Working for the weekend

Marina Del Rey sunset

I’ve been in Los Angeles for business since the beginning of November. I have a nice apartment just five minutes from the famous Venice Beach. The weather is beautiful—there’s no better place to be in November than sunny California—but I spend pretty much all day every day in a recording studio. Even Saturdays. I only get Sunday off to enjoy the great outdoors.

And the outdoors are great. Check out some more photos.

I’ve only been in the US for two weeks at this point, so I’m still going through a little reverse culture shock. Of course there are good things, like the food. I’ve had some great Mexican, Greek, Indian, Thai, Italian, Chinese, etc. meals that either don’t exist in Japan, or would cost at least double. (The exchange rate is certainly in my favor right now.)

But one thing I can’t stand about LA is the traffic. If the roads are empty I can make it to work in about 7 minutes, but going home the other day took over 30 minutes. In absolute terms that’s not bad at all, but a 300% variation in transit time? If I had to deal with this every day I think I’d go nuts. I guess I’ve been spoiled by Japan’s public transportation.

Moving along

Yokohama by night

It’s been quite a while, so quick update:

• I left my CIR position in Ikata and took a job in Yokohama, localizing video games.
• I’m in Los Angeles on business for most of November. Sunny California is a good place to be in November!
• I moved my blog to… here!

So there you go—the last few months of my life summed up in three sentences.

Captured! Again!

I sat front-and-center at the opening session of a job fair recently, and was rewarded with my mug in an article in the Nikkei Business newspaper.

Where’s Waldo Aaron?

Front row at the JETAA Job Fair

HDR, too!

Mountaintop photographer

HDR photography seems all the rage these days, so I thought I’d try my hand at it too. I thought I needed a fancier camera, but it turns out really all you need is to use the simple exposure adjustments that most cameras have.

So far all of my HDR photos have been from handheld shots, and they’ve turned out ok (especially at smaller sizes). On top of that, the software is all free! I used the Gimp and JD Smith’s excellent exposure-blend extension. So you, out there with your cheap point-and-shoot and $0 software budget, can do it too! Barriers to entry don’t get much lower than this.

But, I should say that aligning your shots is tricky without a tripod. I hope to get one one of these days.

My new thang

I’ve been getting more and more into photography lately, in that half-assed way of mine. Ever since getting a new camera last November I’ve been slowly absorbing little tidbits like photo retouching, panorama stitching, and hacking my camera.

What I’m most pleased with just now is my panoramas, like this one:

Onomichi, Hiroshima

I discovered Hugin, an open-source panorama stitching suite that runs on Windows, Linux, and OS X. It makes great, practically seamless panoramas out of even poorly aligned photos; it’s leagues ahead of PhotoStitch, the OEM panorama software that comes with Canon cameras. Unfortunately the current version (0.7), which automates pretty much the whole stitching process, is unstable on OS X so I’ve been running it under Ubuntu in VMware.

See some more of my panoramas:

• Mikame coast north of the Susaki Kannon
• Mikame bay
• Yawatahama Sports Park
• Onomichi and Mukai island
• Onomichi at dusk
• Ikuchi island and the Tatara Bridge
• Kōbe cityscape
• Marugame cityscape (super wide)

Click the previews at the links above for the full size photos.

Spring is here

Onomichi sunset

It’s been quite a while since my last substantive update, so I’ll keep this brief.

• I ran my first half marathon. It was just a practice run for an upcoming competition, but it was great. Unfortunately I soon afterward hurt my foot and had to sit out the actual race.
• The last ekiden (relay race) of the season was yesterday. I managed to run 5k in 19:59, which is probably the fastest I’ve ever run.
• I decided not to recontract, so some other lucky person will get to come and internationalize this pubic hair on the right testicle of Japan.
• I’m thinking I want to go to China to study Mandarin for 6 months or so, but I’m having a hard time choosing a school. Any recommendations?
• This weekend I’ll be biking across the Shimanami Sea Route (link fixed), a series of bridges connecting small islands in the Inland Sea between Shikoku and Hiroshima. I took the above-right picture last November from atop a mountain in Onomichi on the other end of the route. Onomichi is the most beautiful city I’ve ever seen. In the future when I’m independently wealthy and have villas and vacation homes all over the world, the first place I’m going is Onomichi.

Captured…

…on film! Some random person caught me and M in a shot of the local train station. Weird.

M and I at JR Yawatahama

In other news, the copious photos of mountains and coastline that I’ve taken here in Ikata are finally up in Google Earth. Check it out. Most of the photos in the area are mine

Here we go again

Sadamisaki Lighthouse

If I was a less cynical man, I might say that this picture symbolizes a new beginning, a fresh start for 2007. In actuality, it doesn’t symbolize anything but my harrowing journey to the edge of the known universe, where this god-forsaken lighthouse stands. M came down from Tokyo to enjoy a little country living; little did she know she’d nearly disappear from the face of the earth into the choppy ocean waves.

I broke down and finally picked up a Nintendo DS Lite along with two games: Tokoton Kanjinō (とことん漢字脳, a Kanji practice game) and Animal Crossing. I’m enjoying it, but the hunger for even newer, more exciting games is already ripping through my insides.

I spent New Year’s Eve at a coworker’s house. He and his family treated me to dinner, and I joined them in the ritual first-temple-visit-of-the-new-year (初詣 hatsumōde). Then I taught his kids the card game Shitboot, which they now know and love by the literal Japanese translation, クソ長靴 (kuso nagagutsu).

While watching episode after downloaded episode of Law & Order: SVU, I’ve been pondering whether 2007 will be a good year, or merely the same as every other year—namely, not horrible but nothing to write home about. Can a jaded man become un-jaded? Do they have that yet? If we can put a man on the moon…

世界の果てにも自販機

The loneliest vending machine

日本語を勉強してもう１０年になるんで、今更おどろくことはないだろうけど、こんな世界の果てみたいな殺風景の中に自動販売機が一台ぽかんと置かれているのを見ると、どんなに不思議な気持ちか。

この自販機の場所をちょっと説明しよう。伊方町は佐田岬半島の付け根にある。ちょうどその付け根のところに山脈があって、その山々は半島と四国本土を隔てるような形で連なっている。山を貫通する道路に沿って行くと、保内町という町があって、伊方にはない買い物や遊びがあるので、よく行っている。

しかし、その山を越えるのが面倒なら、また一つ道はある。それは、海岸沿いの裏道。坂を上るよりは楽だろうと思って、ある日この険しい道に挑んでみた。

楽じゃなかった。

どこまでもくねくねと傾斜のまま続く道を、僕の身長に全く合っていない自転車をこいでいくと、山の間のちょっとした谷を抜けて、伊方の側に出てくる。そこで望む景色はまるでSF映画に出てくる架空の惑星みたいだった。目の前に海が広がり、ところどころに小さな島の姿が霧の中にほのかな夕焼けに照らされぼんやり浮かんでいる。閑散とした風景を見渡すかぎり人の気配もなく、忘れられた古代の遺跡を幾千年もの末に再発見した冒険家になった気分だった。まさにこの世の果てまで来てしまった、と思ったその時、

そこに自動販売機があった。

闇にくっきり浮かんだその蛍光灯は文明のしるしとなって、こんなところまで人間の手が届くよと、一見微動もせず自然界に闘いを挑んでいた。山という海に漂流して流れ着いた僕は、筋肉と精神の力を最後の一滴まで絞り出すように一歩いっぽ歩み寄り、脚に力が入らず自販機にもたれかかり、ふるえる手に持った小銭をやっとの思いで一個いっこ入れて三ツ矢サイダーを買ってゴクゴクと飲んだ。冷たいジュースが喉を伝って胃に当たると、生命の力がふたたび湧いてきて僕の体を限りのないエネルギーが巡りはじめ・・・

ちょっとドラマチックにすぎちゃった。申し訳ないっす。

Minatoura Bay at night ＋詩

Minatoura Bay at night

I set myself up a Flickr account and ever. so. s-l-o-w-l-y uploaded a couple pictures.

This is a particularly poor picture, I know, but it was one of the first I took, so I feel that I should properly present it first.

My town is on a long, snaking peninsula. There are bays and inlets abound, and I live at the lip of one. I was extremely bored one night, so I took a ride around town on my brand new bike, well after all the shops were closed and the people asleep (or just at home watching TV).

The bay at night is quite a sight to behold. It cuts fairly deep into the peninsula, so you don’t actually see the open ocean; from most angles, the bay looks completely surrounded by mountains, more like a lake than anything else. This night the mountains were shrouded by mist, the moon was out and bright and almost full; the whole scene had a kind of majesty that is best appreciated after living in Tokyo for a year.

I tried to take a picture, but my phone just wasn’t up to it. No amount of finagling could wring more than a few points of light from the inky sky.

The good news is that such a picture compresses quite well, and was quick to upload.

佐田岬半島にある湊浦という地域の港景色。夜景がとても綺麗で、携帯で写真を撮ろうとしたらまったく写らなかった。そこで詠んでみた、

月てらす夜のみなとうら影あおしナイトモードでもケイタイ写らず