inkandpaint

Excerpts / "An open letter on translation"

2011-11-17T21:23:00.000-08:00

I may not have read many of Luther's works, but I have read enough to know that the limp-wristed flimser in "Luther" would only have earned his tireless mockery. Prompted mostly by curiosity and reformation day (it had nothing to do with the movie...) Hilary and I read through the 95 theses and started reading through some of his other works available for free online.

Luther's most notable quote in my retrievable memory is "whenever I pray, I pray for a curse upon Erasmus." (A snippet from a debate published between himself and Erasmus that we read and discussed in the "University Scholars" [cough] program at SPU). If I recall, our conclusion was that he was bold but crass, and not that brilliant. Basically, we thought he sounded like a hot-tempered wind-bag without anything really that intelligent to say. In retrospect I think this conclusion spoke more about my class and I than him - and perhaps a bit about the professors responsible for the curriculum as well. I am now finding that the man was sharper than a tack - and a very enjoyable read to boot!

Because my muse is currently visiting relatives on the other side of the country and I am literally bored stiff, here's some bits from "An open letter on translation."

On criticism received:
"It takes a great deal of patience to do good things in public. The world believes itself to be the expert in everything, while putting the bit under the horse's tail. "

"There is no such thing as earning the world's thanks. Even God himself cannot earn thanks, not with the sun, nor with heaven and earth, nor even the death of his Son."

"I know very well that in Romans 3 the word solum is not in the Greek or Latin text — the papists did not have to teach me that. It is fact that the letters s-o-l-a are not there. And these blockheads stare at them like cows at a new gate, while at the same time they do not recognize that it conveys the sense of the text"

"Now the papists are throwing a fit about me corrupting the Angelic Salutation, yet I still have not used the most satisfactory German translation. Suppose I had used the best German and translated the salutation: "Gott grusse dich, du liebe Maria" [God greet you, dear Mary], for that is all the angel meant to say, and what he would have said if he had greeted her in German. Suppose I had done that! I believe that they would have hanged themselves out of their fanatical devotion to the Virgin Mary, because I had so destroyed the Salutation."

On translation:
"The literal Latin is a great obstacle to speaking good German."

"The reader can now run his eyes over three or four pages without stumbling once, never knowing what rocks and clods had once lain where he now travels as over a smoothly-planed board. We had to sweat and toil there before we got those boulders and clods out of the way, so that one could go along so nicely. "

"Translating is not everyone's skill as some mad saints imagine. It requires a right, devout, honest, sincere, God-fearing, Christian, trained, educated, and experienced heart."

"I hold that no false Christian or sectarian spirit can be a good translator." [NRSV?]

"God knows that I have not even sought honor by it, but I have done it as a service to the dear Christians and to the honor of the One who sits above, who blesses me every hour of my life. If I had translated a thousand times more diligently, I should not have deserved to live or have a sound eye for even a single hour. All I am and have to offer is of his mercy and grace, indeed, of his precious blood and bitter sweat."

Praying to the saints:

"People are easily accustomed to turning away from Christ. They learn quickly to trust more in the saints than in Christ himself. Our nature is already too prone to run from God and Christ, and trust in men."

"Since it is not proper in the matter of divine worship for us to do anything that is not commanded by God (whoever does so is tempting God), it is therefore neither advisable nor tolerable that one should call upon the saints to intercede for him, or to teach others to call upon them."

"Second, you know that there is not a single word from God demanding us to call upon either saints or angels to intercede for us, and that there is no example of such in the Scriptures. We find that the angels spoke with the fathers and the prophets, but that none of them had ever been asked to intercede for them."

"Finally, we are sure that God is not angry with us, and that even if we do not call on the saints for intercession, we are quite secure, for God has never commanded it. He says that he is a jealous God, visiting their iniquities on those who do not keep his commandments [Ex.20]; but there is no commandment here and, therefore, no anger to be feared. Since, then, there is on this side security and on the other side great risk and offense against the Word of God, why should we go from security into danger where we do not have the Word of God to sustain, comfort and save us in the times of trial? For it is written, "Whoever loves danger will perish by it" [Ecclus. 3], and God's commandment says, "You shall not tempt the Lord your God" [Matt. 4]."

Just a little update

2011-11-13T17:59:00.000-08:00

If that were a dime, that would still be a big spider...

2011-07-23T00:08:00.000-07:00

But it's a quarter.

Some friends of ours told us about this huge spider they found on their wall. They sprayed and sprayed it with the pesticide, but it just refused to die. When Hilary told me it was the size of her friend's palm, I knew what it must be immediately - "Ah hah! A Huntsman spider! So they do have them here!" I was a little jealouse that I didn't get to see it though.

Well, tonight I peeped into the garage to close the door, and as I opened up the door from our pantry I spied a dark mass with what looked like a lot of large legs poking out. I closed the door then realized as I did that it was probably just the thing I was looking for. I opened it back up, took another look, and sure enough, it was a very [VERY] large spider! I ran after it, and it immediately took flight. These things are fast! Not only that, but they hop. I know, it's bizarre, I thought jumping spiders were the only spiders that hopped, but these things really get a lot of air, we are talking on the order of several inches. Well, it ran out into the driveway, and I followed it until I realized that I only had underwear on. I went back inside to put some shorts on, and Hilary, in the excitement, found me a jar (what a wife!). I grabbed my jar and hoped against all hopes that my prey would still be where it came to a stop in the middle of the driveway.

Sure enough, it was still there! But it was ready - when it saw me, it took off, fast as lighting, and doing more of its weird ultra-hops every few feet. As I chased it, I realized I had a problem. The diameter of the spider was wider than the mouth of the jar, so the spider probably wouldn't live through this unscathed. Furthermore, it is very difficult to glomp a jar over a quickly moving target.

Still, summoning dormant skills from a bygone era, I took aim and fired. Clack! The jar came crashing down over the scuttling arthropod.

...

unfortunately, my dormant skills were a bit rusty from unuse, and the edge of the jar popped the spiders (relatively small, I might add) abdomen. The critter curled up and died there on the spot in front of me. Oh well. I still brought it inside, uncurled the legs and took a photo for... the 3 people who still check my forgotten blog.

Also, we found a Horseshoe crab shell on the beach today. Horseshoe crabs aren't actually crabs, but they sure do look crazy. So many weird things in the ocean.

This brings my tally of cool critters up to:

Lizards:

Green Anoles: Millions (including one in the Chick-fill-A parking lot, today)

Brown Anoles: Millions of millions

Green/Brown Anole hybrids: maybe 2

Ground skinks: Several

5 lined skinks: Several

Geckos: Quite a few

Glass-lizards: 1 live, 1 dead

Snakes: 1, and it was dead. (I seriously can't believe I haven't seen a live snake down here yet.)

Turtles:

Pond turtles: Probably in the zillions

Box turtles: 2. Turt the first, and turt the second, who is roughly the size of a silver dollar and living in a cage on our back patio, happily munching on reptile sticks from my fingers, most mornings.

Alligators: 1

Frogs

Green tree frogs: 5 or 6

Ultra-Ultra-small tree frogs: 2

Regular frogs: 1

Spiders:

HUNTSMAN: 1. YEAH!

Insects:

Diving beetle: 1

Leef footed bugs: too many

Ocean critters:

Colorfull fish: lots

Dolphins: several, but too far away to count

Sting-rays: 3 (kind of creepy, btw)

Manta-rays: About a dozen, in a herd

Remoras: 4 or 5

Hermit crab the size of my head: 1

I might be missing a few. But here is my list of things I still want to see before we move away:

1) Snapping turtle (preferable of the Alligator variety).

2) A snake. Any snake.

okay, well, actually I do have a preference. I want to find a "rough green snake" because they are bright green, non-venemous, and I have never actually seen a real, genuinely green snake, despite that being the default color people seem to choose when depicting them.

Also, I want to see (not catch) a coral snake. And a coachwhip.

3) A tortoise

4) A dolphin, up close.

Visiting cousin Beatrice

2011-07-07T18:56:00.000-07:00

Annie saw her new cousin Beatrice for the first time this weekend! Here's some photos, I'm happy to say that it looks like they are going to be friends.

Time to hit the beach!

2011-04-15T17:01:00.001-07:00

Grandpa and grandma Marston with Annie

Documented proof...

2011-03-06T16:51:00.000-08:00

Here's a few more from the last few days, just for kicks...

Annie Christine Marston

2011-01-24T19:22:00.000-08:00

Peter's wedding, thanksgiving and fall in PCB

2010-11-28T13:18:00.000-08:00

Last weekend Hilary and I flew back to Yakima for her brother Peter's wedding. It was a joyous time of merry making and celebration. Here are some photos from that event, this past week's Thanksgiving celebration, and a few other random photos, like our walk around the fitness trail on the Navy base today.

One of the best parts of being back in Washington was that we got to see our niece Ruby
I was also drafted to change a diaper. It was my first time ever, so a large crowd amassed around to behold the spectacle.
The next evening was the rehearsal dinner, so we prepared all day. I lent my camera out because I always get interesting things back. Mercy and Trudy took a bunch of pictures, here's a couple of Mercy's:
Here's a couple of Trudy's:
The rehearsal dinner was really good, the Boothmans took great pains to not only make the dinner an amazing feast but also make the presentation beautiful as well. From a hidden vantage point, Hily and I were able to covertly observe some humorous activity at the kids' table.

There was additional excitement that evening because Eppy had her puppies

I didn't take many photos of the ceremony because there were so many professionalish people (some of whom actually were professional) snapping photos. Here's Peter and Liz talking with Grandma B., though

Hily and I kept experiencing a strange form of Deja Vu throughout the day because we had gotten married on the same weekend a year before at the exact same church, with many of the same people present. The wedding was very good, Cesar did an excellent job, and it was clear that the bride and groom were devoted to eachother. Peter showed great forsight and wisdom in who he chose to marry - a woman with an obvious heart for the Lord and desire to be submissive to him. Additionally, she loves the Boothman family and they love her, anyway, it looks to be the start of a very good thing.

The day after the wedding was our anniversary (our marriage is 1 year old now! We're becoming old married folk). We had a great breakfast with the parents on my side of the family, and then listened to some friends speak about their adventure in Tashban. To our great delight, it was snowing that Sunday.

We spent the rest of the evening playing Rook until our eyes got too heavy to be propped open by toothpicks, and went to bed. Our flight back to PCB was delayed by mechanical issues (just like our trip to Yakima), so we got rerouted through Atlanta [again]. When we left Yakima it was 18 degrees and snowing. When we got to Panama City Beach, it was about 8PM, 70 degrees outside, and super humid.

On Thursday, we drove over to Pensacola to visit Paula and Josh. Because of the number of dinner attendees, the celebration was moved to another location. 4 1/2 families (the spouse of the man owning the house was a nurse) attended, and it was an old-school feast: a vast array of magnificent culinary works of art, arrayed on the finest bone chine and surrounded by shimering crystal goblets.

[oops, somehow I missed the kids in this shot.]

Josh's crown roast of lamb, one of the most perfectly cooked roasts I've ever eaten

Somehow we built up a sleep deficit over the previous week so we were pooped by about 7:30. We drove home and I somehow stayed awake driving back.

Yesterday we got new box-springs because our old ones were so squeaky that we got angry calls from the neighbors every time we climbed into bed. Just kidding. But they were really squeaky.

Today, after church, we went to the Navy base for a good long walk. I may not have mentioned it, but in Hong Kong you would see these funny, bright colored exerising machines scattered around all the public parks. To our amusement, we discovered a lot of these very same hyper-colored exercise machines (complete with chinese characters!) lining the fitness trail on the base. We walked the fitness trail and made certain to do all the exercises:

If I look like I'm in pain in this next one, it's because I was.

My favorite was the balance beams, where you had to walk across these plastic beams suspended on springs. I stepped on one and immediately found my feet violently shaking at the resonant frequency of the mass-spring combination that the presence of my foot and impulsive behavior had excited. I wobbled and staggered my way across and did a little victory dance at the end.

After some coaxing, I got Hily to trying, hoping that I might have, at last, found something I could do better than her. Unfortunately, she just sort of floated across all the beams as if it were no trouble at all, I don't even think she excited the resonant frequency.

Hily spotted this really cool praying mantis, I'd never seen anything like it before.
We put it on one of the twisty cypress trees, and it practically disappeared.
Can you spot the mantis?

Next week Carrie, Hilary's cousin, is coming to visit. We are going to participate in the "Red Fish Run." If it doesn't kill me, I'll try to post something about it

A goopy sea cucumber

2010-11-14T13:22:00.000-08:00

Following the promptings of a sister I am breaking a month and a half long hiatus to update my blog on some recent things that are happening in Hilary's and my life. [< Does anyone know how to say that in a way that is grammatically correct and doesn't sound awkward?]

My cutie, who's daily getting more and more beautiful, went to the beach with me yesterday.
It was a balmy lower seventies, so we had the beach mostly to ourselves, and we didn't feel like the sole's of our feet were getting scorched as we walked across the sand.

Every time I visited the beach during the summer there was a goopy strip of scummy sea weedish stuff at the water's edge. The water was nice and warm, but when I went swimming in it I half-way expected to break out in itchy red bumps.

This is all in contrast to yesterday, when the water was cool and crystal clear. I went snorkeling, but I don't go out deeper than I can stand because I still haven't gotten over my fear of sharks.

Hily took some photos from the beach:
Hily and I played music at church this morning. Her talent is highly in demand (I think I'm there mostly because they figure that she doesn't come without me - and they're right). At her prompting we played a groovy version of "Swing Low" and a mellow version of Be Thou My Vision, which only one other person in the entire group was familiar with.

Our baby is daily getting larger, and I am sure she must be a future olympic athlete, because she never sits still. A jab to the left, followed by a somersault and a knee to the stomach... it is so bizarre to actually feel our baby's little foot when I put my hand on Hily's tummy! I am hoping and praying that I will be as good of a dad as I am sure Hilary will be a mother.

We are preping to visit for Peter and Liz's wedding next weekend. Hily is playing music for that, so we borrowed the church's keyboard so we can practice tonight.

Work is really interesting, and I've been enjoying it a lot. I actually have a hard time not thinking about it when I'm off of work, because I find the problems I am working are so interesting. That's a good sign, but I have to remind myself quite frequently that I need to keep work life somewhat separate from my home life. Hilary is really nice about that though, she actually asks me about stuff that I do.

Finally, I resurrected my old project of writing a computer game. I actually restarted it earlier this year. I work on it when I have free-time, which actually doesn't seem that often these days. This time I actually hope to finish it though...

Here's a picture of a sea-cucumber that I found when I was wading in the cove about an hour ago (Hily took it from the dock):

ONE CHANCE

2010-10-02T06:44:00.000-07:00

Every year they come... but this year, we will not come. :(
We'll be there in spirit though - may the best man win!

On churches and their buildings

2010-09-26T12:52:00.000-07:00

Why does it seem like the construction of a modern facility almost universally causes trouble for a congregation? I witnessed this first hand today. My wife and I are new to our congregation - we don't know its history, what led to the construction of the church's present building, or what it was like before. We don't judge or condemn anybody here for anything - the pastor is a good man, he cares for the congregation very much. He doesn't tickle their ears, he preaches sin as sin, repentance for what it is, and also preaches the goodness of the gospel of Christ and the salvation therein. I don't think anything is wrong with the pastor. He gave a frank description of the church's financial situation this morning. He said something very good when he was talking about their difficulties: "you know, maybe we don't need this building. If you guys don't think it's worth paying the mortgage for it, and if you aren't bringing co-workers and friends here to listen to the gospel, and it's not turning out to be the ministry tool that we intended it to be, then there is no reason to be here." He said this with difficulty, but he had given it, and the congregation's heart up to the Lord, and I believe that this same Lord will take care of him, even if the congregation is holding back what they should be rightfully giving to the Lord, if that is what is happening.

Hilary and I somehow independently came to similar conclusions about church buildings. For some darned strange reason, if a church retains the true gospel in its preaching, but simultaneously builds a church that caters to attendees, it almost universally seems to tank. Churches that cater to attendees and also preach health and wealth do very well. Churches that don't cater to attendees, and stay faithful to the word (examples: Mars Hill, Efree, Christ Church, etc) also do very well. But when churches simultaneously try to preach from the word and pamper people, things just take a quick dive south.

Hilary and I saw some pretty ridiculous things while visiting local churches. We've seen church buildings that must have cost many millions of dollars build, with only enough chairs in the sanctuary to hold about 200 people (though, probably only half that at most were actually there). We've seen a pastor in what looked from the outside like a megachurch preach to about 50 people, while a giant screen 5 feet above his head was projecting his image as he taught. The ridiculous part was how small the room was.

I saw this in State College as well - a large church that was losing people because it insisted it needed a new, even bigger and better building. I remember thinking one Sunday as I listened to the pastor speak from the word, that I could hardly hear anything he was saying because the place was so darn distracting. Everything about the church was literally built to say "I'm here to make you feel comfortable."

I am convinced to the core that when churches make it their aim to be a welcoming place their potency disappears. The very act of attempting to be relevant makes them irrelevant. By all means, be welcoming, but I'm just saying, when churches make it their focus to be welcoming, or even hip, trendy, relevant, etc., and still preach from the word, my limited experience seems to indicate that nothing good comes of it.

Back to State College again - there was one church there that was really thriving. Pretty much everyone from that church I met had a thorough knowledge of the scriptures, was involved in bible studies, prayer and had a vibrant faith. And gosh, I would have given my right hand to go to that church but the sermons were all in Chinese. Still, I visited the church occasionally and these are some observations I made, that I still remember:

1) They didn't heat their church any more than was needed to keep the pipes from freezing. This sounds trivial, but the fact that I needed to don my down parka because I was going to church touched me to my soul. It meant that I was going to a gathering of believers who were gathering for a purpose greater than themselves.

2) They had no band. They had a few singers stand before the church and lead the congregation in some simple hymns. "Ridiculous!" you say? "How can a church in our day and age expect people to come if we don't have trendy and hip musicians playing the latest worship hits?" Jesus told the woman at the well that the people in God's kingdom will worship in Spirit and in Truth. Playing with fervor and singing passionately, waving your hands and having 10 pedals with epic sounding effects doesn't make your worship any more blessed than singing songs written 1700 years ago by church fathers. God has been surrounded by a chorus of ancient Seraphim with voices like thunder for eons. Nobody is going to impress him with their guitar licks. God knows the heart. I'm not knocking rad guitar effects but God said that he desires those who worship in spirit and in truth, and when we stop worshiping and start admiring musicianship we've missed the boat. If you can worship while your jaw is dropping in amazement at that incredibly talented bassist, then you yourself are pretty talented at multitasking. The point is, a worship band is meant to be nothing more than an arrow pointing at the greatness of God, and the second it stops acting as such it becomes empty, no matter how incredibly well choreographed it is.

3) They didn't buy a building until they saved enough money to purchase it. The pastor here, God bless him. He was clearly suffering, but he did not try to weasel money out of anyone. I remember going to church one sunday in Seattle, and the pastor screamed at the congregants and with-held communion from them because they "weren't giving." Apparently 10% of the congregants were shouldering 50% of the burden, and the other 50% of the burden wasn't being lifted at all, causing the pastor a lot of stress. Debt is a major stressor, but for some reason we still get into it all the time. As one fairly high ranking official in the Navy said, "America is built on debt. Capitalism is founded on debt. It's just fine if you are in debt." The problem is, debt causes emotional havok and I think pastors, if they are committed to a church, can shoulder the brunt of it.

So basically, this model church was doing just what it should be doing - loving and pointing to Christ. Holding up Christ as greater than themselves. And, they nipped the issue of finances in the bud, so it couldn't cause problems in the church.

I'm not against churches meeting in designated buildings. I did grow up in a really fantastic church that met in a furniture store, and I have to consciously suppress the furniture store = good, modern church building = bad mindset, though I am not against church buildings in principle. But I've seen churches suffer enough times after getting their wish that it just makes me wary when a church sets its hope on a newer, better building. If your church is getting a new building, I'm not saying they are doing the wrong thing. There's plenty of good reasons for a church to buy/build a building. But a newer, better building or more welcoming environment is not the answer to a declining number of attendees or a lifeless congregation. When a church stops glorifying Christ and starts focusing on the congregants, then a major and disastrous inversion has taken place.

24th!

2010-09-25T19:30:00.001-07:00

Today is my dear wife's birthday!

She is turning 24, but she still has a few hours left
She thinks 24 is old, but it's not, and she will be forever young in my eyes
Josh and Paula came from Pensacola...
There's my sister!Our wonderful neighbors/friends the LaFolletts hosted us for a small party [Megan - the cake was super awesome, and just what Hilary wanted but never guessed she'd be getting.] I apologize for not posting photos, I wasn't as snap happy today as I should have been, and most of the photos I did take were blurry.

I couldn't have asked for a more suitable help-meet. The more I get to know her, the more I love her, and realize how blessed I am that God led me to her. Thank you Jesus

She

2010-09-19T12:09:00.000-07:00

Hilary and I had our first ultrasound on Friday. By bouncing high-frequency sound around in my wife's tummy, we were actually able to look at our baby. Little hands, legs, arms, body. We get to call her "her" instead of "it." Having a pregnant wife, a baby daughter, knowing that you are going to be the parent of a future toddler, teenager, wife, mother, grandmother is one of the most surreal and wonderful experiences possible. A pregnant wife is beautiful.

We're getting settled in but we're still a long ways from feeling like life here is "normal." Summer is technically over and fall is supposedly on its way, but that season doesn't have the same meaning down here. Instead of being blisteringly hot and humid the second the sun peaks above the horizon, you can stroll rather than dash between havens of air-conditioned safety. In fact, I mowed the lawn yesterday afternoon. It was a very interesting experience.

First, it's been probably 3 weeks since it was last mowed, so the grass was a little high. Why did I wait 3 weeks? Well, I was trying to find a good deal on craigslist. I used to think good deals were the norm on craigslist, because it's where everybody is dumping their garbage. I think it may used to have been like that, but now it's populated with adds like "BRAND NEW COUCH FOR 400 DOLLARS!! WE BOUGHT IT ONLY ONE YEAR AGO, EXCELLENT CONDITION!!! MUST SEE!!!" and "52 inch TV! I paid over 1600 dollars for this baby 5 years ago and now I'm practically giving it away. 800 firm." I finally gave up and bought a new lawn mower from Walmart yesterday. The landlord priced out lawnservices for me but I couldn't stomach the bill. I'm paying off my own lawnmower in about a month in a half by doing it myself so I don't feel bad about giving up the hunt for a used one.

The grass in florida isn't the same as the grass in the northwest. Floridian grass blades are thick, rubbery, juicy, paler, and the home of myriads of biting and bloodsucking things (that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I found a pinhead sized tick crawling up my leg on one back yard excursion, and have gotten several chigger bites already). Afer mowing, for the heck of it I grabbed a handful of the clippings and squeezed. About as much water came out of it as a wet rag. Still, I enjoy having my own yard here, enjoy seeing all the strange critters that live about our place. Every week I check up on the toad that lives by our airconditioner, we have a large 5-lined skink camping out in our garage, we named the green anole that lives next to our front door "Joaquin" (I was inspired by a walking stick crawling up the wall), and the other day I spotted another megalo-millapede and a bunch of very strange looking praying-mantises crawling around our back patio at night.

Oh yeah, and one of the coolest critters of all are the ghost crabs. I found out about these little fellers from Jon, and managed to actually catch a few. They're translucent crabs that only come out at night. They perch about 10 feet from the water, picking through the sand with their claws looking for something to eat. when you shine the flashlight on them or get to close they suddenly whiz towards the water, and they are fast. 10mph top speed according to Wikipedia, that's pretty fast for a crab smaller than a biscuit. Anyway, if anyone comes to visit us maybe we can go hunting for ghost crabs.

Some nearby hair-cutting place just opened and was doing a promotional - $3.00 for a job. I needed a haircut so I got one, and all I can say is that you get what you pay for. After about a week Hilary couldn't take it anymore, so we bought some haircutting scissors and a comb for a combined price of about $6.00. She gave me one of the best haircuts I've ever had, so I don't think I'm ever going to get my haircut anywhere else from now on.

Work is really enjoyable. My boss is great, and I love what I'm doing. Granted, the government can be a little slow, and the bureaucracy is... um... astounding. But if you take care of all the extras you can still get a lot done. In the last couple weeks I've actually been very productive. It helps that I'm running two 64 bit machines, one of which has 4 chips, each with 2 cores and 16 GB of ram (the other only has 8, so I use it for my less intensive operations). Actually, to be frank I'm somewhat surprised that the performance increase isn't better than I thought it would be. It's good but it's not 10 times better, maybe like... 2 or 3 times better. Still though, I like what I'm working with, and things are going well on that front.

John Lang put the Lord of the Rings on Hilary's Ipod. We are halfway through the Two Towers now, and our gas-bill is suffering because we are constantly trying to find excuses to drive somewhere and snag a few more minutes of LOTR. Though I thoroughly enjoyed the movies, the books are far better and I can understand why some people were miffed. Peter Jackson completely failed to capture the nobility of several key characters. Theoden possibly got nerfed the hardest, but Gimli, Aragon and, well, hmm... actually pretty much everyone got portrayed poorly now that I think about it. I'm only halfway through the series, and I could spend an entire post on this. Maybe I will after I finish the books.

Anyway, that's a bit of our life right now. Hopefully I'll have more pictures up in the not too distant future.

House photos

2010-08-27T19:31:00.000-07:00

Hilary posted some photos of our house! We will post more as we begin to fill it

Krumbie's Moving and Demolition inc.

2010-08-24T17:07:00.000-07:00

Burdened by your worldly possessions? Tired of hauling around worthless piles of sentimental junk but can't quite bring yourself to lighting a bonfire? We understand. Here at Krumbie's, we specialize in helping you cut the cord. Our "moving" fees are cheapest on the market*, and we guarantee you won't find any others who do as thorough of a job.

Whether you prefer your boxes damaged and ripped,

squashed and mangled, battered and bashed,** stepped on, dragged through mud, or disassembled and left un-boxed***, we can do it all.

Tired of well wishing neighbors who always want to talk? Feel encumbered by social obligations from having good relationships with the houses next door? We can help you! We here at Krumbie's understand that first impressions matter most, and that's why we promise to "deliver" your shipment with the largest street-legal semi possible. When your neighbors find that you've blocked the road, stopped traffic and, if possible, blocked one or two**** of their driveways for as long as we can get away with it before the cops come, we can guarantee you won't feel obligated to interact with them for years.

This month we are running a blue-smoke promotional. We've modified the back-tires of all our moving vans to "accidentally" catch on fire and torch your goods. State laws require we put the fire out as fast as possible, but you can sleep soundly knowing that if your shipment doesn't perish in the fire it will at very least be permanently smoke damaged.

[Soot damaged products. Actual damage may vary.]

So hurry up and place your order now, while spare tires and fire-extinguishers last!

*Unapplicable to customers who wish to replace damaged goods.

** What our customers are saying: "I was worried my stainless steel tool-chest would be safe, but Krumbie's pulled through again, and when I got it in PCB, it was as smashed and worthless as the rest of the shipment." - Timothy Marston, Panama City Beach, FL

*** What our customers are saying: "I was concerned about my furniture, instruments, and sentimental overstuffed chairs, but those pads, blankets and boxes they used when picking everything up were just for show. Mine were disassembled, un-protected, and a few even had footprints on them when delivered. That'll teach me to doubt Krumbie's again."

**** Only available in triple-trailer legal states

Glass lizard

2010-08-23T19:05:00.000-07:00

I didn't think I'd catch one so soon, but while trapsing back to Jon's place this evening Hilary spotted something slithering through the grass. Instict took over and I caught it. I brought my thrashing prize back to Hilary. Because it was wiggling so violently I couldn't tell what it was at first (other than that it was not a poisonous snake), but I had a hunch that it wasn't a snake because it wasn't biting me. I grabbed it's head, and saw this (click on link please)! That's not the one I caught, I let it go because its tail came off and it was smearing me with blood. I let the thing go, and it mysteriously slid underground immediately. A legless lizard is the bizarrest thing, but it was really neat.

Thanks for all the comments; I apologize for being unresponsive we've been trying to work on getting our house set up over here but I'm happy to see that people are following it

Photos

2010-08-21T19:17:00.000-07:00

$600 dollars?

2010-08-19T16:34:00.001-07:00

We're looking around for used furniture on Craigslist now. I can't believe how many people are, um... optimistic about the value of their old sofas.

Old habits die hard

2010-08-18T19:12:00.001-07:00

Inspired by my discovery of a giant millipede roughly 5 inches long crawling on the wall outside tonight, I thought I'd catalog a few of my discoveries since arriving:

Brown Anoles: 2 or 3
Green Anoles: 5 or 6
Geckos: 4 or 5
Toads: 1
Skinks: 1
Katydids: 1
Giant millipedes: 2

The list will no doubt be lengthened, and photos will be added for the sake of younger brothers and sisters in law who are interested (like me) in creatures of the sorts (Noah... Christiana...)

I had to abruptly finish my post which is why I didn't mention visiting Paula and Josh. On our last major day of travel, last Saturday, Hilary and I visited Paula, Josh and Camilla at their home in Pensacola. We had a great time, and among other things Josh introduced Hilary and I to a very interesting game called "Nim" that you can play with virtually any type of object that you have 11 of. I suppose you could probably even play with a pen and pencil. I won't mention any more about it other than the fact that, if I go first, I will probably beat you.

Anyway, we are here at Panama City Beach now. The last few days have been devoted mostly to apartment hunting, but also to setting up insurance, opening a bank account, finding a doctor, and the other normal stuff you need to do when transitioning to a new job and moving to a new area. The Lafollets, friends of Hilary and mine, have generously opened their house to us until we move into our own. We just signed a lease today, and will be moving into our place on monday. We are pretty happy with it, and hope that it can be a place that people will be comfortable visiting/staying with us. I'll post photos at some point.

Hola!

2010-08-15T16:36:00.000-07:00

I interrupt the posts about the vacation we took in Japan and Hong Kong 2 months ago to bring you news of our travels across the country.

After having spent 5 of the last 6 nights in hotels, I believe I've become a bit of a mid-range hotel connoisseur. At least I would if it weren't for the fact that all but one of our stays were in Holiday Inn. On our first day we drove from Pullman to Ogden, a small city roughly 40 miles from Salt Lake city. The price for one night at government rate was $115. The next day we traveled to Flagstaff AZ. The price for one night at government rate was $105. The price for one night at the Holiday in several miles outside of Albuquerque was $95, and finally, in Vicksburg, $85.

You can clearly see a trend here: the price of lodging in a Holiday in drops in a roughly linear fashion as you move southwest at a slope of approximately $10 per 600 miles. Our last night was spent in Pensacola, and if you follow the trend, statistically speaking, the pricing of a stay at the Holiday Inn should be in the neighborhood of $80 dollars. $80 for a night in a quality establishment like that would have been money well spent, but instead I opted for convenience and settled for a Hampton Inn, which, being $35 (almost 140%) more per night than the projected value of a stay at a Holiday Inn in the same city, should have been in comparison a much more luxurious experience. The outdoor pool was very nice, but the frills ended there. Half of our towels had dirt and hair on them (though, when we got them exchanged they apologized with a bag of expensive cookie things and two bottles of spring water. Alas, before I even hung them up I spotted a pubic hair on one of the new towels), our old-fashioned CRT TV had no DVD player or any way to connect to our laptop (unlike all of the Holiday Inns we stayed at), and the breakfast options in the morning were not as extensive as at a Holiday Inn. There wasn’t even any meat. This was especially disappointing, given that the receptionist the night before was bragging about how great the breakfast was going to be. Holiday inns seem to alternate daily between bacon and sausage, though the “bacon” from Holiday inn is missing my favorite component of bacon, namely, the bacon.

Holiday Inn didn’t have perfect batting average either, in one hotel we weren’t given any shampoo and despite the claims of the hotel policy notice pasted in the bathroom, we weren’t delivered a bottle upon request because the hotel was understaffed. Oh well. The Holiday Inn outside of Albuquerque had mosquitoes buzzing all around the first floor, but not on the floor we stayed in. On the plus side, in Flagstaff there was an arcade next to the elevator (marvel vs. capcom! And a few other titles).

Ok… this post has essentially been facetious because we highly enjoyed the entire trip, and one of our favorite stops was at the Hampton Inn at the end. The whole trip we experienced blessings – not a single flat or ticket. In Texas we got to stop and see the Coonies, friends of both of our families that we hadn’t seen in 15 years, in Pensacola we got to hang out with my sister, brother-in-law and beautiful niece, we got to see amazing natural wonders, listen to amazing books on tape, have great conversations, and had only one conflict in the car which resolved in such a way that my wife and I were closer after than before. Not only was it a great trip, I am beginning to think it was the best trip possible.

Now, I will post some photos, for your enjoyment.

Day 1: We leave pullman

New tires, smooth ride

This is Inn-soo, we stayed with her the 2 months before we left

View that we will miss, from our back porch

The big sky of the palouse

A resort-ish town in Idaho that we drove through

Southern Idaho was pretty barren.

Day 2: Odgen UT to Flagstaff AZ

The mormon temple

View from the top of the Mormon HQ

Utah

Mt. "Nebo"

Cool rocks

Bryce Canyon - amazing, more accessible than the Grand Canyon, and easier to appreciate

Red Canyon - you drive through it on the way to Bryce

On the way to flagstaff

Day 3: Flagstaff AZ to Grand Canyon to Flagstaff AZ to Albuquerque NM

Tallest point in AZ - not that impressive

Land above the Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon

Grander than the Grand Canyon

Good to drink a lot of this

Day 4: Albuquerque to Lubbock, TX

Notice the lack of photos. This is because there just wasnt much to take photos of.

The Cooney's! Mr. and Mrs, + Kristin Briggs (Cooney) and her husband Elliot

Day 5: Lubbock to Vicksburg

This was in Mobile Alabama. Pretty cool.

Day 6: Vicksburg to Pensacola

Day 7: Pensacola to Panama City Beach

Markets

2010-06-28T21:09:00.000-07:00

All of the "suggested tourist activities" in the little Hong Kong booklet we got at our first hotel looked boring, frankly. Watching a horse race? Yawn. Science museum? Next. Ok, there were a couple suggestions that were interesting (Dimsum, the peak...) but Hilary and I are far more interested in the organic and down-to-earth, less tourist oriented aspects of places we go. My favorite "tourist activity" in Hong Kong was to browse the markets, which resembled pet-stores more than anything else. Here are some photos from three different trips to markets that we made during our time in Hong Kong.

We found our first market because Crystal, one of the people we came to visit in Hong Kong, guided us through it to get to her house. She and Hilary became close friends last school semester, because she was a housemate, and came to our church in Pullman. Here she is guiding Hilary and I through the maze of streets:

Vendors at the markets were loudly hawking their wares, hosts of fish,

fruit, (anybody know what these are?)

meat, (including many parts of animals that you might not imagine people eat)

and... lots of other things. Hong Kongians really like the color red. All the lamps were red. I guess it's a pretty popular color.

I have to admit I enjoy walking through these markets more than a zoo. Everyone has seen photos of monkeys and seals, but who the hack knows what this thing is?

(a fruit?)

I think think I saw these things in a national geographic once, only they were swimming happily amongst coral reefs:

Hong Kongians seem to be similar to the Japanese - they like their food to look exotic and beautiful. These crabs look like something you would see in a tropical aquarium, and here they are being sold for something like 6 bucks a pop. I can't imagine that there's much meat on them though.

more seafood:

(The above photo shows two halves of an eel or amphibian creature thrashing wildly in a pan. They like their seafood fresh and wiggling in Hong Kong, too.)

Reptiles were fair game too. I wanted to grab this turtle and keep it as a pet, it would have only cost about 10 bucks. I probably wouldn't get past customs though.

The turtles in the net underneath were some sort of flat, soft critters with long noses. Not normal turtles.

Frogs were also everywhere to be seen. Cages of frogs would be scattered around the markets, next to guys chopping and hacking them to pieces with expert skill. Guts and blood flying everywhere, it's a real show. (Oops I forgot to upload photos of the frog cages. Well, here's they are getting chopped up)

And finally... vegetables

I thought this was the world's larget cucumber but Hilary told me it's not a cucumber:

I'll be posting photos from time we spent with our friends next, but I wanted to get those shots out of the way because they are relatively quick to post, and (hopefully) enjoyable to look at. If you can't stand the sight of spurting blood and frog guts popping like fireworks, Hong Kong's markets might not be for you, but if you don't mind things getting a little organic they are quite a colorful and interesting experience!

sendai ni iru tomodachi

2010-06-21T20:08:00.000-07:00

The Sunday that Hilary and I visited grace chapel, Kawakami and Masako sensei, and their daughter Motoe all invited us to spend the rest of the week in a guest room in their house. Sendai Grace Chapel is an interesting building - it has a simple yet beautiful sanctuary with a stained glass window behind the pulpit, wooden pews, and a vaulted ceiling. Adjacent to the sanctuary is a long and narrow meeting room that can sit 50 people on two long and narrow table arrangements - this is where they normally have lunch. At the end of the meeting room is the window to the kitchen. At the other end is a wall that separates the meeting room from Kawakami Sensei's study. There is a secret stairway leading from his study to their living quarters, which is right above the downstairs kitchen, meeting room and study. Above the foyer (behind the sanctuary and next to sensei's study) is the guest room, and rooms for bible studies, sunday schools etc. There is a main stairway that leads up to this portion.

Anyway, the point is, the Kawakami's live in their church, so we got to live in the guestroom upstairs, next to them the whole week, and it was one of the best experiences of our time in Japan. We ate breakfast with them every morning (Masako sensei made amazing breakfasts normally comprised of a meat, an egg, a salad, and some form of fruit (watermelon, cherries, lychee)), and they gave us a key and said we could use the facilities as we desired.

We took advantage of this one night, when Hilary and I wanted to make a special treat for Eriya - Mexican food. On Sunday, when Eriya and the Kawakami's were around I told them that Hilary and I would try to make Tacos that week. I forgot that Taco in Japanese means octopus, so there was confusion for about 10 minutes, until I pulled out the laptop, did an image search and showed them what I meant. Mexican food is a rare item in Sendai - I found 2 restaurants when I was there. They are in obscure locations and have hefty pricetags that put them out of range for normal people who don't know what they are looking for.

Wednesday evening, when the Kawakami's were gone at a baseball game (someone in the congregation gave them tickets), Hilary I busted over to the CO-OP and Seiyu, bought all the necessary ingredients, and came back home. Eriya met up with us, and Hilary put us to the grunt work while she oversaw the more delicate portions of the operation.

In the end, our culinary masterpiece would have made a Mexican proud, and was probably the closest thing to the real deal in the whole of Japan. The tortillas were hand made, the meat filling was composed of ground beef, spices, corn and kidney beans, the guacamole, though it looked like wasabi to Kawakami sensei, was considerably less spicy and considerably more tasty, and the sour cream was... very sour and condensed. I don't think any of them had ever eaten it before, but their faces didn't indicate that its consumption was an unpleasant experience.

We made enough that we could eat heartily and still have enough for the Bible study members coming to the church the next day (the Kawakami's were gone but really wanted to try them out so they asked us to make extra for lunch the following day). Eriya wasn't sure how to eat them at first,

but once we explained that it's perfectly ok to throw etiquette to the wind, he dove in and enjoyed them very much. We saved the ingredients in seperate bowls so that we wouldn't be giving people soggy tacos the next day.

After dinner, Hilary and I taught Eriya how to play "Rook" (...). Eriya kept complaining that it was hard, but I secretly think he's a card shark because he caught really fast.

It was pretty late after our series of games and he had to leave, but we had a really great time with him. It's tough parting with a friend when you don't know they next time you are going to meet (and it may not be for a long time).

Masako sensei and Motoe really liked Hilary. They gave her all sorts of presents (pictured here).

Hilary wears the shawl all the time, and I think it is really gorgeous. Kawakami sensei isn't as expressive as them, but I could tell he also really liked Hilary. Being able to live with them was one of the highlights of our entire trip.

Here's Masako sensei with their dog "Chappy"

We didn't go see any sights on our last day in Japan, instead we ran around Sendai trying to buy souvenirs for people. We did, however, make it to Aobayama. I was able to show Hilary the lab I worked in. When we visited, a graduate student was there - I didn't know him, but he knew me because Takahashi, a friend that we unfortunately were not able to meet with, told him about me. I then took hilary to the very tall building behind the laboratory. We rode the elevator to the top, and to my great happiness, the door to the roof was still open, and with a little fence hopping we were able to look over the edge of the top. It's my favorite view of the city.

Unfortunately, the place I used to eat was bulldozed flat, so we weren't able to go there and stock up on any of the free tea. Actually, the thing I really missed was the talking vending machine that hawks its "atatakai onomimono" (hot drinks) when you walk by, but I guess it went the way of the dining hall.

Afterwards, we went and visited the Bible reading club, which has its meeting Thursday evenings at 6:00. Only a few people from my previous time in Japan were still members, but the three who were there were very happy to see us, and the ones I was unfamiliar with were already familiar with me and very happy to see us. We weren't able to stay the whole time because we had to pack, but we immensely enjoyed the short time we had to visit with them, and I'm glad we were able to do that before leaving Japan.

Physics guy (wish I'd remember his name...), Yoshitomo, and Makoto are in the back row, right side. Makoto and Yoshitomo have taken to the leadership roles

The following Friday morning, Masako Sensei cooked us this incredible breakfast:

They volunteered to drive us to the station. Motoe brought out the car, and Kawakami sensei prayed over us before we left.

The Kawakami's:

Because we had JR passes, getting to Narita was pretty simple. We took the Shinkansen to Tokyo Station. At Tokyo station, I used the JR passes to get us reserved seats on an express train to Narita. Hilary was pretty hungry so I got us some of the perfectly packaged onigiri that a guy was selling. It was the first onigiri that Hilary had, and it was unfortunate that we discovered she really really liked them on her last day in Japan. I ran back up 4 or 5 escalator sets and through mobs of several thousand people to buy the rest of the guys stock for emergency food rations.

When I bought the tickets to Narita, I forgot which terminal to get off at (the airport is LARGE), so I picked terminal 2 thinking that if I was wrong we could get off at Terminal 1. Unfortunately, we discovered that I was both wrong in my guess, and that Terminal 2 was actually the 1st stop. I had us stick in the train anyway, and just sort of confidently walked through the ticketing thing, briefly flashing my ticket and the JR pass. For some reason the inspector lady took the ticket of the guy behind us though.

Anyway, our flight to Hong Kong from Narita was in one of the extremities of the airport, and we had polished off the onigiri earlier so we were on the hunt for food. We found a place dealing snickers and yogurt, so we spent the last of our yen on these emergency rations which came in handy later.

The flight to Hong Kong was about 1700 miles, which were uneventful except for when we flew over Osaka (which was pretty large and flashy), and when we were over the ocean once, and I saw all these lights below us which was kind of strange. Other than that, it was pretty uneventful.

What was more eventful was when we stepped out of Hong Kong airport, and were almost blown over and drowned by the soupy, steamy humidity, which made the air hazy even at 11:00 PM. Elton, very truly a saint, drove all the way to the airport to pick us up. He took us to our hotel, and made sure that were were all checked in before finally returning home. More on that later.

So that wraps up Japan, it was an amazing experience, worth every minute and every penny to get there and back. What makes me most happy though was that Hilary enjoyed it as much as I did, and she got to meet so many people. This trip was more about the people than the sights, I think, but both of us find more value in that anyway. We aren't sure when we are coming back, but if we do we will have people who would look forward to it. I'll start bloggin on Hong Kong next.

There is no charge...

for awesomeness

- Panda

Matsushima

2010-06-18T21:03:00.000-07:00

Hilary and I got back from Hong Kong yesterday! The flights went well, everything was smooth, the only problem was that we were up for a long time. Tons of photos to post, I need to finish up the ones from Japan before moving on to Hong Kong. After trial and error, I think the best option is to try linking from a photoservice like Flickr, so that's what I'm going to try to do from now on. Flickr gives you only a small amount of storage though, so I won't be keeping large images on that website. [Looks like the photos are overlapping with the links on the right side... if people think this is really distracting I will try to resize them in future posts]

Ok... so Matsushima!

If you ever followed any of my posts from my time in Japan several years ago, you probably saw a photoset of Matsushima (I posted probably 3 or 4 sets). There's a reason I've posted so many photos of it - it's an absolutely gorgeous place!

To quote Basho:

"Indeed, the beauty of the entire scene can only be compared to the most divinely endowed of feminine countenances [Hilary], for who else could have created such beauty but the great God of nature himself? My pen strove in vain to equal this superb creation of divine artifice"

Basho (1644-1694), the master and popularizer of Haiku, considered Matsushima one of the pinacles of Japanese landscapes. I suppose the rampant tourist industry in the city itself has taken away a chunk of the charm Basho was describing, but we took a boatride through the islands because the views of the islands are more pristine. We really enjoyed it.

Unlike Kinkazan, Matsushima is actually located a convenient distance from Sendai, and our JR passes made it a piece of cake. We headed straight for the boatrides, and bought a ticket for an hour long loop around a large portion of the islands. The islands were pretty cool, but I since I had seen it before I had more fun taking photos of Hilary...

Another fun thing we did was feed the seagulls! The last time I took a boatride - with Myron - we saw people throwing these little french fry things at the birds. I saw people doing it this time as well, so I ducked into the boat and asked the lady standing at the little concession stand inside if she was selling any "umicarasu no tabemono" (seagull food stuffs). She chuckled and took out a bag of prawn chips that were actually human snack food but seemed to be the popular item to throw to the seagulls. It was only 100 yen for the bag! Happily I bought a sack, and brough them outside. We had a blast feeding the droves of seagulls trailing the boat.

The seagulls are pretty tame, and are a lot of fun to take photos of because they come so close

A cool surprise was the two eagles or hawks (very large raptors, whichever they were) that suddenly appeared behind our boat. They followed us, diving into the boat's wake to catch the prawn chips that fell in the water

Hilary insists that I post some photos of me, so here's one she took. I'm still confused about the expression I am displaying here

After the boatride was over, we walked over to some tourist stands to get some icecream and buy omiyage. We got a really cool hat that's big and pointy. I'll post photos of it later. Anyway, that was our trip to Matsushima, I have a blast every time I go there... sayonara Matsushima, who knows when we'll be back

Trying PNG

2010-06-16T01:22:00.001-07:00

Now I am trying a PNG file... I am uploading a file that was a JPEG (~100 kB) and converting to PNG at best quality (190 kB). Does it work??

update: working from the original file, resizing and converting directly to PNG, the file size is ~215 kB, but the quality is better. This is an unfortunate but helpful work-around (suggested at the blogger helpdesk by "DarkUFO") because the file size is so large, but at least the building borders don't look horrible and skies don't look patchy

Test photo

2010-06-16T00:34:00.000-07:00

Here is an example of a photo, the quality of which has been destroyed by Blogger! Notice all the JPEG distortions around the edges and in the sky, and the color compression. Original file size: 1o0 kB. New size: 30 kB.

blog JPEG problems

2010-06-16T00:23:00.001-07:00

Hi,
I would like to post more photos of Hong Kong but I am noticing a strange problem with my blog. I used to be able to easily post ~100 kB photos, which was nice because I could get away with low compression. For some reason now, blogspot is automatically compressing my photos (even though I have hundreds of MB's free), and the quality is so bad that it makes my eyes sore. I noticed the same problem on Hilary's blog. When I click on the photo to enlarge and look at the file size, it has been massively reduced from the size of the photo that I uploaded to blogger.

The same thing happens on Hilary's blog - the file size is reduced and JPEG artifacts become painfully obvious.

Does someone know a way around this? I can't fine a quality setting on the upload portion... I might have to resort to opening another blog.

Hong Kong

2010-06-14T07:27:00.000-07:00

Just a couple photos before going to sleep. We still have a bunch of photos from Japan, and I'm leaving out all the people shots because I need to add some sort of storyline

Vertical city

2010-06-12T23:54:00.001-07:00

No, I'm not talking about Tokyo, we made it to Hong Kong. Not as big as Tokyo (7 million vs. 37 million), but apparently the population density of the district in which our hotel lies is over 53,000 people per square kilometer. It feels huge. The listed population density for Hong Kong is ~6,500 people per square kilometer, but most (80%) of Hong Kong is mountainous and can't be developed. How do they solve this problem? They build upwards. People literally live on the 40th floor of buildings here and it isn't considered upper-class or even that unusual. Anyway, I'll try to post photos sometime.

In the meantime, the trip from Japan was great, we had a fantastic time staying with Kawakami and Masako sensei and Motoe san, we got to see many friends (Eriya, Dr. Biwa and his wife Nariko, Saki, Pearl, Yoshitomo, Makoto @ the kubrrc, Shataro & Yuko, Takuma, Ai, Masato) and see many interesting places. Getting to Hong Kong from Sendai was not too stressful. The JR passes were great, I highly recommend them to anyone who doesn't like stressful vacations in Japan.

When we got to Japan, we met up with Elton who took care of literally all the details. He found us a places to stay all week, met us at the airport, and drove us to our hotel downtown. That was an incredible blessing - lodging would have been hard for us to find, since this week is a dragon boating festival.

Yesterday we met up with Smile and Carol and Crystal. We did the same today. Hilary has been a star to travel with. She is the funnest person to travel with possible, takes everything in great humor, and has really connected quickly with the people I introduce her too. Being that she is the most beautiful woman currently in Asia, she also garners quite a few stares. I will post photos and talk in more detail about our trip in Hong Kong later.

Nihon

2010-06-08T18:08:00.000-07:00

Hello! We are having a great time in Japan, I don't have time to write in detail about everything we are doing, but I'm posting some photos and I'll put captions on a few.

The first 2 days we stayed at a very nice hostel in Asakusa, Tokyo, called the Khaosan Samurai hostel. About $50 a night for the two of us and the accomodations were very clean, and the staff very friendly.

We found a little bakery to eat at in the morning called "Tom Tom's"

We rented bicycles ($2 dollars a day) and cycled all the way from Asakusa to Ueno to a small obscure park in Akihabara, then back.

Hilary was a total trooper.

For our emergency rations we bought a loaf of raisin bread at the bakery. To our horror, when we busted it out of the pack at the park, it was SWEET BEAN bread, instead of raisin bread. We choked it down (I threw most of the beans to a nearby pidgeon)

The cheap meat is the low fat stuff.

That's roughly $50 dollars per 100 grams of meat. Hope it's worth it.

The toursit book calls that yellow blob ontop of the building a large golded "object" but it's actually a sculpture of "poo" because for some reason that's suppost to bring luck.

From the top of the hostel. We did our laundry.

We called up some friends Hilary made in Germany - Shataro and Yuko. "Hey! By the way... we're in Tokyo right now..." They were surprised. We had a great time with them.

Here is Pearl, we also had a great time with her. She is going to art school in Ueno now.

After Pearl, we met up with Saki. We went to Shinjuku, to the top of this building where you get an idea of how big Tokyo is.

We then headed to Sendai, where we made a beeline to the "Library Hotel" (recommended by Dr. Biwa's wife). It was really nice, and they gave us cool pajamas, which Hilary is modeling here.

On Sunday, we went to Grace Chapel. They went to a beautiful rose park in Yamagata for the service. Here is Hilary with the older girls in the church - Senna, Megumi and Motoe

Eriya! We got to hang out with him on Sunday. Here he is on a zipline at the kids park.

An old lady in a dancing troupe motioned for Hilary to join. She was a star, doing all the motions. All the ladies were totally thrilled.

Here's the church!

We walked over to my old apartment, after church. We climbed up to my perch on the roof...

We also walked over to the Bible-reading clubhouse

Here's the dancing crew that practices infront of the windows every night

These are Mutsu apples being sold for $2 a pop

Yesterday we went to Yamadera

Hilary was a star again, it's a long ways up

We took a little detour to my secret cliff spot, discovered with Myron

There's something about pretty girls & mountains...

Hilary's "Tourist" shot of me

Last night we went to an incredible restaurant with Dr. Biwa and his wife. The food was gorgeous, and was probably swimming only a few hours earlier...

Ink and paint

2010-02-25T20:45:00.000-08:00

I still enjoy painting... Christmas (even though it was over 2 months ago, now) gives me a good excuse to spend some time with a good, sable brush. I had three or four evenings, and needed to paint over 15 cards. They were rush jobs but turned out okay, and I'm not disappointed. I forgot to take photos of all of them, but here are 11 (most years I forget to take photos entirely). I should have some more up in about a week.

Feb. 14, 2010

2010-02-14T20:32:00.000-08:00

She's my valentine

Violin lessons

2010-01-28T20:37:00.001-08:00

Playing around with the Wacom board my family got me for Christmas...

Interesting fact

2010-01-28T13:36:00.000-08:00

Did you know that bronze is actually stronger than Iron? [I'm at work looking up properties of metals right now] Shucks, golly, gee-whillager, you could knock me over with a feather... so what's the whole big deal about the "iron age" following the "bronze age" then?? Sounds to me like it must have been a massive global downgrade. Sort of like when Windows Vista was released.

O hisashi

2010-01-15T15:22:00.000-08:00

I can't believe the last time I posted was in October... seems a lot longer ago than that. There seems to be some sort of immense barrier in my timeline that divides my unmarried life from my married life. The events on either side of it seem vague and obscured when viewed from the opposing side.

Anyway, I've definitely not been trying to hide from people or neglect anyone. I've been trying to build a solid foundation for a relationship with my wife and start off on the right foot, which takes a lot of work. Good work, enjoyable work, totally worth it. It does mean that certain things like blogging (and facebook) get the shaft. Another thing - we were on the recieving end of much generosity from friends both near, and on the other side of the world around & after our wedding date. Be assured if you read this that we haven't forgotten to thank you and we most certainly will, it's just that sometimes the daily tasks we are faced with at the moment seem overwelmingly huge, and thank-you cards may not be something we are able to complete in the immediate future.

I've had all sorts of thoughts recently that make me think "boy that would make a great blog post!" I just can't remember any of them right now. Hopefully this blog post is an indication that blogging will continue and I'm not leaving this blog to rot.

So anyway, I'll wrap up with some cool tricks I was messing around with on Matlab for a while, then some photos.

****

Deconvolution - how to fix camera-shake

I've wondered for a long time if it's possible to recover an image from a badly distorted image. The thing tha tmade me wonder was when I saw an article in BBC news about how a criminal was identified by undoing a weird digital manipulation of his face to reveal his true identity. I thought "Dang... how did they do that?" and "If they did that, could you use the same trick to fix camera shake?"

Well, turns out that fixing something that has been digitally manipulated can (if the transformation is fairly simple, which in this case it was) be reversed nearly perfectly. Fixing an actual image is a lot harder, and is a heavily discussed issue, generating large numbers of papers in periodic journals.

The fixing camera-shake can be described as a "deconvolution" problem. Without going into great detail, deconvolution is essentially a process that tries to work-backwards to find an initial signal or input (in this case our unshaken, perfect photo) by dividing the transformation (the shaking) from the output of the signal. Now to introduce a very important term: the Point -Spread function, or "PSF". The point-spread function is the resulting image you would have if your camera was looking at a very sharp point of light, and shook exactly how the camera shook for the real image. The resulting blur or streak describes the transformation that maps the original signal to the blurry one your camera sensed. So deconvolution essentially tries to divide the PSF from the image to recover the original.

What's so hard about that? Deconvolution is often described as an "ill-posed" problem, meaning that even if you did know the exact point-spread function and naively tried to divide it from the blurred image, the result will still be garbage, even worse than before. The cause is noise. Dividing by the psf often requires dividing by very small numbers. If you had a perfect (and non-existant) camera, you could do this, but every camera has electronic noise (the scattered grainyness you see in digital photos). The noise ruins the division process, by making the output have huuuuuuge signals when the divisor is small.

So, essentially what I am trying to say is, even if you know exactly how your camera shook, you couldn't get back to the original. Case closed, the end, everyone go home. Just kidding! Lots of smart people, over the course of many years, have developed techniques to approximate the original signal and get around this problem. Because of a problem I was trying to solve at work, I tried to learn about as many of these procedures as I possibly could. Some were dead ends, others worked remarkably well.

Deconvolution algorithms generally fall into two catagories: iterative and non-iterative. Iterative methods are slower, however they have some advantages, namely, if you add certain weighting schemes (which by the way are nearly impossible to understand if you don't have the appropriate background in mathematics and statistics) to them they can repress un-desirable features, such as ringing, which often occur when trying to deconvolve an image with an imperfect reverse transformation. The following is a list of a different deconvolution methods and some of the strengths and weaknesses I observed. A lot of smarter more dedicated people came up with improved methods, but I couldn't decifer their papers very well so I was stuck with these.

Richardson-Lucy algorithm. Class - iterative, non-negative. Strength: fairly simple to implement. Super popular for some reason. Weaknesses: Can't handle negative values. The raw algorithm seems to give freaky, terrible answers if your point-spread is even a bit off. I always got patches in my images that grew to become discontinuities. It did, however, clean up images extremely fast if the point-spread function was known exactly.

Van-Cittert algorithm. Class - iterative. The oldest and probably the most reliable and best working algorithm I could find, if you do the appropriate signal conditioning first. If you do a google search for "image deconvolution", the first link you find is a site that reviews all these methods, and it says that Van-Cittert is the worse and shows how it totally screwed up an image even though the point-spread was relatively simple. All I can say is that they must not have been applying it correctly, because I was able to correct some crazy stuff with the Van-Cittert method, even when my point-spread function was noisy. I found that the algorithm completely fails for even simple stuff, however, if you just try to deconvolve the raw PSF from the image, however.

Landweber algorithm. Class-iterative. This algorithm looks like a modified Van-Cittert algorithm, and worked reasonably well. It could handle raw PSF deconvolution better than the Van-Cittert (but not better than the corrected van-cittert), but converged slower than the Richardson-Lucy for low-noise cases in which the exact point-spread function was known. Also, like the Van-Cittert algorithm, it can handle negative values, which the richardson-lucy can't.

Weiner-deconvolution. Class - non iterative. This algorithm was the simplest and fastest, and returned results as good as the Van-Cittert method. Because it was the quickest, I stuck with it. The only problem with it is that your solution is non-optimal unless you know the power-spectral-density of the original signal and the noise. I don't know either, for a photograph, so my results are non optimal. They are still pretty good, however. A major problem with this algorithm is the propensity for ringing produced near the image as a result of cropping (the point-spread function necessarily has no way of knowing the values past the edge of the image).

Anyway, this is fascinating stuff. I was able to apply it to great efficacy for a problem I was trying to solve at work. A side benefit was that I could try applying it to photos. Here's an example. This is a photo of Hilary I took, playing the piano. I intentionally violently shook the camera when taking this photo:

Original (cropped)

corrected (cropped)

So obviously the "corrected" version has major deficiencies. A ton of ringing is present, which pretty much obliterates the top of the image. However 1) I can tell it's Hilary playing the piano now, instead of just a smudge, 2) I can tell it's an old-school mac in the background, 3) I can make sense of the scene.

With a little more work, we can make even further improvements. The image was cropped, originally. Edges are going to be trouble, but if the edges can be pushed away from the region of interest, then the ringing should be less obnoxious. Furthermore, tapering the edges using a weighting function can also decrease ringing. The following corrected image applied both of those techniques, and is an even better re-construction.

Well, time's up. This is a pretty interesting subject, though, and I'd like to explore it further.

The highland games

2009-10-17T21:44:00.001-07:00

The Iron Hedgehogs:

Kyle
Tim
Owen
Jaren
John

We might not have placed well but my team rocked and I couldn't have asked for better men to compete with. Pictures to come soon.

reviews

2009-10-13T22:59:00.000-07:00

It's been such a long since I posted anything other than photos that I thought I'd give words another chance. A lot has been going through my head about marriage, but I'm not going to expound about them yet. I will say however, that Hilary has been one of the most sanctifying influences in my life. You may not be able to tell because I've sort of disappeared for a while, but being in a relationship in which I learn first hand what it means to love and put someone else before my own interests has really changed the way I think about, and do pretty much everything.

Ok, so... here's a set of things I've been thinking about/interacting with on a daily basis/listening to/looking at etc.

1. Psalm 27. "He will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle." While working this evening, I overheard part of a Bible study mom was doing and this verse stood out to me. In the present age, the church is the tabernacle. There are still places, however, that feel holier than others because I mentally associate them with prayer. I'm still trying to pinpoint why this was the case, but when I was in Japan church buildings were a place of refuge for me. On multiple cold dark and rainy nights I needed a safe haven, so I sought out my church just to sit on the steps and pray. I had seen and felt God's presence there, and so it was a natural place to run to. Why the churches in Japan? I'm not sure... I think it's because I depended on the church in that country. They were my family. The church was my home away from home. But, it seems like it should be this way wherever I go. Wouldn't it be great if Christians came to the church in the middle of the week because they had seen God's presence at work there and they needed to pray?

2. The highland games are Saturday. I've been practicing the caber toss several times a week for the last month. There's a bunch of other events that I should also be practicing, but nothing can compare to the satisfaction of finally flipping a stubborn log. I'm getting a lot better at it, but I broke a caber last night.

3. I haven't had the time or energy recently to find good music on my own, so instead of been letting friends do it for me. Liam Corcoran has a real knack for digging up interesting bands. His most recent (or maybe I should say my most recent discovery of one of his discoveries) is the fusion/classical opera/electronica vocalist Sasha Lazard. I'm listening to her right now. My favorite is "Angeli." Ave Maria + the grooviest beat

4. Grooveshark. Stream most (ok... 50%) of the music you could ever hope to find. It's like Pandora, but you determine the playlist. Is that really legal? Maybe, but it still sort of feels like cheating.

5. Aradhna. Some missionary kid who speaks accentless hindi decides that indians (the ones from india, not US) could use praise songs in their own manner, and so he writes a bunch. And they're really good. So, I can't tell exactly what they are saying, but at least I have the comfort of knowing that the song I'm currently addicted to isn't signing the praises of Vishnu or whatever (like with Gopala, which is probably the most frustrating song in the history of all music I have ever listened to, for this reason).

6. Slam Dunk. I've been a bit depressed about manga/anime recently. When I think about marriage, I also think about kids. That gets me thinking about what I would want them to read and watch. Something I like about manga/anime is that they often tell real, imaginative, and fascinating stories. The artwork is often stunning as well. The thing I don't like is that most series is how they treat the female body. You don't have to look hard or read long to get what I mean. Slam Dunk was suggested to me by Yuko and Eriya a long time ago. I didn't read it because honestly, mowing the lawn sounded more interesting than reading a comic about basketball. I finally got around to reading it because I did some sort of google search for "greatest manga ever" and it came out on top. I was like "hmmm... didn't Yuko say I should read that one?" I found an English translation and plowed through it.

I am delighted to say that it was the 1) the best manga I have ever read, and 2) it was the cleanest manga I had ever read. If you aren't into manga at all that is great, stay that way. But if you decide you want to give it one shot, try this one, it is completely worth it. You can find some english scans at www.onemanga.com. I don't think an English version has been published.

7. Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize. I know this is old hat by now, but I would be very nervous if I were him. The affection of the masses is so volatile. It seems like people, in a strange way, love to watch those they once idolized fall from grace and he's not immune to that. By accepting this prize he is declaring himself a peacemaker, but it seems to be something that will be impossible for him to live up to. The people who consider him the Obamessiah will probably be the first people to turn on him when he doesn't live up to their expectations.

8. Windows sucks. But I'm addicted to it at the same time. I can't use macs. I've tried and just failed. However... I just can't believe Microsoft, with all their continual updates and everything. I have never had a virus, and I still don't have one. I am very careful with how I connect to the internet. However, for all that, my "ultrafast" (3 years ago) core duo laptop has been slowing down and complaining recently. This evening, when I turned it on, the start bar was all messed up. The systems is starting to collapse under the ponderous weight of the endless updates and patches that automatically download and install themselves against my will onto my computer. It is the beginning of the end.

9. Acoustic Holographic Filtering. It's what I'm calling this strange filtering method that I think I've invented. I'm sure somebody somewhere has to have done this before and written up something about it, but I can't find it in the literature, probably just because I don't know the correct terminology. Anyway, I've figured out a pretty killer way of separrating waves that are impossibly jumbled together. I'm pretty happy about it. I love it when I love my work. Doesn't ecclesiastes say something about that?

10. Sleep. Not overrated.

11. Swine flu - do you have it?

12. The D5000. I'm looking at maybe purchasing this camera someday when I have money to spare. It seems like a really great camera for a good price. People are dissing it because it doesn't have the build quality and of the D90, but

a) You get the same butt kicking sensor for like... 400 dollars cheaper
b) You still get all the stuff I care about:

Active dynamic range "enhancement": So, there are way better ways to do this imhop, but digital camera designers finally figured out that it drives people nuts when you have to underexpose the photo to capture the highlights, or overexpose the same photo to get the detail in the shadows. Still can't touch the eye though... (heh heh, God does it again)

Chromatic aberation correction: do those little purple and yellow borders lining the edges of the high-contrast portions of your photos drive you nuts? Me too!

Several built-in dust protection devices: the big dark blob in the sky that appears whenever I take a photo with my D40 is getting old.

Lense distortion correction: I can crop and you won't even know it!

Vibration reduction in the stock lense: How many photos would I not have had to throw away...

ISO3200 that doesn't look horribly crappy: heck it's even got ISO6400. It's like a whole stop better than the D40. I never liked flash photography (maybe just because I'm so bad at it), so this would be a real plus.

People, (or at least one of the most popular camera reviewers on the net) seem to say that the D40 is the best thing since sliced bread and if it isn't a D90 then just get a D40. But I have a D40 and it's not all he cracks it up to be. Don't get me wrong, I love the camera (and Ken Rockwell also happens to be my favorite camera reviewer btw, pretty level headed guy). It's been great, it's been with me in heavy rain without any sort of protection and emerged unscathed. It's knocked around the globe with me, and I haven't been gentle with it. But it has dust problems, the photos aren't very croppable and I crop like mad because I'm not great at framing my photos. Dynamic range enhancement is something I've dreamed of, and I can't stand the purple edges that line my sunny day contrasts.

13. Jobs. I've been imaginging working for a camera company. Image processing is just like just acoustic signal processing but with an added dimension, right? Microphones... theyre cool but honestly, they already do a pretty good job for what their meant to do. The great thing about cameras is, digital cameras have so many ways they can be improved. I've spent nights thinking about how to improve the dynamic range of the digital camera because I think their perfomance is so crappy. Anyway, who knows, maybe I'll end up working for Nikon or (the horrors) Canon some day.

Ok, well that about does it for today, guess I'd better hit the sack. More next time

栄理遣への写真

2009-09-03T20:32:00.000-07:00

I've taken so many photos this summer I had to trim them down in a major way, but here's a few of them that I (plus a few others) have taken since July. Oh... but before that:

The most significant occurrence this summer was that I put a ring on a certain beautiful lady's finger.

Ok, enjoy

Last weekend

2009-06-02T20:49:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Hilary and I made a last-minute decision to visit the Taylors in Spokane, along with Peter and Liz. We stopped and did a few things along the way...

At the Taylors...

Riverfront park...

Spokane falls were bigger than I remembered

Drying out at Starbucks before dropping Pete off

It was a good weekend.

Portland ASA notes

2009-05-19T23:47:00.000-07:00

I'm currently sitting in the lobby at the Hilton, downtown Portland. I came to the Acoustical Society meeting here to give a presentation on the infrasonic mic that I built, and it seemed to go ok... about to head off to bed, but I thought that I'd write down some observations that I've made so far.

1) Portland is a pretty clean, perhaps even more so than Sendai.

2) I've never seen such healthy and intelligent looking bums. I can't figure out what it is about this city but perfectly healthy and capable looking people are shameless about holding up signs asking for money. And while they are doing it I see them gathering with their cronies laughing and talking. Come on guys... really? At least play the part. Most panhandlers in Seattle look like they haven't had a decent night sleep in the last five months (probably because they haven't), but these ladies and gents look like they stepped out of a hostel or something.

3) "China Town" = 3 Chinese restaurants, a block of abandoned buildings, seedy looking 18+ clubs, a hole in the wall selling a bunch of Buddhas, and no one of Asian descent on the sidewalks.

4) I attended a session on robotic models for the vocal tract. Rarely will you hear anything scarier sounding than a mechanical model of the human voice-box stuffed into a plastic skull. They thought it was cool, I thought it sounded like demon possessed plastic. Thought upon exiting the session: truly, we are "fearfully and wonderfully made." We haven't even come close to replicating something like the human vocal tract in any realistic way.

5) Apparently the ASA held a design competition among students for the design of a spiritual center. I browsed among 15 or so posters of very detailed and well illustrated 3D models for "interfaith chapels." (One person, from Korea I think, actually designed a Christian church. That was nice to see). It was very interesting. A lot of people harp on Christians for having such awful aesthetics when it comes to designing modern churches. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of modern American church architecture either, but it was good to see that the problem isn't limited to Christians. I seriously hope, however, that an architect somewhere will wake up and start questioning what it is about the classical architecture from so many cultures and countries that give them an appeal lasting longer than 30 years. But here's the funny thing - the aesthetic hasn't been lost, it's just shifted to different arenas. The people with the best architectural ideas are computer game developers. If I were designing plans for a church I wouldn't ask an architect, I'd hire an artist from Square-Enix.

6) I miss Hily.

7) Dad's a stud.

Pics

2009-05-09T22:35:00.000-07:00

I haven't been posting much recently, (well aware of that) in fact, I haven't been involved in much of anything digital (facebook, etc) because I've been spending a lot of time working and doing things with a wonderful lady named Hilary. At her prompting, I've decided to put up a few photos of things in the past couple months, though, admittedly most of them are from the last week. I've got a lot of snow pictures from the men's retreat that I never posted. Anyway, hope you enjoy

Getting snowed in at the men's retreat:

Kamiak

Super intense rainbow

Luna's

Rook (Tonight - Hil was in Yakima)

Happy birthday!

2009-04-29T09:12:00.000-07:00

Edit: somehow, every time I link to my video I get "America's next top model" instead, so here is a link to the video (for Paula)

Recent stuff

2009-02-09T19:31:00.000-08:00

Thanks for all the comments on my previous post, I really appreciate them. So much has been going on over the last four weeks that I haven't written anything for a while... here's some photos from various things that have occurred. Back in Pullman now... life is good!

Hilary and I made these cups

I took photos of some of the things I machined over the lasts couple years

Pressure sensor

Another pressure sensor...

A flow resistance measurement device

Another pressure sensor (infrasonic microphone)

Isaac got a remote controlled helicopter from Target for 30 dollars.
unbelievable.

I conquered the world.

Said quick goodbye's to a lot of friends.
Ran out of shampoo and had fun molding my hair into various shapes after a few days

Last evening with the Christian grads...

Spent the last evening in State College in the lab, in a panicked frenzy, finishing up a novel preamplifier design for the infrasonic mic.

Flew home

Dad had his birthday party

Got a lot of information squashed into me over the course of a couple days

Went on a date. Saw some amazingly talented young men and women. Talked with some amazing teachers from back in the day.

Sunset from the 12th floor. I forgot about these in Pullman

F 2.8

Valentines day

Tomorrow!

2009-01-20T19:39:00.000-08:00

Ph.D. THESIS DEFENSE

By

TIMOTHY M. MARSTON

INFRASONIC PISTONPHONE CALIBRATION

Thesis Committee
Dr. Thomas Gabrielson – Chair
Dr. Steven Garrett
Dr. Victor Sparrow
Dr. Martin Trethewey

Applied ScienceBuilding
Room 214 (Classroom)
Wednesday, January 21, 2009, 9:30 AM

Sumi drops

2009-01-13T18:04:00.001-08:00

Also, though I opened up that other blog, I forgot to add an address for it. It's here:

www.sumidrops.blogspot.com

My apologies for the confusion! I haven't actually decided to update it much because it seems like nobody actually really cares all that much if photos of their kids are on the web. But, you can go there for a good set of Thanksgiving pics...

ひさしぶりだね

2009-01-13T17:19:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a long time... Christmas break and the weeks surrounding it have been excellent. Hilary came and visited in State College, then we flew back to Seattle together. Had a great time at Christmas with both her family and mine... interesting and somewhat nerve-wracking trips over the pass during bad weather, relaxing and unstressful time with my family... I took minimal photos this year, but here's a collection of some of the ones I did take, along with a bit of commentary:

Taking infrasound measurements in the frozen wilderness hours before Hilary arrived at State College. After driving miles on icy frozen ledges and setting up camp, my equipment broke down. [The story ended well though]

Having dinner at my place with Hilary, Chenggang, and his wife Tiantian (we had a pot roast)

In Harrisburg airport - 0ur original flight was canceled, so we spent the [wonderful] day at the Holleman's (where Hilary was staying). Ash took us to the shuttle at 3:30 am which took us to Harrisburg for our flight to:

Minneapolis. It's cold there.

We flew over this weird double valley with a ridge between them. I want to google earth it...

Tired but hangin in there

On the shuttle from Seattle to Yakima - because of the snow the bus was hours late. The wind over the pass was over 70 mph, and it closed right after we crossed. The shuttle was cooooold, but we met some cool people

Hilary talking on her cell

Next morning we went to church

Christian missionary alliance church

Peter and Emily

Christiana and her friend Sarah (I think that's her name...?)

Singing at church

Kate, Emily, Hilary - dressed like marshmellows to go sledding

Hilary fixing up Christiana before the Christmas Eve service

Christmas eve dinner - Wasterbroaches!

An immense pile of presents: 12^2 = 144, and then some... it took us roughly till 3 the next day to open all of them, but they were so great! Examples:

a big block of cheese
a giant Papaya
cool knives
journals
art
socks
napkins (?)
a billion chopsticks
one giant pancake griddle

Headed solo over to Grandpa Deffenbaugh's house to see the family...

Port orchard actually got a lot of snow this year... this was just the last little bit before melting

Marston Christmas at Kent (where Myron grew up)

Myron picking a gift out of the white elephant pile... turns out we randomly grabbed each others gifts

Myron's girlfriend Lori, she fit right in with the family

Myron owning us all at some game involving the economics of power grids and gas lines

After this last shot my camera lense broke down... never fear though! I got a new one, it came in the mail yesterday, and has been inspiring me to annoyingly take photos of everything [everything] again. Hopefully, things to be posted soon, with the new lense!

But, in summary, it was a really excellent Christmas break. I'm going to be defending on the 21st, hopefully graduating, then moving to WSU for a post-doc!

Thanksgiving break

2008-12-03T16:15:00.000-08:00

Hi, long time no post!
Thanksgiving break was really great. I took a thousand photos (almost literally), and some others took lots of photos with my cameras. I want to blog about it but such a post would involve lots of pictures of named children - something I am fairly positive parents would rather not be tossed out on the internet.

As a result, I am setting up a private blog that you need a password to view, in which I can safely upload photos. Over thanksgiving break, I discovered that I have a lot more readers than I was ever aware of. If you have some connection to me [or Hilary and are just curious about who this fellow is, who is absolutely crazy about her] then by all means, please email me at: q 1 u 1 i 1 n 1 a 1 u 1 l 1 t (at) g m a i l (dot) com. If I've never heard of you, please tell me who you are. And remove the 1's and spaces from the email account name, I just don't want any automatic spam finder to grab my email and send me a bunch of garbage. Thanks,

- Tim

ICF

2008-11-21T18:52:00.000-08:00

Friday nights I engage in conversation with, teach English to (scary thought, I know), and lead musical worship for international students who come to the friday night fellowship on the Penn State campus. (The group is called "International Christian Fellowship"). Today I decided to bring my camera along and take photos, because I've told a lot of people about this group but have never posted any photos.

Also, today it snowed, and was beautiful, and we had a clear intense blue sky in the evening so I took photos of walking to the fellowship room.

So these are stepping out of my building, then walking over the IST bridge, which is a whole other building in and of itself. Possibly the coolest building on all of campus, actually.

In the fellowship room, the church responsible for this weeks food sets up their food on a set of tables and stands behind it and serves along with some of the ICF staff. The students lineup and get the food. This week it was thanksgiving themed food... turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce. It was tasty

Here's Solomon teaching Grace a special handshake, with an interested onlooker standing behind. Solomon is from South Africa, and speaks the Zulu click tongue, a most interesting language which, among other things, features clicking noises made with the tongue. Grace is the ICF student group treasurer and is a real character.

This is HaeYun. He and I beat out various classic worship songs and hymns. We aren't exactly musician extraordinairs, however, we have an audience that loves the music and learns about God through it, so I couldn't ask for more. Sometimes a girl named Johanna sings for us which is good because she can sing loud and well, and neither of us really know how to do that part.

Here's the dinner line in formation. There were a lot of US folks tonight

Here's Bill... he's the head and cordinator of the PSU ICF ministries. He's got his hands full on Friday nights, but here he greets everyone in the line. He knows pretty much everyone there by name, except the new people who always come.

These are some English lesson tables. ICF participants have two options normally: go to a bible study, or have an English lesson in which you learn idioms. Today, at my table was: Changnan (from China), Ali (from Peru), Haeyun (from Korea), Grace (Taiwan), and Keith, who lived in Sendai, in the same building as me, for a whole semester, and I didn't know he was there. We found out afterwards. He is a cool brother in Christ... we tag teamed for the lesson. It was about Thanksgiving, and the origin of the holiday.

We always close with one of the Christian brothers or sisters sharing their testimony. Tonight, Barbara, Bill's wife, shared. She is nervous infront of a crowd, but you actually wouldn't know at all because she spoke very well. Then, we did a couple songs, (Haeyun, Johanna, and I), and then we closed.

So there you have it, that's ICF

Days of yore

2008-11-14T18:18:00.000-08:00

So it was recently brought to my attention that I haven't blogged in a while, and that I really needed to blog. It is much less enjoyable to blog when I have no enjoyable photos to blog about and lately, I just haven't taken any. However, due to a certain highly regarded person's prompting in the matter, I decided to brows through the old files in hopes of finding something interesting that i have not yet blogged about.

And lo! Within C:\WDmybook\Passport315008\Other stuff\desktop backup\my documents\camera\camping I found what I was looking for. I present to you: Tim, Marian, Chris and Josh's most excellent adventure I!

*** background ***

Fresh from a barn-burning senior year in at SPU it became clear to me after graduation that for the past four years I had less than capitalized on my proximity to the abundant natural beauty that surrounds the Seattle region. Having a somewhat phantastical bent, the gigantic, moss draped ancient forests of the Olympic penninsula had always appealed to me most, but I never took the time to go actually see these forests. So, after graduation I organized a 3 day packing trip through the "enchanted valley," a forested valley that empties into lake quinault, and has several of the largest trees of their kind in the world (spruce, cedar, hemlock and... something else I think). Josh - great buddy & study partner, and Chris - room mate and in the same design project team, were the other guys, and Marian was the solo female.

******************

We look intrepid, here, but we're still in our front lawn.

We were going to meet Josh and Chris somewhere in Seattle, if I recall, and then carpool out to lake Quinault, to get our hiker registration (and enormous bear canister (for bear protection (which I incidentally had to lug the whole way))). There was some sort of forest fire creating a haze in central washington then.

What is considered the "world's largest spruce tree" stands at the edge of lake quinault, where we started. Here's Chris standing on one of the giant roots. This tree was... very large.

Marian took this photo for us climbing up the side

This was quite an amazing gorge cut out of rock by the river, ferns were growing out of the sides

I'm not making the blue in that river up...

These are some maples, I guess... thought they looked pretty neat, all mossy like that

Gigantic trees lining the path. They were so large and tall that if you stood at the base and looked up they were bending in the middle... they didn't look safe. Probably explained all the fallen trees we saw in this forest, which supposedly had never been logged.

Hiking in this forest was one of the couple times when, due to natural scenery, I've litterally felt buggish. Bug sized. We were dwarfed by the enormous trees next to us... I know this isn't the redwood forest and all, but these were the most massive trees I had ever seen. The other time I felt buggish was in the Tiger Leaping Gorge...

Crossing a river... almost at our first campsight.

This was the riverbed next to our first campsite (~10 miles in from the trailhead). The Quinault rainforest gets something like 12 feet of rain a year, so sometimes the river is really high, but at this time of the year it was pretty low, and the river is off to the right (you can't really see it in the photo). that evening, we ate something which I forget, listened to Josh tell stories of going hiking with people who packed wrong gear and ended up being sopping wet and cold all night while he was "bone dry." We put the bear canister I lugged up to good use... pitched our tent (Marian and I used dad's old school but butt-kicking 4 season North face tent from the 70's. It had an openable orifice on the bottom to reach through and gather snow, but since there was only dirt below us we didn't really use it).

Our goal was to hike out to see the "World's largest hemlock" (how do they know these things?) the next day, about 5 or six miles up the trail, and return back to the camp. Here's me starting up the stove in the morning.

My ultra cool portable stove that can cook sausages with anything anything from gasoline to jet fuel.

Chris, and me enjoying a hot cup of something. You can see my chacos. Still the same ones I've got now. Hiked the whole way in them.

Hiking out to the hemlock, after breakfast

This was a giant cedar tree that had fallen over. Pretty massive.

I think I'm making that face because of the clouds of mesquitoes sucking our blood.

We cleared the dense forest, and ended up in the "enchanted valley", where a bajillion small waterfalls were pouring down from the cliffs surrounding us, and herds of elk were roaming on the far sides. Pretty amazing place.

Marian, hugging the world's largest hemlock! Ok, the world's largest hemlock is somewhat underwhelming compared to the other trees.

Looking up at the sides of the valley, again

Here's marian at our dinner fire, and Josh in the background

Hmmm so that night, we uh... slept. I think there was some roasting of some delicious food involved. It hadn't occured to me at this time of life to write down the events of the day, when going on an excursion. At any rate, the next morning the plan was to hike back to the car, drive into seattle and catch the Seattle fireworks (it was July 4th) from the amazingly located apartment of one of Josh's chums

Me in the morning

A bear I prevented Marian from petting

A grouse! I think... is that a grouse?

I had a small memory card, so I don't really have anymore photos of note from the hike on the way out. Josh and Chris tore up the trail, Marian and I took a sort of leisurely pace, and I think I remember munching on beef jerky being involved... I haven't eating beef jerky in a long time I just now realized. That's good stuff. Anyway, we got back to the car and my feet probably felt better than anyone else's because I did the whole thing in sandals. Then, we drove back to seattle, went to Josh's place and took showers (thanks Josh), then headed over to Chris's friends apartment, waaaay up some building. Here is the view from his balcony:

View from Chris's friend's balcony. That's I5, lake union, and the space needle in the distance. (His friend's house is in the U-district)

A firework.

So, all the red lightes on I5 are cars parked there to get a good view. Apparently, to the city's great irritation, people do this every year. Beforehand it was fun seeing the cops line up next to the bridge, then watching as traffic came to a complete, sudden halt when the fireworks started. The cops then proceded to walk around dishing out tickets.

So there it was! And, I am completely toast right now so I'm heading home now, but I hope that was interesting

From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise

2008-11-03T16:20:00.000-08:00

Rooting through stacks of paper in her living room, Hilary found these two worship songs written by one of her younger siblings.

With original spelling...

1. By ***
Lord you are my God

Lord Lord Lord.
you are my God. You
are the strankth of
my life. you are the dlekler (dlerler?). You
love me. You help me to.
You are my
you are my Lord. Forever.

2. Lord you are good to me forever

Lord Oe Lord. You are God. I will wershep
you. All my life. God you are my God.
you are good to me.
I can allwase have you.
Lord you are good to me.

By ***

Fractal composition

2008-10-28T17:02:00.000-07:00

Myron got an unbelievably cool website up, that lets you compose midis based on fractal theory. You know those line drawings, with infinite complexity, where you start out with a fork, then each fork forks, then each for forks, into oblivion? Well you can apply this to music, in an interesting way, and create some really unusual compositions. He has the theory explained on his website, examples of his own compositions, and an engine that allows you to make your own.

Give it a shot, www.fractalcomposer.com

New links

2008-10-17T18:02:00.000-07:00

- A few new blog links added to the side bar for your reading pleasure -

Carrie: In Christ Alone
[Hilary's cousin]

Neil: Sylvancreature
[Deep photos, deep thoughts]

Peter: A breath of fresh air
[Hilary's (huge) little brother]

Snook: The Snook side
[More great photos]

3/4

2008-10-16T15:07:00.000-07:00

[photo taken by Elizabeth, Hilary's cousin]

Hilary is like a song written in 3/4

3/4 contrasts with other time-signatures like crimson on cerulean... It's this graceful, beautiful, spinning time signiture that, whenever I hear it, invokes images in my mind of people twirling and dancing. A song written in 3/4 commands my attention, moves my soul

Part 3

2008-10-07T19:06:00.001-07:00

Weekend [part 2] - Highland Games

2008-10-07T16:42:00.001-07:00

Once every year the Pullman Highland Games is held at the Boothman's Pullman house. Men, mostly from SOMA, don kilts and test their strength and skill launching the caber, hurling a boulder, chucking a barrel, and throwing an axe. They also have a kilted race, and a clan competition with a timed challenge. The ladies, also looking very scottish come to cheer on the men. The ceremonies finish with a great feast, music, and knighting of the year's new "William Wallace," the champion of the games.

Being occupied with the market that morning I opted to watch from the sidelines, but even watching was the most fun I've had in a long time and I got to take some interesting photos. Hopefully, next year I will be able to participate...

After we got there, a large crowd of people assembled at the base of a hill, and started moving towards the top.

Some of the kilts were pretty extreme.

Brother-in-law Jacob, veteran and William Wallace twice,

And Karl Olson, founding father of the highland games...

explained the rules in the little grove at the top.
After this meeting, everyone split up by clan, and started competing at the various events. I bumped into a lot of people I had met the night before, as well as people I already knew.

Neil

Snook

Will

Marian

Peter

Alice...

Headed down the hill, and the first thing that caught my eye was the barrel toss. The barrel toss is set up kind of like a pole vault competition. A bar is balanced on pegs between two poles, but instead of trying to vault over it, competitors are trying to chuck a large barrel over it. They have to stand on a railroad tie, and if they fall off, they scratch.

People used a variety of techniques to clear the bar.

Oops, I forgot - before that, I watched the Axe-throwing contest. In this contest, competitors have to throw an axe at a stump, and the goal is to make it stick in the knot in the center. It's hard, but some people are consistently good at it.

Next up was the stone throwing contest. More like a 30 pound boulder... in this event too, a wide variety of methods were used.

In the meantime, festivities of other sorts were being held. Heidi, Hilary's cousin, and her fiance Luke, had met at the highland games last year, and were dressed to celebrate their upcoming wedding (this weekend).

Heidi and Luke

Heidi and Peter (cousins)

People were also just having a good time milling around. Alice was running around getting in the way of the stone throwers and Caber tossers. Marian had subdue her every once in a while...

Various clansmen

Heroes of years past

Bijin san nin: Hilary, Ana, and Kate

Caber toss
The caber toss was a most interesting event. Prior to watching, I thought that the goal was to throw the log as far as possible, but the actual goal is to make it flip over the high end. It counts as a flip if the grasped end of the log reaches 2 o'clock or higher. The cabers ranged in size from:

1) Large and heavy
2) Large, heavy and longer
3) Veritable tree-trunk
4) The city called asking for its telephone pole back

Round 1:

This guy was intense

Ian Skavdahl

Round 2:

Will got a lot of elevation on this one...

Flying scottsman...

Round 3: [only the strong backs survive]
round 4: ... later in the evening

At this point I headed back up to the grove of trees on the hill, because the clan competitions were about to begin. This was probably the most interesting part of the competition to watch... Clans were timed and had to pass two cabers and all of the team members over an ~8 foot wall. Fastest team wins.

The clans got 5 minuts to make a strategy:

Then they all lined up on the starting line:

And rushed over to the wall when the timer said "Go!"

Most of the teams put a man or two on top, then passed over the cabers:

In this particular team, the last one to clear the wall was the little dude in the photo here:

He may have been short, but he cleared the wall faster than anybody else in the whole competition. He jumped up, grabbed the top of the board, and in one smooth motion launched the rest of his body over. It was quite something. Fear the little guys. Word on the street is, he's a Maxwell.

Other teams chose different methods. Some put two people at the top and assisted everyone. Generally however, this strategy didn't seem to work quite as smoothly, and one guy even fell off the other side. He survived, though...

After these events, I headed back down for the barrel and caber tossing finals. At the barrel toss, the bar was set at maximum height. First up was a fierce looking fellow with a fro. He was a bit thinner than the others, but he cleared the bar.

Much rejoicing in his clan...

Neal's barrel cleared the bar with room to spare...

One guy got a huge amount of elevation:
I'd be happy if I could throw a barrel that high

When that was over, it was back to the caber toss. It was time for the final round, and the caber was enormous. In addition to being heavy it was just plain long, which, when the goal is to flip it over, probably doesn't make things easier.

Neal

This guy is pretty huge

This guy was considerably smaller than the other competitors who made it to the final round. Kudos to him. What he lacked in size, he more than made up for in intensity.

Here he is launching it

No one managed to flip it over completely, but Neal made it to the 2:30 mark, which was a real feat given the weight and length of the thing.

The caber toss finals were followed by a clan tug-of-war competition. To raise the odds, a muddy creek ran between the competing teams, and the lossers were drug through it.

The final event of the day was the foot race.

We walked the course before hand... it was quite a challenging course... not so much for the up hills, but for the extreme, body breaking drop-offs people had to run down, hairpin turns, and trees to duck under. A course of courses, I wish they did this sort of thing back in my SPU days.

Clansmen started in a large field:

Hurdled the creek:

And headed off into the fields

The competition took place right at sundown
They finished up the race thundering down a hill

Recrossing the creekAnd racing through the field to the finish line, where they started:

Someone handed Neil a Pipe as he neared the finish line... seemed to suit him

After the race, everyone piled into the house, and feasted a giant feast. Everyone was merry, the food was extremely good, and, of course, because this was at the Boothman house, there was singing. Good singing. I am kicking myself for not bringing my video recorder... I took off early, but later in the evening the new William Wallace was knighted (the fierce guy with the fro from the barrel launching finals).

Definitely an enjoyable competition, hopefully next year I won't just be a bystander...