Category: Family

strawberries.

Now that my Internet is back I am in the process of uploading a whole bunch of pictures. Cherry Blossoms, Franz’s Japan Trip, more work pictures, pictures of our garden, tons of stuff!

But first, let me tell you about our garden. Kiko makes flowers. I make vegetables. Keep that in mind. (note how I said vegetables and not fruit.) You will see the vegetables… oh yes. Kiko however wanted to make strawberries so we planted 6 plants.

After about 4 weeks we got:

1 strawberry.

Here it is in all its glory.

That is me holding it so you can get some perspective. We cut in half and enjoyed it.

We are off to Hiroshima tomorrow. I’ll send up some pictures.

Don’t get too excited, but at least I’m alive.

So, while a train was crashing into a building west of Osaka, I was sitting at a red light travelling to a neighbouring town for work. Take note: I was stopped at a red light. Two seconds later my car is totalled and cannot be repaired. I wasn’t hit from behind, or from the side… nope, I was hit dead on the front. How did I get hit in the front at a red light? Some crazy ass Japanese gangster kid took a turn at like 70km/h in the rain and proceeded to skid into my lane. I don’t know if you’ve seen my car before, but its not the biggest or strongest car. It smoked a little bit and then died.

I have a little bit’o’whiplash and my knee hurts, but other than that … its all good. I get a new car out of it, but I will have to negotiate to make sure I get everything covered. It is 100% on the other guy, but because my car is shitty they are trying not to limit how much they can payout.

But who cares about that… I’m back in the land of highspeed Internet. It’s not super highspeed like I was on before (or everyone else in the entire country is on!) but it is way faster than it was before. This also means that my 416 phone is back. So get off your ass and call me. I mean that… for those of you that I haven’t been keeping regular e-mail contact (work is busy and having shitty internet at home does that!) I now can’t wait to hear from you!!

Give me a few weeks and I should sort out my e-mail box (it is ridiculous right now) and the webpage should see a whole bunch of updates.

It’s good to be back on a real Internet connection (and not dead.)
Kiko wasn’t in the car, so that is a really really good thing.

Love
David

I just wanted to send out my congratulations to Ikuko Komuro-Lee-senesi, a Japanese Language instructor at the University of Toronto. I was fortunate enough to have many amazing Professors throughout both my BA and MA, and Komuro-sensei is certainly among the best of them. I can’t tell you how much she has meant to my life both academically and personally.

This week Komuro-sensei was finally given the recognition that she deserves and was awarded the University of Toronto’s Outstanding Teachers award. This is a very prestigious honour and one that Komuro-sensei is very deserving of.

I have never met a Professor who puts as much in to her students at Komuro-sensei does. She gives her students everything she has, and expects an equal amount of effort in return. I would not be where I am today without her, and I owe much of my success to her discipline, her instruction, her advice and her support.

Komuro-sensei: Congratulations. You deserve it. I wish I could have been there to celebrate with you. (Thank you to Natalie for the pictures!)

That being said, the following picture is for forgetting my middle name (again!) and for asking if I needed a fork. 😉

Congratulations. I am beyond happy for you.

by special request…

OK. This is a big picture… but worth it.

Isn’t that crazy!? Google Maps has just added satelite imagery to their mapping software. It’s my home!!!

This is one of those posts without pictures, so it remains to be seen how many of you will actually read this.

At any rate, it is Cherry Blossom time here in Japan. Kiko and I will be making the rounds and should have a whole lotta Cherry Blossom pictures for you come Monday. Don’t get too excited.

We should also be getting up pictures from the Franz Trip here to Japan, and a few more we have just sort of taken. A few movies are also in the works.

I was dilligently working away at davidandkiko.com 3.0, but they have blocked access to the site from my work computer. So until my Internet gets upgraded (April 28th!!!) doesn’t look like we will be seeing much progress.

More to come.
That is all.

My second post is almost as exciting as my first.

You get to hear about my new computer and my in-house setup.

CURRENT SETUP

I currently have an ISDN Line hooked up downstairs.
My ISDN is hooked up into a wireless router.
The router travels over to the XBOX hooked up to the TV, running XBMC.
The router also travels upstairs to my Computer. My computer serves all of my content.

Since computers don’t (easily) hook up to TV’s, I have my XBOX and Computer sharing the network through my router. The XBOX is hooked up to the TV and is used to play games. After I installed XBMC it now runs as a media center. Through the network it connects to my Movies, Videos, Music, Itunes. It streams them from my computer and displays them on the TV. Boom. Instant Media Center.

The XBOX also has access to the Internet and uses it to check the weather, play online games (via Xlink), and look up Video and Music content.

It only gets more exciting…

Gentoo, MythTV, Asterisk: My New Computer

I bought a new computer before I went to Japan. After taking three weeks and going back to Canada for Christmas, I had a spectacular crash. This isn’t the first time, but it was excellent. It didn’t matter what kind of rescue disc or special boot procedure I used, Windows crashed whenever it took a look at my hard drive. After a few days of trying everything, Linux (specifically Knoppix) was the only thing that was able to retrieve data from my drive.

So after many years of putting it off, and recognizing the irony in Linux being the only thing that could save my Windows box, I took the plunge and am now in the midst of installing Gentoo Linux.

When all is said in done, I will have the following:

A Gentoo Linux Box
MythTV
Asterisk

all installed on my system. But what does this mean?

Gentoo

A Linux distribution that is known for its hands-on approach. All of the installation and configuration has to be done with the command console, and is a very different experience then todays Window-based operating systems. It can still look and act like Windows, but it doesn’t have to.

MythTV

I’m very excited about this. Ever heard of Tivo? MythTV turns your computer in to an entertainment system. It acts as a digital video recorder amongst other things. You can schedule TV programs to record, watch live TV, pause live TV, and store them all on your hard drive. You can access and schedule your recordings from the Internet, and you can easily transfer your programs or burn them to DVD. It basically means that I can have as much control over my TV as I want. When I move, it can move with me and adjust the TV schedules and programming accordingly. All free, for no subscription fee.

Asterisk

This is also very exciting. Estentially Asterisk acts as a PBX. What this really means is that it becomes its own telephone switching center. I can design my own voice mail, call forwarding, blocking etc. I can hook up my VOIP phone (my 416-internet phone number) and have it interact with the phone network. After I am done with it I will be able to forward calls from my 416 number to my Japanese cell phone, call Canada from my cell phone, or even allow people to make local calls in Japan from Canada.

I will keep everyone updated as to how the projects are going. Linux will be a pain in the ass, but it will give me an education in Unix, Network and Server systems that I have been severely lacking. When it is done, it will be super. (I’m most excited about being able to watch TV and record two separate channels at once. Through the XBOX MythTV front end I can beam everything right to my TV. Does the excitement ever end??)

Makes you think.
That is all.