tomo & mieko married!

Congrats to Tomo and Mieko for tying the knot. I like to say it was a shotgun wedding, because she's a month pregnant, but alas it was all part of the plan.
I also take some small responsibility because I encouraged her to join IT not Corp Comms back in the day, and I like to think that had something to do with her meeting Tomo in IT. Then again it could be totally unrelated, but whatever.
Saw Spike and his very pregnant wifey, bumming because she's gotta go easy on the booze. Also saw Moka, who's announced he's leaving Morgan to go give a hand at the front office. Good for him!
The old ECT team from the days of yore at Morgan Stanley is slowly dissolving; life is change. And change is good.
Here's the photos.

eat well, dream well

I'm fairly certain that I've been having vivid dreams the past few days, but as soon as I wake up, all I have is the vague recollection that I was just dreaming...but I can't remember what about. I hate that.
Hiroko says, "Every time I wake up, all the comforter is wrapped around you, and I'm cold, and you're dead asleep." So it's some kind of karmic payback for stealing the covers?
Maybe it's because I've been eating better these past few days. The fear of high blood pressure has put a motivation on me, and I've been attempting to cook dinner for the past couple days. Here are some things I have discovered:
* You can put lots of different spices in the sauce and the chicken will still taste bland.
* Too much garlic is too much.
* Don't put any food into your mouth until you've thoroughly chewed and swallowed everything. And taken a sip of tea.
* Talk alot during dinner; it's more interesting, it makes the meal last, and you feel fuller without having eaten as much.
* Eating 200 grams of pasta in 20 minutes is just as filling as eating 500 grams of pasta in five minutes. And it's less painful afterwards.
* Hiroko still eats really, really slowly. But it's arguably a better way to eat than too much, too fast.
* Japanese food has lots of salt in it. Hiroko says it's because the water in Japan doesn't have any minerals in it like in the states, so all minerals, including salt, have to be added to the food. I think it's just because Japanese people generally like salt.
* Japanese food labelling requirements pale in comparison to the states.

typhoon #23

Just a couple of weeks after #22 slammed across Japan and we got hit by #23. Strongest typhoon yet, and with the ground still wet from the last typhoon, much of Japan, especially in the southwest, was a mess of landslides and overflowing rivers. HR told folks to leave work early, so last night I left at five. Coming out of the train station I was met with horizontal rain. My umbrella was totally useless; the wind was blowing so strongly the I felt like I was laying down under a shower. I basically gave up and trudged home through overflowing gutters. Good thing I had my boots on, though. At least my feet were dry.
Golly, I'm sure glad that there's no such thing as global warming, otherwise I'd suspect all these typhoons had some kind of meaning.
This morning it was a bit gray but the typhoon's gone off into the Pacific, and most of my neighborhood is still standing, so it wasn't a total loss.

good bad attitude

Paul Graham touches on the American-ness of the hacker ethic. He is spot on, and of course no reasonable government official, and especially not anyone in this fear-mongering White House, would even get it.

(un)health check

Not really much point in getting a health check if the doctor doesn't actually tell me anything helpful from the results, eh?
Turns out that I cannot escape genetics. The high bloodpressure from my mom's side rears its ugly head. I need to lose weight and cut salt as I am a classic case of prehypertension.
I've never been a big salt fan and now I have an excuse to demand lower salt. Hard to do though in Japan; a spot of soy sauce and it's all over!
Then again cardiac arrest is not an option, so no more second bowl of rice, no more post-dinner icecream, more fruits and veggies.

doughnuts!

It's not Krispy Kreme, but Doughnut Plant, NYC makes a damn fine cinnamon roll that puts Starbucks to shame. Hiroko and I found it yesterday walking back from Meguro after having lunch in Shinagawa and loaded up for breakfast. Don't think we can freeze them so we'll have eat them all in the next couple of days!

speakers

Hiroko's birthday present has finally come together. Got a 5.1 set of speakers from Axiom Audio, a Yamaha receiver, and bunch of speaker cable from Ivan. After playing with Conan for a while and checking out his house in Yutenji, I made a couple of trips to Bic Camera to get various necessary cableage and finally get the system wired up. Still need another D video cable to connect the TV output to the receiver, but in general it works.
Now if I can just figure out how to get all the remote controls consolidated...

parking

parking
Remember, the driver sits on the right side of the car. So, how does he get out?