild and crazy musical acts and of course traditional staples like beer and festival food.

The main stage and the flea market were moved inside because the usual outdoor site was rain-soaked after a week of nearly non-stop precipitation. This particular band puts on quite a show, and the act features guys running around in garments that barely contain their personal regions. This is naturally comical and, of course, terribly frightening.



Also, the nearly naked dudes' faces are painted white, so they kinda look like scary clowns who forgot to put on their clown suits this morning. What's scarier than a clown? A naked clown.

And that's all the imagery the iPhone captured today.

Bike Cycles

The Washington Post features an interesting article about cycling around the world. Of course the U.S. lags behind, but in developed countries high gas prices are pushing more people to commute on bikes. (Interestingly, in China and India, rapid economic development is prompting people to shun bikes in favor of the cars they can now afford.)

In Japan it's very common to get around via bike as part of or all of one's transportation routine. Bike parking at train stations is plentiful, and everyone is riding from school children to salary men.

The article also gives a shout-out to Portland, Ore., which has the highest rate of bike commuters of any U.S. city.

I am one of those residents in Japan who relies only on a bike or public transport. I get around fine, but on bad-weather days I'm reminded of why it would be nice to have a car. But having a car leads to using it even for short trips, so perhaps it's better to keep the car out of the driveway and just tough it out on the bike.

It's better for my wallet, and helps add more physical activity to my daily routine.

And back home, I believe brother Phil is one of those Portlanders who at least occasionally bikes to work. Right Phil? Respond via Twitter.

iPhone photo blog

I've started a photo blog exclusively for photos from my iPhone's decidedly not-that-great camera. The blog is set up so I can directly upload photos from the phone with just one click. Right now there's only a sample photo, but later today I'll send a shot or two from a festival.

Breaking news summer update news flash!

Hello blog.

It may be pretty obvious, but I took the summer off from the blog. This wasn't the plan, but it just happened.

Fortunately, the small group of readers of this operation have been kept informed of the basics:

1. Summer is hot and humid, and I complain about this at every opportunity.

2. I was somehow broke during my week of vacation, so that ruled out traveling anywhere beyond, for example, the grocery store.

3. On the non-vacation days I had to go to work where there is very often nothing to do, and I complain about this at every opportunity.

4. I won 13 Olympic gold medals.

So that was summer.

Now summer begins its wind-down. At least for now, weather conditions have gone from Holy Shit It's Hot to I Can't Believe I'm Still Sweating This Much. So that's good.

School starts up next week, and things get rolling for me work-wise this afternoon, when I'll have a meeting at my once-a-week school to plan the second term there.

I just remembered a couple things I should do right now, so I'll let this post end. I'll aim to get back to updating on a more regular basis.

And I'll post a photo with my gold medals later.

Study Hall

Summer is ticking along. After a few days of watching TV shows online at work, I burned out. Also ran out of episodes of Dexter (season three starts up this fall). So on a front of momentum from studying Japanese yesterday, I today announce a New Month's Resolution: Spend most of my down time at work studying Japanese.

This winter, I plan to take Level 3 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. I am not ready for this test. I hardly know any kanji, the Chinese characters that make studying Japanese extra difficult. And my vocabulary has some major gaps (for example, I don't know how to say major gap in Japanese). Meanwhile, there are some grammatical areas where I'm sure I'm not up to speed as well.

So yesterday, today and for the rest of summer, I plan to hit the books. So far I've got a couple of books of practice tests. I can go through the booklet, check my answers, and attempt to discover where I went wrong on all the questions which result in failure.

I don't have to ace this test to pass. In fact, just a 60 percent is enough to get the certification. But I still need to polish up before December. So no more Seinfeld at work. Much less random Internet time-kill-surfing. It's time to try to get serious about studying, perhaps, for the first time in my life.

That's not going to be easy. Will all of this fluff be forgotten in a few weeks?

Maybe.

But the only way to reach that level of failure is to get started.

Man ... I should write a self-help book.