Ten to four am that is. I now sit infront of a computer inside a clean room (an envrionment which contains less dust particles than usual) cleaning a chromium mask used for optical lithography. In simple terms, I'm just washing a metal mask which is used to block light from hitting some parts of a film... made of a polymer that is used to make an image on silicon. Some parts of the silicon are exposed and some parts are not and from there, people like me in the nanotech world are free to etch holes or deposit materials on top of the silicon to make devices. Nanotech is not really that bad... we just make really small "pictures" of things on silicon that hopefully do useful things.
Anyways, there is a reason why I am not sleeping regular hours tonight (and possibly for the next 2 weeks) and that reason is to make it to France sometime in the spring to hit the Transducers conference... that is, if I can get some publishable results.
The one nice thing about working late at night is that all the machines here are available for use and I don't have other pesky people getting in the way. It is also a double edged sword in the sense I can't ask questions when I don't know when something goes wrong. Well, we'll see how things go.
Significant updates to come later while I'm working on long and boring processing steps...
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Monday, November 13, 2006
A Short Week Review
It's been a rather interesting week, lots of things going on as usual.
Thursday, from a new group of friends I've met, the man that put it together, Aki, has left for Tokyo after moving the reminder of his belongings out of his apartment this weekend. The move was the result of his lab relocating to Tokyo University and him with it. He returned on Wednesday night and stayed over the weekend where he'd ride it back to Tokyo this morning. Interestingly, the group threw an impromptu BBQ by a river at 11:00 pm on a Thursday outside in the cold as a farewell party to the guy. I was informed about it at about 10:00 pm on that day. Interesting, to say the least!
Saturday was the lab meeting as usual and I confirmed to attend a "talking party" organized by an English school to drop in and chat with Japanese students studying English for an evening. I decided to go to hopefully meet some interesting people. There was one guy I gave my contact to who is an English teacher that came to Sendai from Montreal, we ended up exchanging contacts after some coffee and perhaps might arrange for a BBQ on a beach next weekend. Of an interesting note, it is quite easy for foreigners to make friends with other foreigners-- by default, we have lots in common.
Sunday (today), I was supposed to head South out of Sendai to a "Hawaiian" Spa Resort with a bunch of friends. Unfortunately that plan fell through because the guy that had originally agreed to give everyone a ride bailed. My friend noted to me that "well since we're Latino, things get planned and changed at the last minute... then there is my friends back in Vancouver which operate on the same basis. Anyways, the trip has hence been postponed.
I did arrange to meet up with another friend of mine for lunch and a short hike... unfortunately that too fell through when she took a nap and failed to wake up until 3:00 pm! We were supposed to meet up by noon. Actually I expected to meet at 1 pm because the friend of mine is perpetually late and when we arrange to meet at some time, she always arrives about an hour late! Sometimes I wonder if her clocks are set in the wrong time zone... but anyways, I still got my laundry done.
Anyways, we finally met up for some coffee, hit a hot spring (because today was terribly cold) and went for some yakiniku (fried meat) for the evening. Still, I wasn't entirely pleased with the schedule being pushed so far back, but a good time was had. I had originally arranged to meet up with some other friends of mine by 5 pm because one of them had just recently returned from New York and I hadn't seen them together in ages.
And so, there is my brief summary of what's been going on this week.
Thursday, from a new group of friends I've met, the man that put it together, Aki, has left for Tokyo after moving the reminder of his belongings out of his apartment this weekend. The move was the result of his lab relocating to Tokyo University and him with it. He returned on Wednesday night and stayed over the weekend where he'd ride it back to Tokyo this morning. Interestingly, the group threw an impromptu BBQ by a river at 11:00 pm on a Thursday outside in the cold as a farewell party to the guy. I was informed about it at about 10:00 pm on that day. Interesting, to say the least!
Saturday was the lab meeting as usual and I confirmed to attend a "talking party" organized by an English school to drop in and chat with Japanese students studying English for an evening. I decided to go to hopefully meet some interesting people. There was one guy I gave my contact to who is an English teacher that came to Sendai from Montreal, we ended up exchanging contacts after some coffee and perhaps might arrange for a BBQ on a beach next weekend. Of an interesting note, it is quite easy for foreigners to make friends with other foreigners-- by default, we have lots in common.
Sunday (today), I was supposed to head South out of Sendai to a "Hawaiian" Spa Resort with a bunch of friends. Unfortunately that plan fell through because the guy that had originally agreed to give everyone a ride bailed. My friend noted to me that "well since we're Latino, things get planned and changed at the last minute... then there is my friends back in Vancouver which operate on the same basis. Anyways, the trip has hence been postponed.
I did arrange to meet up with another friend of mine for lunch and a short hike... unfortunately that too fell through when she took a nap and failed to wake up until 3:00 pm! We were supposed to meet up by noon. Actually I expected to meet at 1 pm because the friend of mine is perpetually late and when we arrange to meet at some time, she always arrives about an hour late! Sometimes I wonder if her clocks are set in the wrong time zone... but anyways, I still got my laundry done.
Anyways, we finally met up for some coffee, hit a hot spring (because today was terribly cold) and went for some yakiniku (fried meat) for the evening. Still, I wasn't entirely pleased with the schedule being pushed so far back, but a good time was had. I had originally arranged to meet up with some other friends of mine by 5 pm because one of them had just recently returned from New York and I hadn't seen them together in ages.
And so, there is my brief summary of what's been going on this week.
Friday, November 10, 2006
Entertainment Indeed
I was taking a break today and was flipping through the BBC to find some material to read. Then I stumbled upon this:
I guess the BBC (and plenty of other people) have an interesting taste of "entertainment."
I guess the BBC (and plenty of other people) have an interesting taste of "entertainment."
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
University Management Issues
I had my scooter repaired today. The carburetor and spark plug has been replaced, I even got a short Japanese lesson while waiting. The mechanic I have is awesome, really great guy. I'll tell you this much, Japan like many countries has many cultures. Some people might know of the polite, formal side of Japan; then there is the really energetic, "genki" people; there are even groups of very broad horizoned, free spirited people out here too. I've come to talk about something else inspired from attending a Micro-Mechanical Machine forum held in Sendai organized by my professor including people from all around Japan and some international people. Sadly, I pity the international people for coming out, because I fear they got little out of it and the organizers in Japan had missed the boat in having international dialog.
The forum held in Sendai was well attended-- an entire hall was filled suit clad people indicative of people from Japanese institutions, whether it be University or industry; there must have been close to 200 people in the hall today. Unfortunate (or perhaps fortunately) I missed most of the morning presentations due to having my scooter fixed.
The interesting presentation of the day was the panel discussion that occurred between professors including 2 from Tohoku University, Tokyo University, Osaka and one from the biomedical division of Hitachi Corporation. What transpired what not very encouraging about the state of Japanese University education.
The conversation that happened was about trying to develop research research initiatives in Japan to narrow the gap in good research published in Japan and also encourage better innovation in Japan. There was talk about putting together new programs to train people in design, there was talk about getting companies more involved with Universities and that they needed people with a broader range of skills. I felt that they totally missed the point in their discussion because having more programs for students is irrelevant. I scoffed at the idea of listening to these professors talk about things like "why don't we add in a design course?"
Though I didn't understand the full details of the conversations between the professors due to my limited Japanese skills, I do know for certain that the way they are trying to solve this problem is incorrect-- I am afraid that these people have been institutionalized for too long (whether it be in companies or in Universities). Innovation something that cannot be institutionalized as it would be just as absurd as institutionalizing inspiration-- how can you expect to just throw programs together and expect people to become inspired? Innovation, like inspiration is a culture that requires inquisitive and aware people; and from what I have seen so far, institutions here are terrible at fostering both characteristics.
I have attended classes where not a soul asks a question nor people understand the context of their information. In order for innovation to happen, you need people to ask questions and you need people to challenge the stats quo. If you have neither, it is for damn sure that innovation is not going to happen. The problem is not the lack of good programs... it's the education system and the institutionalized culture-- conformalists make for horrible innovators.
There's more to this problem actually, I've also found that there is poor communication between professors and students compounding the problem too that needs to be addressed... but it's 2:30 am already and I've burned 2.5 hours trying to piece things together. I've got a long list of notes I've taken left in my scooter (oops). I ought to wake up at 8:00 am today so I'll have to save this for another time.
The forum held in Sendai was well attended-- an entire hall was filled suit clad people indicative of people from Japanese institutions, whether it be University or industry; there must have been close to 200 people in the hall today. Unfortunate (or perhaps fortunately) I missed most of the morning presentations due to having my scooter fixed.
The interesting presentation of the day was the panel discussion that occurred between professors including 2 from Tohoku University, Tokyo University, Osaka and one from the biomedical division of Hitachi Corporation. What transpired what not very encouraging about the state of Japanese University education.
The conversation that happened was about trying to develop research research initiatives in Japan to narrow the gap in good research published in Japan and also encourage better innovation in Japan. There was talk about putting together new programs to train people in design, there was talk about getting companies more involved with Universities and that they needed people with a broader range of skills. I felt that they totally missed the point in their discussion because having more programs for students is irrelevant. I scoffed at the idea of listening to these professors talk about things like "why don't we add in a design course?"
Though I didn't understand the full details of the conversations between the professors due to my limited Japanese skills, I do know for certain that the way they are trying to solve this problem is incorrect-- I am afraid that these people have been institutionalized for too long (whether it be in companies or in Universities). Innovation something that cannot be institutionalized as it would be just as absurd as institutionalizing inspiration-- how can you expect to just throw programs together and expect people to become inspired? Innovation, like inspiration is a culture that requires inquisitive and aware people; and from what I have seen so far, institutions here are terrible at fostering both characteristics.
I have attended classes where not a soul asks a question nor people understand the context of their information. In order for innovation to happen, you need people to ask questions and you need people to challenge the stats quo. If you have neither, it is for damn sure that innovation is not going to happen. The problem is not the lack of good programs... it's the education system and the institutionalized culture-- conformalists make for horrible innovators.
There's more to this problem actually, I've also found that there is poor communication between professors and students compounding the problem too that needs to be addressed... but it's 2:30 am already and I've burned 2.5 hours trying to piece things together. I've got a long list of notes I've taken left in my scooter (oops). I ought to wake up at 8:00 am today so I'll have to save this for another time.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Too many things going on
Too many things going on. Well it's sort of, let's just say that I've been doing other things instead of writing here recently. There was the international festival, meeting new friends (and then hanging out with them), there's this research thing, then organizing a hot-pot party for the weekend and then forgetting that I double booked myself for a secretarie's farewell party... taking a walk around Sendai, doing a short road trip during a morning of a weekday, then there's taking pictures (and organizing them), making photo albums, going for walks, attending international cooking classes, other misc stuff and I need to take a break sometimes too!
Oi! What a run on sentence! But seriously that's how exactly things feel at the moment. Oh and by the way, the Canadian booth at the international festival was marginally profitable. We made about $100, I guess I can live with that. That cash is going to go towards throwing a little party for the people that worked with me for the event. Kudos to them for helping me out. Unfortunately we fell short of hitting our 400 dish mark... we only hit 180.
Had we made it to the 400 mark, I would have been looking at profits of approximately $500! We would maple syrup pancakes and smoked salmon cream cheese crackers (the cracker dish is a story unto it self actually, but that will be for another time... if I ever end up writing about it). When I do have some down time, I'll make a detailed post about the event. Well better than posting a loss though. So I have that atleast, I did tell you about the time I tried to sell X-boxes from Japan right? No? Haha... well that'll have to be a story for another time.
For the time being, assuming that "a picture is a thousand words," I have pictures that want to say about 70~80 "thousand words." I'll let them do the talking instead:
Autumn in Sendai
21st Tohoku International Festival
Random note:
I was interviewed while in Korea (several months ago) while attending a martial arts event and gave them greetings from Canada! Was it ever aired? I have no clue.
Oi! What a run on sentence! But seriously that's how exactly things feel at the moment. Oh and by the way, the Canadian booth at the international festival was marginally profitable. We made about $100, I guess I can live with that. That cash is going to go towards throwing a little party for the people that worked with me for the event. Kudos to them for helping me out. Unfortunately we fell short of hitting our 400 dish mark... we only hit 180.
Had we made it to the 400 mark, I would have been looking at profits of approximately $500! We would maple syrup pancakes and smoked salmon cream cheese crackers (the cracker dish is a story unto it self actually, but that will be for another time... if I ever end up writing about it). When I do have some down time, I'll make a detailed post about the event. Well better than posting a loss though. So I have that atleast, I did tell you about the time I tried to sell X-boxes from Japan right? No? Haha... well that'll have to be a story for another time.
For the time being, assuming that "a picture is a thousand words," I have pictures that want to say about 70~80 "thousand words." I'll let them do the talking instead:
Autumn in Sendai
21st Tohoku International Festival
Random note:
I was interviewed while in Korea (several months ago) while attending a martial arts event and gave them greetings from Canada! Was it ever aired? I have no clue.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Friday, November 03, 2006
The Alchemist
An unexpected surprise had arrived to me from Korea yesterday. I have a friend in Korea who might not be taller than I, but there is something that tells me that she is in reach of dreams...
"... so I can change those things that I don't want to happen"
"But then they wouldn't be a part of your future," the seer said.
"Well, maybe I just want to prepare myself for what's coming."
"If good things are coming, they will be a pleasant surprise," said the seer. "If bad things are, and you know in advance, you will suffer greatly before they even occur."
"I want to know about the future because I'm a man," the camel driver had said to the seer. "And men always live their lives based on the future."
--The Alchemist
I will finish this book tonight.
"... so I can change those things that I don't want to happen"
"But then they wouldn't be a part of your future," the seer said.
"Well, maybe I just want to prepare myself for what's coming."
"If good things are coming, they will be a pleasant surprise," said the seer. "If bad things are, and you know in advance, you will suffer greatly before they even occur."
"I want to know about the future because I'm a man," the camel driver had said to the seer. "And men always live their lives based on the future."
--The Alchemist
I will finish this book tonight.
Monday, October 30, 2006
International Festival Report on the way
It's been a long day-- short on sleep and long on work with plenty to say about the international festival. I got a bunch of calculations to go through and I'll report in on that within the next few days. Learned plenty from the event despite having mixed results. Am I sounding vague? But of course, I'm saving the interesting analysis for the next post! Unlikely that the people that helped out are reading thus but many thanks to the lab members, my roomie and the volunteer that worked with us today.
Details to follow. Cheerio.
Details to follow. Cheerio.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Oh and by the way...
It's been a while since I've updated. So many things going on that I haven't had the chance to do much updating as of recent. So today I was preparing some food at my friend's kitchen in a dorm with a bunch of other friends. This crowd of Japanese people come in all of a sudden and there was this one girl that I ended up just chatting with... turns out that she did a 1 year exchange in UBC and we got all riled up talking about UBC and Vancouver. Cool to boot too!
Had my hands in a smoked salmon cream cheese mix at the time and couldn't whip out my cell phone to exchange contacts. Was going to wash up but ended up telling her to contact a mutual friend we knew to get my info (don't even know if he still has my contact). Was in the process of washing my hands and the guard man came and interrupted us because we were talking too loud and they had to leave and I didn't end up getting her contact! Nooooooooooo! Bummer.
Oh and by the way... I've just been spending the last 2 weeks prepping for an international festival happening tomorrow where I'll be putting out a Canadian booth selling "Canadian food" and I have lofty goals to head out to France for a conference if I can get some results in 1 month.
Sigh... back to work, got posters to finish off making. If things go well, I'll be selling food for 400! Pictures to come later.
Had my hands in a smoked salmon cream cheese mix at the time and couldn't whip out my cell phone to exchange contacts. Was going to wash up but ended up telling her to contact a mutual friend we knew to get my info (don't even know if he still has my contact). Was in the process of washing my hands and the guard man came and interrupted us because we were talking too loud and they had to leave and I didn't end up getting her contact! Nooooooooooo! Bummer.
Oh and by the way... I've just been spending the last 2 weeks prepping for an international festival happening tomorrow where I'll be putting out a Canadian booth selling "Canadian food" and I have lofty goals to head out to France for a conference if I can get some results in 1 month.
Sigh... back to work, got posters to finish off making. If things go well, I'll be selling food for 400! Pictures to come later.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Why an Athesist Cares about Religion
I saw this video on YouTube just today on why Atheists and Agnostics should start keeping track of what is going on in the religious world. We are seeing people of religion influencing what others can or can't do. I ask you, who is it in the States are against stem cell research? Where does Conservative party in the States get a significant support from? Who is against the teaching of evolution in school? What significant faction opposes same sex marriage?
The point of these questions is not whether if they are correct or not, but it is important to realize that there is an institution behind this... and I'm afraid that this institution is not entirely backed up by rational thought. It's time to name names here and now, a considerable amount of policies are being driven into politics by Christian organizations.
I am not characteristically against religious organizations; I am more than happy to co-exist with the beliefs of others-- my friends can go ahead and pray before eating a meal, tell me that you can't eat pork or beef, whatever, it doesn't bother me. I have plenty of friends of different religious backgrounds. In Canada, I have Christian, Hindu and Islamic friends. We get along fine; it's not like we go jihadic when we sit down together for lunch. Unfortunately, there are groups of people that do not think that way and these groups have the influence to change the laws that affect people that aren't of their religious denomination. Is that right? I don't think so.
"Democracy is about way more than majority rule. Democracy is about minority rights, individual rights, restraints on power." -- President Clinton, interview on Fox News after he smacks down Chris Wallace (the host) down for partisan questioning (an interview very much worth watching by the way).
Since when do Christian (or other religious) groups have the right to impose their way of thinking on to other people? We have a group of people telling others what is right or wrong and trying to legislate that into law. This is a different ball game because there are active groups of people out there affecting the way other people go about their lives, especially when the affected group isn't doing anything to affect the active group's way of life.
Why should being Islamic threaten Christians? Is it right to for say Christians to legislate a ban on Islamic religion (even as a way of life)? Suppose even that Christians held a majority and "democratically" had the power to do this sort of thing, does is make it right still? No! And that is why democracy is just as much about minority rights as it is about majority rights. Because in the big picture of the world, we are all minorities. There are more non-Christians in the world than there are Christians and simply by majority rule it would be just as fair to legislate against them. But oh wait, the world is divided into countries and such, but the idea is still just as valid.
Religious group's have an asymmetric way of interacting with broader society; for example what if I made a deal to allow a religious organization to have their way with no stem cell research, but I want religious related activities in schools banned because, say other people might find it offensive.
You know what? There is no way that is going to happen. I've never seen any religious organizations make any concessions because they believe they are right and they want it their way. And the only time I've seen religious discourse happen is when they want to come talk to you and persuade you to let them have their way.
That's the asymmetry. If you have the right to change the way other people go about their lives, then others should have the right to influence the way you go about your life. This of course is an idealistic way of thinking-- in the sense that we live by fair rules (ie. what you can do, I can do). The reality is that the world isn't 100% fair, but we try to live by these ideals. If we don't, then all bets are off and everyone is going to be as unfair as possible to get their way... and you know what? That's also "fair" in a perverse kind of way... but this system would still be moral, in a different way where I described in a post I made more than a year ago. Summary point, Christian groups should also be willing to accept the influence of other groups if you are going to try and influence how others should be. As of this writing, I have yet to find much evidence of this happening.
I am sure that you and I can predict the headlines in the news if I actually made a deal as a above: "I'll let you have your way with no stem cell research, but I want religious activities in schools banned." We'd all hear how this would be called "religious discrimination," fine, so what do you call it and a religion discriminates against other people? So what about people or ideas not related to religion but challenged by religious groups? "Persecuted by religion?" I don't think we have a formal term to describe this and I think this is the problem--the problem is that a set of phrases don't exist to describe this persecution of ideas by religion. If a problem cannot be well defined, you're not going to have a very good chance of any sort of logical discourse (assuming that "logic" is a valid school of thought for this kind of "discourse"). But it's time to start the discourse because religious tolerance is coming to an end and ironically we are starting to see that it is those that are religious that are intolerant. I cannot tolerate the intolerant.
It might seem that I'm hitting hard at Christians, but that was not the point of this essay. I don't harbour any hate of them-- it so happens to be what I am the most versed in terms of what is going on, but the argument can be extended to other religions. If that is one things you should walk away from this, it is the broader picture of implications.
I am agnostic out of politeness (agnostic being that I have no belief or disbelief of supernatural religions) because I believe it's fine for people to believe anything they want so long as they are civil. I even entertain religious conversation and was perfectly fine with people telling me that they're happy to be religious. I've got no problem with people being happy, but when the things they do starts causing trouble to other people, it's time to take a look at what's going on and I mean so in a rational kind of way. Unfortunately, rationality and religion doesn't seem to co-exist and I have to make a stand for it and many others are starting to do likewise.
Religious and world peace is possible-- I've lived in an international dorm.
The point of these questions is not whether if they are correct or not, but it is important to realize that there is an institution behind this... and I'm afraid that this institution is not entirely backed up by rational thought. It's time to name names here and now, a considerable amount of policies are being driven into politics by Christian organizations.
I am not characteristically against religious organizations; I am more than happy to co-exist with the beliefs of others-- my friends can go ahead and pray before eating a meal, tell me that you can't eat pork or beef, whatever, it doesn't bother me. I have plenty of friends of different religious backgrounds. In Canada, I have Christian, Hindu and Islamic friends. We get along fine; it's not like we go jihadic when we sit down together for lunch. Unfortunately, there are groups of people that do not think that way and these groups have the influence to change the laws that affect people that aren't of their religious denomination. Is that right? I don't think so.
"Democracy is about way more than majority rule. Democracy is about minority rights, individual rights, restraints on power." -- President Clinton, interview on Fox News after he smacks down Chris Wallace (the host) down for partisan questioning (an interview very much worth watching by the way).
Since when do Christian (or other religious) groups have the right to impose their way of thinking on to other people? We have a group of people telling others what is right or wrong and trying to legislate that into law. This is a different ball game because there are active groups of people out there affecting the way other people go about their lives, especially when the affected group isn't doing anything to affect the active group's way of life.
Why should being Islamic threaten Christians? Is it right to for say Christians to legislate a ban on Islamic religion (even as a way of life)? Suppose even that Christians held a majority and "democratically" had the power to do this sort of thing, does is make it right still? No! And that is why democracy is just as much about minority rights as it is about majority rights. Because in the big picture of the world, we are all minorities. There are more non-Christians in the world than there are Christians and simply by majority rule it would be just as fair to legislate against them. But oh wait, the world is divided into countries and such, but the idea is still just as valid.
Religious group's have an asymmetric way of interacting with broader society; for example what if I made a deal to allow a religious organization to have their way with no stem cell research, but I want religious related activities in schools banned because, say other people might find it offensive.
You know what? There is no way that is going to happen. I've never seen any religious organizations make any concessions because they believe they are right and they want it their way. And the only time I've seen religious discourse happen is when they want to come talk to you and persuade you to let them have their way.
That's the asymmetry. If you have the right to change the way other people go about their lives, then others should have the right to influence the way you go about your life. This of course is an idealistic way of thinking-- in the sense that we live by fair rules (ie. what you can do, I can do). The reality is that the world isn't 100% fair, but we try to live by these ideals. If we don't, then all bets are off and everyone is going to be as unfair as possible to get their way... and you know what? That's also "fair" in a perverse kind of way... but this system would still be moral, in a different way where I described in a post I made more than a year ago. Summary point, Christian groups should also be willing to accept the influence of other groups if you are going to try and influence how others should be. As of this writing, I have yet to find much evidence of this happening.
I am sure that you and I can predict the headlines in the news if I actually made a deal as a above: "I'll let you have your way with no stem cell research, but I want religious activities in schools banned." We'd all hear how this would be called "religious discrimination," fine, so what do you call it and a religion discriminates against other people? So what about people or ideas not related to religion but challenged by religious groups? "Persecuted by religion?" I don't think we have a formal term to describe this and I think this is the problem--the problem is that a set of phrases don't exist to describe this persecution of ideas by religion. If a problem cannot be well defined, you're not going to have a very good chance of any sort of logical discourse (assuming that "logic" is a valid school of thought for this kind of "discourse"). But it's time to start the discourse because religious tolerance is coming to an end and ironically we are starting to see that it is those that are religious that are intolerant. I cannot tolerate the intolerant.
It might seem that I'm hitting hard at Christians, but that was not the point of this essay. I don't harbour any hate of them-- it so happens to be what I am the most versed in terms of what is going on, but the argument can be extended to other religions. If that is one things you should walk away from this, it is the broader picture of implications.
I am agnostic out of politeness (agnostic being that I have no belief or disbelief of supernatural religions) because I believe it's fine for people to believe anything they want so long as they are civil. I even entertain religious conversation and was perfectly fine with people telling me that they're happy to be religious. I've got no problem with people being happy, but when the things they do starts causing trouble to other people, it's time to take a look at what's going on and I mean so in a rational kind of way. Unfortunately, rationality and religion doesn't seem to co-exist and I have to make a stand for it and many others are starting to do likewise.
Religious and world peace is possible-- I've lived in an international dorm.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
The simplest questions are sometimes the hardest
One of my labmates has a presentation this weekend in Korea and tonight he did a mock presentation to me and the assistant professor this evening. His presntation was on "At-Cut Quartz actuated resonators using plasma activated bonding." His presntation is still a work in progress but the professor had decided that he should practice tonight.
I sat through the presentation, it lack a clear defination of the objective and a clear picture of where "plasma activated bonding" fitted into the picture of the fabrication of this device. Dispite being here for a year, I still feel that my knowledge of material processing methods is rather limited. After the presentation, I decided to hold a mock question period where I popped the question "what is plasma activated bonding?" My friend, Takahashi looked back blankly... he started to try and formulate an answer... something about surface energy of a material being increased by application of a plasma, then he gave up to tell me "I really don't know and the mechanisms aren't well understood."
Why is it hard for people to admit what they don't know? One thing that annoys me the most is people pretending to know, because it's a waste of time. If there is one thing that annoys me even more, is watching 2 people that pretend to know something argue against each other (this is especially true in politics).
The simplest test of knowledge is the following... ask the person how do they know what they know. Drop'em like a sack of potatoes if they can't give a straight answer (and aren't willing to admit it) because there isn't a point continuing the conversation.
Fortunately Takahashi was able to admit it.
I sat through the presentation, it lack a clear defination of the objective and a clear picture of where "plasma activated bonding" fitted into the picture of the fabrication of this device. Dispite being here for a year, I still feel that my knowledge of material processing methods is rather limited. After the presentation, I decided to hold a mock question period where I popped the question "what is plasma activated bonding?" My friend, Takahashi looked back blankly... he started to try and formulate an answer... something about surface energy of a material being increased by application of a plasma, then he gave up to tell me "I really don't know and the mechanisms aren't well understood."
Why is it hard for people to admit what they don't know? One thing that annoys me the most is people pretending to know, because it's a waste of time. If there is one thing that annoys me even more, is watching 2 people that pretend to know something argue against each other (this is especially true in politics).
The simplest test of knowledge is the following... ask the person how do they know what they know. Drop'em like a sack of potatoes if they can't give a straight answer (and aren't willing to admit it) because there isn't a point continuing the conversation.
Fortunately Takahashi was able to admit it.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Farmer Justin 2!
Remember back in June when I made that post on planing rice? Yes? No? Maybe? Well, 4 months have passed since and it was time to make a return back to the fields and make the harvest. Me, Ono, Helen, Alex and Iinuma-san hopped into Iinuma-san's car and we were off at 8:30 to somewhere in Kawasaki-machi to head on over to Shigeo's farm to help out with the rice harvest. All by hand. I posted why Shigeo did everything by hand in the last post so if you're not entirely sure why, go back and visit the last post. He's a very interesting guy, from Economist to environmental conservator. He's working with a bunch of people to setup an NPO in the area for sustainable development and education.
His background in economics is quite fascinating with the combination of environmental conversation because he's explained to me how making a country more self relyant interms of energy and resources is quite important. Japan imports 60% of all it's food ant 97% of all it's energy. Comparing that to places like Germany where they produce 107% of their food and France is in the ball park of 200%. No, this wouldn't be a comment you'd hear from just your average farmer, he's an educated farmer!
This time around we spent most of the morning and afternoon harvesting rice all by hand. It was quite the work, but it went pretty fast. By lunch with about 10 people, we had harvested an entire rice field, tied the rice into many bushels and then hung them outside to dry.
Alex harvesting rice!
By noon, we were all crowed around nice wooden but worn benched outside snacking away at a hearty meal of rice balls, veggies and soup.
The wooden benches. Simple, yet functional.
By the afternoon, we started on another field and got 1/4 of the way though and called it a day.
The group of friends I was with got invited out to one of the volunteer's house to have coffee that afternoon. The guy is an architect who had completed his home by a very nice lake about a year ago, all out of wood harvested locally. The idea was to build a house using only local material and also very environmentally friendly.
The house! Looks like something you'd find in Canada!
I learned plenty about the design of the house that day. For example, beneath this house, is a very huge pit of charcoal. Charcoal is good at absorbing humid air and air filtration. If exterior humidity was 100% outside during heavy rain, the interior would remain at about 75% (all of this data was metered).
The house also has an open celining between the first and second floor, allowing hot air to escape from the bottom and rise to the top. A window at the top can be opened to let the hot air flow out of the house and small vents at the bottom are opened at the bottom to allow cooler air to flow in. During the hot summers the house can be kept at 28 C dispite the outdoor temperature of 35 C with no airconditioning.
The windows, while extremely big, are all quadrouple paned to prevent loss of heat during the frigid winters. The floor is heated with a water boiler during the winter. In addition, the house is also equiped with a very sweet home theater system with exceptionally big speakers. See the picture below.
That's Ono, sticking his head into the speaker system.
Fortunately the house is located in a remote section of the mountains and the neighbours only come to their cabin once in a while, leaving the owner of this place free to blast his music as loud as he wants, when he wants. It would be really neat to have a house like this.
I've also posted a photo album online. If you've got a chance, check it out!
His background in economics is quite fascinating with the combination of environmental conversation because he's explained to me how making a country more self relyant interms of energy and resources is quite important. Japan imports 60% of all it's food ant 97% of all it's energy. Comparing that to places like Germany where they produce 107% of their food and France is in the ball park of 200%. No, this wouldn't be a comment you'd hear from just your average farmer, he's an educated farmer!
This time around we spent most of the morning and afternoon harvesting rice all by hand. It was quite the work, but it went pretty fast. By lunch with about 10 people, we had harvested an entire rice field, tied the rice into many bushels and then hung them outside to dry.
Alex harvesting rice!By noon, we were all crowed around nice wooden but worn benched outside snacking away at a hearty meal of rice balls, veggies and soup.
The wooden benches. Simple, yet functional.By the afternoon, we started on another field and got 1/4 of the way though and called it a day.
The group of friends I was with got invited out to one of the volunteer's house to have coffee that afternoon. The guy is an architect who had completed his home by a very nice lake about a year ago, all out of wood harvested locally. The idea was to build a house using only local material and also very environmentally friendly.
The house! Looks like something you'd find in Canada!I learned plenty about the design of the house that day. For example, beneath this house, is a very huge pit of charcoal. Charcoal is good at absorbing humid air and air filtration. If exterior humidity was 100% outside during heavy rain, the interior would remain at about 75% (all of this data was metered).
The house also has an open celining between the first and second floor, allowing hot air to escape from the bottom and rise to the top. A window at the top can be opened to let the hot air flow out of the house and small vents at the bottom are opened at the bottom to allow cooler air to flow in. During the hot summers the house can be kept at 28 C dispite the outdoor temperature of 35 C with no airconditioning.
The windows, while extremely big, are all quadrouple paned to prevent loss of heat during the frigid winters. The floor is heated with a water boiler during the winter. In addition, the house is also equiped with a very sweet home theater system with exceptionally big speakers. See the picture below.
That's Ono, sticking his head into the speaker system.Fortunately the house is located in a remote section of the mountains and the neighbours only come to their cabin once in a while, leaving the owner of this place free to blast his music as loud as he wants, when he wants. It would be really neat to have a house like this.
I've also posted a photo album online. If you've got a chance, check it out!
Friday, October 13, 2006
Calgary: Sept 30 -- Oct 2, 2006
I know that Matt's been waiting for this post. It's 9:00 am at lab, been here since 8:00 am, just finished editing a few photos, exporting them, adding comments and uploaded the album to the net.
So here's me reporting in on my Calgary trip.
Sept 30 2006 -- Arrival in Calgary
I hopped off the plane and made my way straight past and out of baggage claim-- I was travelling with carry on luggage only for my Canadian trip. I'll have you know how nice it is to not spend 30 minutes at the conveyor belt of luggage claim waiting for a suitcase to pop out.
I strolled out past the exit of luggage claim to go find Matt somewhere near the exits. It was the other way around unforutnately as I walked right by him without noticing while he blurts "and he walks right by." So sue me, I had an early start that day and my brain wasn't running at full speed.
We jumped into Matt's car and beamed back to his place in all about 15 minutes. Calgary, like Toronto has lots of large highways running all over the place, though Toronto's highways are a plenty wider. I dropped my stuff back at his place and decided to hit the roads to Banff -- it was a beautiful day, why waste it chilling at home? And so, we were off.
After about 2 hours of driving (usually it takes about 1.5 hours to make it out there but traffic was a little bad that day) we made it to Banff. I'll let you guys know, Matt is turning into a Calgarian -- Country music has started creeping into his music mixes, I kid you not. I'll give him this much-- it isn't old school country music atleast.
Matt pumped the WRX up and through a small road off the high way to a lookout point looking down at a valley in Banff. The view was very impressive and unfortunately something that a camera fails to capture. If you want to call youself a Canadian, I sugges that you pay a visit to the Rockies atleast once, especially if you're a Vancouverite. Get a bunch of friends, get a car, drive from Vancouver to Calgary and check out the Rockies and Banff along the way. I assure you that it is something that you won't regret.
Plenty of nice pictures in Banff were taken, actually I'll let them speak for themselves:
Left: Matt's Subaru Wrx by the trees, Right: Matt by the trees
Close up of the leaves in change
These pictures were taken a during a drive around Kananaskis Country which is near by Banff. Nice pictures no? We also strolled around a river that runs near by and took a few shots over there. Which reminds me, Matt! Fire me over some pictures!
After our stint in Banff we headed back for Calgary, as for me I decided to catch up on sleep in the car since after flying in from Toronto, I'd be having a 26 hour day with the time zone change. In addition! That evening we would be heading off to the local casino for some poker action and I definately wanted to be in tip-top shape for the poker action.
By evening we made it back into Calgary, popped by the house to drop off some stuff and made a run to Matt's company where I'd get a tour of the hangar where the pretty planes are kept. The Jet, especially, that Matt now gets to fly. A picture of it right below actually!
Mmmm $14 million dollar jet!
Need to get around in style? Drop $1.4 into Matt's company to buy a share (refundable of course), it's only $2300/hour to operate the plane and I think it seats 6~8 people. Got cash to burn? Just drop Matt a line!
The jet was pretty darn cool. I got a chance to poke around the cabin, fully stocked with all sorts of goodies and took a seat in the cockpit. We popped open the cover to one of the engines for me to take a look. Pictures, of course are in the photo album. I also got to take a look at the turbo-prop plane that Matt used to fly. Well I even had a chance to poke around it once a long while back when I was in Vancouver. Planes are very cool machines. One day, I'd like to have a nice small one for myself. One day :)
Right after the hangar trip, we headed off to "Joey's Tomatoes,"to grab some dinner. I'll say that the waitress there are pretty darn good looking and you might end up taking your time eating because they also like coming by and chatting it up a little from time to time. The steak they make over there is just awesome. They have this great pepper sauce that goes with it and the steak was exceptionally tender. If you go to Calgary, be sure to get some grade A steak, you'll never regret it.
Finally, the poker action.
Matt has provided a short summary of our little poker stint here, but I'll tell my side of the story. Before we stepped into the casino, actually during the drive back from Banff, I told Matt that I had a feeling that I would win big that day. Actually, it's been a feeling I had since I knew that I would be coming to Calgary, about a month before I arrived.
We arrived at the "Cash Casino" a little casino somewhere in a semi-industrial/commercial area outside the heart of Calgary. It looked a little seedy, but none the less, it had the kind of poker and the limits we wanted to play. We'd be playing $1/$2 no limit Texas Hold'em that night. There were other places that were playing Texas Hold'em, but the buy-in's required were considerably higher, sitting at $300~$400+ required to have a respectable sized poker stack, an amount beyond I was willing to risk. The max buy-in for the place we were at was $200, which was the right range for me.
We walked through the doors, past a smokey room filled with slots and table games like pai-gow poker into the backrooms where the poker tables were. An added bonus is that the room was also a smoke free room! Yes! I hate being in a smoke filled room for extended periods of time.
We took our seats at a table together and we ended up pretending that we were strangers that evening. It just seemed safer to me. The table we sat at was pretty quiet, there wasn't much banter and people were pretty focused on the cards. There was one guy at the table that had a group of friends playing at various other tables which seemed to liven things up as they stopped by our table from time to time to chat with their other friend, but that was pretty much it. Small talk with the other players was... pretty small.
I played exceptionally tight the entire night. There were 8~10 players at the table the entire time and the players were pretty loose-- lots of callers. If that's the case, you're better off waiting for some pretty good hands before getting or else you risk losing too often-- part of poker is winning money, the other part is to not lose it. Not losing money in poker is exceptionally important... especially when you've got to make tough folds.
We started playing at about 11:00 pm, the night droned on for a few hours before Matt and I got moved to another table as the managers wanted to close our table. I won a few hands but ended up losing the extra cash because I was insistent on confirming my gut feeling that my opponent had me beat dispite me having some pretty decent cards. I was right, unfortunately.
Things got really interesting that night after a gruffy biker dude arrived in his suit and pulled out wad of cash where he tossed $200 on to the table (a small portion from a big wad). He got his chips and played incredibly agressive and like he didn't care about losing. Scared the crap out of many players at the table and within 1~2 hours, he had atleast $800 total in his stack from other players not willing to take him on... or the guy catching weird cards and taking them out. Very scary stuff.
As for me, I wasn't playing all that many hands that night and I would be down about $50 at one point since I'd keep missing the flop with decent hole cards. Things took a different turn after a while however. I had AQ one hand and flopped QQ6, there were about 4 other players that hand and Matt also stayed in after a bet of $6 preflop. Well Matt bets $20, I raise back to $40 to tell him that I've got something... then he raises me all in. Well what am I to do? I got a pretty good hand and if he even had a Q, I had him probably out kicked. Call! He flips over his cards to show 66. Crap, he had a full house on the flop!? Well the turn came, junk... the river? An ace hit's the table to give me the win and I end up cleaning out Matt for $88 bucks and he had to rebuy in for $400. Well alteast he lost the money to me, he'd get it back anyways.
So here I am sitting around with about a $300 stack. A guy that's been pushed around all night by the chip lead recently started making some big bets and taking down some nice large pots. I had an K-10 one hand with a 10 top pair after the flop. He keeps calling my bets on the flop and turn. By the time we get to the river. He bets $75 at me. What the hell? I didn't even bet that huge at him and now this? After thinking hard, I decided to take out $75 from my stack to call. He had nothing but low pair and was trying to push me out. Sweet, my stack is up to about $400! The best had yet to come.
I had a few good hands that night but I had very few of them actually, I was feeling that I was getting statistically too few of them; I had to get a good hand sometime soon! At one point, I thought exceptionally hard about getting AA, the best cards possible preflop. I stared down the cards flying at me and mentally willed each card that hit the table coming to me to be an ace. My gut feelings were exceptionally strong that hand, my gut was telling me that I'd hit it... exactly on this hand. I flip my cards over to find... 22. Somewhat anti-climatic, but still I had a good feeling about this hand. I called preflop and was in early position with 5 other players in. The flop hit, 10 7 2. A 2 hit the table!! I was sitting on a hidden set of 2's. Nobody would ever see this one coming. I was extactic... but of course, calm, cool and collected.
Light betting ensued on the flop and I decided to call a $5 bet-- I decided to slow play this hand and hoped to milk it for all it's worth. The next card hit, and it was a 9. Possible straight on the table but from my observation, it's be a gut shot draw. The probabilities were still in my favor. One player bets $20, I decide to raise to $40 and I get 2 callers. There's about $130 in the pot now. The last card comes out, a 10! I am now sitting on a full house! The biker dude before me checks the bet, I bet $40, the other guy calls and the biker dude tells us all that he's going "all in." My heart was skipping with joy. Gave it a second and called with the rest of my cash. The other guy backed out.
The biker flipped his cards over to reveal that he had 10-3, he caught triple 10's on the river. I look at him and told him "nice hand," paused... and then flipped over my 22 to reveal my full house. The players at the table gasp, yeah I took out 1/2 of Mr Crazy biker's $800 stack and my stack was over $900.
There is a bit of a taboo of leaving the table right after a big win so I decided to stick it out for a few more rotations. The biker dude transfered off the table after that crushing defeat, a few of the players were talking about how tight I played the entire night. I loosened up a little because everyone really tightened up and bluffed a few hands and showed off my cards to everyone a few times to loosen them up. My stack still commanded the respect of everyone at the table and very few were willing to take me on. After a few rotations, I decided end the night at about 5:00 am and cashed out for $912 and gave back Matt his $88 bucks which actually came in useful... because I got to use it to earn an extra $88 off the biker dude from that one hand.
I left the table, then Matt and I met up in the parking lot and then we were off. Matt was up $93 bucks and I was up about $600. Not bad, not bad at all.
The fan of cash at the top is mine, the one at the bottom is Matt's
We got back at 5:30 am, had a celebratory beer and headed off to sleep.
The next day? Well, I met up with an old friend Alan that moved to Calgary... Matt and Alan got me horrendously drunk along the 17th Ave strip otherwise known as the "Red Mile" in Calgary. I'd talk more but I think this post is long enough as it is. Waking up the next day, I caught breakfast with Matt and was off to Vancouver.
Calgary was great and if you want to see more pictures, they're of course here.
So here's me reporting in on my Calgary trip.
Sept 30 2006 -- Arrival in Calgary
I hopped off the plane and made my way straight past and out of baggage claim-- I was travelling with carry on luggage only for my Canadian trip. I'll have you know how nice it is to not spend 30 minutes at the conveyor belt of luggage claim waiting for a suitcase to pop out.
I strolled out past the exit of luggage claim to go find Matt somewhere near the exits. It was the other way around unforutnately as I walked right by him without noticing while he blurts "and he walks right by." So sue me, I had an early start that day and my brain wasn't running at full speed.
We jumped into Matt's car and beamed back to his place in all about 15 minutes. Calgary, like Toronto has lots of large highways running all over the place, though Toronto's highways are a plenty wider. I dropped my stuff back at his place and decided to hit the roads to Banff -- it was a beautiful day, why waste it chilling at home? And so, we were off.
After about 2 hours of driving (usually it takes about 1.5 hours to make it out there but traffic was a little bad that day) we made it to Banff. I'll let you guys know, Matt is turning into a Calgarian -- Country music has started creeping into his music mixes, I kid you not. I'll give him this much-- it isn't old school country music atleast.
Matt pumped the WRX up and through a small road off the high way to a lookout point looking down at a valley in Banff. The view was very impressive and unfortunately something that a camera fails to capture. If you want to call youself a Canadian, I sugges that you pay a visit to the Rockies atleast once, especially if you're a Vancouverite. Get a bunch of friends, get a car, drive from Vancouver to Calgary and check out the Rockies and Banff along the way. I assure you that it is something that you won't regret.Plenty of nice pictures in Banff were taken, actually I'll let them speak for themselves:
Left: Matt's Subaru Wrx by the trees, Right: Matt by the trees
Close up of the leaves in change
These pictures were taken a during a drive around Kananaskis Country which is near by Banff. Nice pictures no? We also strolled around a river that runs near by and took a few shots over there. Which reminds me, Matt! Fire me over some pictures!
After our stint in Banff we headed back for Calgary, as for me I decided to catch up on sleep in the car since after flying in from Toronto, I'd be having a 26 hour day with the time zone change. In addition! That evening we would be heading off to the local casino for some poker action and I definately wanted to be in tip-top shape for the poker action.
By evening we made it back into Calgary, popped by the house to drop off some stuff and made a run to Matt's company where I'd get a tour of the hangar where the pretty planes are kept. The Jet, especially, that Matt now gets to fly. A picture of it right below actually!
Mmmm $14 million dollar jet!
Need to get around in style? Drop $1.4 into Matt's company to buy a share (refundable of course), it's only $2300/hour to operate the plane and I think it seats 6~8 people. Got cash to burn? Just drop Matt a line!
The jet was pretty darn cool. I got a chance to poke around the cabin, fully stocked with all sorts of goodies and took a seat in the cockpit. We popped open the cover to one of the engines for me to take a look. Pictures, of course are in the photo album. I also got to take a look at the turbo-prop plane that Matt used to fly. Well I even had a chance to poke around it once a long while back when I was in Vancouver. Planes are very cool machines. One day, I'd like to have a nice small one for myself. One day :)
Right after the hangar trip, we headed off to "Joey's Tomatoes,"to grab some dinner. I'll say that the waitress there are pretty darn good looking and you might end up taking your time eating because they also like coming by and chatting it up a little from time to time. The steak they make over there is just awesome. They have this great pepper sauce that goes with it and the steak was exceptionally tender. If you go to Calgary, be sure to get some grade A steak, you'll never regret it.
Finally, the poker action.
Matt has provided a short summary of our little poker stint here, but I'll tell my side of the story. Before we stepped into the casino, actually during the drive back from Banff, I told Matt that I had a feeling that I would win big that day. Actually, it's been a feeling I had since I knew that I would be coming to Calgary, about a month before I arrived.
We arrived at the "Cash Casino" a little casino somewhere in a semi-industrial/commercial area outside the heart of Calgary. It looked a little seedy, but none the less, it had the kind of poker and the limits we wanted to play. We'd be playing $1/$2 no limit Texas Hold'em that night. There were other places that were playing Texas Hold'em, but the buy-in's required were considerably higher, sitting at $300~$400+ required to have a respectable sized poker stack, an amount beyond I was willing to risk. The max buy-in for the place we were at was $200, which was the right range for me.
We walked through the doors, past a smokey room filled with slots and table games like pai-gow poker into the backrooms where the poker tables were. An added bonus is that the room was also a smoke free room! Yes! I hate being in a smoke filled room for extended periods of time.
We took our seats at a table together and we ended up pretending that we were strangers that evening. It just seemed safer to me. The table we sat at was pretty quiet, there wasn't much banter and people were pretty focused on the cards. There was one guy at the table that had a group of friends playing at various other tables which seemed to liven things up as they stopped by our table from time to time to chat with their other friend, but that was pretty much it. Small talk with the other players was... pretty small.
I played exceptionally tight the entire night. There were 8~10 players at the table the entire time and the players were pretty loose-- lots of callers. If that's the case, you're better off waiting for some pretty good hands before getting or else you risk losing too often-- part of poker is winning money, the other part is to not lose it. Not losing money in poker is exceptionally important... especially when you've got to make tough folds.
We started playing at about 11:00 pm, the night droned on for a few hours before Matt and I got moved to another table as the managers wanted to close our table. I won a few hands but ended up losing the extra cash because I was insistent on confirming my gut feeling that my opponent had me beat dispite me having some pretty decent cards. I was right, unfortunately.
Things got really interesting that night after a gruffy biker dude arrived in his suit and pulled out wad of cash where he tossed $200 on to the table (a small portion from a big wad). He got his chips and played incredibly agressive and like he didn't care about losing. Scared the crap out of many players at the table and within 1~2 hours, he had atleast $800 total in his stack from other players not willing to take him on... or the guy catching weird cards and taking them out. Very scary stuff.
As for me, I wasn't playing all that many hands that night and I would be down about $50 at one point since I'd keep missing the flop with decent hole cards. Things took a different turn after a while however. I had AQ one hand and flopped QQ6, there were about 4 other players that hand and Matt also stayed in after a bet of $6 preflop. Well Matt bets $20, I raise back to $40 to tell him that I've got something... then he raises me all in. Well what am I to do? I got a pretty good hand and if he even had a Q, I had him probably out kicked. Call! He flips over his cards to show 66. Crap, he had a full house on the flop!? Well the turn came, junk... the river? An ace hit's the table to give me the win and I end up cleaning out Matt for $88 bucks and he had to rebuy in for $400. Well alteast he lost the money to me, he'd get it back anyways.
So here I am sitting around with about a $300 stack. A guy that's been pushed around all night by the chip lead recently started making some big bets and taking down some nice large pots. I had an K-10 one hand with a 10 top pair after the flop. He keeps calling my bets on the flop and turn. By the time we get to the river. He bets $75 at me. What the hell? I didn't even bet that huge at him and now this? After thinking hard, I decided to take out $75 from my stack to call. He had nothing but low pair and was trying to push me out. Sweet, my stack is up to about $400! The best had yet to come.
I had a few good hands that night but I had very few of them actually, I was feeling that I was getting statistically too few of them; I had to get a good hand sometime soon! At one point, I thought exceptionally hard about getting AA, the best cards possible preflop. I stared down the cards flying at me and mentally willed each card that hit the table coming to me to be an ace. My gut feelings were exceptionally strong that hand, my gut was telling me that I'd hit it... exactly on this hand. I flip my cards over to find... 22. Somewhat anti-climatic, but still I had a good feeling about this hand. I called preflop and was in early position with 5 other players in. The flop hit, 10 7 2. A 2 hit the table!! I was sitting on a hidden set of 2's. Nobody would ever see this one coming. I was extactic... but of course, calm, cool and collected.
Light betting ensued on the flop and I decided to call a $5 bet-- I decided to slow play this hand and hoped to milk it for all it's worth. The next card hit, and it was a 9. Possible straight on the table but from my observation, it's be a gut shot draw. The probabilities were still in my favor. One player bets $20, I decide to raise to $40 and I get 2 callers. There's about $130 in the pot now. The last card comes out, a 10! I am now sitting on a full house! The biker dude before me checks the bet, I bet $40, the other guy calls and the biker dude tells us all that he's going "all in." My heart was skipping with joy. Gave it a second and called with the rest of my cash. The other guy backed out.
The biker flipped his cards over to reveal that he had 10-3, he caught triple 10's on the river. I look at him and told him "nice hand," paused... and then flipped over my 22 to reveal my full house. The players at the table gasp, yeah I took out 1/2 of Mr Crazy biker's $800 stack and my stack was over $900.
There is a bit of a taboo of leaving the table right after a big win so I decided to stick it out for a few more rotations. The biker dude transfered off the table after that crushing defeat, a few of the players were talking about how tight I played the entire night. I loosened up a little because everyone really tightened up and bluffed a few hands and showed off my cards to everyone a few times to loosen them up. My stack still commanded the respect of everyone at the table and very few were willing to take me on. After a few rotations, I decided end the night at about 5:00 am and cashed out for $912 and gave back Matt his $88 bucks which actually came in useful... because I got to use it to earn an extra $88 off the biker dude from that one hand.
I left the table, then Matt and I met up in the parking lot and then we were off. Matt was up $93 bucks and I was up about $600. Not bad, not bad at all.
The fan of cash at the top is mine, the one at the bottom is Matt's
We got back at 5:30 am, had a celebratory beer and headed off to sleep.
The next day? Well, I met up with an old friend Alan that moved to Calgary... Matt and Alan got me horrendously drunk along the 17th Ave strip otherwise known as the "Red Mile" in Calgary. I'd talk more but I think this post is long enough as it is. Waking up the next day, I caught breakfast with Matt and was off to Vancouver.
Calgary was great and if you want to see more pictures, they're of course here.
Monday, October 09, 2006
Old draft dates: Toronto
Oddly, I had the report on my Toronto leg on draft a few days ago and finally published it today. The only problem is that blogger decided to keep the original date of the entry. Scroll down for details.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Postcards
I bought a bunch of postcards in Canada to send to friends overseas. Each one costed me about 30 cents. To mail one of these postcards internationally costs $1.49 according to the Canada Post webpage (which is a very poorly designed webpage because it took me a little while to find the information I was looking for). Who would have thought that sending a postcard overseas costs times the price of buying a post card! Amazing.
Diamond Parking: Go To Hell!!
Today I went for lunch at Steveston, parked the car at the Riversong parking, went for lunch at the warf, bought a t-shirt then came back to the car to find a ticket for $50 which was issued 20 minutes right after I parked the car. The reason? I walked off the parking lot away from the set of stores right by and they had an under cover spy somewhere watching. The comment was even written on the ticket. Unbelievable, I had assumed that the set of stores that I would be going near by would be covered in the parking. Apparently not.
Things have changed since the last time I've been in Steveson, previously that parking lot could have been used for doing your shopping or whatever in the Steveston docks area. Unfortunately that isn't the case any more. My own fault for not reading the sign more carefully. Unfortunately I didn't see the ticket until I got home... had I seen it sooner, I would have quicky poped over to a coffee shop, got myself a coffee and sent a copy of the recipt to the company to contest the ticket.
The lot doesn't even charge for time, nor was it full at all. In the past that parking lot never had problems with it being overfull. No, apparently it seems to me that the stores around had decided to hire some company to track if people came to their stores and give them a ticket if they didn't. Anyways, watch out if you park in Steveston because it seems that the patrollers there are incredibly vigil. It's sad to think that people make money from a "service" like this, but there you have it.
Things have changed since the last time I've been in Steveson, previously that parking lot could have been used for doing your shopping or whatever in the Steveston docks area. Unfortunately that isn't the case any more. My own fault for not reading the sign more carefully. Unfortunately I didn't see the ticket until I got home... had I seen it sooner, I would have quicky poped over to a coffee shop, got myself a coffee and sent a copy of the recipt to the company to contest the ticket.
The lot doesn't even charge for time, nor was it full at all. In the past that parking lot never had problems with it being overfull. No, apparently it seems to me that the stores around had decided to hire some company to track if people came to their stores and give them a ticket if they didn't. Anyways, watch out if you park in Steveston because it seems that the patrollers there are incredibly vigil. It's sad to think that people make money from a "service" like this, but there you have it.
Sept 28 - Sept 29: Niagra and Downtown Toronto
Sept 28th: Niagra with Drew
Woke up at 7:00 am dispite being jet lagged about 10 minutes ahead of Lily, to hear her alarm go off twice before she got out of bed :) It was rather amusing. We caught breakfast and after some milling about at her place, we were on our way on the subway system.
I made it to the Eaton's Center at about 9:00 am, the time I had the rental car reserved. The rental car place was supposedly on the roof of the building... a place that took me nearly 40 minutes to find after wandering the entire mall. All was good, after I found the roof top parkade and then after that, I would be off in a Hyundai car that handled pretty nicely, I thought.
After getting out of the parkade and getting lost and caught in downtown Toronto traffic for quite some time (missing plenty of turns and going the wrong ways countless times) I would finally make it to the 404 highway to head towards Drew's place (the 401 would have been significantly better, but I didn't know any better at the time).
The one nice thing about driving in Toronto is their large highways that go kind of everywhere at really high speeds. I was ripping through the highways at 140km/h without breaking a sweat! Sweet! After driving for about an hour, I made it to Drew's place. At that point, it struck me-- getting around this world is pretty amazing. Just over a few days, I would fly across the pacific and Canada to land in Toronto and then make my way about 100 km out of Toronto to a lot precisely somewhere in Mississauga where I've never been to. Global maps and addresses are quite something.
After picking Drew up we were off to a mall to hang out and grab some lunch!
Left: Drew, Right: Greek Lunch
After milling about the Mall for a little bit, we were off on the roads again for Niagra, about 120 km further away. Driving a car at 120~140km/h vs riding my scooter going at about 60km/h is a world of difference in travel. Just getting to Niagra falls from Toronto on scooter would be a day trip unto itself! Well, I gotta live with what I got in Japan.
We made a little pitstop in St. Catherines for me to pick up some presents for a few friends of mine in Japan. My roomie and one other person in Japan both did their homestay in St. Catherines and I think they'd have quite the kick getting something from the town they stayed in. After that pitstop, we were off to Niagra falls!
Left: Falls from the Top, Right: Falls from the front
I had the opportunity to ride the "Maid of the Mist" boat, a tour boat that roams near the bottom of the falls with a speaker blaring a recorded message with tidbits about the falls. Apparently, long ago, a 7 year old boy had once fallen off a boat, down the falls and managed to survive. I would hate to imagine being swept under all that falling water.
The falls themselves are very impressive-- it is something that you just have to be there to experience. The amount of mist gushing up from the falls is quite impressive and would look all the more impressive had it not been a cloudy that day. Never the less, the poncho I was wearing that day was quite soaked by the end of that boat ride.
Maid of the Mist snow globe
Sept 29th: Downtown Toronto
I got back the previous day at about 12:30 am to Ida's place... a little later than anticipated-- I got a little lost finding my way back to downtown Toronto after dropping Drew off. I crashed and wouldn't wake up till 10:00 am to find Ida's place empty (Ida had left at 6 am, dispite her noting that she was dropping utensils all over the place that morning... which I slept through). I gave Drew a ring that morning and we agreed to meet in the afternoon to hang out and do a photoshoot of downtown.
Inside the Eaton Center
We had quite the time running around downtown playing with our cameras. We did plenty that day. While walking around downtown we caught a Jamacian guy playing speed chess on the street. There were 2 challanges going that day. The Jamacian guy posted a note on the sidewalk saying that he was Jamacian's best speed chess player and said that he'd have a friendly game of speed chess where he'd handily beat anyone that played him. The second is that he was going to earn his plane ticket back to Jamaca from the donations of his spectators.
Speed chess in action
I even tried a game against this reknowned player and had my rear end handed to me in about 2 minutes of playing. Amazing. Of an interesting note, while watching this Jamacian guy go at it, Drew was approached by a amateur-professional photographer who opened up the conversation with "want to try this lens"? The lens Drew got to play with costs on the order of $1000! Nice. He also got lots of tips and pointers from the photographer. Unfortunately, this all started while I was elsewhere in the crowd taking pictures.
Infront of the Eaton's Center there was a street artist going at it on the sidewalk making a very nice picture from some sort of printed image had had on hand. A large crowd gathered around the man while they watched as his art took shape while using chalk! The control the guy had with chalk was simply amazing. I could not have imaged such a vivid image made from chalk.
A street artist and his picture in work
The evening came and thanks to Lily and her handy work, she had organized a dinner of friends in town to meet up with me. Drew and I headed off to Alice Fazooli's for dinner where I was greeted by Ida, Steve, Lily, Rich, Felix, Ben, Felix's g/f, Drew and Jess. It was quite the gathering and we had a good time chatting it up around the dinner table.
The Crew around for dinner
As an added bonus, the restaurant had tape going in the background to learn italian in the washroom. What a strange concept.
After dinner, a small bunch of us retreated to a near-by bar for some billards and drinks before winding down for the evening.
Ben and I
There are more pictures, of course and they are posted here. Enjoy the pictures!
Upnext, my trip to Calgary.
Woke up at 7:00 am dispite being jet lagged about 10 minutes ahead of Lily, to hear her alarm go off twice before she got out of bed :) It was rather amusing. We caught breakfast and after some milling about at her place, we were on our way on the subway system.
I made it to the Eaton's Center at about 9:00 am, the time I had the rental car reserved. The rental car place was supposedly on the roof of the building... a place that took me nearly 40 minutes to find after wandering the entire mall. All was good, after I found the roof top parkade and then after that, I would be off in a Hyundai car that handled pretty nicely, I thought.
After getting out of the parkade and getting lost and caught in downtown Toronto traffic for quite some time (missing plenty of turns and going the wrong ways countless times) I would finally make it to the 404 highway to head towards Drew's place (the 401 would have been significantly better, but I didn't know any better at the time).
The one nice thing about driving in Toronto is their large highways that go kind of everywhere at really high speeds. I was ripping through the highways at 140km/h without breaking a sweat! Sweet! After driving for about an hour, I made it to Drew's place. At that point, it struck me-- getting around this world is pretty amazing. Just over a few days, I would fly across the pacific and Canada to land in Toronto and then make my way about 100 km out of Toronto to a lot precisely somewhere in Mississauga where I've never been to. Global maps and addresses are quite something.
After picking Drew up we were off to a mall to hang out and grab some lunch!
Left: Drew, Right: Greek Lunch
After milling about the Mall for a little bit, we were off on the roads again for Niagra, about 120 km further away. Driving a car at 120~140km/h vs riding my scooter going at about 60km/h is a world of difference in travel. Just getting to Niagra falls from Toronto on scooter would be a day trip unto itself! Well, I gotta live with what I got in Japan.
We made a little pitstop in St. Catherines for me to pick up some presents for a few friends of mine in Japan. My roomie and one other person in Japan both did their homestay in St. Catherines and I think they'd have quite the kick getting something from the town they stayed in. After that pitstop, we were off to Niagra falls!
Left: Falls from the Top, Right: Falls from the front
I had the opportunity to ride the "Maid of the Mist" boat, a tour boat that roams near the bottom of the falls with a speaker blaring a recorded message with tidbits about the falls. Apparently, long ago, a 7 year old boy had once fallen off a boat, down the falls and managed to survive. I would hate to imagine being swept under all that falling water.
The falls themselves are very impressive-- it is something that you just have to be there to experience. The amount of mist gushing up from the falls is quite impressive and would look all the more impressive had it not been a cloudy that day. Never the less, the poncho I was wearing that day was quite soaked by the end of that boat ride.
Maid of the Mist snow globe
Sept 29th: Downtown Toronto
I got back the previous day at about 12:30 am to Ida's place... a little later than anticipated-- I got a little lost finding my way back to downtown Toronto after dropping Drew off. I crashed and wouldn't wake up till 10:00 am to find Ida's place empty (Ida had left at 6 am, dispite her noting that she was dropping utensils all over the place that morning... which I slept through). I gave Drew a ring that morning and we agreed to meet in the afternoon to hang out and do a photoshoot of downtown.
Inside the Eaton CenterWe had quite the time running around downtown playing with our cameras. We did plenty that day. While walking around downtown we caught a Jamacian guy playing speed chess on the street. There were 2 challanges going that day. The Jamacian guy posted a note on the sidewalk saying that he was Jamacian's best speed chess player and said that he'd have a friendly game of speed chess where he'd handily beat anyone that played him. The second is that he was going to earn his plane ticket back to Jamaca from the donations of his spectators.
Speed chess in actionI even tried a game against this reknowned player and had my rear end handed to me in about 2 minutes of playing. Amazing. Of an interesting note, while watching this Jamacian guy go at it, Drew was approached by a amateur-professional photographer who opened up the conversation with "want to try this lens"? The lens Drew got to play with costs on the order of $1000! Nice. He also got lots of tips and pointers from the photographer. Unfortunately, this all started while I was elsewhere in the crowd taking pictures.
Infront of the Eaton's Center there was a street artist going at it on the sidewalk making a very nice picture from some sort of printed image had had on hand. A large crowd gathered around the man while they watched as his art took shape while using chalk! The control the guy had with chalk was simply amazing. I could not have imaged such a vivid image made from chalk.
A street artist and his picture in workThe evening came and thanks to Lily and her handy work, she had organized a dinner of friends in town to meet up with me. Drew and I headed off to Alice Fazooli's for dinner where I was greeted by Ida, Steve, Lily, Rich, Felix, Ben, Felix's g/f, Drew and Jess. It was quite the gathering and we had a good time chatting it up around the dinner table.
The Crew around for dinnerAs an added bonus, the restaurant had tape going in the background to learn italian in the washroom. What a strange concept.
After dinner, a small bunch of us retreated to a near-by bar for some billards and drinks before winding down for the evening.
Ben and IThere are more pictures, of course and they are posted here. Enjoy the pictures!
Upnext, my trip to Calgary.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Toronto: Sept 27 -- Crash Landing at Lily's!
I'm saving my Korea report for a little later. I just downloaded all my photos from my trips to Toronto and Calgary and decided that I'll work on posting about those legs of my trip... starting with Toronto.
I reason to come out to Toronto, in particular to make good on my deal Ida that I would come out to visit her in Toronto after her visit to Sendai Japan. Deciding that I would visit her, I decided that I would visit as many friends as possible in Canada, turning my initial trip home to a tour of Canada. Toronto would be my first stop before hitting Calgary and home.
Day1 : Sept 27 -- Crash Landing at Lily's!
I actually arrived in Vancouver the day before on the 26th at about 11 am. I stayed one night in Vancouver to meet up with the family, grab some dinner then headed out the next day on my Westjet flight leaving at 8:45 am to Toronto.
Being back in Canada for just the first 2 days, I would realize how friendly everyone in Canada is. As I stepped through the security gate with no issues, the guy with the metal detector wand have me the funny eye and jokingly said "we'll get you some other time."
I settled down in the terminal and waited for my flight to arrive-- I arrived at 7:30 am and my plane hadn't arrived yet. Across from me was an unattended agenda book left on the table I decided to leave alone thinking that the person that owned it might come back. Some guy walked by me and promptly asked if it was my book to which I responded 'no.' He then immediately handed off to the attendants at the desk near by. What a friendly and civilized place this country is.
A flight to Montreal came and went while I was waiting for my Toronto flight in the span of an hour, I will have to say that WestJet runs a very tight operation when it comes to coordinating their flights. My flight arrived at the gate and I borded. The flight attendents were remarkably friendly and funny, something that seemed unthinkable to me from my time in Japan-- if you're dealing with customers, the empoyees always use very formal language. Nope, not in Canada.
As for the inflight safety instructions, the attendant first told us "in the unlikely event of a cabin pressure change first put your own oxygen mask first before assisting others... if you're travelling with 2 or more children, pick your favorite one first." We had a good laugh.
Looking out my window to the side at another WestJet plane
What Vancouver looks like from the Sky
Behind me, sat 2 people one back from Afganistand and another a girl that was in Vancouver for a high school reunion. Both strangers to each other but they chatted it up anyways. Something that I haven't commonly seen done in Japan. Yes, Canada is an incredibly friendly place, I never realized that I would miss that till I got back.
4 hours later (and + 3 from time zone differences) I finally arrived in Toronto at about 4 pm. Hopped on a bus then on a subway to make my way to Lily's in Mid-town Toronto. Lily met up with me at the subway station rather surpised I was without a suitcase. Yup, for these 6 days I decided I would travel light with only a backpack and a shoulder bag. I also didn't want to wait for check-in luggage at the airport neither... because it always takes about 30 minutes for me to get my luggage from baggage claim.
We walked a few blocks to Lily's place inside an old looking appartment complex with plenty of character. The interior was nice, neat and well kept. Nice job Lily! I was impressed.
Ida came out to meet us shortly after at the subway station and we were off to find a restaurant to find grab dinner together. After some walking down Younge street we settled down to a place called "The Green Mango" that served Thai food. We had a Green Mango salad, a chicken dish and a pork dish to share for dinner. By the end, we were pretty stuffed and the food was pretty good.
We walked after dinner to walk off the food. We started heading back to Lily's after it started drizzling rain. I showed off a few pictures of Korea that evening, Ida had to get back after being pooped from a long day of work. As for Lily and I, we chated for a bit (a little about world events) then worked on our respective computers for a bit before crashing for the night. The next day, I would make my way to Niagra Falls with Drew.
I reason to come out to Toronto, in particular to make good on my deal Ida that I would come out to visit her in Toronto after her visit to Sendai Japan. Deciding that I would visit her, I decided that I would visit as many friends as possible in Canada, turning my initial trip home to a tour of Canada. Toronto would be my first stop before hitting Calgary and home.
Day1 : Sept 27 -- Crash Landing at Lily's!
I actually arrived in Vancouver the day before on the 26th at about 11 am. I stayed one night in Vancouver to meet up with the family, grab some dinner then headed out the next day on my Westjet flight leaving at 8:45 am to Toronto.
Being back in Canada for just the first 2 days, I would realize how friendly everyone in Canada is. As I stepped through the security gate with no issues, the guy with the metal detector wand have me the funny eye and jokingly said "we'll get you some other time."
I settled down in the terminal and waited for my flight to arrive-- I arrived at 7:30 am and my plane hadn't arrived yet. Across from me was an unattended agenda book left on the table I decided to leave alone thinking that the person that owned it might come back. Some guy walked by me and promptly asked if it was my book to which I responded 'no.' He then immediately handed off to the attendants at the desk near by. What a friendly and civilized place this country is.
A flight to Montreal came and went while I was waiting for my Toronto flight in the span of an hour, I will have to say that WestJet runs a very tight operation when it comes to coordinating their flights. My flight arrived at the gate and I borded. The flight attendents were remarkably friendly and funny, something that seemed unthinkable to me from my time in Japan-- if you're dealing with customers, the empoyees always use very formal language. Nope, not in Canada.
As for the inflight safety instructions, the attendant first told us "in the unlikely event of a cabin pressure change first put your own oxygen mask first before assisting others... if you're travelling with 2 or more children, pick your favorite one first." We had a good laugh.
Looking out my window to the side at another WestJet plane
What Vancouver looks like from the SkyBehind me, sat 2 people one back from Afganistand and another a girl that was in Vancouver for a high school reunion. Both strangers to each other but they chatted it up anyways. Something that I haven't commonly seen done in Japan. Yes, Canada is an incredibly friendly place, I never realized that I would miss that till I got back.
4 hours later (and + 3 from time zone differences) I finally arrived in Toronto at about 4 pm. Hopped on a bus then on a subway to make my way to Lily's in Mid-town Toronto. Lily met up with me at the subway station rather surpised I was without a suitcase. Yup, for these 6 days I decided I would travel light with only a backpack and a shoulder bag. I also didn't want to wait for check-in luggage at the airport neither... because it always takes about 30 minutes for me to get my luggage from baggage claim.
We walked a few blocks to Lily's place inside an old looking appartment complex with plenty of character. The interior was nice, neat and well kept. Nice job Lily! I was impressed.
Ida came out to meet us shortly after at the subway station and we were off to find a restaurant to find grab dinner together. After some walking down Younge street we settled down to a place called "The Green Mango" that served Thai food. We had a Green Mango salad, a chicken dish and a pork dish to share for dinner. By the end, we were pretty stuffed and the food was pretty good.
We walked after dinner to walk off the food. We started heading back to Lily's after it started drizzling rain. I showed off a few pictures of Korea that evening, Ida had to get back after being pooped from a long day of work. As for Lily and I, we chated for a bit (a little about world events) then worked on our respective computers for a bit before crashing for the night. The next day, I would make my way to Niagra Falls with Drew.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Canada, here I come!
Back in Japan, got back yesterday and caught a train back to my uncle's house where I stayed for a night. At Ueno station, a business man gave me a shout out to give me a hand to find the right platform I was to take to make it to my uncle's house. He bought me a coffee, chatted for a bit and exchanged contact information.
He gave me a call later to make sure I made it to my uncle's place ok. There some parts of Japan that catches me totaly off guard. As much as I sometimes complain about certain aspects of Japan, there are definately nice aspects to Japan.
When I have more time and my thoughts more clear, I will post more about them. But for now, I gotta get ready to touch Canadian soil again.
He gave me a call later to make sure I made it to my uncle's place ok. There some parts of Japan that catches me totaly off guard. As much as I sometimes complain about certain aspects of Japan, there are definately nice aspects to Japan.
When I have more time and my thoughts more clear, I will post more about them. But for now, I gotta get ready to touch Canadian soil again.
Friday, September 22, 2006
Chungnam University: Daejeon
I am now currently sitting in front of a computer in Chungnam university, where my friend Su I am currently visiting studies. I have so far crashed 2 classes with her (she is a Japanese major) and I got caught in one class, interestingly in a Japanese listening class. The teacher was pretty friendly... the first thing she said was "hmm, class seems a little bigger today" in Japanese. I did end up learning a little Japanese on this end as well. Hah, learning Japanese in Korea.
Outside of the cultural studies building, is some martial arts demonstration going on. I will have to leave this station soon to check it out. There is music blaring and men dressed up in white looking traditional clothing doing some kind of dance or something.
I stayed in downtown Daejeon last night, came to the university sat in on a few classes, hung out with a new friend I made from the Japanese class, where we played some basket ball and went out for some food and drinks in the evening. A great time was had!
What awaits for me today, I have no clue, but it will be fun anyways.
Outside of the cultural studies building, is some martial arts demonstration going on. I will have to leave this station soon to check it out. There is music blaring and men dressed up in white looking traditional clothing doing some kind of dance or something.
I stayed in downtown Daejeon last night, came to the university sat in on a few classes, hung out with a new friend I made from the Japanese class, where we played some basket ball and went out for some food and drinks in the evening. A great time was had!
What awaits for me today, I have no clue, but it will be fun anyways.
In korea
Well I am in Korea now, live and well. I stayed in a hotel for the first night with a lake side view... interestingly, I was provided with shampoo, a shaver and etc. I think I washed my hair with shaving cream. Damn it!
Life is good an interesting in Korea, I am having a great time none the less and as much as I would love to write a really long post on what I have been doing here but I'm kind of busy and it's getting late.
Well, this is only the beginnings of my interesting adventures in Korea. When I have another chance and time, I will post then.
Just letting you all know, I am alive and well on this end.
Cherrio.
Life is good an interesting in Korea, I am having a great time none the less and as much as I would love to write a really long post on what I have been doing here but I'm kind of busy and it's getting late.
Well, this is only the beginnings of my interesting adventures in Korea. When I have another chance and time, I will post then.
Just letting you all know, I am alive and well on this end.
Cherrio.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Getting Ready for Korea and Canada
I've been busy and tired this weekend. While on internship, I was sleeping about 6~7 hours a day and getting by pretty fine on that. Weekend, I would be sleeping just as much, seemed like one of my dreams on cutting back on sleep was coming into effect. It didn't last by the time I got home.
Friday, the afternoon I arrived back into Sendai after a 200 km trip by bullet train back from Utsunomiya. I b-line'd back home dropped off my stuff unpacked and left immediately to lab to start working on a presentation I would give the next day. One of those scheduled lab presentation things where I would present 3 months worth of work and what I have been doing to everyone. Fortunately I had all 39 slides ready before I left and about 1/3 of my presention hand outs completed before I left for my internship. I started working at about 7:00 pm and worked till midnight to finish my handouts, had them printed and finished by mindnight. By lab standards, got my work done pretty fast-- it is not unusual for people to sleep over at lab preparing for their presentations. One of the 3 presenters did exactly that.
I gave my presentation the next day, updating everyone on my recent results, which were a mixed bag. Some good and some not good. Some techniques worked and some don't so well.. it's important to not let your pride get tangled with the results of experiments. Experiments are exactly that, you don't know what the outcome is going to be... if something works, it works, if it fails then it fails. What it has to do with you is nothing, the reason you are doing this is to figure things out. After spending 1.5 years here and watching everyone trying to say that they are doing a good job on their research or hiding things that didn't work, I got fed up-- there is nothing wrong with saying so.
I did my presentation that day and made absoultely clear of the things that did not work for me, I was blunt and even told them it could be poor handling or whatever and asked the audience directly if I was doing anything wrong or if anything could be improved. Maybe it will encourage these people to speak out more and not take things so hard if the professors rap on them a little. Didn't learn something right? Got advice from people and learned something new? Great! That's all you need.
My presentaiton was energetic and interactive, I was glad that nearly everyone was awake during my presentaiton. There was one guy that fell asleep and drooled over his shirt and we had a good chuckle out of that.
Got home after the presentation that day, crashed a little and went out for dinner with friends I promised to see right after getting back into Sendai.
The next day, met up with another friend from a volunteer group who is always gracious to invite me out to all sorts of events for lunch and got people together for a hotpot that evening that went till 2 am.
The next day, I would have to get my internship report done, do some shopping and get a lonely planet guide to Korea. I just finished all that and then mostly finished packing. It is 3 am and I am bushed. Just checked that I can have one carry on and one personal piece of luggage. Going to have an oversized shoulder bag and a backpack that I am going to bring.
Well, tomorrow I get up at 9:00 am. Hit the University to sign some documents then hit the bullet train out of here to Narita Airport then off to Korea I go. If I have net connection, I'll keep you people posted.
Bon Voyage to me!
Friday, the afternoon I arrived back into Sendai after a 200 km trip by bullet train back from Utsunomiya. I b-line'd back home dropped off my stuff unpacked and left immediately to lab to start working on a presentation I would give the next day. One of those scheduled lab presentation things where I would present 3 months worth of work and what I have been doing to everyone. Fortunately I had all 39 slides ready before I left and about 1/3 of my presention hand outs completed before I left for my internship. I started working at about 7:00 pm and worked till midnight to finish my handouts, had them printed and finished by mindnight. By lab standards, got my work done pretty fast-- it is not unusual for people to sleep over at lab preparing for their presentations. One of the 3 presenters did exactly that.
I gave my presentation the next day, updating everyone on my recent results, which were a mixed bag. Some good and some not good. Some techniques worked and some don't so well.. it's important to not let your pride get tangled with the results of experiments. Experiments are exactly that, you don't know what the outcome is going to be... if something works, it works, if it fails then it fails. What it has to do with you is nothing, the reason you are doing this is to figure things out. After spending 1.5 years here and watching everyone trying to say that they are doing a good job on their research or hiding things that didn't work, I got fed up-- there is nothing wrong with saying so.
I did my presentation that day and made absoultely clear of the things that did not work for me, I was blunt and even told them it could be poor handling or whatever and asked the audience directly if I was doing anything wrong or if anything could be improved. Maybe it will encourage these people to speak out more and not take things so hard if the professors rap on them a little. Didn't learn something right? Got advice from people and learned something new? Great! That's all you need.
My presentaiton was energetic and interactive, I was glad that nearly everyone was awake during my presentaiton. There was one guy that fell asleep and drooled over his shirt and we had a good chuckle out of that.
Got home after the presentation that day, crashed a little and went out for dinner with friends I promised to see right after getting back into Sendai.
The next day, met up with another friend from a volunteer group who is always gracious to invite me out to all sorts of events for lunch and got people together for a hotpot that evening that went till 2 am.
The next day, I would have to get my internship report done, do some shopping and get a lonely planet guide to Korea. I just finished all that and then mostly finished packing. It is 3 am and I am bushed. Just checked that I can have one carry on and one personal piece of luggage. Going to have an oversized shoulder bag and a backpack that I am going to bring.
Well, tomorrow I get up at 9:00 am. Hit the University to sign some documents then hit the bullet train out of here to Narita Airport then off to Korea I go. If I have net connection, I'll keep you people posted.
Bon Voyage to me!
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Getting value out of work
I had a day scheduled to do nothing but data analysis, but it seems that my work went faster than anticipated and I finished about 4 hours early... leaving me the entire afternoon to myself. I could, of course notify my boss that I am done, but 1) he isn't around right now and 2) I have some internship reports that I need to work on.
So what happens when the boss isn't around? People fall asleep. 2~3 people in the group have already fallen asleep for the last 20 minutes. Kind of funny, but not really.
Actually, when I get back to the office after lunch, I see atleast 3-5 people either sleeping on their desk or playing the most popular PC game in the world "solitare". Really, if you find yourself playing solitare or sleeping at your place of work then I have the feeling that you don't really enjoy your work.
For a place like Japan, where most people today intend on working at the company they are at for life; I find this to be exceptionally freightening-- why would you want to be stuck to a job that you might not find particularly interesting for 40 years!? I personally could not fathom the thought. Actually, I should rephrase that argument with a little more detail.
You see, the place where I work, does research on materials for integrated circuit packaging. The experiments they run involve making samples, heating them up and taking data on how these samples expand or how their stiffness changes with temperature. After getting the data, people like me spend days hacking at Excel calculating and graphing data (Excel graphing is a real pain in the rear, because I haven't found a nice way of making batches of graphs all at once). It's fine to do this work for a little while but to do it for a few months or so and I'm going to have to take a hard look at it and ask myself, "what am I getting out of it?" And seriously, this is a question that you should *always* be asking yourself when you work... and I am not talking about the money (and in my case, I am getting nearly none).
What I realized, that to the success to anyone's personal carrer, is that you have to be getting something valuable out of your job. If not money then what else is there? Plenty.
It might not necessairly be obvious to you at first, but in general, we all extract something of tangible or intangible value when we do something whether if its playing a computer game for fun, exercising for fitness, helping that little old lady across the street because its nice, et cetra. Now when it comes to work, if you're working just for the (average) money and getting by on it, you're not getting any value; you're on life support--you are dead in the water if or when that job gets cut.
What do I mean by that? Suppose that you're an engineer or a person with a science degree working in a lab somewhere as a technician. It's a job that you have to do repetitive work but it need a little bit of special knowledge you picked up along the way through University. Unfortunately the work is kind of boring because you're doing the same thing over and over again, but it gets the bills paid. You might not realize it, but you are already in deep trouble and it's time to get out.
The problem working in jobs where you do not get prehipreal personal benetfits in term of skills, connections, resources or in general "anything that you can use" is that when you get cut, you're really left with nothing. If you leave your job and then realized that you left your job without anything worth noting, then you've really got nothing to say at your next interview for your next job or perhaps, promotion. When you get into a situtaion like that, you're going to be thinking like a union worker that needs job stability. Personally, I don't like relying on unions to keep me treated fairly-- if you got a skill that people need, then you will be able to find someone that will. Relyance comes from yourself in this case.
How do you get value out of work? It's a matter for you to find it. It could be finding efficient ways of getting work done, whether it be writing programs to do things or clever ways of speeding things up. Maybe you'll learn a few things along the way, maybe the company you'll work for will find value in what you do and get other people to do what you do. Maybe they won't but you can use the time you save to find other things to do.
There are lots of possibilities... and when you decide to go into a new field or job, you'll be a bag of ideas that someone will want to get their hands on. Now that's value.
So what happens when the boss isn't around? People fall asleep. 2~3 people in the group have already fallen asleep for the last 20 minutes. Kind of funny, but not really.
Actually, when I get back to the office after lunch, I see atleast 3-5 people either sleeping on their desk or playing the most popular PC game in the world "solitare". Really, if you find yourself playing solitare or sleeping at your place of work then I have the feeling that you don't really enjoy your work.
For a place like Japan, where most people today intend on working at the company they are at for life; I find this to be exceptionally freightening-- why would you want to be stuck to a job that you might not find particularly interesting for 40 years!? I personally could not fathom the thought. Actually, I should rephrase that argument with a little more detail.
You see, the place where I work, does research on materials for integrated circuit packaging. The experiments they run involve making samples, heating them up and taking data on how these samples expand or how their stiffness changes with temperature. After getting the data, people like me spend days hacking at Excel calculating and graphing data (Excel graphing is a real pain in the rear, because I haven't found a nice way of making batches of graphs all at once). It's fine to do this work for a little while but to do it for a few months or so and I'm going to have to take a hard look at it and ask myself, "what am I getting out of it?" And seriously, this is a question that you should *always* be asking yourself when you work... and I am not talking about the money (and in my case, I am getting nearly none).
What I realized, that to the success to anyone's personal carrer, is that you have to be getting something valuable out of your job. If not money then what else is there? Plenty.
It might not necessairly be obvious to you at first, but in general, we all extract something of tangible or intangible value when we do something whether if its playing a computer game for fun, exercising for fitness, helping that little old lady across the street because its nice, et cetra. Now when it comes to work, if you're working just for the (average) money and getting by on it, you're not getting any value; you're on life support--you are dead in the water if or when that job gets cut.
What do I mean by that? Suppose that you're an engineer or a person with a science degree working in a lab somewhere as a technician. It's a job that you have to do repetitive work but it need a little bit of special knowledge you picked up along the way through University. Unfortunately the work is kind of boring because you're doing the same thing over and over again, but it gets the bills paid. You might not realize it, but you are already in deep trouble and it's time to get out.
The problem working in jobs where you do not get prehipreal personal benetfits in term of skills, connections, resources or in general "anything that you can use" is that when you get cut, you're really left with nothing. If you leave your job and then realized that you left your job without anything worth noting, then you've really got nothing to say at your next interview for your next job or perhaps, promotion. When you get into a situtaion like that, you're going to be thinking like a union worker that needs job stability. Personally, I don't like relying on unions to keep me treated fairly-- if you got a skill that people need, then you will be able to find someone that will. Relyance comes from yourself in this case.
How do you get value out of work? It's a matter for you to find it. It could be finding efficient ways of getting work done, whether it be writing programs to do things or clever ways of speeding things up. Maybe you'll learn a few things along the way, maybe the company you'll work for will find value in what you do and get other people to do what you do. Maybe they won't but you can use the time you save to find other things to do.
There are lots of possibilities... and when you decide to go into a new field or job, you'll be a bag of ideas that someone will want to get their hands on. Now that's value.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
More on Tokyo Later, making my way back to Canada
As of Sunday evening, I have returned from Tokyo from a 2 night, 3 day adventure spanning from Asakusa, Ueno, Yokohama, Roppongi and Odaba. If there is something fun about travelling in a foreign country, it is also meeting foreign people.
An update on this trip will be published later when I've got pictures to show.
I've got until the end of this week with my internship in Utsunomiya where by the end I will make a short return to Sendai to greet and tempoarary say hello and goodbye to friends before I head off on my next trip to Korea (Seoul and Dae Jong), Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary.
Touch down in Canada on the 26th of Sept. I'll see you guys back home wherever you are!
An update on this trip will be published later when I've got pictures to show.
I've got until the end of this week with my internship in Utsunomiya where by the end I will make a short return to Sendai to greet and tempoarary say hello and goodbye to friends before I head off on my next trip to Korea (Seoul and Dae Jong), Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary.
Touch down in Canada on the 26th of Sept. I'll see you guys back home wherever you are!
Go Watch Keith Olberman
Keith Olberman, a commentator on MSN NBC is remarkable as he is eloquent (though sometimes appearing brash) when it comes down to slamming the current US Bush administration. My words unfortunately cannot even come close to how well this man puts it.
Olberman Special Comment on 9-11: "Who has left this hole in the ground? We have not forgotten, Mr. President. You have. May this country forgive you"
Olberman to Bush "Have you no decency, Sir?" (Bush's attack on Freedom of Speech, following Rumsfeld)
Olberman's Response to Donald Rumsfeld (Secretary of Defence) on America "Fighting a new Fascim"
Olberman Slams Fox News' Bill Oriley (Fox news, screws up the facts and coveres it up)
If only a few more people like him existed to succinctly call out on the stupid things a government does, the world would be a better place instead of the noise you'd hear inside a house which supposedly rules a nation.
Olberman Special Comment on 9-11: "Who has left this hole in the ground? We have not forgotten, Mr. President. You have. May this country forgive you"
Olberman to Bush "Have you no decency, Sir?" (Bush's attack on Freedom of Speech, following Rumsfeld)
Olberman's Response to Donald Rumsfeld (Secretary of Defence) on America "Fighting a new Fascim"
Olberman Slams Fox News' Bill Oriley (Fox news, screws up the facts and coveres it up)
If only a few more people like him existed to succinctly call out on the stupid things a government does, the world would be a better place instead of the noise you'd hear inside a house which supposedly rules a nation.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
In Tokyo Now!
Arrived into tokyo lsat night and now staying at a youth hostel. And wow, it's the cheapest youth hostel I've ever seen (and quite good too)! For 20 bucks you can stay over night, got access to some public washrooms and all the people staying here are pretty nice. I think I've had the most fun meeting foreign people in Japan actually, they really are that easy to talk to. The link to this place is here.
Going out to check out the market around Ueno, Roppongi (the really uptown district) and then Yokohama later today. Going to rent some bicycles and ride them around town today instead of taking the train everywhere. Should be an interesting adventure. Will be here till Sunday.
Going out to check out the market around Ueno, Roppongi (the really uptown district) and then Yokohama later today. Going to rent some bicycles and ride them around town today instead of taking the train everywhere. Should be an interesting adventure. Will be here till Sunday.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Climbing Mt. Fuji
So here is my awaited report on my Mt. Fuji climb. I departed from Utsunomiya to Mito, a large town in Ibaraki located to the South-East of where I am. From there, I would meet up with Natali and the Ibaraki JETs (Japanese English Teachers) who have made plans to climb Mt. Fuji on the weekend of Sept 2nd... convienantly the same weekend I wanted to go. Incidently, Natali is the cool and interesting character I met up at the Yotsukura Beach party a few weeks back and we had remained in contact.
From Mito to Fuji mountain, approx 150 km. Mito is on the top right.
I arrived at Mito on the Friday night to hang out with the JETs, an amazingly cool crew of people. The bunch I'm with had only been in Japan for all of about 1 month but they seem to be getting along just fine. I think it's a thing with international people coming to a foreign country-- they're all extra friendly.
We departed from Mito the next day at 12:30 am on our way to mount Fuji. We had 28 people out for this trip and rented our own tour bus to hit the mountain. Our point man max,
Say hi to Max!
was coordinator for this trip. You'd never think that a big beer drinker like him would be up for a tough mountain climb, but he's a trooper... in more ways than one!
A little about Mt. Fuji
Fuji mountain stands at about 3770 m above sea level. With temperatures at the peak for this season dipping into 2~3 degrees C. The upper most car accessible station (known as the 5th station) is at an elevation of approximatly 2200 m leaving us about 1500 m in elevation to reach. 1.5 km doesn't sound bad when you're walking on flat lands, but going verticle is a different story.
There are several climbing routes up Mt. Fuji depending on what base station you start at. There are 3 base stations each with their own set of stations. For disambiguation, we started on the 5th station of the Kawauchi route. Between the 5th station and the top there are 3 other stations in between, the 6th, 7th and 8th where travellers can make pit-stops, buy supplies and lodge for the night (for $50!).
The climb
The climb takes on the order of 4 to 7 hours depending on the pace you go at. For us, we arrived at the mountain at 7:30 pm, our objective was to catch the rising sun at 4:30 am ish leaving us with plenty of time.
Our 28 people strong group!
What is most often done, is that groups of climbers will climb most of the way out and sit it out there until a few hours before the sun rise. The reasoning is that it's damn cold at the top, so why wait at the top?
We too found it cooler at the bottom of the mountain
Unfortunately for us, the crew of 5 people from our group and the integration of a hiker from a different group of JETs from Hiroshima, we thought that it wasn't cold at all and decided to power through the whole mountain to see how fast we can make it to the top. We did it in about 5 hours. I could hardly keep up with these people and I felt like I just wanted to keel over the entire hike up.
What happened is that as we reached the top the temperature dropped incredibly fast from the 10s of celcius into the single digits making it exceptionally cold. Also as we went further up, the wind suddenly picked up making it really really chilly up there. By the time we made it to the top, we immediately found an outhouse and made our retreat from the harsh environment.
That's us in the outhouse
Sure we might looked all huddled for the picture, but be assured it wasn't for the picture. It was so cold that we had to bunch together to keep ourselves warm using body heat and most of us were shivering like mad. We arrived at the top of the mountain by 12:30 am leaving up with a cold 4 hour wait at the top. Some of us tried to sleep but me and most others, none of us could get a wink.
By 3 am, the legions of other climbers started making their way to the top of the mountain and we were consistently bothered (or perhaps they were bothered by us) by people coming into the outhouse to relieve themselves. After the outhouse got sufficiently stinky, it was time to make our move out of the place and wait for the sunrise.
I bought a $4 shot of hot coffee to get some warmth into my body-- I'm not a coffee drinker but I needed anything hot I could get my hands on. After patient waiting, we were finally greeted by this:
The sunrise over the horizon and clouds
What a sight. After suffering 5 hours on an intense climb, 3 hours wait holed up in an out house, we were greeted by a magnificent sunrise. It was well the struggle.
My moment of victory in the sun!
Me, on the way off the mountain
There is of course more to the story but I could spend forever writing. The long and short after, was that we decended the mountain, taking 3 hours. Decending is far more of a pain then going up because the decending path is different and less steep since going downwards is tougher than going up. We made it back to the 5th station caught our bus and got out of there afterwards.
If you want to see more, I've got a photo album setup with more photos. Feel free to check it out here.
A final word. The Mt. Fuji climb is *not* for the faint of heart -- The climb is long and tiring and you will be brining plenty of supplies throughout the hike. There will be parts where you will have to use your hands to traverse rocky sections. Not only will you have to deal with a tough hike, the air also gets thinner which may lead to altitude sickness. I got mild altitude sickness near the top and felt pretty much like a zombie for most of my time there. If you do decide to climb it, make sure that you are properly read up and prepared!
From Mito to Fuji mountain, approx 150 km. Mito is on the top right.
I arrived at Mito on the Friday night to hang out with the JETs, an amazingly cool crew of people. The bunch I'm with had only been in Japan for all of about 1 month but they seem to be getting along just fine. I think it's a thing with international people coming to a foreign country-- they're all extra friendly.
We departed from Mito the next day at 12:30 am on our way to mount Fuji. We had 28 people out for this trip and rented our own tour bus to hit the mountain. Our point man max,
Say hi to Max!was coordinator for this trip. You'd never think that a big beer drinker like him would be up for a tough mountain climb, but he's a trooper... in more ways than one!
A little about Mt. Fuji
Fuji mountain stands at about 3770 m above sea level. With temperatures at the peak for this season dipping into 2~3 degrees C. The upper most car accessible station (known as the 5th station) is at an elevation of approximatly 2200 m leaving us about 1500 m in elevation to reach. 1.5 km doesn't sound bad when you're walking on flat lands, but going verticle is a different story.
There are several climbing routes up Mt. Fuji depending on what base station you start at. There are 3 base stations each with their own set of stations. For disambiguation, we started on the 5th station of the Kawauchi route. Between the 5th station and the top there are 3 other stations in between, the 6th, 7th and 8th where travellers can make pit-stops, buy supplies and lodge for the night (for $50!).
The climb
The climb takes on the order of 4 to 7 hours depending on the pace you go at. For us, we arrived at the mountain at 7:30 pm, our objective was to catch the rising sun at 4:30 am ish leaving us with plenty of time.
Our 28 people strong group!What is most often done, is that groups of climbers will climb most of the way out and sit it out there until a few hours before the sun rise. The reasoning is that it's damn cold at the top, so why wait at the top?
We too found it cooler at the bottom of the mountainUnfortunately for us, the crew of 5 people from our group and the integration of a hiker from a different group of JETs from Hiroshima, we thought that it wasn't cold at all and decided to power through the whole mountain to see how fast we can make it to the top. We did it in about 5 hours. I could hardly keep up with these people and I felt like I just wanted to keel over the entire hike up.
What happened is that as we reached the top the temperature dropped incredibly fast from the 10s of celcius into the single digits making it exceptionally cold. Also as we went further up, the wind suddenly picked up making it really really chilly up there. By the time we made it to the top, we immediately found an outhouse and made our retreat from the harsh environment.
That's us in the outhouseSure we might looked all huddled for the picture, but be assured it wasn't for the picture. It was so cold that we had to bunch together to keep ourselves warm using body heat and most of us were shivering like mad. We arrived at the top of the mountain by 12:30 am leaving up with a cold 4 hour wait at the top. Some of us tried to sleep but me and most others, none of us could get a wink.
By 3 am, the legions of other climbers started making their way to the top of the mountain and we were consistently bothered (or perhaps they were bothered by us) by people coming into the outhouse to relieve themselves. After the outhouse got sufficiently stinky, it was time to make our move out of the place and wait for the sunrise.
I bought a $4 shot of hot coffee to get some warmth into my body-- I'm not a coffee drinker but I needed anything hot I could get my hands on. After patient waiting, we were finally greeted by this:
The sunrise over the horizon and cloudsWhat a sight. After suffering 5 hours on an intense climb, 3 hours wait holed up in an out house, we were greeted by a magnificent sunrise. It was well the struggle.
My moment of victory in the sun!
Me, on the way off the mountainThere is of course more to the story but I could spend forever writing. The long and short after, was that we decended the mountain, taking 3 hours. Decending is far more of a pain then going up because the decending path is different and less steep since going downwards is tougher than going up. We made it back to the 5th station caught our bus and got out of there afterwards.
If you want to see more, I've got a photo album setup with more photos. Feel free to check it out here.
A final word. The Mt. Fuji climb is *not* for the faint of heart -- The climb is long and tiring and you will be brining plenty of supplies throughout the hike. There will be parts where you will have to use your hands to traverse rocky sections. Not only will you have to deal with a tough hike, the air also gets thinner which may lead to altitude sickness. I got mild altitude sickness near the top and felt pretty much like a zombie for most of my time there. If you do decide to climb it, make sure that you are properly read up and prepared!
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Quote of the Moment: On Project Work
The Six Phases of a Project: Enthusiasm Disillusionment Panic Search for the Guilty Punishment of the Innocent Praise for non-participants
--Anon
--Anon
Monday, September 04, 2006
Working at Sumitomo; Internship in a Japanese Company
Since coming to Japan, I have had reservations about working in a Japanese company in the sense that corporate organizations are somewhat formal and rigid from my laboratory experience. It seems from my observation of their working environment has led me to think differently.
Since coming to the Sumitomo Bakelite (a subdivision of Sumitomo), I have found that the staff there is very friendly and very straightforward when it comes to getting work done. I'll lay out what my work experience has been for the past week.
Living in Utsunomiya
I live at the company dorm, which is something interesting to note compared to Western companies. A company dormitory is something that I've never heard of since living in Canada but it seems to be quite common in Japan. Nearly all large corporations in Japan offer living space at their dormitories for exceptionally cheap. Rooms regularly go for less that $80/month in rent. Food in the cafeteria (full meals) goes for approximately $1.5 and $3.5 for breakfast and dinner respectively at where I stay. For a country that is renowned for it's expensive living costs, these prices are on the extremely cheap side.
As I would love to post pictures of the dorm I am staying at, that will have to wait till I get my pictures downloaded tomorrow. I am staying in about a 5x5 meter room with a hallway extending out of it with a kitchen sink, gas stove, washroom+bathtub unit. For all intensive purposes, I can live comfortably in this room.
Electricity is billed at some flat rate and it is "all you can use" (the exact costs are unknown as I don't have the number available to me).
Departure to Work
I depart from the dorm at 8:00 am daily here. As traumatic I thought this would be from my usual lifestyle starting at 10:00 am, the switch was not bad at all. I car pool to work with a member from my group in the simulations and evaluation division to work, which is about a 30 minute commute for a total distance of approximately 10 km. Speeds are a little slow on the roads due to significant morning rush hour traffic. You might be wondering why I am not going to work on a train-- the train lines are most dense with population. Utsunomiya is not one of those places, which is even smaller than Sendai with a population of approximately 600,000 people.
Changing into Uniform
I arrive at work by 8:30 am giving me time to chance into the company uniform which consists of a blue cap, shirt and dress pants... all in different hues of blue. Feels like an institution to me. Wearing the cap is mandatory when you go outside buildings. I have 2 pairs of shoes, one for inside company buildings and one for walking outside.
Morning Stretches ("Radio-Taisou")
There is an 80's movie called Gung Ho made in 1986, if you've seen this then you'll know what these morning exercises might look like. Apparently since the 50's in Japan, a morning exercise program was instituted at schools, which required students to attend exercise events where they would stretch to standardized recorded music. If I were to play this song anywhere in Japan, they'd know what it is in a heartbeat.
Morning stretching consists of light jumping jacks, arm stretches, hip stretches etc etc. Nearly all employees attend but from by observation, attendance is optional. This is something that you'd never see in North America, but I find it quite amusing.
Morning Meetings
For those of you that have been following the debauchery of meetings I have for my lab, working at this company has changed my opinion of Japanese meetings -- they're not all bad! We have regular morning meetings immediately after stretching that runs for approximately 10 minutes where the 5~6 members of the team and boss report in on what they will be doing for the day.
Safety at the Work Place
Occasionally we have a short safety presentation from a book where a dangerous situation is described and a short resolution is presented. In Japanese everyone repeats the problem and solution and ends of with the English of "check" at the end. It's kind of cute actually. I should give a short comment on industrial safety at this company and about other companies from what I have heard.
The motto is "Safety is number one." Since arriving at this company and getting my orientation, the first thing they told me about working here is that safety very important. From what they informed me, they told me that most accidents are a result of reoccurring "close calls." If repeated sufficiently many times, someone gets unlucky and an accident occurs. In general, most obvious accident causes are easily dealt with and that their objective is to reduce the number of close calls by informal reporting to whoever in charge.
They also prescribe to a "danger anticipation mindset" where potential (and even benign) dangers should be anticipated and dealt with. Things like adding ramps on large cables running through a room or carrying a stack of boxes which go past your neck are considered. These people consider a good amount of safety detail.
Some of the doors in the stairwells even have labels noting that people should open them slowly incase people are behind.
Special Meetings for Me
During most morning, right after the morning meetings a second meeting is held where the head of our group and my supervisor come out to discuss what I will be doing for the day. They've had a 3-week plan all set out for me since the first day I arrived. I've never seen such work planning before, but I will be taking that in to note as a technique to organize my own work (I've done it before, but never took it seriously in university for group projects to the degree as these people do, for me at least).
The division leader for my group is an exceptionally nice guy. He had personally given me a map of Utsunomiya, lend me his bike, umbrella and gave me a cup since arriving here. What occurs is a short explanation of what I will be doing, why is it is important and the communication of some peripheral information to me. I, intern have the opportunity to ask questions and make comments which have led to me taking on 2 side projects and have some of my work rescheduled to immediately undertake my projects. This is exceptionally nice flexibility and I appreciate their ability to be so accommodating. This might also be the result of me being an intern and having no responsibilities, meaning that things can be very easily rearranged.
The Work Environment
I work in an office style floor which comes equipped with many cubicles and people working on computers for most of the day. Once in a while there is a bit of chatting that goes on, but for the most part the people there are quite focused. Communication is free and open; members of the team have direct access to each other. Actually I was looking for a memory card reader for my camera just today and asked around and one of the guys had one that will bring it to the office tomorrow. It's great, I like it.
Lunch
We leave at 12:15 to lunch to let the lunch crowd dissipate a little before we head in. I sit beside the group head so we go together with a few other members of the team. The cafeteria at the office is exceptionally cheap serving a full lunch set for $2.50/meal and even less if you just want ramen. The food has to be subsidized by the company for the prices to go this low. I have a small salad, a bowl of rise, miso soup and entree to go with my meal and I am quite full after every meal.
Hours
My official work hours at this company is from 9:00 am till 5:40 pm with a 1 hour break from 12:00 till 1:00 pm for lunch. Most people at the office stay later and I generally see them returning at 7:00 to 9:00 ish after work. They are also paid overtime though. I have tried to work overtime on my second day here on one of my projects but the division head insisted that I go home because I didn't have to do overtime.
I was very amazed to hear something like that coming from within a Japanese company where it is normal for people to do things like this... I was simply working because I thought what I was doing was interesting and I wanted to continue working on it. From what I have heard, some companies encourage people to not stay late working overtime which I think is a good trend and possibly a chance in work culture.
Conclusion/Consideration
From my experiences working at Sumitomo, I have found that Japanese work environments are not as intense as I anticipate they would be. As a result of this, I could possibly consider working here for a few years if something good pops up. Of course this is my experience from one company and should not be taken as a generalization for all Japanese companies, but the existence of one company like this suggests more environments like these exists in Japan.
Wanna Religous Debate?
All I am going to say about this is that you gotta watch this. I want way more of this, way more often!
Return from Mt. Fuji (200th post)
Greetings everyone, I have returned from Mt. Fuji safely (gladly). I wil have photos up later on, suffice to say, this was the toughest hike I have undertaken. My legs are sore and I had an awful time getting out of bed today. I will have pictures up later on, the camera battery is running low on power and I left my charger back in Sendai. One of my co-workers has a memory card reader so I'll be borrowing that and posting a few shots later on.
There is a saying along the lines that:
"You are a fool to have never climb Mt. Fuji,
You are a fool if you climb Mt. Fuji twice"
I heartfuly agree.
There is a saying along the lines that:
"You are a fool to have never climb Mt. Fuji,
You are a fool if you climb Mt. Fuji twice"
I heartfuly agree.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
On my way to Mt Fuji
Arrived last night in Mito, which is abut a 1 hr car's ride form Utsunomiya or a 1.5 hour's ride on train to meet up with Natali whom has been really cool to off me a place to stay. Arrived in at about 10:00 pm the night before and hung out with the JETS in Ibaraki. Really cool people, had a blast and hung out with them till 3:00 am.
We are getting ready to head out to the mountain on bus. Going to be about 23 of us all together so it's going to be quite the hiking party in more ways than one. The peak of Mt. Fuji is 3000m above sea level and currently about 4C. Pretty darn cold, the base of the mountain is about 26C now. Quite the difference hey?
Well, I'm off to catch my bus. I'll be back Sunday ish with a report. That's all for now!
We are getting ready to head out to the mountain on bus. Going to be about 23 of us all together so it's going to be quite the hiking party in more ways than one. The peak of Mt. Fuji is 3000m above sea level and currently about 4C. Pretty darn cold, the base of the mountain is about 26C now. Quite the difference hey?
Well, I'm off to catch my bus. I'll be back Sunday ish with a report. That's all for now!
Friday, September 01, 2006
Getting Work Done in Multiples
As some of you know, I am currently at Sumitomo Bakelite on internship, which started for me on Monday. What Sumitomo Bakelite does, is develop plastics used in IC packaging. 40% to 60% of all ICs fabricated use Sumitomo's plastics to package them. Though as benign as plastic packaging sounds, packaging for IC chips is a significant engineering problem.
What happens as temperature rises, say due to an operating chip, stresses are induced on the chip by the package because of mismaching of thermal coefficients between the chip and the plastic casing. The induced stress can lead to breaking of circuit wiring rendering the chip useless. It seems that Sumitomo Bakelite has done a good job of capitalizing on this problem to make a product and provide the consulting necessary to meet the demands of the IC industry. The way they do it is through a lot of testing and simulation.
I joined the simulation and evaluation team of this company and currently working on some low level work. Mainly, data taking and the operation of equipment for 2 experiments. As I learned from the guy that ran these machines, what he basically did was flip a switch, heat up a sample and hit "enter" on a computer for 4 hours straight in 5 to 10 second intervals. I ran the experiment twice and if I were to do it as a job, I'd go batty. They had scheduled me to run these experiments a few more times... and I thought there ought to be better ways of doing it.
What I did instead was proposed to the team that I make a program to automatically hit "enter" every 5 to 10 seconds and have the computer remotely managed some somewhere conveniant... (ie my desk). After a few inital false starts, I now have the program working today. Now 4 hours of work can be done with about 40 minutes of supervision. Wouldn't it be lovely if I could goof off for the other 3 hours and 20 minutes and still get paid for it?? (Note, I'm paid peanuts for this job! But it's kind of fun).
The next trick which I completed today was writing a little software package would let me strip temperature data out of some recorded files. What these people do was they get a guy to open every file and type that temperature value down for every file. One data set can run upwards of 300 to 400 files. I got through about 60% of a data set in about 2.5 hours and they had 10 data sets for me to get the temperature data. Riiight, can you say "slave labour"??
Well, it tuns out through a stroke of luck that I figured out how and where the temperature data is stored in these files in binary form after about half a day of searching. Once I had that down, all I had to do was write a program that would go into the directory, get a list of all the files, strip the temperature data and dump them convienantly into a text file. In 2.5 hours, a working program was running and I pumped out a script to gather data from 10 directories. The data was stripped out in about 30 seconds using the program. They also told me that they asked the equipment vendor they could do what I did... the vendor told them that it was impossible (ha!).
I still have to do a few more things by hand but it seems that I've gotten all the long and boring work done. All I have to do is strip out some more data, do some calculations in Excel and I'll have the bulk of my work wrapped up nice and tidy. Apparently, I've given these people the problem of finding more work for me to do.
What you should walk away with from this story:
Being paid by the hour sucks if you can work multiple speeds faster than what people can currently do. If I do several days worth of work in a single day my time should be worth at least multiple times what the regulars are paid, because the work was done and time was saved. So here's the question, how do you ask your boss for a 300% pay raise? There is an answer, but I'll let you think about it.
What happens as temperature rises, say due to an operating chip, stresses are induced on the chip by the package because of mismaching of thermal coefficients between the chip and the plastic casing. The induced stress can lead to breaking of circuit wiring rendering the chip useless. It seems that Sumitomo Bakelite has done a good job of capitalizing on this problem to make a product and provide the consulting necessary to meet the demands of the IC industry. The way they do it is through a lot of testing and simulation.
I joined the simulation and evaluation team of this company and currently working on some low level work. Mainly, data taking and the operation of equipment for 2 experiments. As I learned from the guy that ran these machines, what he basically did was flip a switch, heat up a sample and hit "enter" on a computer for 4 hours straight in 5 to 10 second intervals. I ran the experiment twice and if I were to do it as a job, I'd go batty. They had scheduled me to run these experiments a few more times... and I thought there ought to be better ways of doing it.
What I did instead was proposed to the team that I make a program to automatically hit "enter" every 5 to 10 seconds and have the computer remotely managed some somewhere conveniant... (ie my desk). After a few inital false starts, I now have the program working today. Now 4 hours of work can be done with about 40 minutes of supervision. Wouldn't it be lovely if I could goof off for the other 3 hours and 20 minutes and still get paid for it?? (Note, I'm paid peanuts for this job! But it's kind of fun).
The next trick which I completed today was writing a little software package would let me strip temperature data out of some recorded files. What these people do was they get a guy to open every file and type that temperature value down for every file. One data set can run upwards of 300 to 400 files. I got through about 60% of a data set in about 2.5 hours and they had 10 data sets for me to get the temperature data. Riiight, can you say "slave labour"??
Well, it tuns out through a stroke of luck that I figured out how and where the temperature data is stored in these files in binary form after about half a day of searching. Once I had that down, all I had to do was write a program that would go into the directory, get a list of all the files, strip the temperature data and dump them convienantly into a text file. In 2.5 hours, a working program was running and I pumped out a script to gather data from 10 directories. The data was stripped out in about 30 seconds using the program. They also told me that they asked the equipment vendor they could do what I did... the vendor told them that it was impossible (ha!).
I still have to do a few more things by hand but it seems that I've gotten all the long and boring work done. All I have to do is strip out some more data, do some calculations in Excel and I'll have the bulk of my work wrapped up nice and tidy. Apparently, I've given these people the problem of finding more work for me to do.
What you should walk away with from this story:
Being paid by the hour sucks if you can work multiple speeds faster than what people can currently do. If I do several days worth of work in a single day my time should be worth at least multiple times what the regulars are paid, because the work was done and time was saved. So here's the question, how do you ask your boss for a 300% pay raise? There is an answer, but I'll let you think about it.
In Living Memory of Dr. Jin
I decided to hold of on making this post for a while... about a week now but I believe that it is now appropriate to do so.
Last Sunday was Mike's farewell party as his time as he will be returning back to MIT to continue his studies. A beach party was organized by him were we could get together and have a BBQ and hang out. What transpired was very unexpected.
A Post-Doctoral student from China came to join the lab last month, his name is Dr. Jin. I never really had the chance to talk to him that much though I did see him around the lab from time to time. Dr. Jin had come out to join us for Mike's farewell party; it was also a good opportunity to meet and intereact with other people at the lab.
Though he enjoyed swimming, it would be his first time swimming in the Pacific ocean. The water was choppy that day and there were other people around at the time, he went off to go swimming but he would not return after 2 hours. After most other people had left the waters swimming, we were unable to find him.
For you as the reader, you probably know how this story is going to play out. For me at the time, I had no idea. Some people went out an hour earlier to go look for him but did not find him. Others from the group were called into join. While searching for an hour, there was a notable panic in a few people's eyes... for me, I could not declare a person missing after 2 hours of being away, especially for an adult.
A helicopter flew in over us with some of the members waving at the helicopter... I thought it was overkill, soon after a patrol boat arrived. It seems that the members made the call to the coast guard made the right call... I would not have made that call until much later. Searching continues for 2~3 hours with helicopters and patrol boat with no luck. The police, ambulence and even the news crew came out, unfortunately all of them were pretty useless and I was quite displeased.
I wasn't around when the police came around as I was looking around on the beach but eventually returned to find them there. When I got there, they were busy taking names of the members of our group and asking questions. What they asked were things like "did he drink before going swimming? where was the last time did you see him? When did he go in" and things like that. There were atleast 10 of them at the beach. What did they do afterwards? They just stood around looking at their notes. I was incredibly unhappy about this, if you're going to stand around like that then get out there and LOOK. You got the information you needed and you aren't gathering anything more, *do something about it.* That didn't happen.
The news crew came out after and started asking the same kind of questions. What they were most interested in hearing was whether if he was drinking when he went into the water. What are you people trying to do? A person is missing, this isn't the time for a "story!" Unless you are going to do something useful like getting word out and getting people, then great, if not, then what's the point? To do nothing but talk is disgraceful (literaly in the sence of "no grace").
What did they do? They went out to the ocean to take pictures of the crashing water, took pictures of us looking for Dr. Jin they even had the nerve to come out and take pictures of distressed members of our group. I can't seem to get a good image of news reporters at the moment, but I can clearly say this much, it is far better to act then to sit around talking about things. If perhaps the news inspired people to do so, I may hold them with higher regard... but for all I can imagine of a story with crashing waves and unhappy people, what good is this?
I would leave Sendai the day after to Utsunomiya to begin my internship with the hopes of Dr. Jin being found well. I would recieve a phone call today and a messege informing that his body has been found, 10 km South of where we were, the cause is unknown. I was somewhat prepared for this, though sad I was not shocked. I recieved word from one of my labmates and contacted her, she is currently corresponding with his family to figure out what to do. After talking with her, I can tell the impact this has had on her... she was also called out to identify the body and knows Dr. Jin better than I. I feel bad that I don't feel as sad as her, but what am I to do?
The funeral will be held this Saturday in Sendai. Though I had plans to climb mount Fuji this weekend; after consideration I have decided that I will not return to Sendai to attend. After talking with my friend, I don't see much else I can do and prefer not to just attend a funeral ceremony. This is not to say that I will not attend funerals in general, I would not like to attend a ceremony like this if I can't help or make people feel better. Weather permitting, I will pay my respects from the top of Mt. Fuji.
From what little I have met of Dr. Jin, he is a kind and friendly man. As tough it might be to find himself in a new culture with little knowledge of Japanese, myself and others found it easy to welcome his presence.
I would like to end on this:
Life is for those that choose to take action - it is insufficient to to only watch or listen. As important as these activies are, to only do so will have your life or a life will vanish before you in many senses of the meaning.
Last Sunday was Mike's farewell party as his time as he will be returning back to MIT to continue his studies. A beach party was organized by him were we could get together and have a BBQ and hang out. What transpired was very unexpected.
A Post-Doctoral student from China came to join the lab last month, his name is Dr. Jin. I never really had the chance to talk to him that much though I did see him around the lab from time to time. Dr. Jin had come out to join us for Mike's farewell party; it was also a good opportunity to meet and intereact with other people at the lab.
Though he enjoyed swimming, it would be his first time swimming in the Pacific ocean. The water was choppy that day and there were other people around at the time, he went off to go swimming but he would not return after 2 hours. After most other people had left the waters swimming, we were unable to find him.
For you as the reader, you probably know how this story is going to play out. For me at the time, I had no idea. Some people went out an hour earlier to go look for him but did not find him. Others from the group were called into join. While searching for an hour, there was a notable panic in a few people's eyes... for me, I could not declare a person missing after 2 hours of being away, especially for an adult.
A helicopter flew in over us with some of the members waving at the helicopter... I thought it was overkill, soon after a patrol boat arrived. It seems that the members made the call to the coast guard made the right call... I would not have made that call until much later. Searching continues for 2~3 hours with helicopters and patrol boat with no luck. The police, ambulence and even the news crew came out, unfortunately all of them were pretty useless and I was quite displeased.
I wasn't around when the police came around as I was looking around on the beach but eventually returned to find them there. When I got there, they were busy taking names of the members of our group and asking questions. What they asked were things like "did he drink before going swimming? where was the last time did you see him? When did he go in" and things like that. There were atleast 10 of them at the beach. What did they do afterwards? They just stood around looking at their notes. I was incredibly unhappy about this, if you're going to stand around like that then get out there and LOOK. You got the information you needed and you aren't gathering anything more, *do something about it.* That didn't happen.
The news crew came out after and started asking the same kind of questions. What they were most interested in hearing was whether if he was drinking when he went into the water. What are you people trying to do? A person is missing, this isn't the time for a "story!" Unless you are going to do something useful like getting word out and getting people, then great, if not, then what's the point? To do nothing but talk is disgraceful (literaly in the sence of "no grace").
What did they do? They went out to the ocean to take pictures of the crashing water, took pictures of us looking for Dr. Jin they even had the nerve to come out and take pictures of distressed members of our group. I can't seem to get a good image of news reporters at the moment, but I can clearly say this much, it is far better to act then to sit around talking about things. If perhaps the news inspired people to do so, I may hold them with higher regard... but for all I can imagine of a story with crashing waves and unhappy people, what good is this?
I would leave Sendai the day after to Utsunomiya to begin my internship with the hopes of Dr. Jin being found well. I would recieve a phone call today and a messege informing that his body has been found, 10 km South of where we were, the cause is unknown. I was somewhat prepared for this, though sad I was not shocked. I recieved word from one of my labmates and contacted her, she is currently corresponding with his family to figure out what to do. After talking with her, I can tell the impact this has had on her... she was also called out to identify the body and knows Dr. Jin better than I. I feel bad that I don't feel as sad as her, but what am I to do?
The funeral will be held this Saturday in Sendai. Though I had plans to climb mount Fuji this weekend; after consideration I have decided that I will not return to Sendai to attend. After talking with my friend, I don't see much else I can do and prefer not to just attend a funeral ceremony. This is not to say that I will not attend funerals in general, I would not like to attend a ceremony like this if I can't help or make people feel better. Weather permitting, I will pay my respects from the top of Mt. Fuji.
From what little I have met of Dr. Jin, he is a kind and friendly man. As tough it might be to find himself in a new culture with little knowledge of Japanese, myself and others found it easy to welcome his presence.
I would like to end on this:
Life is for those that choose to take action - it is insufficient to to only watch or listen. As important as these activies are, to only do so will have your life or a life will vanish before you in many senses of the meaning.
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