Category: Family

Cherry Blossom … a sneak peak

Now that my work is blocking access to this website, and taking in to account my retardedly slow Internet access as home, the promised Cherry blossom pictures will have to wait.

That being said, they were spectacular. The peak landed right on the weekend, and we managed to catch them on Saturday, before typhoon-like windows blew them away on Sunday. Japanese people wait all year for a few days of blossoms, but its ridiculous how many of these trees are in our town.

Here’s a look!

A picture of a Sakura tree    A picture of a Sakura tree

Below is a picture of a very cute baby who loves me. His name is Kousuke, and he is the baby of a good friend at work. NOT the son of my calligraphy teacher (whom I originally thought! … oops!). Below that is our very good friends Mike and Nikki. Nikki lives in Kotonami, the town beside mine.

Saya    Mike and Nikki

Cherry Blossoms

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 Gentoo Box – MythTV, Asterisk, XBMC

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.

Japanese Candies

First there was “The Mountain of Mushrooms” chocolate mushroom candy.

Chocolate Mushrooms Picture

and then there was “The field of Bamboo shoots” chocolate bamboo shoot (possibly acorns) candy.

Chocolate Bamboo Shoots Picture

… and now, ranked as my new favourite Japanese candy, I am proud to announce “Chocolate Tree Stumps.”

Chocolate Tree Stumps Picture

They are so good. No joke. Really really good. They can only be outdone by the extra large Mountain of Mushrooms I found in the convenience store a few months ago. It was like 200 yen for 4 of them, but they were really really good.

White Day … and Shogi!

What the hell is White Day you ask? It is March 14th, one month after Valentines Day! You see, in Japan, on Valentines Day, Japanese girls give chocolate to the boys. Boyfriends, Husbands, Fathers, Male Employees…. everyone! (size depends on who is getting it. Not to mention a term they have for “pity chocolate” which is what they give to people they don’t want to give chocolate to… because they have to… because its Japan.)

Look what Kiko got me for Valentines Day!!!

My present from Kiko for valentines day

At any rate, on White Day the boys are expected to return the favour with candy. Chocolate isn’t the right thing to give on White Day. No… on white day everyone that you got chocolate from has to get a special treat which is usually decided by the Japanese Confectionary Companies. This year it was marshmellow.

Also remember how I was telling you about Shogi???!! In case you don’t, its the Japanese equivalent of Chess only a thousand times better. Anyways I am also going to start playing Chu-shogi (middle shogi). Imagine Shogi, but with a thousand billion more pieces. Here is a game I setup but we didn’t play… because it took to long to setup… because there were too many pieces.

Jim and I's Chu-Shogi setup!

Now go look at the Shogi link, learn how to play, and I will buy you a set!!! (Mike, we are playing next time I see you!!!)

I know you guys aren’t going to like this…

… because there are no pictures. In fact, you might not even read this.

At any rate, I am doing a pre-update of an update scheduled for tomorrow. What is Tomorrow? Tomorrow is the day Franz comes to Japan and I take him around. 10 days of action packed excitement.

In case anyone is curious we will be going to:

Osaka -> Nara -> Kyoto -> Himeji -> Kagawa (my home!) -> Nagoya -> Yamanashi (Mt. Fuji’s home!) -> Tokyo

Crap. That’s a long and very expensive trip. Whoever else is reading this, please know that when you come to Japan I will be happy to show you around as well! The important thing to remember is that you can only spend so much time in Chunan without going crazy.

At any rate, other than that… things are good! My new computer should be here soon and those problems will be fixed. We are moving to medium-high speed Internet by the end of April and this 10 day vacation should give me the much needed rest (even though it is bound to stress me out because Franz is stressful.)

Where is Shane? I don’t know because he doesn’t answer my e-mails.
Where are my friends? I don’t know because I don’t e-mail anyone. (Sorry!)

… Why am I rewriting the homepage from scratch? Because I am a loser.

Now send me some love.

David