Storm surfing

So I finally went surfing, for the first time in four months or so. We went to Chiba. It was stormy with rain and 30 mph winds, but we drove all the way down to Onjuku, where it was offshore and actually pretty hollow and nice. The waves were still kind of all over place, since it was sandbar, and there was a current, so it was hard to line up and catch anything. After an hour or so, my hands were so numb that I could barely duckdive. Mostly I just caught close out waves with a few close out barrels. Still it was really fun to go surfing. Hopefully, it won't be four more months before our next session. Btw, Christian, the 4/3 and booties are plenty warm. I didn't even use the hood.

Do Not Mail Campaign

I don't believe in forwarding e-mails to friends, but I think you all should sign this campaign, so I'm putting it here, since this is voluntary. It is to create a Do Not Mail registry like the Do Not Call registry, enabling you to eliminate all your junk mail once and for all. Here is the url. http://donotmail.org.
There are some pretty appalling statistics. US junk mail accounts for 1/3 of all mail sent in the world. Ouch. You can also fill out a form that they will use to help you reduce your junk mail now. There have been other articles about this, but they actually send the letters for you, so it is extra simple.

zotero

I have been working on putting in footnotes for these chapters and have finally gotten around to actually using this program I downloaded a while ago. It is basically a free firefox extension that enables you to get bibliographic information of the web very easily. Most library sites, amazon, jstor, projectmuse, etc, are all supported. It also organizes your bibliographies and you can attach files and notes. Anyway, if you need this kind of a tool, it is very, very nice. Download at http://www.zotero.org/ and enjoy.

Sport Utility Bicycle, aka. Extracycle

I found out about this while wasting time on grist, a new favorite way to waste time and not feel like it is a complete waste of time, because I find cool stuff. Anyway, I was so stoked about it, it is generating a mid week post. I know that these are a little pricey, but think of it in comparison to a car. Plus, you'd probably make it all back in saved gas over a couple years. This pict is not impressive, but you can haul surfboards, kayaks, camping gear, groceries, two kids, and more comfortably. Check out their website. Based in North San Juan (by Roger and Yakshi).

Dissertation

Sometimes people ask how work is going. . . So, do you want the long answer or the short answer. The short answer is, "fine." The long answer is maybe fifty pages, single-spaced, plus lots of notes. If you want that, let me know, since I'm always looking for comments. But to fill out the short answer a little, it's a bit hard to stay focused and I get sidetracked on all this stuff I really need to know, but really isn't going to make it in the dissertation. Already, the two chapters I have written have spawned another chapter each. Or rather, after writing half what I had planned, it was already too long, and I could see how the remaining half could be it's own chapter. Which is fine, except that my current time schedule doesn't really allow for a five hundred page monster. Anyway, these kind of meaningless logistical problems aside, is anyone beside me interested in Ennin's Record of Pilgrimage to the Tang in Search of the Law? Or its place in the journal tradition of East Asi? How it speaks to the question of the Japanese appropriation of Tang culture in the early Heian period? It seems like I already have a vision of the whole thing, and although that shifts slightly as I fill in the details, the actual dissertation writing is much more the sometimes interesting, sometimes tedious job of filling in all of the details. But there are so many details I don't have time to go after, so many questions I can't answer, so many things I should look up, but don't seem to have time to. Even if I do, I can hardly keep them straight in my mind. Anyway, let me know if you are interested in any more than this, and like I said, I can e-mail it to you.

Takao

So we went and watched the Cannell's three boys for the weekend again. They are great kids and get along with our kids well, so it was fun for all. I went on a short run and appreciated their scenery, which is way nicer than ours. There is a neat park in walking distance and we had some really fun games of never ending freeze tag, or kori oni (freeze demon). Never ending because Miriam didn't want to be able to be frozen, just unfreeze people. Got home Sunday morning and it is always nice to be home too. Now we get a weekend of babysitting sometime soon. Any suggestions. Other than freezing death march (uphill through ice and snow, both ways) in some wilderness, since I think have that one figured out, plus we already did one not that long ago.