Did I Mention Cherries?

Did I mention the cherries from our tree are ready? Oh, right, this morning I posted about picking cherries. Yesterday, Elly, Ken, George and I were out for about an hour maybe less. As I mentioned in this mornings post, the cherries we harvested yesterday were way more than we could eat so we were taking them to the JANO Sakura Picnic.

 

 

We did exactly that and we came home empty handed. Those that weren't eaten at the picnic, people stuffed them in ziplock bags and took them home. Not a single cherry left. Sigh. We came home cherry-less. (Which was the idea!)

Picking Cherries

Over the last week or so, we've been watching the cherry tree in our backyard. It seems the time is finally here to pick them. It's a balance of waiting to just the right moment and saving the cherries from the birds.

 

 

So Elly, Ken, George and I headed out at about 11:30 yesterday morning to start picking what seemed to be the ripest cherries.

 

 

 

An hour later we had barely made a dent in the cherries on our tree. Still I think we gathered something like 500 cherries. The picture below are the cherries we gathered sitting on our stove. From this picture, you really can't get a sense of how many cherries there are, but trust me there is alot.

 

 

This is way more cherries than we can eat before they spoil. Plus, the tree is still full of 'em. We'll bring most of those we gathered to the JANO Picnic today for people to snack on. The rest we'll probably make some preserves, or jam. We might try a cherry pie.

cherries are ready!

Garden 2010

So I have just about finished planting my garden for this year. This Memorial Day weekend, I took Friday off so I could have a four day weekend. I'm glad I did as we expanded the size of this years garden in the back yard. It' probably 25' by 15' or there abouts.

Friday I spend pretty much all day tilling. I rented a roto tiller from Home Depot and started in at about 9:45. I didn't finish until about 6PM. I only rented it for 24 hours so I had to return it by 9:15 on Saturday. I wouldn't have minded going through one last time of turning the garden. But it was sufficient. It was a long day made better by my daughter's boyfriend and my youngest son chipping in to help with the tilling.

 

JANO Sakura Picnic

On June 6, 2010, JANO will be holding it's annual Sakura Picnic. This potluck picnic is to celebrate the nearly 140 Cherry Trees JANO has donated to the Brookside Reservation (map) of the Cleveland Metroparks. I am posting information here in English on the Picnic. The picnic is open to anyone as long as you bring food for 5-6 people.

The picnic starts at 11:30 with a quick talk by the Japanese Consulate General from the Detroit Consulate. Yume Daiko will be performing for us as well. Afterwards we'll have pick up soccer games, volleyball, tug-a-war, and other small games. And of course will have our Janken Taikai (Rock, Paper, Scissors competition) which Arisa walked off as winner last year.

2009 Sakura Picnic Pictures

The picnic will last until 3pm.

Please feel free to attend as long as you bring food for 5-6 people. Hope to see you there!

Wall

If you've got a few minutes, check this video out of my niece presenting on what she learned during her gap year.

Enjoy it while you can

As much as I find facebook useful for keeping in touch with folks and friends of yesteryear, I've decided I'm going to stop using facebook. It's too difficult to manage the ever changing security and privacy settings. And reading that it's fairly simple for people to figure out my IP address via facebook, just made me realize that I don't really trust this company.

So enjoy my posts and stuff while you can, I'l be dumping it at the end of this month, and severely reducing my current footprint on it starting immediately.

If you are really that desperate to follow me, I'm still on twitter, friend feed, buzz, orkut, linkedin, mixi, amongst others. And you can subscribe to this blogs feed too.

Google Trusted Tester

I signed up to become a Google Trusted Tester after seeing this post on Buzz. Much to my surprise, I was actually chosen as a tester.

Mayfield City Schools Artfest

Today, Arisa and I went to see the Mayfield City School's Artfest at Hillcrest Hospital in Mayfield Heights. As you would expect with student artists, there are some that are pretty darn good, and others not so much. Couple of the artists were kids we know from soccer or something else.

Most importantly, though, Elly's boyfriend had a painting on display.

Didn't realize he was into self-portraits! Of course I'm kidding.

Astounding Ignorance

Today, the Cavs posted an advertisement to follow them on Twitter for a prize pack to be given away during the Cavs - Bulls game. They tweeted it first, but it also made it to facebook. On the facebook version, a Toyota add was posted along with it.

And sure enough, some of the ignorance that is killing Cleveland rears its ugly head.

Social Wok

I posted a tweet today that suggest that Social Wok had problems. Social Wok replied to my tweet asking for more information. Now that's the way to follow up! Take note of that folks. Responding to complaints is a good thing as I went the extra mile to grab some screenshots(see below) and am creating this post. If they hadn't responded I probably would have removed Social Wok and just moved on.

update: And they wouldn't have fixed it already making their product better, this user happy with them, and all that before I could even finish this post (granted there's a lot of fluff in this post).

Korean BBQ in CA

A month or so back, I was in Orange County, CA on business. On a previous visit, our waitress at the California Pizza Kitchen was kind enough to give us a list of restaurants to try out in the area, mostly Asian, though one was Cuban.

We found a Korean BBQ she recommended and it was really, really good.

I won't lie, I like the Japanized version of Korean BBQ but it was still really, really good. I want to order the beef tongue, but my colleague wasn't interested and it would have been too much to eat by myself. As it was, we barely finished everything.

See the reviews of the place we went on Yelp. I think the reviews on it are lower than I would have given as I thought it was good, service was friendly etc. Next time around, I think I'll try some of the other ones in the area too.

Seed Catalog Arrived

Just noticed that my seed catalog arrived today. I believe that I asked them to send me on via the web. Considering the fact that the weather is clearly getting warmer - it was gorgeous today here in Cleveland - it's time to start planning for the garden.

Google Fiber for Communities

So Lev Gonick has started an effort to get Google to choose Cleveland and/or Northeast Ohio for its Google Fiber for Communities. I of course followed the twitter account Lev created for this purpose - Google1Gig4CLE. Lev has been very active in bringing broadband and it's benefits to Cleveland, with OneCommunity and the effort around University Circle and Case University.

My question for Lev is this - what's the plan?

Excell Tecc and Malley's Chocolate's Partnership

I got this from Ken today.


Hello,
Ken Hawkins is a member of Excel Tecc and their group is conducting a fundraising activity with Malley's Chocolates of Cleveland, Ohio.
A website has been setup specifically for the Excel Tecc fundraising campaign.
All purchases made on that site will be credited toward Ken Hawkins and will directly benefit Excel Tecc.
To connect to this site, please click on this link.

Thank you very much,
Excel Tecc

If you are interested in supporting Excell Tecc or just want some chocolate, give Malley's a try.  It's good stuff.

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Edward Jackson Hawkins - Memorial Site

As some of you know, my Dad died on January 15, 2010. He had been sick for a while and we were expecting it, but that expectation doesn't reduce the shock and sense of loss when, inevitably, the news comes.

To all the folks that have expressed their condolences via Facebook, email, and other ways thank you. They mean more than you know and are greatly appreciated.

We have created a temporary memorial site. The site has a longer obituary that probably won't run in newspapers, information on the Funeral, and will have information on a Memorial Service in Cleveland. Please check it out.

Memorial Website URL: http://www.edhawkins.info

The site has a page to leave messages that we'll be collating. The current web site is temporary and for immediate use. However, my siblings and I have decided to build a more permanent memorial website to honor my Dad. We'll be collecting and organizing his writings, photos, movies as well as wider family histories into the site. Just based on what I have, it will be a pretty impressive site from a volume of content perspective.

In fact, the effort to categorize and convert the content for web use will be fairly intense. We are fully aware that we'll not be able to do this in one fell swoop, but will have to do it over an extended period of time. The good thing about that is that it's a great way for us to keep Dad in our thoughts and remember all the good things he meant to us, and to the world.

The current design is okay, but certainly nothing to write home about. That's not surprising since I did it. I hope to engage a real web designer for the permanent memorial site. Dad deserves a better looking site than I can do.

It'll also be a collaborative effort amongst us siblings at least, but I hope to get some of my Dad's siblings to contribute stories, information, etc. They know a whole side of my Dad of which we, his kids, are completely ignorant.

Of course, we are spread out across the country and each have our own lives to live. So we'll be using some online services like Google sites to help reduce duplication of effort, share information and tasks. I must say I am looking forward to working with my siblings to make this happen. My Dad deserves a nice memorial site, and I am honored to be a part of building it.

Official Google Blog: A new approach to China

Official Google Blog: A new approach to China

Wow

Umami Asian Kitchen

Last night, Mom took us out to celebrate Arisa's birthday.  We went to Umami Asian Kitchen in Chagrin Falls.

The menu says that Umami is the "fifth taste", as in sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami.  Umami is a Japanese word.  See the wikipedia article for a description.  Also see the "basic tastes" article too.

I see why they call it Asian Kitchen as it's not really a Japanese restaurant.  They take some Japanese foods and make it all their own.  For example, they have an Udon Noodle dish, but it's not what one would expect from a Japanese restaurant.  It was really very good.  We had Seared Red Tuna, Spicy Tuna Rolls, and Calamari.  I had the halibut with sweet potatoes and ginger, Arisa had one of the specials which was scallops (hotate) on Jasmine rice.  Ken had the Seared Salmon, and George had the curry chicken entree.  Elly had Calamari and Assorted Sushi appetizers as her entree.  Mom had crabcakes.  I tried everything except the crabcakes and it all was very, very good.

Oh, and Chagrin Falls looks great at night.  The whole town is decorated in Christmas Lights.  If you get a chance, I'd check it out.

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Neohawk.Org Down

www.neohawk.org is currently down.

@grokthis: The SAN filer crash appears to be non-trivial. Recovery efforts are underway. Service is not expected to be restored in fewer than 12 hrs

It'll be up when it's up. That was from 5-6 hours ago.

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even*cleveland: the snowman

Thanks to this post, even*cleveland: the snowman, a small trip down memory lane.

While I wasn't 6 or 7 like Stephanie over at even cleveland, I did watch it with my kids, and it quickly became a favorite of mine. We bought the book and had the dvd. Neither of which made it with us when we moved to the U.S.

Thanks for the reminder, Stephanie