Happy New Year from the Neohawk.org Family

I tweeted and posted very short messages at midnight. However, those were scheduled as I really didn’t want to struggle to get them through to the network as the rest of the United States did as well. I wanted to take my time for a real New Year’s greeting.

Hopefully this post will fulfill that greeting.

--

2011 was a year of transition for the Neohawk.org family. Overall a good year but what’s a good year without some stress to make sure the gray hairs arrive. Here’s the rundown.

Elly finished her freshman year at American University on the Dean’s List and now an “Honor’s Student”. She spent the summer at home working at Target but took off for AU as soon as she could. And this time she pretty much took everything with her, sort of a message to us that she ain’t coming back to Cleveland “to visit”. It’s bittersweet. I cannot help but be proud and excited for her. At the same time it’s sad to think that it’s over already and that she’s her own person now and not my little Elly.

One of the best things for us her parents was the fact that Elly has had the chance to take up dancing again. She is taking a Ballet class as part of her schedule but she also participated in two other performances as well. Arisa and I went to see the AU in Motion (Facebook page) in November. The show overall was tremendous. Given there was wide array of dancers from good to bad, from classical ballet to hip hop and Bollywood. The dancers clearly had worked hard on everything and the show was fun. To be honest though Elly stood out. That’s largely because her piece is designed that way (she was the Sugar Plum Fairy) but also because she was the by far the best ballet dancer.

Happy New Year! 明けましておめでとうございます

Happy New Year! 明けましておめでとうございます

Christmas 2011

So like a lot of other people, we celebrated Christmas yesterday and are spending today recovering. It's a gorgeous day outside and I am inside writing this post.

Oh, no I'm not. See ya later.

So If

I were to post to my blog would the world care? would google plus notice?

Pizza at Crostatas

This last Thursday night Arisa and I, just the two of us, went out for dinner. This is not an occurrence that happens often. In fact, it's been pretty rare. Though I expect it will start happening a lot more than it has in the past since Elly and Ken are off at college and George isn't far behind.

In particular, on Thursday during the day at work Arisa had her OBP1 certification test at Hyland Software. Yes, Arisa and I now both work at Hyland. Anyway, Hyland has a fairly extensive training program for new employees with "certification" tests afterward. Needless to say all the training is in English as are the tests. So for Arisa it was a very long and mentally tiring day. George wanted to go see the Mayfield Varsity Soccer team play Shaker in the District Finals at Brush High School so we dropped him off and went to eat.

Official Google Reader Blog: Upcoming changes to Reader: a new look, new Google...

Hattip to John Hardy for this Google+ post.

Official Google Reader Blog: Upcoming changes to Reader: a new look, new Google...: Posted by Alan Green, Software Engineer In the next week, we’ll be making some highly requested changes to Google Reader. First, we’re goi...

If you read through that article it seems like a pretty cool thing in that there will be tighter integration between Google Reader and Google+. I like that idea. However,
Google continues, unless there is something left out of the article that we don't know about, to ignore Google Apps. There "improvement" for Google Reader is nothing of the sort, at least for me since I use it with my Google Apps account.

Here is what they said:

Reader's social features will soon be available via Google+, so in a week's time we'll be retiring things like friending, following and shared link blogs inside of Reader.
We think the end result is better than what's available today, and you can sign up for Google+ ...

So what they are doing is taking away functionality from Reader. That functionality will be replaced with Google+. So far so good. Read that next line though which says "you can sign up for Google+".

Well, no I can't. I have a Google Apps account and Google Apps cannot sign up with Google+ or anything else that requires a Google profile.

Neohawk's New Homestead

Most of you know that the Northeast Ohio Hawkins Family moved to a new house at the end of June.  For the first time ever, Arisa and I have purchased a house!

Our new homestead is only 5 or 10 minutes away from our previous residence, so George will be attending the same school - Mayfield High School.  We did move to a new city though and we are now in Highland Heights, but Mayfield City School District includes both Mayfields (Heights and Village), Gates Mills and Highland Heights.  The house is about a 5-10 minute bike ride to and from the school.

The house is not that much bigger than the house we were in previously, but the layout is much, much better.  The house overall is in much better shape and incredibly higher quality of any house we've lived in so far.  We bought it with the idea that it'll be really for just Arisa and I as we'll be empty nesters soon.  George has three more years of high school, but beginning this fall both Ken and Elly will spend most of their lives away from home.  Elly, of course, is a sophomore at American University while Ken is a freshman at Villanova University.

While the house isn't that big we have close to one and a half acres (約6000平方メートル). Which for me means alot of gardening space.  As you know, in our previous residence we did some gardening.  Unfortunately, last year I was traveling too much to take much care of it and this year too much flooding to even start.  And then when it dried up some we had already decided to move so I never did plant a garden this year regardless of this post that indicates otherwise.

This summer for me was mostly be about planning and preparing for next year.  I will be planting at least two gardens and a third one eventually.  For the most part, these will be vegetable gardens, though I may throw in some flowers for variety.  In fact, we have a little "hill" that's up against the Euclid Creek where I am planting some native flowers such as the purple cone flower and some others.  Hopefully, these flowers will fill up the area instead of the weeds that were there until Elly and I ripped them out.   In addition to this area, I will be building a raised garden in front of our shed. The plan is for it to be fairly big but we are building it in halves. The first half I'll do this fall, the second half next fall. There is no reason to rush any of this since we'll be here for a while (knock on wood).

One of the big things we need to figure out is what trees to cut down and/or trim. There are three maples next to the house that need to go as they are pushing up against the foundations and will probably cause leaks. We also have two beautiful but massive oak trees in the yard. Both 50 - 70 years old. Unfortunately between the two of them they pretty much shade the whole yard making it very difficult to figure out where to put gardens. But it is more than that - we have probably 6 maples other than the first three I mentioned, 3 pines, another oak tree, an ash tree, a hickory tree and some spruce/evergreen trees and shrubs. Oh, and a dying cherry tree.

I intend to cut down some myself, others we are debating to keep them and, therefore, only trim them. Others we just aren't sure we want to pay to cut them down. So it's a problem we're trying to figure out. And in the meantime I am dreading the fall when all these trees shed their leaves.....

That's enough for now for this post as it has already taken me close to two months to write it. Time to get it out of the way and move on.

グーグルプラス（Google+)

最近、グーグルはグーグルプラスというソーシャルネットワークをリリースしました。最初は登録を限定していて、いまでも制御しているみたいですが、基本的にグーグルアカウントを持っていて招待があれば入れます。

フェースブックとある程度似ているけど、違う面もあります。僕は結構気に入ったところが携帯電話で握った写真を自動的にG＋にアップロードします。アップロードされている写真が最初は自分しか見えない状態で、どなたに見せるかを決めるわけです。

共有、公開などが一般公開（どなたでも見える）から一人のみということができます。g＋ではサーカル（輪）を他のグーグルプラスのメンバーを入れて整理します。例えば、僕の場合は「Japan」、「仕事同僚」、「グーグル」、「友達」、「家族」などのサーカルをとおして整理しています。

自分としてはがっかりした点がneohawk.orgの独自ドメインでブログ、メールなど、オンラインアイデンテティ（？Identity)を作っています。Neohawk.org はグーグル・アップスを利用しています。残念ながら、グーグルアップスのアカウントでグーグルアップスに参加することができないんです。これがグーグルBuzzと同じ問題です。

結局はプロフィルが問題になっていて、どのようにグーグルアップにプロフィルを提供するかは解決できてないままです。 AppsをBuzzのユーザーに提供するぞといったのが一年前ぐらいですが、まだできていない。同様にグーグルプラスに提供するぞと約束しているのですけど、一切いつごろ提供するかを一言も言っていません。

残念です。

Really, AT&T?

So as some of you may be aware, the Northeast Ohio Hawkins Family is changing residences once again. We had been renting a house for since 2008 or 2009 but that lease is up at the end of this month. Yes, in just a few days.

So I call up AT&T to have my Uverse service moved. We are shutting it off on the 29th and wanted service to start up as soon as possible. Unfortunately, "as soon as possible" meant July 11th for AT&T. Okay, so I can grasp they have full schedules of installing.

But what surprised me is this: 1) I need to return all of the equipment, 2) I will need to pay $36 activation fee for turning the service on on the 12th of July when the installer will bring new equipment.

Huh? I'm not cancelling service, I'm moving it. My equipment isn't broken why do I have to go to all the effort to take it to a UPS office? And pay $36 to activate the account? What!?

But most amazing of all is that they fully intend to charge me for the two weeks I will not have access to their service.

Really, AT&T? Really?

International Folk Festival - June 26

Upcoming Events at Arts Collinwood - Waterloo Arts Fest

Power Breakfast

 This is my favorite "power breakfast". The calories in this thing have to be huge. But it's not completely unhealthy either. In fact, take out the bacon (God No!) and the hash browns and it should be downright brilliantly healthy.

First off the omelette uses cholesterol free eggs subsititute. So while the calories may still be there no cholesterol from the eggs. I chopped and cooked up green onion, yellow onion, red bell pepper, green bell pepper, garlic clove, mushrooms and spinach. For the sauce on top, the same but cooked with one small tomato and other seasonings (basil, etc) Hell, even our egg-hater Ken likes this omelette.

The granola bar is a creation of Arisa's. It is really good actually and feels more like a candy bar. It contains over 15 different ingredients including oatmeal, peanuts, quinoa, almosts, and various dried fruit. It probably has too much sugar for it to actually be considered "healthy", but I'll tell you what it's really good. Arisa's work mates are asking for the recipe but she won't give it out - but that's more because I think she's still trying different balances of all the ingredients.

Last but not least is the smoothy. This smoothie is truly a power drink, exceedingly high in protein and vitamin C. I have been experimenting with various fruits and in various proportions. This particular drink includes 1 quarter lime, 1 half lemon, 1 apple, 1 bannana, 1 orange, 1 kiwi, 20 blueberries, 10 blackberries, 10 raspberries, 4 strawberries, 4 large spoonfuls of nonfat yogurt, one scoop whey protein, and 5 cubes of ice. One word for this conoction - DELICIOUS.

I've mentioned in other posts this year, I am not on a diet, nor am I truly trying to lose weight - though I should. My focus this year is to remain cigarette and smoke free. I am no 146 days without a cigarette - or in different terms I have not smoked 2929 cigarettes since January 4th.

On the other hand, I am putting on weight since I tend to eat food as a substitute. I've tried simply eating carrots, for example, but that's boring. So I end up cooking something as well. Since that's the way it's working out I've decided to try and make healthy items. Relatively healthy mind you.

Neohawk Cherry Tree in Full Blossom

The other day I posted about the cherry trees donated by JANO to the Brookside Reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks being in full blossom. Well, our own cherry tree is in full blossom as well.

Our tree actually produces cherries as you may remember from last year(see my posts here and here). If I recall directly, the number of cherries is directly related to the number of blossoms on the tree. If so, then we will have a bumper crop this year. Of course weather and birds will most likely reduce the actual number of cherries we get, but still I think it will be a lot.

Wheat Germ Meatballs and Pasta

Last night's dinner. A meatball pasta dish. The meatballs had added nutrients because we used a wheat germ recipe that we found here (third one) on the internet - Thanks Shirley!

If you are curious, the drink is raspberry tea. I may have to sweeten that tea a little bit next time.

2011 Sakura Mankai

Yesterday on the way home from work, I stopped by the Brookside Reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks to check out the Cherry Trees that JANO has donated in full blossom.

Rain, rain go away

The rain is getting to be too much.  I can't prepare my garden

Tragic Disasters in Japan, the Japanese Response,And What Can Be Done to Help

I just this over on JANO's blog but apparently the Kuninori Matsuda the Consulate General will be presenting remarks on the Tragic Disasters in Japan, the Japanese Response,And What Can Be Done to Help at the Law Offices of Margret Wong (MAP) on May 5th, 2011 from 5pm to 7pm.

Invite PDF

Tragic Disasters in Japan, the Japanese Response,And What Can Be Done to Help (PDF)

Running Late but It's seeding time

Okay, I guess I'm technically supposed to start at the end of March. So I'm running a little late, but it's still early April and it's been a cold March. And a cold start to April too. Heck, just a few days ago it was still in the 20s and 30s.

Though I'm not sure if it's still on the blog since I transitioned to blogger, but last year I got an offer from Hometown Seeds to give there seeds a try. I am getting the seeds for free for writing about them on my blog. So yes, you may want to take what I write with a grain of salt because even if I intend to write objectively, chances are unbeknown to myself, I'll be cutting them a break. I just wanted to get that out there upfront.

JANO 2011 Sakura Picnic

JANO's annual picnic will be held on Sunday June 16th at the Brookside Reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks. Check out the flyer and set aside the date.

JANO 2011 Sakura Picnic(PDF opens in new window)

Looking forward to it this year and hoping the weather will hold.

JANO is having a really busy spring, particularly with volunteer activities related to raising money for the victims of the March 11th earthquake and tsunami. We have already participated in some, will be participating in some more. In addition, a hundred or so of us are off to watch Ichiro on May 15th.

With all of that activity, we are hoping that the picnic will be a little special this year.

ずっとうそだったのか？

知りませんでしが。

 

AHA - Japanese Food & Cultural Experience to Support Japan

Japanese Food & Cultural Experience to Support Earthquake and Tsunami Victims event will be hosted on Tuesday, April 12th at the American Heart Association in Cleveland.

Japanese Food and Cultural Experience (PDF, opens in new window)

AHA Cleveland Metro Map

The events to raise money for Japan keep coming in which is absolutely great. I know JANO had collected quite a bit of money and I'm assuming that the Red Cross has done very well too.

If you have donate, please consider it!

 

Saks Fifth Event for Japan

Another event to support the victims in Japan. Click on the image to enlarge it to see detailed information.

I have some more information coming, but also make sure to check out JANO's blog. In particular you'll want to see this category on the blog.

SCOOP: Coming Soon: The G-Slate with Google tablet

Got this from T-Mobile today. They have my interest...

More info HERE

Hodge Podge of Results - Google Profile

So the other day, Google announced it's "+1" service which sounds pretty much like any other "like" type of feature except that is provided for Google Search Results. Which is pretty big deal I guess since Google is close to monopoly status on search - at least in the U.S. Your plus ones are going to show up on your profile page - this one below is for my gmail google account.

Robert Hawkins - Google Profile

Various Blog Views

So I found something really interesting today - 5 different views for blogger blogs.

While I should be at work, my car broke down and is in the shop. I had to take a day off while it gets fixed. So I ended up poking around the various google sites and services I have. Particularly since that along with Google's "+1" announcement, that Google would be offering "Google Profiles" to Google App users finally. It's been a long time coming. So I was poking around to see what was what.

One thing lead to another, and I then stumbled on this view of my blog: robataka's blog. Soweeeeettt! Try the Flipcard view or the Snapshot view Maybe the more traditional Sidebar view is more to your liking. Or maybe Mosaic.

Pretty damn cool if you ask me. So the question is can I get it to work on the JANO blog. And will anybody even use 'em?

今日の気が付き 日が暮れる

I noticed this for the first time when listening to Twilight on Vangelis' The City album.

日が暮れる

それが時の魔法、

明日の同じ時違う魔法

それが色は香りに　

香りが色に変わるとき

そして、影は限りがない青にとける

                Twilight

                Vangelis The City

Android Blogging

So I just found this app for the android, an app that lets me blog from my droid phone.

National Cherry Blossom Festival: Stand with Japan

I just found this site today - National Cherry Blossom Festival which is kind of embarrassing since a friend of mine from JANO has been telling me about it for a couple of years. But I noticed Elly had linked to on facebook. So I checked it out.

More importantly, though, I noticed this event they are having - "Stand with Japan"

The Festival invites you to Stand With Japan at the Washington Monument, followed by a walk around the Tidal Basin in the spirit of hope and rebuilding.

Beginning at 6:30pm on March 24, people will gather at Sylvan Theater (15th Street and Independence Avenue, SW) before walking the Tidal Basin. All donations received throughout the fundraising effort will go directly to the National Cherry Blossom Festival Red Cross Online Donation Site, directly benefiting the Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami fund.

FUNDRAISER/ HAPPY-HOUR for JAPAN - MONDAY MARCH 21

I received this today, so if you want to meet some great people and help a really worthy cause, feel free to attend the following fund raising party.

JANO Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund

JANO has announced the start of their Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund to help the victims of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on March 11,2011. See the details here:

JANO Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund

JANO　東日本大震災義援金募集

東北地震

グーグルは東北地方太平洋沖地震の災害に関する情報や被害状況をリアルタイムで更新していきます。 それと、家族など、Person Finder (消息情報): 2011 日本地震を公開しています

これを書いているうちに日本海側に振動6強があったそうです。日本の皆様の安全を祈っています。

実はラジオやテレビからJANOあてに取材依頼が来ているんです。残念ながらJANOがそのような対応が出来ないんですね。　というのは、チャネル１９およびWKSUに返信したように心境的にテレビなんかでる場ではない気がします。岩手県などに親戚がいる方はテレビやラジオに出るわけがないと思います。だって、心配で心配で仕方がないるような気分になっていると思います。家族と友達の安全確認できている方も出たくないと気がします。

もし、テレビやラジオ取材を受けたい方がいるなら、メールをください。紹介します。

How to calculate calories?

As I mention in my long, slow quick update, I've been working out less to lose weight than to quit smoking.  So I haven't really been focused on losing weight.  The funny thing about exercise though is that almost by default you start to lose weight.  Well, actually not weight per se, since it seems that I have stayed pretty much the same weight, but I have certainly gotten thinner.  The jeans I wore yesterday are a testament to just how much I lost. Trust me on that.

Anyway, even though I haven't been focused on losing weight, I am more conscious of what I'm eating particularly since all of my numbers were elevated thought probably not death sentences yet.  So I've been eating items with more omega-3s, fiber, etc., etc., yada, yada, so forth and so on.  I've largely switched from drinking milk to soy milk, for example.  In fact, I'm probably drinking the soy milk more than I ever drank milk.  But I'm also replacing milk in recipes with soy milk, at least sometimes.  

I've also recently downloaded a bunch of 'droid apps that hook up with web sites that help you track your workouts, calorie intake, etc.  But the one thing I don't get is how to calculate calories for something home made.  Most of the apps have pre-defined calorie counts and other nutritional information available because the food they are referencing are commercial products and provide that nutritional information.  But  what about the omelett I made for breakfast this morning?

My Breakfast Omelette

• 1/4 cup egg substitute ( = 1 egg)
• dash of soy milk (1/4 cup? less?)
• 1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese
• 1 green onion chopped
• 1 slice of small onion chopped
• 1/4 green pepper chopped  (if you think of the green pepper as having 4 corners, the 1/4 is just one of the corners)
• 1 garlic clove chopped
• handful of shredded mozzarella cheese
• 2 strips bacon cut in half
• 1 tablespoon Canola oil
• 1 slice of bread

So how do I calculate the calories contained in the above?  I know the cheese and the bacon are my real gotcha's on this ingredient list, but you just gotta have them or it's not a proper breakfast!

Note, along with this I would have some fruit and probably some yogurt.  Those I can figure out, particularly the yogurt.  But what about my omelette?  How do I get the nutritional information for that? 

So I'm headed off for a workout to burn off probably 300 calories(?).  I'm guessing, no hoping,  that'll use up the calories from my breakfast.  Then I'll be sitting pretty on the calorie count front today.

僕とケンも合格！

このあいだ、ジョージが日本語能力試験合格通知が届いたと投稿しました。そのときに僕とケンも試験を受けたにも関わらず、通知が届いていないことでちょっと気になっていたんです。　気にすることはなかったですね。　昨夜、仕事から帰ったら僕とケンの通知がとどいていたんです。

ジョージは日本語能力試験合格

ジョージょが合格しました！　12月にシカゴへの旅について記事をアップしましたが、主に旅の内容でした。 でも、もともとシカゴに行った理由は日本語能力試験を受けるためです。 ジョージだけではなく、僕とケンも試験を受けました。 ケンとジョージは同じN3レベルに挑戦しました。 僕はレベル１を挑戦しました。僕とケンはジョージが先にもらい合格ということで後で届くというのは不合格になるじゃないかと心配しています。　しかも、今日は大統領の日という祭日なので郵便配達がないわけで早くとも明日にならないと届かないので余計に結果を気になります。

ジョージ君、おめでとうございます！　

Bob's Red Mill 10 Grain Bread Mix

Today, I'll be making Bob's Red Mill 10 Grain Bread Mix. It's been kneaded and has been set aside to rise for the next 90 minutes.

禁煙、ヘルシー食事、運動

昨年末には医者さんのアポがありました。ちょっと恥ずかしいんですが、本当はかなり久しぶりに医者さんのとこに行きました。でも、ありさに約束していたし、年末に余った有休の残りを使う必要がありましたのでアポを取りましたというのhが建前ですが、本当は一番メインな目的がタバコをやめるためにChantixのprescriptionをもらうためでした。それが出来ましたけど、やはり色々なテスト結果があって、もっと健康的な生活を送らないと危ないなと思い始めたのです。ありさに言わせれば、やっと大人になったって、この面に限っていえば。。。笑。

Bangkok Thai in Lyndhurst

昨日、ジョージがウインターフォーマルという学校主催ダンスパーティに行っていました。ケンがもうシニア（4年生）なのでウィンターフォーマルに行くと逆に恥ずかしいということで行かなかったです。ジョージはAlfredo's at the Innというレストランに12人で行ったそうです。半分はカープルですが、実際に「付き合っている」カープルが一つだけだったらしいです。残りのカーブルが「友達カープル」でその中でジョージが入るそうです。ありさがジョージから聞いたらしいですが、相手の女の子が他の男にシツコク誘われていて、その男と行くのが嫌でジョージに助けを求めたらしいです。可愛いインド系女の子に助けてあげるジョージが可愛い。

ということで、ありさ、ケン、と僕も外食すると決めました。

The Long, Slow, Quick Update

I started this post out as a quick update several weeks ago. I kept getting interrupted and it never made it out the door to be published out here on these internets. So I changed the title to The Long, Slow, Quick Update from simply Quick Update.

Tuesday, I officially enter my fifth>sixth seventh week of no smoking. 33 39 days ago I quit smoking and since then have not smoked 674 788 cigarettes. It's astounding to me to think of it in those types of numbers. It would have never crossed my mind. I have also saved $204 and 54 cents $239.66.

Almost 5 Days

This has been a tough week for me. Don't mistake me, it was not tough at work, or no more than usual anyway. Nor was it tough at home But it's still been a tough 5 days.

I have now gone over 4.5 days without smoking!

Mangini Fired

Okay, so Eric Mangini was fired. I'm not surprised really. Those last four or five games were just horrible. I trust Holmgren so far. At a minimum his insistence on getting Colt McCoy seems like it's going to pay off. So if Holmgren decided that Mangini isn't the answer that's okay by me. And some of the decisions Mangini made and what I understand about Holmgren's preferences offensively, I can see why he would decide that Eric is just not a coach that fits the desired mold.

Browns Blow in Season Finale

The Cleveland Browns were blown out by the Pittsburgh Steelers 41-9 in the final regular season game.  The Browns were putrid.  No other way to say it.  The number of drops by receivers today must have been like record breaking.   The defense, to give us fair warning on the quality of the rest of the game, allowed a 56 yard TD pass on the Steelers first offensive play. Believe it or not, it got worse from there.

Neohawk Tweaks

I am in the process of making some tweaks to the Neohawk.org. The first will hopefully be largely transparent to people. I realized that neohawk.org, the naked domain, wasn't actually being pointed to anywhere useful. So I made the DNS tweak to forward it to www.neohawk.org, which is the top level site on Google Sites.

The other change I made will be visible only to those folks accessing this blog from from a mobile phone. I have enabled Blogger in Draft, even though I'm not really sure what it is, and that gave me access to blogger templates just for mobile devices. The url for the mobile version of this blog is http://robataka.neohawk.org/?m=1.

Accordingly, I have changed the QR on the right sidebar to point to the mobile version as I'm guessing most folks would use their phones to scan it.
It may be a little bit until I figure out the final DNS changes that do what I want. So you may have only intermittent access to www.neohawk.org. It'll eventually settle down, so go do something and come back later. Or not. Whatever you decide is fine by me.

New UI For Google Groups

Two people I follow on Google Buzz, Andrew Maxwell and Chris Lang posted about Google Groups new user interface. Which finally got me off my duff to take a look at it. I had been wanting to revisit Google Groups as a possible service to provide for our JANO members to share information. Then around the same time that the transitions to new infrastructure for Google Apps I noticed that Groups was showing up in the pull down of the navigation menu.

George's Most Recent Work

The following image is a picture I grabbed of George's pc monitor. He is making this robot in a graphics program called Gimp which comes with just about every distribution of Linux.

I'm no artist but that looks amazingly detailed to me.

Dinner at a Friends

Tonight Arisa and I went to a friends for dinner. And what a great dinner it was.

Arisa made Soki but the pork bones weren't quite as good as they were in Okinawa, but the meat was excellent. Our friends made some great dishes including Salmon with a delicious sauce, grilled chicken with a Satay Sauce pasted on, and Soba.

Great food to go along with a great conversation.

Browns Give Ravens A Christmas Gift

The Cleveland Browns lost to the Baltimore Ravens today, 20-10.  Or rather they gave them the win. Three interceptions and and a fumble lead to 10 points by the Ravens.  A botched onside kick lead to another 7 points.

Poor clock management at the end of the first half by the coaching staff (and Colt McCoy as QB) limited us to another 3 points with only a couple of chances for the end zone instead of a more consistent attack.

These last couple of games have been extremely painful to watch.  And next week against the Steelers will be again, I think.

But I've made my decision.  The coaching staff of the Browns should remain.  What I've seen this year is a vast improvement over last year.  We improved our roster though there were so many holes to fill it was impossible to do it in one year.  But we have some players, Ward and Haden in particular.  Hollis looks good an I'm looking forward to seeing Hardesty if he can remain healthy.

But I've also seen improvements by the coaching staff.  Do they have their foibles.  Of course they do.  But just as Mangini did some major changes to his personal life (at least he lost a lot of weight), I think that they are working on themselves as coaches as much as they are working on coaching the players.  Considering their age, they have lots of time for improvement.

My preference is for consistently good football team not just a year here or a year there.  I think Steelers whom have been good for the last 30 years.  Have they had a few bad years?  Of course they have but they haven't blown it up every time they do either.  The way to get there is to not demand playoff appearances a year or two after rebuilding.  It means staying behind your staff to allow them to grow and learn from their mistakes.  It requires stability.

So the combination of progress on the field, the progress of the coaches themselves, and a desire for stability I've decided that Mangini and crew should stay for the foreseeable future.  As Ken Carpenter said in reply to me on twitter that may mean I'm on crack, but so be it.  And I'll continue to be hard on the coaches, particularly Daboll but I think I'd like to see these guys grow and build the Browns into a consistent powerhouse.

 

Burke Lakefront and a Dinner Conversation About Cleveland

I saw on Cleveland.com today something I had missed earlier this year - a proposal to close Burke Lakefront Airport (PDF) in order to use it for a new port by the Cleveland Port Authority. While I'm not sure I agree with using it as a port, I certainly agree that the airport has to go. Particularly since I've been to Chicago and seen what their lakefront is like. Burke is an eyesore, useless except for the very rich, and an unbelievable waste of lakefront property.

A vast stretch of lakefront property in Chicago is a park, Millenium Park I think it's called. So while we visited on a snowy day in December and there weren't that many people using the park, I can imagine it being absolutely packed during the summer. Of course, Chicago also has the Navy Pier from which the above photo was taken and they have an absolute gorgeous skyline. With current trends in Cleveland, we won't be able to match that but we can certainly do better than what we have right now with Burke Lakefront Airport ruining access to the lake.

Present Report

Santa was good to us again. Elly, Ken and I already received our main presents during thanksgiving due to the kids expiring cell phone contract. We all got T-Mobile MyTouch 4G phones which we are all liking very much. George got his first cell phone for Christmas so we all now have cell phones. What that means is that we'll be cancelling Vonage. I'll update folks on our new "home" phone when the time is right.

We got George the $15 prepaid plan which comes with no "talk" minutes but unlimited texting. Reality is that we really don't call each other very much and George would have to make an awful lot of calls for us to worry about the incurred charges at 10¢ per minute. Since we will be moving George to our plan in 6 months I've set George up with a Google Voice number an associate it to his cell phone number. That way when his phone number changes in six months he doesn't have to worry about upating people on his new phone number.

日本のお風呂

アメリカに来てから一番欲しい日本のものってやはりお風呂です。　アメリカは主にシャワー世界ですが、もちろんお風呂場があります。映画でよく出てくるやつですね。　日本お風呂と比べると、細長いですし比較的に奥が薄いでして、座ると腰ぐらいで全身にお湯に入りたいなら寝る形になります。　このようなお風呂って、水面の面積が大きくてすぐに温くなります。冬場に温いというより冷えてしまうわけです。　アメリカに来てからシャワーではなく「お風呂に入った」って片手で数えるのです。　いや、二つの指が十分です。

日本に住んだ頃、小説をもってお風呂に入って体を温めて寝ることが多かったです。 その一息の時間が好きだったんです。　アメリカに来てから借りているアパートと今の家では奥が深くないお風呂とシャワーのもので１回お風呂に入ったのですが、満足感がゼロ。東京に住んだ頃に狭いアパートのユニットバスの方がいいぐらいですよ。　やはり、サンターに日本のお風呂をお願いしたいです。

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas all. I know that not everyone who reads this blog(all two of you) are actually Christians, however, take my Merry Christmas in the spirit it is given regardless of what you believe. As you will see on another post I am preparing I'm not particularly "christian" either. But I've always believed in Christmas as a celebration of family, love and giving. If you can't believe in that regardless of your actual religion, or even lack thereof, then we probably aren't friends. Merry Christmas anyway.

The following is this year's Christmas card that due to technical and time problems we didn't get out this year.

The following is the note that my wife added to the email we sent out in lieu of regular cards this year.

Happy Holidays!

To this email, I attached a picture of the Cleveland Hawkins Family. Included is a picture of Grandpa. We all miss him very much. Here are some quick facts from this past year.

Robert : Robert traveled a lot this year. He currently has 7 projects that he's working on for Hyland. He took Ken on a College tour during the summer and he is very happy that Ken's favorite was Wesleyan.

Arisa(me) : I started a part-time job this year to help support our family. I miss Elly, who is studying hard in American. With only boys(Robert is included) in the house, I constantly worry about the state of our house, and often tell them to clean their rooms because Santa is coming.

Elly : Elly is a Freshman at American University at D.C. She tells us that she enjoys her new freedoms, and life in general. Her major is "International Business". You cannot tell in the pictures, but Elly cut 12 inches off her hair for a new look.

Ken: Ken is a Senior at Mayfield High School. His soccer team made district champions for the 3rd year in a row, and now they have a spot in the school hall of fame. As with Mayfield tradition, Ken bleached then dyed his hair. Ken even cut his hair into a mo-hawk. The soccer shirt he is wearing in the picture is from Grandpa and Grandma Ishii(japan).

George: George joined the soccer team this year. He also got his temporary license, adding some new grey hairs to Rob's head. Although in the picture you cannot tell, He has grown, and is nearly as tall as Ken. The picture is of him tutoring a Japanese boy, which he does every week.

We all hope to see you soon.

The Cleveland Hawkins Family (Rob and Arisa)

As you can tell, Arisa's English isn't perfect. I still think you get a sense of what our year was like. The year started off on a grim note, with us taking a trip down to Charlottesville VA to say good by to my Dad on New Year's day. 10 days later he had passed on, and we made a trip out to Boston for his funeral. The funeral, while a sad event, obviously, was also a really fun time. It has been quite a while since the extended family had gotten together, or at least a long time since my family and I had a chance to participate.

Life goes on though, and Elly was accepted and matriculated to American University. With the exception of one "b", she got all A's and did well enough in Calculus that she didn't need to take the final exam! Ken was on a team representing the State of Ohio at the SkillsUSA contest in Kansas and came home with a gold medal. He played varsity soccer, is in all honors or AP classes at school with the exception of "Chefery", which is what I think they used to call home economics. Several years ago George was labelled "gifted" by the State of Ohio and while I'm still unclear as to what that means, he is also in all honors classes, and getting straight A's. What really surprised me was his joining the soccer team. I certainly didn't expect it. While still not the best player - he had never played before - you could see improvement in foot skills over the season and just as importantly an understanding of how the game is supposed to be played.

Arisa continues to be the rock of this household. This year she is transitioning from focusing on her online business to finding a job. She currently works at Target for a minimum wage job to help the family finances. This job is just a step for her. As she looks for a job one of the things that really hit home is that she needs to improve her English. So she has drastically reduced her efforts in her online business to focus on studying English. I could tell that she's improving, probably not where she needs to be yet, but improving. But more importantly she is really trying, and she will get there. I really appreciated her efforts last night at dinner where she was very talkative and it was clear she was trying to use her English.

The other thing we found was that companies don't really take her online business seriously. Regardless of the fact that the amount of work across the spectrum of the business, from market research to marketing communications, to sales, to customer support(to some of the pickiest customers in the world) and P/L tracking, she is not working for a "company" and therefore it is discounted. So the job at Target is part of the plan. It helps the family finances but gets her working for a "company". The other major part of the plan is already in the works as well. We have gotten her transcript from Japan and it "officially" evaluated to be the equivalent of a B.A. here in the U.S. The next step is for her to take the Social Worker licensing test for the State of Ohio.

While I continue to be a cog in the machine at Hyland, both Arisa and I are active with the Japanese Association of Northeast Ohio. I am, not surprisingly, involved with the web team which is probably the most active part of JANO other than our two main events, the Shinnenkai and the Sakura Picnic. We have three other volunteers that make up the web team and they are truly spectacular. One of their more important roles, other than posting to our website, is the "welcome" they give to Japanese nationals that are moving to the area. I am currently tracking an email thread from an individual who will be attending a graduate program beginning next year. Over the last 3 or 4 days, 20 or so emails have gone back and forth over such things as health insurance, places to live, what to bring from Japan, what not to bring from Japan, etc., etc.

For JANO, this support of Japanese coming to Northeast Ohio prior to arrival is a relatively new thing and it has been hugely successful in my mind. Almost every single person we've helped has turned around and become a JANO member. But more importantly, I think they are arriving with substantially increased ease-of-mind. For many of these individuals, moving to Northeast Ohio will be there first time outside of Japan - and moving to another country for anybody can be a worrisome thing just because of the unknowns of a new country and culture. I think it is telling that the vast majority of people these ladies have helped in 2010 became members of JANO.

Thank you ladies!

Obviously, there's a lot more that happened in 2010, but in the end I think it was a good year with the huge exception of losing my Dad. And most of all, looking back on it, I realize how lucky I am to be surrounded by some of the best people in the world - my kids and my wonderful wife. Merry Christmas guys, I love you!

JANO Shinnenkai - 新年会

If you are not a JANO member please send an email to info@janosakura.org
JANO非会員の方、お手数ですがinfo@janosakura.orgまでご連絡ください。

なお、会場の都合上　お申し込み先着順１００名様までとさせて頂きますので、予めご了承ください。
Limited to 100 attendees on a first come, first serve basis.

Grandma Molested at the Airport

Hat tip to Linda Lawry on Buzz for posting this. I got a kick out of it.

The reality of it thought, is that songs like this one help us on our way to accepting the situation. Which I'm not really sure should be the case.

Baffling Browns

The Browns lost to the lowly Bills today in a game that has me completely at a loss. I have no idea what to think. I am clearly in the camp that this team has improved drastically this year and therefore the coaching staff should be safe. But a game like this does make me question that.

What I can't understand is how pathetic the offense was today. Is it Daboll or is it Jake Delhomme? Or are our wide receivers so bad that they can never get open so Delhomme has to pass to Hillis at the line of scrimmage? Why does our offense seem better when Colt McCoy plays? Perhaps its because when we stink I give him a rookie pass?

I just don't get it. That was a game worthy of last year's pathetic team - it wasn't competitive and it wasn't fun to watch. It did not represent progress. So clearly while the coaching staff should stay throughout the rest of the season, I'm less convinced they should stay passed it, progress or not.

Med Mart Thoughts

Recently, I read in a Bloomberg article that Toby Cosgrove, CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, was quoted as saying this about the Med Mart planned for Cleveland:

“What’s the worst thing that could happen if this fails?” he said. “You have a brand new building and a new convention center. So the downside isn’t too bad.”

This strikes me as complete hubris related to his brainchild. What we get it is an empty new building and 20 years of taxes to pay for a failure.

Note, I am not against the Medical Mart per se. In fact, I like the idea of trying to leverage the Clinic's and University Hospital's expertise in the Medical industry. It's one industry that while it may have ups and downs, you can't export it to a different country.

What bothers me about the plan for the Med Mart and convention center is that there appear to be no plans b and c in case our competitors, Nashville and New York City pound us(Cleveland) in the market place. It seems an awful large burden to place on Cuyahoga County residents with no safety net if it fails to generate the business that they claim.

Now the reality the problem isn't Toby Cosgrove since he simply is pushing for what he thinks is a good idea. My problem comes in with the stewardship of Tim Hagan. He and Dimora (Peter Lawson voted against it I gather) have put all the eggs in the med mart basket with zero risk management or planning in the case it doesn't work. I've heard Tim on the radio a couple of times and I actually kind of like him (the mark of a professional politician), but in this particular instance he has not done the job.

Regardless, now that we are down the path and too far to back out, I'd like to see the Med Mart/Convention center succeed. But I'd also like to see some alternate planning and ideas.

ケンとジョージ、漢字検定9級合格

子供が凄いな。このまえ、ケンとジョージが漢字能力検定試験を受けましたが、立派に合格です。

もちろん、子供よりありさが凄いですね。毎年の夏に日本語を子供に教えています。前日、2時間もかけて教えているそうです。ほとんど、子供が文句を言わないし、真面目にやっているそうですけど、子供よりありさが教えるための準備などに努力してこの結果になったことですよね。いいママですね。

エリーは大学4年生が取る日本語授業を受けていて、結構いい成績が出来ていると思います。もちろん、エリーがケンとジョージより日本語利用時間がなかったのであんまり驚いていないんですが、大学で週に2ー3回授業があることでどのぐらい上達しているだろうかと気になっていて仕方がないんです。

Short Trip to Chicago

This last weekend Arisa, Ken, George and I took a little jaunt to Chicago. We were there for two different reasons: to visit the University of Chicago and take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT). We left Saturday morning arriving in Chicago at around 1pm Chicago time. Other than me connecting to other flights at O'Hare, it was the first trip to Chicago for all of us. I gotta say, I was impressed with this city which is probably not surprising.

The first thing we did was to check in at the Courtyard Marriott at Midway. After chillin' for a bit, we then went on to see the University of Chicago.

クリーブランドにアムトラック(電車)があった

この間、エリーが帰って来たと英語でブログしましたが、エリーがどう帰って来たと書かなかったです。実はエリーが電車で帰って来て、昨夜アメリカン大学に電車を使って戻りました。

というのは、エリーが帰って来ると楽しんでいたのであんまり帰って来る方法をあんまり気にしていなかったです。でも、昨夜に駅まで連れていた時に「そうか、電車があったのか」と気がついたのです。僕はクリーブランド生まれ・育ちですが、シェーカーハイツからダウンタウンまで、そしてターミナルタワーから空港までの電車以外に電車があるとあんまり意識したことがありません。いや、あるかと考えさえもしていなかったです。クリーブランド内の電車しかないとずっと思っていました。

駅の場所は以下です:

View Cleveland Amtrak Station in a larger map

 

駅で電車の写真を取ってみた。朝2時だったし、携帯電話で握ったので写真の品質がちょっと悪いかもしれないけど、雰囲気をつかめると思います。

 

エリーに曰く、この電車に寝室があります。それが必要でしょうね。だって、Washington D.Cまで13時間かかるわけです。

来週末に日本語能力試験を受けるため、チカゴ市に行ってきますが電車で行けるかもしれません。値段次第ですね。

Romeo

2010年感謝祭 - Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

今年の感謝祭は自宅でした。母はボストンに行っていますので、5人家族だけでした。特にエリーがワシントンDCのアメリカン大学にいってから始めて帰って来ていますので5人だけで楽しく過ごせました。

Welcome Back Home Elly

Elly arrived back home to Cleveland early on Wednesday morning having taken Amtrak from Union Station in Washington D.C. She was more than cheerful after a 13 hour train ride and still being awake at 4 in the morning.

グーグルアップ世界が広がる

先週ぐらいからグーグルアップの世界が広かっています。グーグルアップは独自ドメインでグーグルメールなどを利用するサービスですが、ビジネス、学校、政府、個人むけのサービスです。もともとはグーグルドック、グーグルメール、グーグルサイトなど六つぐらいの基本サービスに限定されていました。ピカサとかリーダーとか他のグーグルサービスを使いたかったら、グーグルアップと全く別のアカウントを作る必要がありました。先週木曜日（18日）にグーグルエントプライズブログでグーグルアップアカウントで使えるサービスが大幅に増えたと発表されました。６０以上のサービスを利用することになりました。

Browns Lose Another Close One

The Cleveland Browns just lost another close game to the Jaguars.
With a little over 2 minutes left in the game, Maurice Drew-Jones
breaks out for a huge gain, finally stopped by Joe Haden on the 1 yard
line. 20 seconds later the Jags went scored the game winningTD. Colt
and the Browns did an admirable job to in the final 1:40 to try and
score, but the Jags got an interception on a bobbled catch.

The thing that sucks about this game is the absolute inability to
generate any offense after five interceptions. That's five
interceptions and only one field goal out of it. True Phil Dawson
missed to FG attempts but they were both 50 yards or more.

My question for you experts out there is this - why was the offense so
anemic? Injury to Wolmak? No WRs? Did Ben Watson play at all in the
second half?

What happened?

PD Lack of Transparency or Just Dishonesty

I posted a few months ago on an article by Ted Diadiun, the "Reader Representative" for the Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com by extension. In that post, Ted is warning us all that we need to be wary of commenting and publishing online. Clearly the nuance of that column is to leave to the schooled professionals since they are aware of what they are doing.

In a separate article point out by Jill over at Writeslikeshetalks, we find Ted trying to take the high ground on ethics in context of the Keith Olberman donations to political campaigns. Even the title suggest the Plain Dealer has irreproachable ethics: Avoiding even a hint of bias: Ted Diadiun. But I like this quote:

The Plain Dealer, like most newspapers, has a list of ethical guidelines developed over the years:

Browns Lose Great Game

The Cleveland Browns lost last Sunday to fall to 3-6 on the season. And I'm good with it. Read this @ WFNY first.

Back? Okay, great.

I agree wholeheartedly with WFNY. While we lost the game, and made some mistakes, the Browns are fun to watch again. Would it have been nice to have Chansi take the safe, smart play and step out of bounds? Sure. But I will never complain about a fumble when someone is putting in extra effort. Disappointed to be sure, but the reason the Browns were in the game at all was all the extra effort going into it - except for that final play. That's the only play I found to be inexcusable at this level. The same thing goes for Peyton Hillis' fumble, Joe Haden's pick and the attempt to throw long near the end from the 3 yard line. All of these are effort at winning the game.

But most of all, I'm excited so far by the play of Colt McCoy. That under two-minute drive for a touchdown was a thing of beauty. I'm really looking forward to his development as the Browns quarterback. Can you imagine if he actually had a #1 WR how much this offense would open up. And I'm also looking forward to Hardesty if he can stay healthy. Can you imagine what our offense could be with two good running back and the superb fullback we have?

Can you imagine? Last year, I just wanted the games to end so I didn't have to watch - not sure why I did. This year though, I'm looking forward to the games which in and of itself is a massive improvement over last year.

And at this stage of the re-building, that's all I'll ask. In a year or two, if we are not in playoff contention then I'll get annoyed. But for now, I'm just enjoying the fact the Browns play competitive with the best teams in the league.

Browns Pound Pats

Okay, so the game against the Steelers I thought the Browns played well even though they lost. Then they played even better and pretty much spanked the Saints. After watching the Browns since returning from Japan, they have been bad. So those two games were a definite improvement but I wasn't sold on them or the coaching staff.

Last year, I even called for Mangini's head early on in September. Since the didn't I gave him a free pass for this season, but in return I have called for Brian Daboll's head as this year was some of the worst play calling I have ever seen.

Crow, meet my mouth.

Response to He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named

As many of you know, I'm a Cavs fan and I was a he-who-shall-not-be-named fan. Until "The Decision". I now try to ignore news about him, but it is hard. And this response to his last tv ad is just to good to pass up. I'm sure many have already seen it, but here it is for your viewing pleasure anyway.

 

Cleveland Asian Festival 2011 - Save The Date

The date is set for the 2nd Annual Cleveland Asian Festival - May 21 and 22, 2011.

First Snow of 2010

Yes. It is snowing today. The first of this year. Well, first of this year on this side of summer anyway.

 

盆栽はどこで買える？

会社の同僚が親戚のため盆栽を買ってプレセントしたいそうですが、北東オハイオならどこで買えるかは分かりません。　どなたか分かりますか？　

Browns Beat Saints!

What a great game to watch! The Browns beat the New Orleans Saints with a final score of 30-17. But more than winning, it was the way they won. The offense wasn't great, but it didn't need to be. It needed to be solid and it was. In particular with that long 7 minute drive in the fourth quarter. Mostly Hillis just doing what he does, running and hitting defenders as hard as he can.

And the Special Teams made some great, fun-to-watch plays. Cribbs throwing across the field on a punt return; the punter Hodges faking the kick and running up the wide-open middle of the field for 68 yards. Just not plays I would expect the Browns to call let alone execute effectively. And both lead to points.

And the defense was excellent. Yes we got burned on a couple of plays, but for the most part Brees looked completely confused. He was intercepted 4 times, two being pick 6s, and was sacked 3 times. So while the Saints racked up close to 400 yards of offense, in the end most of those yards were for naught as the Browns found a way to stop them.

I tweeted during the game that for the last two games I have been relatively pleased with the offensive play calling. I wondered whether that represents the impact of Mike Holmgren. And while that may be true, the reality is that I think it's the play of Colt McCoy. Granted, the offense didn't do much in this game. I read over at WFNY that we had grand total of 12 first downs and I know we only had something like 74 yards passing. And 12-13 of those on the trick play where Hillis threw a pass to Colt McCoy. The reality is that we don't really have any wide receivers that keep defenses honest, but we were still able to make a long time-consuming drive when we had to. And that's progress.

But I think the real reason that I've been pleased with the offensive play calling is Colt McCoy. In his first start he reminded me a little of Brady Quinn, or rather a deer caught in headlights. But that didn't last long and he started to show confidence and leadership. He looked that way for the whole Saints game. And I don't remember specifically, but I don't remember a boneheaded play. At a minimum, there were no turnovers.

My problem with Delhomme is not the picks, but the types of picks. Any quarterback is going to have picks. It's gonna happen when you have NFL caliber defenses to play against. What I don't like are the boneheaded picks, like the one Jake had in the first game as he was getting tackled. He's been in the league too long to try and make a pass as he's going down. That's boneheaded, and that's my only concern with Jake. Other than that, he reads the defenses well, can audible successfully.

I also like what Seneca brings to the table. With one exception - his throws to the sidelines are 10 yards out of bounds, not even giving the receivers a chance to catch the throws. Yes, the defense doesn't have a chance to pick it because in most cases the receivers have been covered, but its a waste of a throw. And I saw that multiple times with Seneca.

With Colt, though, I haven't seen a boneheaded throw, and for the most part his accuracy is dead on. Throws to the sideline are where only our receiver can catch it. Regardless of whether the throws have been successful or not, he puts it where it needs to be.

So I'm tempted to say Colt should start for the rest of the season. I hear many commenters say that's what the want so we can determine whether he's a "franchise quarterback". I disagree. We don't need a "franchise quarterback". What we need is a servicable quarterback as we get folks to fill the roster - like the right side of the line, some quality receivers(!!), something for better pass rush and coverage. We have so many holes still that Brown's fans obsession with quarterbacks is annoying.

Colt is more than good enough. But what I don't want is to rush him along and get him hurt. So I'll come down on the side of if Jake and Seneca are healthy Colt goes back to third quarterback on the team.

MHS Soccer Ends Regular Season

Mayfield High School's boys varsity soccer team ended the regular season with a 2-1 win over Lakewood High School.  They ended the season 12-3-1 and are headed to the playoffs where I expect them to do real well if they don't have mental lapses.  If they do as well as I expect, they will run into St. Ignatius in the District Finals again, although I must admit I don't know the seeding or schedule.

More importantly though, Ken actually got playing time in a game where MHS wasn't up by 3 or more goals.  It was still 1-1 when came in to the game. And for probably the first time this season, Ken came is a midfielder.  They had him in as right midfielder.  So he got 10 minutes playing time in a position he hasn't played all season.

And most importantly, he scored the winning goal in a scrum in front of the net.  

Congratulations Ken!

And congratulations to the rest of the team for a great regular season!

Adding Discus to Blogger

Has adding Disqus to blogger gotten any easier?

Maybe, just maybe: http://www.cooltricksntips.com/2010/06/add-disqus-comments-to-blogger-blog.html

Testing from my Neohawk.org Account

I am testing the email posting capability  of blogger from my neohawk.org email account.

This weekend I am looking around at some of the changes related to the Google Apps infrastructure change that I took advantage of for the Neohawk.Org domain.

For example, I logged into my Google Sites site that I use to play around and see what's up with sites this morning.   It has been a really long time since I have logged into a google sites.  One of the first things I notice is that the "announcement" content type now provides an RSS feed.  The lack of an rss feed was one of the major reasons I never seriously considered Google Sites a serious solution to anything.  It was simply a toy.   Now that it has rss feeds at least for the announcements content type that may change.

I can certainly think of possiblities for using sites now.  Since one use case I have certainly doesn't require any serious effort to provide a nice look and feel (sites ability to customize look and feel still sucks, but I guess that's the price you pay for an easy-to-use, highly google apps integrated site).   Unfortunately, that use case requires that we get JANO re-classified as a 501c3.

Oberlin Hosts Kenny Endo Taiko Concert

Kenny Endo, a world-renowned taiko player, along with four other equally talented musicians in a concert that focuses on Traditional Japanese instruments, like fue, shamisen, and koto, as well as contemporary jazz influences, like the vibraphone will have a concert sponsored by a taiko group at Oberlin University.

Sorry for the Noise - Transferring Posts

My apologies if you got a rash of posts via my rss feed.

I try to keep neohawk.org/blog and this blog in sync, but I had let it go for a while.   I need to make a more concerted effort to do this as I think that at the end of the year, I will be completely migrating to this blog for the neohawk.org website.  I have been using byteflow on a virtual host for a few years now and am certainly more than satisfied with it.  But the virtual host does cost money, minimal though it is, which I'd rather not pay if I don't have to.  

Additionally, blogger added the capability to add up to 10 static web pages to a blog which is more than sufficient to handle the minimal amount of pages I have at neohawk.  Moreover, with the transition to the new google infrastructure this fall, I'll be able to use my neohawk.org account to manage the blog.  So that's part of it even though, as I point out in this post, that at least for the time being, it will not be possible to manage blogger from the google apps dashboard.

But in the end, it's one less payment and one less thing I need to manage.   With blogger, I'm just a user I don't need to worry about managing the infrastructure behind it.  It just is.

Actually, this is a pretty big decision.  I have been "blogging" since 1999 though the vast majority of those posts are sitting on DVD.  I started with a simple html web site, but quickly realized it's limitations.  I moved to Zope, and then the CMF (Content Management Framework) for Zope.  I then switched to Plone.  Upon moving to the U.S. I realized that Plone was way more than I needed and it's resource requirements was not something for which I was willing to play.  So for the last 4 years or so, I have been using Django, and in particular Byteflow, a blog system built on it.

I've always like running my own servers, and playing around with new open source software.  These days, however, I simply do not have the time.  And so, in combination of being able to use my neohawk.org domain not only for google apps, but the most of the rest of Google's services, I will make the transition.  

But I won't make it until Google force transitions my google apps domain to the new infrastructure.  So we still have a couple of months before this blog becomes www.neohawk.org.

Thoughts on Today's Diadiun Post

Ted Diadiun, the reader representative for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, posted a piece on Cleveland.com today (9/26) that could be characterized as a scare tactic to keep people away from blogging, or as he suggests a “public service” to make people aware of the dangers of publishing online.

He starts the article/opinion piece off by providing three lawsuits involving what he calls in quotes, “citizen journalists” (notice the pejorative use of quotes). I am unaware of two of the three cases he cites, nor does he actually link to anything that would provide information on these lawsuits. I am aware of one of them thanks to Groklaw. In particular this post regarding a concept called “implied license”.

Browns Lose Again

The Cleveland Browns lose again. It's hard to fathom this year's edition of the Browns. They remind me of the Cavs of a few years ago that once they hit the locker room at half time they lose all sense of pace, focus, intensity, or anything resembling a will to win.

No Dual Citizenship for You

Yesterday, a friend posted on her blog (Japanese) about an article in the New York Times about the famous Japanese conductor, Seiji Ozawa. She pointed out that he has dual citizenship, U.S. and Japanese. My children who were born and raised for most of their young lives in Japan (the older two's first language was Japanese) have dual citizenship. However, due to Japanese law, they must choose one or the other by the age of 22.

This choice is still a few years away for them. However, I looked at the link to the Ministry of Justice that Clara had in her post. And sure enough the Japanese Government is asking to choose your citizenship by age 22. They even have a PDF pamphlet you can download! (and what's with the blurry PDF? Is it just me, or do others see the PDF as blurry? ) The consequences of not voluntarily choosing is to possibly lose your Japanese citizenship.

Oooo, now that's a real threat. That'll get us to make sure we pick.

If my kids have to choose, they'll choose U.S. citizenship. The only possible negative impact to them is if they are already in Japan when they lose their Japanese citizenship - they may get deported for not having a proper Visa(clearly not a good thing). Other than that, there is zero motivation for them to go through the time and effort to let the Japanese government know that they are choosing U.S. citizenship since by not doing so that choice is "automatically" made for them.

You really have to wonder what the Japanese Government is thinking. As parents we both love both countries and want to have our kids feel pride about both their countries and cultures. The Japanese Government is pretty much guaranteeing that kids will have a bad taste in their mouths left over from having to choose. They will certainly like Japan a little less for it. And to what end? What's the purpose? Keeping the race pure? But that doesn't make sense either since anyone born in the U.S. is automatically a U.S. citizen, it is possible that a "pure" Japanese also has dual citizenship.

In the grand scheme of things it is zero impact on my kids' lives. No I may be overly proud of my kids, but the only losers is Japan. Of course, they may not thinks so. I am absolutely baffled as to the purpose of this. What are they trying to achieve?

Gauging New Google Apps New Infrastructure

So I have a domain registered with Google Apps that I use for testing and development. It's a Standard Edition with only a few users, all of which use English. So basically, this domain met the criteria for becoming an early adopter of the transition to the new Google Apps infrastructure. The infrastructure that basically makes a google apps account operate just like a regular Google Account.

So I transitioned this domain. And sure enough I get the "Organization" tab in the dashboard that allows me to turn services on and off for accounts in an organization of the domain. Unfortunately, at least for my purposes, since a Standard Edition account can only have one organization, I cannot test creating multiple organizations and creating access privileges to certain users based on their organization.

 

Since the Standard Edition only allows one organization, while the dashboard is certainly "cleaner" and more intuitive to turn services on and off, from a functionality perspective there is zero change. It's on or off for the whole domain. Hence the infrastructure change is pretty much irrelevant - though again the interface is much, much better. (It would be nice if Google would allow the creation of one organization with Standard Edition rather than just on/off for the whole domain. )

The other thing you may notice is that the services you can turn on and off are the same core services from prior to transitioning to the new infrastructure. I was hoping to be able to control which Google Services, now that accounts from my domain can register for a whole host of google services. I was hoping that this lack was just part of being an "early adopter". But no, apparently this is all there is and all that is planned although Google has left the door ajar for adding other services later.

"Any other Google services (not listed above) can't be restricted at this time. Note: Other Google services might be added to this list in a later release. Please refer to this article for updates.'

Here's the list of services currently available under the dashboard:

• Email
• Chat
• Calendar
• Docs
• Groups (all except standard?)
• Sites
• Video(all except standard?)
• Mobile

So what this says to me is that Google is going to open the flood gates to their services without providing me the control of that for accounts I issue. Even if they add services later that's an administrative nightmare to start denying services to users that have already signed up/registered for a service. I have to qualify that for now as I'm an early adopter so those services may be in place by the time google apps users will unilaterally be transitioned. But I also have to assume that, and this is partially based on my experience with Google services up until this point, that in fact other services won't be ready for control on the dashboard. And if that's the case, and if I were anything but a Standard Edition user I would not be a happy camper.

Granted the infrastructure change makes it easier to register for other Google services with my Google Apps account, and that for Neohawk.org this is a great thing! However, this typical Google tendency not to think things through makes my life much harder. For example, the reality is that prior to the infrastructure change you could "associate" a google account with a google apps account making for pretty much seamless integration with other google services. So the transition means that I need to go to the effort of dismantling all of that. Again, for neohawk.org, not a big deal. For JANO though, that becomes problematic. And if I were a Premier Edition user I'd not be a happy camper.

Luckily, I've had enough experience with Google that I never had the rest of the folks that use the JANO domain and Google Apps to "associate" their accounts. Moreover, I'm not sure I'll tell them that they can use their Google Apps account to register for other services. It's all useless if I can't control what they can and cannot use with MY domain. Typical Google, though, where everything is in motion and not perfected to start with but improved over time regardless of the impact to users and administrators. So as an administrator of a google apps domain, while the change in infrastructure opens up a lot of possibilities and opportunities, it is still only half-steps at this point. Not enough for me to go all googly eyed over it. (Sorry, couldn't resist)

However, one of the main reasons I did not have my JANO users associate their JANO google apps account with a Google account was that if you logged into a service that required a Google Account, the Google navigation menu changed to Google account menu. What that meant is that when you clicked on "Calendar" you would be sent to the Google Account calendar, not the Google App account calendar. Talk about end-user confusion!

I am happy to report that the navigation upon transitioning to the new infrastructure works as I would expect. The navigation menu sends you to your Google Apps calendar. This is clearly an upgrade and makes the transition highly welcome if I'm not being a stickler about being able to control which Google services my domain users can use outside of the core listed above. For the Neohawk.org domain, I'm a happy camper.

For the JANO domain, I'm still not convinced that the migration to the new platform helps me in any significant way. I won't really know that until the transition is forced upon me whether I like it or not. The JANO web team will be able to use their JANO accounts for logging in and posting to the blog, but they already have that capability with the Google accounts they had to set up to begin with in the first place. I should mention that JANO is also a Standard Edition until we can, if we can, change the status of JANO from a 501c4 to 501c3 to take advantage of the Not-for-profit Edition.

So I'd have to say I'm glad for the change as it relates to Neohawk, completely ambivalent as it relates to JANO (disappointed really since I had higher expectations), and I would be pissed if I were a paying customer due to the lack of control over other Google Services. Again, with the caveat that I'm basing it on my test, standard edition Google Domain and I'm an "early adopter". Things may change over the next month or two as they gear up for the real transition.

 

Cleveland Browns Beat Themselves

Today, the Cleveland Browns had their season opener in Tampa Bay, and after looking really good for the most part in the first half, last year's high school team returned.

Okay this is my breakdown of the Cleveland - Tampa Bay game. If you want real breakdowns by people that understand the game better than I do, go see WFNY. This is my take, and I'm just a fan that's never played nor really understands the nuances of the game. WFNY and others do.

ガーリックフェスティバル

ツィッターで知りましたが、来週末にシェーカースクウェアで行うクリーブランドの第一回ガーリックフェスティバル（ニンニク祭り？）があります。なんか、面白そうです。得にカーリックが好き僕にとってクックオフが楽しみなんですよ。

大まかなスケジュールは以下のとおりです

9月11日　13:00～22:00
9月12日　12:00～20:00

今週はまたロスへの出張ですが、これに行けると思います。土曜日にケンとジョージの試合があるかもしれませんけど、このガーリックフェスティバルに行きたいです。

 

Google Priority Inbox, Google Apps, and Random Thoughts

So I can't really talk about Buzz. But I can talk about other items of interest about Google products and services.

As most GMail users and Gapp (Google Apps) users are aware, Google recently deployed Priority Inbox. Nifty little filter and I like the idea that it gets smarter, much like the spam filters get smarter with more data. So I think its a great feature. Just a tad bit late.