Katie

Day 4: Tuesday, 20 October 2009

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 20:14:40 GMT

This was the first day of the group tour part of my trip, and as we did last time we began by walking through Kyōto Gyoen (the grounds of the Imperial Palace in Kyoto), stopping at Nashinoki-jinja, and then along the Kamo River. Preparations were already underway for the two-days-hence Jidai Matsuri, which begins at the Imperial Palace and proceeds two kilometers through the streets to the Heian Shrine. Folding chairs for spectators were being set up in rows, and flora were being pruned even more diligently than usual. When one member of our group wondered if some strips of paper tied to nearby branches were omikuji, trip coordinator Nancy speculated that in this case they were more likely markers for specific branches that landscaping workers would trim.

We wandered up Teramachi Street a bit, trying to find a washi shop that someone knew of, but we didn't find it. We did stop in at Ippodo's main shop, where we sipped some delicious hojicha samples. I'd never really noticed or appreciated hojicha before this trip, when I encountered many pots of it. I wonder whether it's served more often in the autumn or whether I was just oblivious to it before. As the Wikipedia entry says, "The roasting replaces the vegetative tones of standard green tea with a toasty, slightly caramel-like flavour." I bought 100g of it, some of which I'm enjoying as I type this, and which I'm happy to share as I did at a cookie-exchange and tea party earlier this month and as I plan to at a Tea Night at HacDC next month. It isn't expensive—just note that it's very quick-brewing, like 15-20 seconds.

We had a lunch reservation at Ganko Takasegawa Nijoen. As Kansai Food Page notes, "This sprawling building was once the private mansion of one of Kyoto's leading merchants, and its beautiful garden and riverfront setting make it a popular spot for parties and banquets." In a private room with a garden view, we were each served a casual kaiseki meal in a lacquered box with a drawer. The set meal included soup, sushi, grilled fish, tofu, pickled vegetables, yuba, a savory custard, maybe tamagoyaki... my memory has faded. Dessert was a fruit sorbet. After lunch we strolled in the aforementioned beautiful garden.

In the afternoon we headed to the Kyoto Museum of Traditional Crafts "Fureaikan". We breezed through the gallery to get to a demonstration on weaving, including ikat. I'd like to learn more about weaving—along with a thousand other things—but not knowing much about it yet, I didn't really understand what I was looking at, and there wasn't any English-language signage. It was easier to understand and enjoy the permanent exhibits on traditional handicrafts like lacquerware, dyeing, woodworking, and ceramics. These exhibits featured examples of finished works, looping videos of the craft-making, and in many cases examples of the work at various stages in its making. It was amazing to see the beauty that can result from the application of age-old techniques to simple materials by experienced craftspeople.

That evening we wandered the Teramachi Street shopping arcade, with its souvenir shops and 100 yen shops and coffee shops and trendy clothing shops and かに道楽's giant animatronic snow crab in the middle of it all. Nancy showed us CHICAGO, a vintage clothing store with Western clothing on the first floor and Japanese traditional clothing on the second floor. We stopped for a snack at Lipton Sanjo Main Shop, where I had a delicious Japanese chestnut Mont Blanc parfait. What I don't understand is their tea, a black tea that tastes to me as though it was brewed ten times too long. Even with cream and sugar, it's so bitter it's hard for me to drink, much less enjoy. But it's clearly made the way it is intentionally and consistently, probably carefully even. I suppose it counterbalances the sweetness of the desserts served there, but that seems a theoretical point.

This entry was originally posted at http://bokunenjin.dreamwidth.org/2563.html.

Day 3: Monday, 19 October 2009

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:15:46 GMT

Whereas Sunday in Ainokura had been drizzy-to-rainy, when I awoke Monday sunlight streamed in through the shōji. Breakfast was relatively simple: rice and nori, variously prepared mountain vegetables, miso soup. I packed up and headed out to the bus stop, pausing along the way to photograph the village in this more flattering light. The tourist buses hadn't started arriving yet, so I had the place nearly to myself. When a survey-taker spotted me, I obliged by responding to questions about what attracted me to Ainokura and various demographic questions. I was proud that I could get along in Japanese at least well enough to respond to basic survey questions, even if I'm far from fluent. With a complimentary packet of tea in hand, I strolled down to the bus stop... and my spirits sank as I realized I was late for the bus to Shirakawa-go. I waited around for a little while just in case that bus was late, but no luck.

I would be able to catch that bus later in the day, but I'd be forfeiting the reserved ticket I'd bought for the Nohi bus ride from Shirakawa-go to Takayama (required for that particular ride), and I wouldn't make it to Kyoto in time to meet up with my tour group at the appointed time. I decided I had to get to Shirakawa-go pronto.

I walked back up to Ainokura's welcome post and explained my situation to the man on duty, who helpfully called a taxi for me. The ride wasn't cheap, but I sucked it up, and I was impressed that the driver—a woman, and without white gloves!—knew the shortcuts necessary to get me to Shirakawa-go on time for my ticketed bus ride to Takayama, which was uneventful. At Takayama, I caught the Hida back to Nagoya. During that scenic ride, I turned on my cell phone again and this time it picked up a signal. I checked my e-mail and feed reader, trying to be judicious about data volume since T-mobile charges $.015/KB for international data roaming, which can add up if you're not more careful than I turned out to be.

I rode the shinkansen, smooth as ever, from Nagoya to Kyoto. At Kyoto Station I transferred to the local Karasuma Line. If I had remembered all the stairs I'd have to drag my luggage up and down in the local subway stations, I would have spent the few extra bucks to take a taxi instead. Note to Kyoto tourists, including my future self. :)

Finally I made it to the good ol' Palace Side Hotel, where I checked in. It was a relief to be in a familiar place, on schedule, and not need to move my luggage for a week. Down in the lobby, I met up with the group and we headed out for dinner at nearby Kurikuma. If memory serves, I ordered the curry udon just as I had two and a half years ago when I was there, but this time with tofu. It was a hearty, comforting meal finished off with a scoop of matcha ice cream that was entirely earned by my luggage-wrestling throughout the day.

This entry was originally posted at http://bokunenjin.dreamwidth.org/2016.html.

notes on making an LED snowflake ornament

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:47:36 GMT

I recently made the above LED snowflake based on Syuzi's tutorial. I ran into several bumps, so I thought I'd record them here, especially since I've been thinking it could make a nice group-build workshop at HacDC when I get the bumps smoothed out.

First I should note that I haven't done beading or other jewelry-making before, so that probably accounts for a lot of my difficulty.

At the local craft store there weren't any 3" head pins in stock, so I got the 2.5" head pins, which worked fine. But I think this is a place to "do as I do, not as I say" with regard to the tutorial and get eye pins (i.e., pins with a loop on one end) like the ones used in the illustrations rather than the head pins (i.e., pins with a nail-head end instead of a loop) called for in the parts list. Step six assumes you actually are using eye pins.

Next came the (optional) crimp beading part. I've never used crimp beads before, but in this project they looked useful, so I bought some along with a crimp tool. But all I could find on the packaging or the internet were tutorials on using crimp beads to attach two parallel wires, whereas in this project they would be used to secure adjacent beads on a single wire. Help? The tutorial doesn't explain how to do it, and while it's an optional part, I would've had an easier time if I didn't have to fuss with the beads wanting to slip off the pins.

The tutorial calls for insulated "wire wrap wire." I couldn't find anything called that in the craft store, so I got insulated multi-strand beading wire. The insulation on the wire I got was so thin that it was difficult to strip it from the multi-strand metal core without cutting into the core—I ended up ditching the wire strippers and picking at it with my fingernails. Also, the multiple strands of metal only made soldering it and threading it through beads more difficult. So next time I'd get a single-core metallic wire with thicker insulation.

On the matter of heat: a hot glue gun isn't necessary for this project; regular glue works just fine. And be careful while soldering wire to your magnetic clasp parts: I accidentally de-magnetized half of my magnetic clasp in the course of soldering the wire to it by heating it above its Curie temperature. D'oh.

This entry was originally posted at http://bokunenjin.dreamwidth.org/1711.html.

Day 2: Sunday, 18 October 2009

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 23:43:26 GMT

Sunday dawned in Takayama. After breakfast at the Best Western I boarded the Nohi bus to Shirakawa-go, which was another scenic ride, this one about an hour long.

In my original trip planning, I had hoped to stay at a gasshō-zukuri (合掌造り, literally "clasped-hands" style) inn in Shirakawa-go. I don't remember where I first heard of this rustic village in the mountains where people still lived in thatched-roof A-frame farmhouses and ate around sunken hearths, but seeing photos like this and this convinced me this was a place I wanted to visit. The traditional inns in a village like this don't have online reservations, so the easiest way for a less-than-fluent foreigner like me to book a stay at them is to use a site like Japanese Guest Houses that acts as an intermediary. That intermediation comes with a delay of about a day between when you request a room and when you get a response as to whether one's available at the inn you want. Possibly this wouldn't be a problem normally, but it turns out Doburoku Matsuri, an annual festival involving unrefined sake, was taking place in Shirakawa-go October 14-19. I assume that's why I couldn't find a single vacant room in Shirakawa-go that weekend over the course of a week of back-and-forth with Japanese Guest Houses. So I found another scenic village in the region with gasshō-zukuri houses. This one, called Ainokura (相倉), was a little smaller and more remote than Shirakawa-go, with the implication that it's also less tourist-choked. Ainokura was another bus ride beyond Shirakawa-go.

Once I got to Shirakawa-go, I had less than an hour to haul my heavy luggage from the Shirakawa-go bus stop up to the Ogimachi bus stop on the other side of the village, in order to catch the Kaetsuno bus to Ainokura. I muscled it up there in what turned out to be plenty of time. I was a little anxious waiting at the bus stop because it wasn't labeled (and there was no bench or shelter) and no one else was waiting there. Loads of private tour buses rumbled by, but when the appointed time arrived and the Kaetsuno bus was nowhere to be seen, I was worried. Trains and buses (and people) in Japan are never late, are they? This one was running a few minutes late after all—maybe because it was raining—and I boarded it with a sense of relief. For much of the ride I was the sole passenger, though eventually a few more people got on. Since this was the first time for me riding a local bus on my own in Japan, I thank JapanesePod101.com's Riding the Bus 1 and Riding the Bus 2 lessons for explaining to me how it works and the phrases to use.

I got off the bus at Ainokura-guchi and spent several minutes wondering which way to walk from there. Once I figured it out, it was about a ten-minute walk from the bus stop to Ainokura with heavy luggage. Note to travelers: take advantage of Japan's good luggage-handling services, if you're making any side trip where you'll have to haul your luggage, and have the bulk of your luggage sent ahead to the place where you'll be spending most of your trip (in my case that would've been in Kyoto). It'll save you an awful lot of difficulty.

Once I got to the inn where I would be staying that night, Goyomon, I entered with the expectation that at noon I was too early to check in. But this was a friendly place where "check-in time" is not a rule. I was shown to my tatami room, where the proprietress put my luggage before serving me tea and sweets in the main room by the irori.

I had the whole afternoon to explore Ainokura. I walked up the side of the mountain to the conjugal zelkova tree. I visited the folk life museums in the village. I visited Jinushi shrine. I photographed. I wandered. I visited a gift shop, where I bought some grain soup mixes, a CD of traditional village folk music, some rustic sweets similar to the ones I'd been served by the proprietress at Goyomon, kaishi embossed with a gasshō-zukuri design, and a cup of delicious yuzu ice cream.

I returned to Goyomon where there was more tea. As trout roasted on sticks in the sunken hearth, a couple from Hokkaido arrived to check in to another of the inn's rooms. They were very friendly; we chatted for a while. There are four guest rooms at Goyomon, so between me and the Hokkaido couple, the inn was operating at 50% of capacity. As usual for a Japanese home, there was no central heating, so the guest rooms each contained an electric heater to ward off the chill.

By this point I was satisfied that I'd seen most of the village and was a little tired, but there was time before dinner, so the proprietress generously drove me to Kuroba Onsen, about twenty minutes away by car.

Mind you, I had never been to an onsen before. I had been to Spa World, a Korean bathhouse here in the states, with some friends, so I had some experience being naked in a women-only bathhouse space. But this was in Japan, in a fairly remote area where I would be the only Westerner as well as completely on my own. This would not be a place catering to people new to the bathhouse experience and its particular etiquette. And from my understanding there is still some prejudice about foreigners being "dirty" and therefore undesirable at onsen. If that was the case here, it was too subtle for me to notice it. I paid my money at the front desk, disrobed in the women's changing room (I would call it a locker room but there were no lockers—yay for high-trust societies—only baskets on shelves), and entered the bathing area. I washed myself at one of the seated shower stations before entering the bath itself—that's probably the single most important point of etiquette/hygiene to know about Japanese and Korean bathhouses. I alternated between the indoor and outdoor baths, both of which were nearly empty of other patrons and thus quiet and relaxing. After an hour Goyomon's proprietress picked me up and drove me back to her inn.

Then dinner was served: koi-no-arai (fresh, raw carp), nameko-jiru (soup with nameko mushrooms), su-no-mono (mountain vegetables dressed with vinegar), kogomi no goma-ae (young fern with sesame paste), tempura, iwana-no-shioyaki (salt-grilled brook trout), ka-no-mono (pickles), and nimono (a simmered dish with Gokayama tofu, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, and wild vegetables), and probably some other dishes that have escaped my memory. It was delicious, of course, and there were so many courses that I was stuffed by the end of the evening. The couple from Hokkaido shared some traditional sweets they'd brought as a nontraditional end to the meal, while the proprietress demonstrated the playing of a sasara, a traditional folk instrument. I'm surprised I didn't just fall asleep after that, but I stayed up a little while watching an ice-skating championship on TV that was of particular interest to the other guests. When I finally retired to my eight-tatami room, I slept soundly on a futon and a buckwheat chaff pillow.

Here are the pictures I took in Ainokura.

I'd also like to point you to Paul's Ainokura blog post. I don't know Paul, but he traveled to Ainokura about a year and a half ago and stayed at Goyomon, and his photos and description are excellent. If you're wondering what those dishes I described above look like, follow that link. I didn't see his writeup before my trip, but looking at it afterward I can say our experiences were very similar.

This entry was originally posted at http://bokunenjin.dreamwidth.org/1290.html.

Day 1: Saturday, 17 October 2009

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 00:08:21 GMT

On Saturday morning I awakened bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, hopping on a Meitetsu train—Airport Rapid Limited Express "μ-SKY" if I recall correctly—to get from the airport to Nagoya Station. In Nagoya I breakfasted on a glass of milk and a matcha roll. Riveting details, I know. :)

From Nagoya Station I rode the Hida to Takayama, a scenic ride that takes a few hours. I had some company on this ride, though, in the form of an older salaryman-type who was inebriated enough to spontaneously chat with this gaijin. He was traveling with a tour group, another member of which eventually reined him in and apologized to me, but not before we had a winding and not-entirely-comprehensible conversation about things to do in Gifu, our jobs and families, politics, and who-knows-what.

For me Takayama was just a stopping-over point on the way to an out-of-the-way village, but in the interest of not rushing around insanely I would spend the rest of the day and night in Takayama before venturing farther afield. A few weeks prior I had failed to find any available lodging in Takayama more exotic than Best Western, so once I got to town I dropped off my luggage there and headed eastward down Kokubunji Street, across the Miya River, and into the historic district. I bought some sashiko supplies and an umbrella to fend off the impending rain. Amid stands selling dango and aromatic senbei hot off the grill, souvenir shops peddled the town's well-known wooden crafts and sarubobos. Even though it was cool and rainy, I stopped by one of the snack stands for a soft-serve matcha ice cream, the first in a glorious line of soft-serve ice cream I would consume on this trip. :) After some more walking and browsing, I headed back to the hotel for a nap. In the evening I was feeling more hungry than discerning, so I plopped myself down at a little donburi joint in the neighborhood of the hotel for a bowl of ebidon, which turned out to be ebi katsudon. Back at the hotel, I sucked up the last of the Internet access I'd have for a few days—weeks if we're talking access from my own laptop—to e-mail T-mobile about my not-yet-finding-a-signal-in-Japan-as-promised GSM cell phone and turned in for the night.

Here are the pictures I took in Takayama. While I'm thinking of it, I want to complain about the poor resolution of Yahoo's (and thus Flickr's) maps of Japan. It makes geotagging from within Flickr difficult.

This entry was originally posted at http://bokunenjin.dreamwidth.org/1094.html.

Day 0: Friday, 16 October 2009

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:12:16 GMT

Now that I've finished uploading the pictures from my recent trip to Japan, it's time to start writing the blog entries. The first day was so short that this is sort of a warm-up entry. :)

I arrived at Chūbu Centrair International Airport around 5 p.m. local time on Friday. The group part of the trip wouldn't start until Monday evening in Kyoto, so I had the weekend to myself. Though my flights were uneventful, I was weary from the travel—the queues and security checks, my already-heavy luggage, the lack of private space—so I was glad that I'd reserved a room at the conveniently-located Centrair Hotel. After checking in I enjoyed a hot bath, admired the cleverness of the compact room layout, plugged in to the internets, bemoaned the poor planning that had led me to overstuff my suitcase on a vacation where I knew I'd be acquiring more stuff, and went to sleep, but not before seeing this cute commercial (or maybe it was another one in that series) on the TV:

This entry was originally posted at http://bokunenjin.dreamwidth.org/804.html.

the red balloon(s)

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:10:37 GMT

So, the recently-announced DARPA Network Challenge is interesting:

The challenge is to be the first to submit the locations of 10 moored, 8-foot, red, weather balloons at 10 fixed locations in the continental United States.

It's such a simply-stated problem, but how to tackle it? With a six- to nine-hour window when the balloons will be up, that's not enough time for sufficiently high-resolution satellite photography, is it? So it sounds like it's more a social problem—i.e., how do you organize sufficiently many people to find these ten balloons in a search space of the entire continental U.S.? I'm wondering whether there are coalitions forming or already formed to share the potential winnings among lookers-out.

Update: here's one group I've joined: MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team.

This entry was originally posted at http://bokunenjin.dreamwidth.org/596.html.

test post

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:09:12 GMT

This is a test post at/from my Dreamwidth account. Yes, I've joined the bandwagon already populated by the estimable hypatia, puzzlement, and terriko in transitioning to Dreamwidth for my online journaling. I'm crossposting my entries to Livejournal and expect to continue doing so for the indefinite future. This post is a test of that crossposting functionality as well as a check to see how the entries appear in Facebook, where my Livejournal entries appear as posts, and on my web site, where I embed my Livejournal entries. If the transition goes well, I'll look into how to do those latter two things directly from Dreamwidth.

This entry was originally posted at http://bokunenjin.dreamwidth.org/394.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

my week in pictures

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 03:03:33 GMT

Credit: NASA/JHU APL/CIW

I've been supporting MESSENGER's third flyby of Mercury last week. I've got a description of how it went in a friends-locked entry. The contact-heavy work schedule has scrambled my circadian rhythm from day to day, so that one of the reasons I'm looking forward to my upcoming vacation is because I'll have the opportunity to resume a consistent sleep schedule. Since I've been subjected to a simulated sort of jet lag practically every day for the past few weeks, I don't expected to be fazed at all by the real thing.

Credit: DP

Last week I gave a HacDC Lightning Talk on Kōdō, the Japanese Way of Incense, in which I'm by no means an expert. But I know a little, enough to give a five-minute overview and demo. When I go to Kyoto later this month I'm going to attend a Kōdō demo by a genuine expert, and next month I'll be making kneaded incense (nerikō) at a Tankokai DC workshop. So in the near future I'll know a lot more. Let me know if you're interested in an informal demo of the wood-chip incense that's heated by charcoal in an ash-filled censer; I'm happy to share it. The Lightning Talks event was a great success, with a stimulating variety of topics and speakers.

Credit: Mackenzie

On Saturday I led the DC LinuxChix contingent of a group outing (along with AWC Maryland and GWU Women in Computer Science) to the National Cryptologic Museum. We tagged along with a docent-led tour and learned quite a bit, though we only scratched the surface of the museum's fascinating collection.

Credit: Mackenzie

On Saturday evening I joined seelevarcuzzo and Mackenzie at the Japan-America Society's Otsukimi, a traditional moon-viewing event held in this case at the National Arboretum. It was great fun, with a bento dinner, sake, haiku composition, some slightly-unseasonal-feeling bon odori dancing, and even a little practice of our Japanese. I brought a borrowed telescope and set it up to have a good look at the moon; we were lucky to have a clear sky with only a few thin clouds occasionally floating artistically in front of the moon. I wish the event had lasted longer, as we missed our chance to wander around the Bonsai & Penjing Museum and it felt like we were just getting started as it was announced that it was time to pack up and leave.

Credit: Indy

On Sunday I went climbing at White Rocks, a spur from the temporarily-closed Sugarloaf Mountain. The weather was fantastic. I attempted Sugar & Spice (a 5.2 on the Yosemite Decimal System) and Lucifer (a 5.10/5.11), summiting neither but enjoying the climbs nonetheless. I'd be tempted to buy my own climbing shoes and harness but I'm a little discouraged that the local climbing gym has discontinued their auto belay system that would have allowed me to practice on my own.

And now to prepare for Tankokai DC's Autumn Chakai this weekend and my upcoming Japan trip that starts next week. Ack! I don't quite feel prepared for either.

can you hear me?

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:42:05 GMT

I got this voicemail this morning on my home line, and it's so garbled I can't make it out. It's from a number I didn't recognize, and if I had to guess, I'd say it's a drunk mis-dial, but I figured I'd give lazyweb a stab at it.

How's my driving?

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:31:32 GMT

I've had my driver's license since I turned 16 in 1994. I've had my own car since I embarked on an out-of-state co-op gig in 1998-9.

I got a new car—a Honda Fit—in December 2008, and its odometer is going to hit 10,000 miles tonight. Until I got this car, I hadn't had so much as a parking ticket or a ding, at least while I was driving it. In the eight or so months since I've had my new car, I've:

gotten a red-light citation, via a camera in Howard County
gotten into an accident, though it was not my fault, and fortunately the other driver paid for the repairs to my car
gotten a speeding citation, via a camera in Montgomery County
gotten a parking ticket in DC (I had paid the electronic meter but in my rush missed the sign saying you couldn't park there at the time I was there)

I love my car, but perhaps I should be more careful with it.

SMC-IT day 2

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:39:11 GMT

I've been procrastinating in writing up the rest of my attendance at Space Mission Challenges for Information Technology (SMC-IT) 2009, mostly because there wasn't anything about it that really struck me, besides it being a little disappointing in comparison to the last iteration.

On Day 2, Tuesday, 21 July 2009, Mars Science Laboratory Chief Engineer Robert Manning gave the plenary keynote, "Stealing Success." I thought it was one of the best keynotes of the conference (there was at least one each day). If my fading memory serves, he talked about how difficult it has been for any space agency to land a vehicle on Mars. I hadn't realized just how failure-ridden those endeavors have been. I also hadn't realized how many attempts the Soviets had made. On a related note, I recently watched and enjoyed the Discovery Channel series When We Left Earth via Netflix. I really wish there were a version of that series describing the development of the Soviet space program.

As I had the day before, I spent much of my time on Day 2 in the International Workshop on Planning and Scheduling for Space, attending talks like Multi-Objective Scheduling for Space Science Missions, On-board Plan Modification for Opportunistic Science, and Runtime Goal Selection with Oversubscribed Resources.

That evening I convinced some colleagues to come with me to the first Ignite LA over in Hollywood. The place was packed. We experienced a whirlwind of energetic, oddball and/or fascinating five-minute talks on topics from uranium and DIY unmanned aerial vehicles to humpback whales and optical illusions. It was a fun evening—if only SMC-IT scheduled its talks Ignite-style! Among the better talks was Thomas Edwards' "Getting Physical over IP". Afterward he led us on a walk down Hollywood Boulevard to Gruman's Chinese Theatre, where we checked out the film star footprints. Note to locals: the second Ignite DC is on Thursday, 8 October, and I've already got my ticket.

save-the-date for DC tea ceremony event

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 05:30:12 GMT

If you're in the DC metropolitan area or will be on Sunday, October 11, and interested in experiencing a Japanese tea ceremony, let me know. Chado Urasenke Tankokai Washington DC Association, the local tea ceremony interest group, will be holding a tea ceremony event—our Fall Chakai—that day at the Hillwood Museum and Gardens.

A chakai is a relatively informal kind of tea ceremony gathering where usucha (thin tea) and a small sweet are served. At these chakai that the association holds, guests include association members and non-members, and none of the guests has to know anything about tea ceremony in order to attend. Each of the three sessions lasts around 30-40 minutes. I'm tentatively slated to host one of the sessions for our Fall Chakai, but we haven't yet figured out which one, and I can't guarantee that I'd be hosting the session you attend, though I'll be helping in some capacity with all sessions. I'm happy to answer any more questions or explain in more detail what happens in a chakai.

SMC-IT days 0 and 1

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 05:19:00 GMT

Hello from Pasadena, California, where I'm attending Space Mission Challenges for Information Technology (SMC-IT) 2009. I arrived in the Los Angeles area yesterday, and before getting settled in Pasadena I stopped in LA's Little Tokyo neighborhood to chow down on a pile of zaru soba and a scoop of matcha ice cream (not nearly as good as homemade) and peruse the shops. As I was driving out of the neighborhood I saw a couple of street musicians playing a sanshin, performing what I think was traditional Okinawan folk music, something that has caught my interest lately for reasons I don't understand. Being a little intimidated by driving in LA, though, I didn't stop, regrettably.

Over dinner on Sunset Boulevard I was glad to have a chance to catch up with Dorkbot DC founder Tom and meet his wife and beagles. My plan tomorrow night is to go see him and a bunch of other fascinating geeks speak at the inaugural Ignite LA.

But I did come for a conference. :) Today my favorite talks were in the International Workshop on Planning and Scheduling for Space, which is sort of integrated with SMC-IT this year. It has been the most applicable to mission operations, the area where I work, of the talks so far. Looking at the conference program this year, it's hard not to notice the preponderance of talks on the technology of sponsor Tilera, whose founder characterized the company's vision as "The 'core' is the logic gate of the 21st century."

The demographics of this conference feel a little different than they did in 2006, when I met a bunch of energetic young people working at NASA Ames Research Center. This year I don't see any of them, and the attendees seem older. The proportion of female speakers is almost certainly lower than you'd find at OSCON to our north this week.

As it was three years ago, perhaps my biggest complaint is about the lack of accessible power outlets in the Pasadena Convention Center. The place just underwent a $150 million expansion, but goddess help you if you need 120 Volts of alternating current.

"something you know" versus "something you have"

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:47:10 GMT

I am not a security professional. But something bothers me about Entrust's "patented grid-based authentication" mechanism as it's used in conjunction with a username/password mechanism. It works like so:

where users carry the card depicted in the upper-right of this diagram with them, ostensibly making it "something you have" in addition to the "something you know" (the user's password). The implication is that this combination of mechanisms provides two-factor authentication. I'm not sure whether Entrust uses that phrase exactly, but they do describe the grid card as a "physical second factor".

A fifty-character grid just doesn't feel to me like "something you have." It's trivially duplicated and transferred to other media, though users are told not to. With some effort you could just commit it to memory. What do you think— is grid-based authentication "something you have" or, as I suspect, is it "something you know"? What distinguishes those categories?

For extra credit, what distinguishes "something you are" (customarily biometric authentication) from "something you have"? The philosophically-minded—or the sadistically minded, I suppose—can go nuts with this. Can you think of a non-biometric "something you are" test?

matcha ice cream

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:29:18 GMT

Here is some matcha ice cream I made with my folks last weekend, since I had some old leftover Koyamaen matcha around. We used Alan's recipe and froze it in my parents' classic hand-crank ice cream maker, and we learned a few lessons along the way. First, breaking up the ice into smaller pieces makes the cranking easier, since larger pieces jam between the outer wall and the rotating can. Second, if you've got a large-capacity maker, for the same amount of time, effort, ice, and rock salt, you can make five quarts of ice cream just as easily as you can make one. Since ice cream is yummy, you should make five quarts. :)

high school memories

Fri, 29 May 2009 20:12:39 GMT

This week at work we've been bringing in our high school yearbooks and chuckling at each others' dorky pasts. One of my co-workers pointed out that, according to my yearbook, I was in the astronomy club my sophomore through senior years and was president my senior year. But although I have always been interested in astronomy, I have no recollection of there being an astronomy club in my high school, much less of leading it. Meetings, events, equipment, a faculty advisor? My memory comes up blank. Huh.

a week of bicycling

Sat, 16 May 2009 01:01:15 GMT

I've ridden my bicycle 120.4 miles (194 km) this week. I'm pretty sure that's more mileage than it has seen in the previous two decades I've owned it.

Last autumn elwing2000 convinced me to sign up with her for a May 10-13 women-only beginner-level bicycling tour on Maryland's eastern shore. It sounded like fun, and I'd have plenty of time to train, so I agreed. My bike is a ten-speed Schwinn Woodlands hybrid-style, not an ideal road bike, but acceptable. In preparation I picked up a rear rack and bag so I could carry things like a windbreaker, camera, binoculars, and snacks; a handlebar mount for my GPS receiver; a couple of jerseys and an extra pair of cycling shorts; and a new gel saddle, cycling socks, and water bottle clamp thanks to my brother and sister-in-law's Christmastime generosity.

They say around here there are only two seasons: winter and summer, and in the weeks leading up to the cycling tour, that truism held. It went from cold to sweltering to raining for nearly two weeks straight. This is my way of excusing the fact that I didn't train nearly as much as I should have. My parents introduced me to the BWI Trail when they visited, and I rode it another time on my own in spite of a forecast chance of thunderstorms, but that was about it. In desperation at the continuous rain outdoors, I borrowed a trainer setup from seelevarcuzzo a week before the tour (thanks!). Miraculously, though, the weather forecast for the tour itself was looking perfectly mild and rain-free.

elwing2000 and I drove to Easton mid-day Sunday, checked in at the inn, met the other riders, and embarked on our first group ride, a leisurely backroads ride to Unionville and back (18.3 miles / 29 kilometers). This was my first time riding on "real" roads. I knew the guidelines, but I'd never done it before, so riding through (green) traffic lights, using hand signals, and taking up my share of a lane all came as a revelation. The drivers in that area seem to be used to bicyclists and are refreshingly deferential.

Monday's weather was, in an unpleasant surprise, cool and rainy. Still, we rode, this time starting at the visitors' center of Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. My bike's stubby off-road tires were not an advantage when we encountered a muddy, unpaved patch of Wildlife Drive. While others' slick tires rode right over the terrain, my tires gripped it and flung it over my bike and over me. It was a mess. Adding the obvious speed advantage of road bikes, I came away from this trip with some serious bike envy. :)

Despite the rain, I rode 36.9 miles (59 kilometers) that day, my longest ride to date. Unfortunately, it seems my GPS reciever, a Garmin eTrex Legend, was not as water-resistant as I thought. Ever since I changed its batteries on Monday, it hasn't been able to power on.

Tuesday's weather was back to nice for our St. Michael's Ferry Ride. We rode from Easton down to Oxford, where we caught the Oxford–Bellevue Ferry across the Tred Avon River. From there, we rode up to St. Michael's for lunch at the iconic Crab Claw Restaurant. I feasted on lump crabmeat cocktail and steamed oysters. I was surprised to see "Chesapeake Bay Oysters" on the menu in a non-"R" month, but they turned out to be decent-sized and tasty. From the large second-floor window we had a view of, among other things, the Schooner Sultana, the same vessel in which elwing2000, her husband, and I sailed across the bay last May.

Some of the other bicyclists pedaled back to Easton after lunch, but my legs were exhausted by the 33.5 miles (54 kilometers) before lunch. I poked about St. Michael's a little, enjoying an ice cream cone and a stop inside the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum's gift shop. Alas, I didn't have time to re-visit the museum itself before it was time to hop on the sag wagon for a lift back to Easton.

Wednesday morning's 20.7-mile (33-kilometer) ride took us north of Easton, by a historic Little Red Schoolhouse. One thing on this ride that piqued our curiosity, amidst the open farmland, was an incongruously long, high, opaque fence along a property on one side of Old Cordova Road. Research farm? Nudist colony?

After Wednesday morning's ride, we packed up, checked out of the inn, gathered for lunch, and said our goodbyes. I really enjoyed the support of our guides and fellow riders, and I would certainly consider signing up for another, similar-level cycling tour the next time I have some spare vacation time. Here are all of my photos from the cycling tour.

Today I participated for the first time in Bike-to-Work Day. I joined about a dozen other members of my workplace's bicycling club for the 5.5-mile (9-kilometer) ride to work. As recently as yesterday I wasn't sure I would do it, what with the chance of rain and the steep hills to climb and the car traffic and the logistics of showering and changing at work (when I hadn't prepared by keeping anything like a towel or clothes at work). Maybe it was my feeling of a need to keep this cycling momentum going, or maybe it was knowing that I'd have two of my closer co-workers riding with me, but I went for it, and I'm proud I did. That said, I don't think I'll be biking to work on a regular basis, between the scary drivers around here, strenuousness of the hills between me and work, and inability to carry my laptop on my bike without investing in panniers and a sturdier rear rack. I think I'll stick to riding recreationally on trails and back roads.

quick opinion check

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:51:06 GMT

View Poll: Japan photo

favored spirits

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:44:32 GMT

Mostly for my own future buying reference, here are three alcoholic beverages I've discovered over the past several months that I like:

Kim Crawford Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc
sparkling wine with Chambord liqueur mixed in
apple lambic

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:35:08 GMT

This weekend, I spent eleven hours in meetings. Perhaps agreeing to be on the board of directors of both HacDC and Chado Urasenke Tankokai Washington DC Association this coming year was not so smart an idea. I am feeling overwhelmed. It's not so much the meetings themselves that overwhelm me—neither group holds organizational meetings very often—as it is the responsibilities I've accepted. It's making me worry whether I'll have time to do things like read a book, take a walk, or plant a flower. I can only hope I'll look back on this entry as an anomaly, a time when things just happened to pile up, rather than a sign of things to come.

comparative graphic design

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 01:16:28 GMT

When I saw this poster for Dorkbot Austin (left below), I was struck by the ways it does—and does not—remind me of the LinuxChix logo (right below).

(Artist credit: Joey Lopez for the Dorkbot flyer; Colin Adams for the LinuxChix logo, which is licensed for use under the CC Attribution Share-alike license)

Fritz

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:29:10 GMT

I've just heard that our longtime family pet Fritz (my parents' since I left home) has died. When he found us—maybe eighteen years ago?—he wasn't quite full-grown, but he was friendly, and he amazed us with his tolerance for riding in cars. There's so much more I could write, but I'm overwhelmed by sadness right now, so I'll just say that we loved him a lot. And we'll miss him a lot.

Spa World

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:35:12 GMT

I spent a relaxing New Year's Day with some friends at Spa World, a fancy but not expensive Korean-style sauna and bathhouse. Those of us who hadn't been there before—myself included—felt some anxiety about the mandatory nudity in the gender-segregated sauna part of the facility. Hanging out naked with our same-gender friends (or family, or strangers for that matter) has not been part of our range of experience. For an American, it's easy to get the message from society that an "imperfect" body should be covered up, not only in public but also in private. Seeing people blissfully ignorant of that message is refreshing. You probably won't be surprised to read that I found the actual experience comfortable and not difficult to get used to.

The "naked area" there isn't just the saunas (steam and dry) but a bade pool, hot and cool tubs, a "sunflower shower", a heat-radiating stone relaxation area, and a corner where you can get an exfoliating scrub. We spent a good while there before returning to the locker room to don our issued loungewear and head to the main, gender-integrated rest area where families were spread out on the heated floor. We got some refreshments from the juice bar before heading into the poultice rooms, which felt a little redundant to me since I'd already used the saunas in the other part of the facility and was skeptical of the therapeutic benefits attributed to the hot, mineral-lined poultice rooms. I tried out most of them, but after a while I'd had enough heat; I did enjoy the one cold poultice room. The place was quite busy yesterday, so I didn't get a chance to have a massage. Between the facility's restaurant, sleeping areas, 24-hour access, and free wi-fi, I could envision coming at a less-crowded time, perhaps with a book, and making an even more leisurely day of it.

to-do list for 2009

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 23:02:09 GMT

see The Presets live at least once (scheduled for 1 April)
achieve a healthy weight
learn more about micro-controllers at HacDC
make something special for my friends who are getting married in April
go bicycling on the eastern shore with elwing2000
attend Space Mission Challenges for Information Technology in July
dedicate a weekend's time and effort to an entry in the ICFP programming contest
visit Japan (scheduled for October, a group trip similar to the one I took in May 2007)
figure out where to live
finish putting together the archery karakuri ningyō and read Loving the Machine: The Art and Science of Japanese Robots so I'm marginally qualified to give a talk on karakuri at Dorkbot DC
make a satellite contact with my amateur radio gear
go on a (beginner-level) kayaking outing with the Chesapeake Paddlers Association