omotesando part ii

After Miki-san came and checked out the balcony railing to assess necessary repairs, Hiroko and I took the bus to Nishi-Azabu and, following basically the same course as yesterday, ended up at Suruga-Isho to arrange for them to come out tomorrow and check out the house. We need a table for the bedroom, some kind of coat-rack thingy for the entrance, and a shelving-unit-type-thing for the living room. They did such a cool job on the sofa end-table last time, I figure why mess with greatness.
We continued wandering around and checked out a cool kanji store that does custom calligraphy for non-cheap prices. But it looks so cool.
Finally ended up in Harajuku and got some gyoza for lunch before walking back to Shibuya and grabbing the bus back home.
Hiroko is currently on the couch, in deep thought:

men of leisure

Ed came by about noon to check out the house, and then we required meat, so we walked through Azabu to Nishi-Azabu crossing and got some burgers at 7025 Franklin Ave.
We then walked up through Omotesando, checked out some cool furniture, hit the Starbucks for cool and refreshing bevvies, and parked on the Aoyama corner in front of Mizuho Bank. The breeze was light, the humidity mild, and the afternoon unhurried.
We swivel-headed for a while, taking in the local fashion and talking about not much in general, before walking back through Harakujuku to Shibuya and finally back home.
Got home in time to gather my stuff and head to practice. Still wasn't too humid so practice wasn't too bad, but the bugs have come out and I got a mosquito bite on the top of my balding head. That does, indeed, suck.

manly men

Jeremy is in Colorado with Joel, doing manly outdoor things like white-water rafting.

time

The cool thing about being unemployed ("on vacation") is the time. Lots of it. On daboo's recommendation I read "Jennfier Government" today. The whole book. Very groovy. Not sure what I liked more; reading a good book, or reading a whole book in one day.
In the morning ("the time before noon") I dragged a pile of old PC parts to Softmap in Akihabara and got 25,000 points in credit. Akihabara is dead before noon. I'll probably use the points to acquire an iBook, or maybe some new PlayStation2 games...

so long and thanks for all the code

Last day at Morgan Stanley, uneventfully spent cleaning out my desk. Distributed many of my toys to various former co-workers, then took the rest of my crap home.
Came back to Ebisu for my Farewell Party, had some Hawaiian food, got some very cool flowers, and then sped away into the night on the Mightier Steed.
Closing the chapter in my memoirs called "Morgan Stanley" and starting the next chapter called "One Month Off".

live365:aperture in wired news

Jeremy sends us this update about a Wired News article about web radio.
Aperture is, of course, Jeremy's station (where DJ Tranzlucent, udderwise known as Oliver Power, used to spin.)

The New Yorker eats, shoots & leaves Lynne Truss

Eamonn goes to town.

hot in honbu

John, Ojima-chan, and Komacchan came to practice tonight. It was, as expected, hot and humid and generally unmotivating. We spent the whole time working the basics; timing of the draw to get the sword out and into cutting position so that the hips could provide the follow through, minimizing arm swing, etc.
The Indian curry I had with Todd for lunch wasn't sitting well all night, and between the heat and the tightness of my uniform, I had a couple of pitstops to sooth the rumble. No more cheap curry lunches, especially during the summer, especially on nights I have to teach.

how not to die

From The New Yorker.

last shibuya

My final Shibuya practice as leader of said. From July I hand it over to Kiyokawa-kun to kick everyone's ass into shape. After practice he and I and Otsuka-san went down the street to grab some post-workout bevvies and brain dump. Trying to figure out what we need to do to make sure NPO Hougyoku-kai survives into the next decade, and scales well from a couple hundred to a couple thousand members. Ideas kicked about: we need a proper, professional accountant, for sanity as well as legal reasons. We need a professionally hosted website and member database, mainly for security reasons. We need to a proper instructor's curriculum to make sure that everyone gets fair and even treatment. We need a fair and simple method of reimbursing instructors; travel expenses paid straight out but capped, plus a small payment depending on the level of the instructor.
As a Non-Profit Organization, we're no different than any other business (for profit or not) and we need to be organized well and run efficiently. As a group dedicated to traditional martial arts, we need to separate the structure from the content; we need to ensure the arts persist into the next generations by providing a stable framework for this modern age.
And mostly, we need to make sure the structure is stronger than any few morons who want to screw it up; the whole must be greater than the sum of the parts.

tokyo ain't cheap

Once again Tokyo is the most expensive city in the world. So no, I am NOT overpaid.

more is not enough

After the stunningly painful gyoza-overdose, I managed to get up about 9:30 and get down to honbu dojo about 11am. Practiced for an hour or so, then came home. Had some targets soaking so I prepped them and, in the interim, went with hiroko to D2 to get some flowers to put in the planter box next to the mailbox. Don't know anything about flowers, so I just picked interesting colors and we'll see how soon they die.
Did some cutting before dinner; went reasonably well on the yoko-icimonji (horizontal) cuts. Amazing how being relaxed helps. Still need to work on accelerating and following through with swinging the arm wildly, but it'll come with time.