Floor plan -- usability

This blog has been pretty dang stagnant since I returned to Japan. I'll invite Dad to the blog, let's see if he can get into the swing of posting photos here.

And now, a realistic "How to USE the space" floorplan: (Click to zoom in and read it)

Holy moly! I'm in Japan.

What? I'm leaving for the airport? In 20 minutes?? ..and I'm writing this at 3:45 am?!? What???

Yes. Please check Tokyo, Top-Down View for my Tokyo job search progress--I mean, more photos of my Japanese food. ..and my Japanese toys. ..and crazy stuff I see on the subway.

More Reconstruction to ensue after I return, in March.

ciao babe!

Blog distractions

So.. you've noticed that the blog didn't get attention in a long time. Here's why:

My ipod will kick your butt at chess

For those of you who want to reconstruct their mp3 player, check out the rockbox operating system. Be sure and get a theme for it. (I figured that out about month after first getting it.)

Reason number 2:



Love the 80's throwback stylings. If you like real time strategy games without the uber-violence, and the movie Tron, I recommend darwinia.

Unfortunate consequences

Bird + Glass = Sad.

The bird feeder is far away from the window.. there are probably a few hundred different birds who ate here the last three weeks. But one wanted to come inside. :-/


(This is the view towards the house, from the bird feeder.) It's strange to realize that the glass is a bigger threat to the birds than the cat.


This cat has _no_ hunting instincts. Through the window is as close as it wanted to get.

It made me wonder how bad is it? It's not _that_ bad--here in the country, there is a lot of life and so, a lot of death. Birds die all the time. It's natural. But maybe there's a way we can minimize the impact our construction has on the surrounding environment. That got me thinking.. that idea seems applicable to all kinds of things.

Anyway, if you know of any "birds can see it" kind of window coating, which doesn't impair the view of said birds from the inside, please let me know. Thanks :)

Flooplan 2.Lance

Let's make our house better! Here's my idea the house can change: a new flooplan!



As you can tell from the next post, today I had some free time. Click below on Labels: floorplan to easily compare with other versions.

What do you think of my floorplan idea? The new parts are in bold. The big [?] is either a storage closet, or a stacked washer/dryer.

If you like, you can make your own version of a new floorplan. The easy way to do that is open this blank one, which also has lables for a few things with Paint (in Windows, Start > All Programs > Accessories > Paint. For Mac is it still called Paintbrush?) For those vector graphics artists out there, I'm happy to share my Inkscape *.svg files by email. (Me likey free Inkscape.)

Home again, home again..

.. the 4139 mile drive is over! (That's 7450 km for those of you with a reasonable unit system.) We had great weather for each of the 8 days of driving--no rain, and our tires only touched ice for 2 seconds. 1 second near the giant redwoods (C), and 1 second near Flagstaff (D).

But: now that we finished, I talked to my friends The Weather Gods, and today it is snowing!!



Even the cat is happy, as you can see below or on this video. (Actually, the cat is always this happy. He's a "pet me" slut--sad, isn't it?)



PS My award for "Most IQ-Challenged Hotel Staff" goes to Bristol, VA (H). Congratulations!

on the road again..

Well, Christmas is over. You can tell when Christmas is over, because you're drinking beer in a hotel, and your back hurts from driving too much.