Japanese Bicycle Tire Valves

I was just writing my friend Paul about this, and thought the topic was odd enough to post here.

You know what? Japanese bicycle inner tube air-nozzle thingies are UTTERLY different than the ones in America. There is no pointy thing on the outside to depress when filling a tire, there is a rubber-covered, metal venturi-valve (sounds like a legitimate term to me) INSIDE the nozzle/valve/spigot itself. A special nut on the outside of the nozzle clamps down that valve, as seen on the image to the left. Somehow, when I replaced the inner tube on Nami's bike, I must have put the old valve in the new tube, or the valve did not line up well, but when filled with air, the air just comes shooting out. The only thing for me to do other than change the tube AGAIN was to put rubber cement inside the black plastic nozzle cap, and hold it there till it dried. Basically CORKING the damn thing. Just educational news for you. I bet every foreigner here who has owned a bike in Japan has gone to fill up the tire with air and said, "What the hell?!"

Cool Photo....

Alex de Angelis in action....but the low class gay-boy helmut ???? Whats up with that-'A'.....?

I guess retro-cool falls into place.......somewhere?

Next Stop **Spain** for MotoGP Round Three

Premier class hits Jerez as the title race begins to take shape.

The MotoGP paddock reconvenes in southern Spain for the third round of the 2009 World Championship. The first European round, and one of the most well-attended events on the calendar, the riders have points to win and points to prove at the Circuito de Jerez.

Like last year, Spanish fans have a local leader of the overall classification to cheer on when May 3rd comes around, in the form of Jorge Lorenzo. Courtesy of a perfect podium record from the opening two races, the Fiat Yamaha rider arrives with a one point advantage over teammate Valentino Rossi and a victory already on the board from the previous round in Japan. Lorenzo took pole and placed third on his home debut at Jerez last year, and won twice at the track during his time in the 250cc class.

Second in the standings, reigning World Champion Rossi has won five times in the premier class and enjoys a level of popularity with the Spanish fans that rivals any of their local favourites. The Italian has never gone more than three races into a season without picking up a victory, and with two gone already his hunger for glory will be reaching breaking point. In previous years Rossi’s celebrations after winning in Jerez have been legendary, but will the 30 year-old provide another memorable moment this Sunday?

Just three points down on series leader Lorenzo, Ducati Marlboro’s Casey Stoner has not had the best of times at Jerez on race weekends. He has yet to place on the podium in seven visits to the track in various classes, but will draw positives from an amazing performance at the recent Official Test held at the track. The Australian was untouchable in a timed session to win a BMW sports car, stating his case for a challenge to those more successful at the circuit in previous years than himself.

After taking fifth at both Qatar and Japan, Andrea Dovizioso is currently fourth in the table, chasing his opening podium of 2009. Such an honour has already gone to Repsol Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa, who is just a single point off ‘Dovi’s total of twenty-two after claiming third in Japan.

Alongside Lorenzo and Pedrosa, Toni Elías and the returning Sete Gibernau contest their home race this weekend. Gibernau has not ridden at the track in a competitive environment since 2006, when he took second on the grid onboard the 990cc Ducati Desmosedici in his first race with the bike.

Geocities ist Kaput!

Why the redhead? I dunno. I came here to tell you that Geocities is over and did an image search on Geocities to get a picture for my post, and this lingerie-eating gal's photo was on the first hit. I find that odd enough to be humorous, so I will go ahead and use the picture. But someone should feed and cloth her. It seems that in her famished state she has devoured all of her clothing and is down to eating her brazier.

But yup, tis true. After 15 years of service, under a couple of names, there will be no more free web hosting space from Geocities -- in fact, no Geocities at all.

Yahoo has pulled some scummy moves with Geocities -- #1 is when they claimed for a short while that all content, even photos, became their property when posted on their site. And they were summarily smacked down for that one. But as lame as Yahoo has been in many ways, they kept Geocities free and gave me a place to post my crap for 10 whole years! I totally appreciate it too. In fact it is because of Geocities and Blogspot that I have learned so much about computer code, and became confident enough with computers to drop Windows and get into Linux, etc.

Tangent: My first web site in 98' or 99' was a virtual gallery of my college art, then when I got more into bikes I built, and rebuilt websites on Geocities until the blog wave wisked me away.

Geocities has been invaluable to my blogging hobby, because the photos within my templates are hosted there. Photos within blog posts are all hosted by Picasa Web Albums, so that part is cool, but Picasa resizes large photos down so that I cannot use them as background images, making linking them that way a new challenge. That means unless I learn the code to stretch background images, these fine, fine (albeit silly) blogs I produce will be stripped of their pizzaz. (I actually have 8 blog pages...was 9 but I just deleted "Gairaiglish")

For now, Yahoo is still my domain host so hopefully they will hang on there for a while longer. But Geocities Plus happens to be where the "Golden Center" website is hosted, and though I pay for the service, it will be gone soon. Though Geocities will be gone this summer or just after, I have already rebuilt that site at another location. I downsized it to just 3 pages, which is considerable since the current website has over a dozen English and Japanese web pages.

When I considered moving my site to another pay host, I looked at GoDaddy and Squarespace. G.D. is affordable (same price as Geocities Plus) and Squarespace is pretty posh-looking, but a bit high-end for my needs. SiteSled and Google Sites are free, but really not up to par at all -- even in comparison to Geocities. But at this time, I don't really feel like paying to host my website. Traffic is extremely low, and with Google giving away free space I may actually be able to run a website, ad-free, for free. And with the availability of DNS records and forwarding, I may actually just be able to use free net space and rename the pages as subdomains. That is fine as long as it works. Blogspot is one of the few cool places I know that actually has a setting for using custom domain names. Google rules.

Have good ideas for cheap and reliable web hosting? Free web hosting with html editing? Post ideas here!

Base Ship Repaired -- FTL Drive Upgraded

Wow. I just got back from computer hardware school – or so it seems – and since the jerk-offs who just started working next door left their flourescent lights on yet again on the 2nd floor keeping our bedroom aglow all night again, I am up and here to tell you my story...

As you may have read, my desktop computer died exactly 1 month ago. I have been using the laptop during this time, but if you spend as much time on the PC as I do, you will understand that suddenly using another PC every day is like becoming left-handed suddenly. Ok, maybe not that extreme, but it IS like getting off your 1000cc bike and going back to riding an old 750. Still good, but not as fast. Having those 2 19” monitors behind the laptop all that time made me fidgety. And so I started down the path that would find me replacing motherboards and learning how to swap out central processing units, etc.

A lesson I find difficult to learn, is that everything always costs 2-3 times more than I think it is, or than I think it is worth. This time it was the first one. But that is because I bought 3 times the parts, so that is fair. It started with me off to buy a used motherboard, but soon found that even used, a motherboard that my type of CPU and hard drive would actually FIT was a bigger task than I knew.

Point of info: Hard disc drives commonly come with either an IDE cable, or a more modern SATA cable. Mine was the older one. Even though I bought the drive just 1 year ago, they are no longer selling motherboards that connect to them. Just like you can still buy a headlight for a 66' Ford Falcon, but you cannot buy a whole new Ford Falcon. But heck, no problem! Seems that when my motherboard failed it screwed up my hard drive enough that I could not access the 200Gb partition that was my system anyway. PAPERWEIGHT!

Next, my CPU was on the old side, so the pins did not fit the newer motherboards. Even the used, newer motherboards which were 2 years old. When I bought my desktop nearly 3 years ago, it was made from used parts so...

So, on Saturday I got a used motherboard, and a more fancy dual-core CPU, along with 2Gb of RAM. Why? My old RAM was plenty, but did not quite fit either. Turn on the computer...same problem. Bought another motherboard and a SATA hard drive on Monday. That motherboard worked, but when I plugged in my graphics card (the part that lets me have two monitors) the screens were black. So, the 2nd motherboard was garbage too. On Wednesday – and I am starting to sound like the Johnny Cash song, “I Got Stripes” – I went BACK to the shop. This time, Mr. Yamaguchi, who had helped me with a great attitude the times before, brought the 3rd motherboard to the back room with me in tow, and plugged it in with my graphics card, CPU and RAM to check it. All I had to do was see that it would connect to the Internet, or not die when I turned on a program.

I now hate the term, “The 3rd Time's the Charm!” because this was the 3rd motherboard I tried before I got one that wasn't broken...and it took me THREE times to reload my operating system before Firefox wouldn't crash after loading in my Japanese language programs. Another story...

So what do I got? Not that it matters, but now at least I know what these parts are and do. I got an Elite Group A770M-A (AMD 700 chipset) motherboard, with 6 USB ports and 6 SATA drive slots, no floppy slot at all, nor on board video card, but a PC Express slot that works great! ($50 used);
AMD Athlon X2 (dual core) BE2400 processor, with a 3k rpm fan ($40 used);
2Gb of RAM (UMAX, DDR2, Pulsar) ($19 used);
2, 250Gb internal SATA disc drives (total $40 used);
All new cables ($3 new);
and I already had the ASUS Extreme AX300SE-X/TD Video Card, Radeon X300 SE, PCI-E, 128MB DDR, w/ DVI-D...which is apparently the far low end now according to Mr. Yamaguchi.

Aside from the fact that used hdd are super cheap now, the reason I got 2 of them is because in the last mess the OS I was using locked up and was unreachable. The other OS on the other partition was fine. But who wants to trust a 320Gb drive that claims it is now only 127Gb? So, from now on, I have XP on one hard drive, and Ubuntu Linux on its own hard drive.

This project cost me $160, but then...I now have a PC that is double my old one in almost every component, so I think that this was a good price. Plus, I got edumacated.

Challenging was holding the tiny power switch connectors in my fingers. About 1/4 the size of the butt-connectors used in old motorcycles. The first 2 motherboards had manuals, but the 3rd did NOT so in a way, it was good (?) that I had 2 educational test tries before trying to figure out how to hook up the USB connectors, power switch, speaker/horn and audio huh? Especially since there was no writing on the motherboard itself for anything but the power switch.

And did you ever think that the little metal plate on the back of your case would need to be changed with another motherboard? I did that 3 times too! But even stranger is the goop that needs to be put on the top of the CPU before putting the fan on top of it. There cannot be any air that gets between the CPU and the fan or it will heat up and we will all die.

Some things in life are missed.....terribly

With our Speed Vision seemingly-turning to "NaZcar turning left Vision", "Auction off my Ferrari Vision", and "Pimp my piece of shit Vision" Great racing events like this are surely missed. And that is just a small bit of what Speed Vision has decided to NOT let us see anymore!



Life is just a bit sad without WRC. The only reason I have to pay for cable T.V. anymore is Moto-GP, Formula One, The Colbert Report and the occasional re-air of Wayne's World, The Godfather or The Prophecy.



Seems my Hero's die without me there.......



Used to be Hours and Hours of coverage...now im lucky to find a three minuet review....

Dirty Mothers and Broken Down Slots

There is good news and bad news. And plenty of both.

The good news is, I can build a desktop computer now. I also found out that it was my motherboard that was to blame for my computer's demise. Bad news is, the motherboard I bought to replace it was also broke. The motherboard I bought after that one works, but does not recognize my video card (I just get a blank screen). I cannot use my old CPU with the newer motherboard, but that is fine. I upgraded to a dual-core CPU, which I have no idea what means, but hey, it came with a new and faster fan and came out sometime around Dec.07. So it is one year old. I also got 2Gb of used RAM for 2000en ($20) so that is cool too.

More bad news, the motherboards available are for SATA (type of cable) hard disk drives, and my old hdd uses an IDE cable. But no matter, cuz my previous hdd was rendered useless in the process anyway! It seems that the 320Gb hdd that I bought brand new just a year ago got so messed up during this process that I cannot access it. It was dually formatted to run XP and Linux, and somehow I ended up not being able to access the Linux side. I am assuming that is because my computer crashed while it was running. I could access the Windows side, but was denied access to the other. On top of that, it claims that it is just a 120Gb drive. I went through all sorts of forum chats and tried many things over the past 3 days, and finally I quit. The best I could do was to reformat the former XP partition, to get 120Gb out of it, but I would not feel secure using such a schizo device. So, I picked up a used 250Gb internal SATA drive for 2000en ($20).

Buying used for cheap may bite me in the ass next year or in 6 months even, but I am pretty sure most of my former computer's parts were used when I paid my old boss $700 for it 2.5 years ago.

So, I have a working desktop again. And upgraded at that. Why ain't I happy? This motherboard will not recognize my dual-head video card. Without being able to use my video card, there is no point in keeping this motherboard, as I have two 19" monitors that I use together as one desktop. I needed them for my translation job, but now I just need them because 2 is twice as good as one, if not more like 3 times. (High math) Both my old and the faulty motherboard I bought on Sat. recognized the vid card. Even though both were broken. I could still get into and see BIOS. With this 3rd motherboard, I cannot see a thing with the monitors plugged in to that card.

Tried to load up the driver from the CD into Windows? And the driver CD won't work! So I guess that CD is dead too. It is not clear precisely what vid card this is...made by ASUS, ATI VGA card, but don't know the number. That kinda screws me a bit.

So.........I will go back to Softmap tomorrow when the dude I have been dealing with is back on the job. Man this does suck, but I have learned a shitload. This is precisely how I learned to fix motorcycles.

Final piece of bad news is, the store only had 2 used motherboards that would fit my case. I tried both. So, perhaps return them and try "Faith" (another computer store).

Daaaaamn! PC Project Failed Attempt

I was so planning to write a post about my desktop computer repair success...and it was not a success. Today, I got a used motherboard, CPU and 2Gb of RAM for a little over $100. I got it all set up did everything by the book and...the motherboard is set up to accept a hard disc with SATA cables only...my HDD uses the older type of IDE cable (the flat and wide cable).

So, I took a while to hook it all up and install it for nothing. Everything else was right on, but I cannot afford to buy a new HDD that is SATA cable friendly...I mean, by now one might be cheap but I really was pushing it shelling out $100 when my job isn't paying much for me to do it.

Fuckin' bummer man.

The French are so Cool....um-no?

This video just made me giggle, I thought you may enjoy.

Iron Back Barber'a is BACK!

After fracturing three vertebrae last season in Japan Héctor Barberá’s career was in doubt, but on Sunday in Qatar he made an amazing comeback to win the first 250cc race of 2009.
Sunday’s shortened 250cc race at the Commercialbank Grand Prix of Qatar was full of drama and surprises, with Spaniard Héctor Barberá and Frenchman Jules Cluzel undertaking a battle at the front that few would have predicted.
The quarter litre class riders saw the start of their first race this season delayed due to rain and the contest was curtailed to 13 laps for scheduling reasons but once it got underway Barberá soon took control at the front and registered a superb win, despite not racing since the San Marino GP last August.
Joining the newly formed Pepeworld Team this season under the management of former double 250cc World Champion Sito Pons, Barberá has fought his way back from a serious back injury sustained at Motegi last season, meaning even lining up on the grid at Losail was something of an achievement for the 22 year-old.
Indeed, his 2009 ride was in doubt for quite some time during the long hard winter months, so after his first win since the 2006 Chinese GP on Sunday he was understandably ecstatic.
Following the completion his Qatar victory he stated, “I’m really happy with this result because last year was really difficult and this year we have had to work really hard just to put the bike on the track. Once we finally got the bike ready I’ve been really fast and this win demonstrates that.”
“Above all I want to thank all the doctors who helped me through my recovery from the injury as they did an amazing job and I want to say a big thanks to everyone who has been behind me, pushing on to achieve what I’ve done this weekend in Qatar,” Barberá continued. “I also want to thank my team and all our sponsors, who are excellent.”
“The race was quite strange,” he went on to explain. “I knew that the first three or four laps would be crucial and that we would then see a front group forming, so I just wanted to avoid any crashes. I didn’t want to be in the middle of a crowd. I really went for it on the first corner and that put me ahead, so after that I just took things calmly and controlled the situation.”
“I saw that (Jules) Cluzel was pushing at pace and that allowed us to build up a bit of a gap at the front, then I waited behind him and with five laps to go I went ahead of him. I didn’t go crazy because I didn’t want to take any risks and I knew I had him beaten.”

Moto GP "The new year is finally here"

As the action in the premier class of the 2009 FIM MotoGP World Championship finally got underway, at the spectacular Losail International Circuit on Monday night, it was Casey Stoner who took the headlines, completing a hat-trick of season-opening wins in Qatar.
Following the exceptional postponement of the opening MotoGP contest of the year due to rain in the Arabian desert, Monday evening witnessed the first race in the new single tyre supplier era, but it was a familiar story with Stoner crossing the line first, ahead of World Champion Valentino Rossi.
A ruthless Stoner took the holeshot from pole and had built up a two second gap at the end of the first lap. The 2007 World Champion’s victory never looked in serious doubt as he controlled the race from the front, having been the fastest rider in every session over the weekend. Stoner’s winning margin was more than seven seconds at the end of a brilliant performance, casting aside any doubts about his fitness after winter surgery on his left wrist.
Completing the podium behind the front two was Rossi’s Fiat Yamaha colleague Jorge Lorenzo repeating his rostrum result from his MotoGP debut in the opening race of 2008, in his first race on Bridgestone tyres.
Monster Yamaha Tech 3’s Colin Edwards started his seventh season in MotoGP riding solidly from sixth on the grid to finish fourth on his own Bridgestone debut, making it three Yamahas in the top four.
Also on new tyres and with a new factory bike Repsol Honda’s 2009 signing Andrea Dovizioso was fifth, fading slightly in the second half of the race having run in third place for several laps.
There was a good performance from Alex de Angelis, crossing the line sixth having qualified ninth at the start of his second year with the San Carlo Honda Gresini team. Rizla Suzuki’s Chris Vermeulen also made a decent start to the year with his improved GSV-R machine in seventh.
An excellent MotoGP debut from satellite Ducati rider Mika Kallio, meanwhile, saw him end up as the best placed rookie in eighth for the new look Pramac Racing outfit.
On factory machinery and returning to the Honda Gresini team this year, Toni Elías may be disappointed not to have done better than ninth, whilst Frenchman Randy de Puniet brought the satellite LCR Honda RC212V home three seconds behind the Spaniard to complete the top ten.
Dani Pedrosa, riding with knee and wrist injuries, battled through the pain barrier to pick up some important points in eleventh spot. On his Ducati debut, Pedrosa’s former team-mate Nicky Hayden also did well to complete the race in twelfth, given the back and chest injuries he suffered in a huge highside crash in qualifying on Saturday. The brave 2006 World Champion even set his best time on the last lap.
Sete Gibernau finished 13th on his MotoGP comeback with the satellite Ducati Grupo Francisco Hernando team, unable to push into the top ten due to his ongoing shoulder injury.
Marco Melandri made his first appearance for the Hayate Racing Team and ran off track early on but battled back well to finish in the points in 14th.
Commencing his 20th Grand Prix season Rizla Suzuki’s Loris Capirossi crashed out on lap eight and was unable to rejoin the race.
After a weekend off the MotoGP riders next reconvene at the Polini Grand Prix of Japan for round two, which takes place at the Motegi circuit from 24th-26th April.

Nostalgia Hits Again

Pulsar, Maskatron, the Bionic Man, Major Mike Power, Stretch Armstrong, Big Jim ...these were the guys that made up MY adventure team. Pulsar and Maskatron were perhaps the two most impressively put together and active toys. Maskatron came with a selection of interchangeable arms, 3 faces and the computer components in his torso could all be removed! Pulsar's heart and lungs pumped and BLOOD cycled through his abdomen when you pushed a button on his back! I really wanted "Bullet Man" but my friend had him, along with one of the big "Shogun Warrior" toys, so that I got to try them out...very neat. But what was up with the short Neanderthal buddy of GIJoe? Often times I was the kid who got the overstocked minor character who was on sale...glad I never got this guy.

Alex Starts Kindergarten!...Again!

This is Alex's 2nd year of kindergarten...of 3. Why would I do this to my beloved son? Because Japanese kindergarten is actually FUN...or so it looks.

Alex was in the 3 to 4 year old class last school year (which ended in March) and it is not technically kindergarten, more like...pre-kindergarten. He didn't have to go, but after watching how much fun Mika had in her 2 years of kindergarten, we decided Alex could start at 3 to make friends. Now, it may be his personality, but he is a whole lot less shy than Mika and has a bunch of little buddies now. And anyway, the optional early kindergarten was only from 9:00-11:30am anyway.

Last Friday "Actual" kindergarten began. Kindergarten starts at age 4, and last 2 years in Japan. Now he has a uniform and has a little yellow backpack. He will soon be eating lunch at kindergarten, learn to eat foods he doesn't want to eat, but do it because everyone else has to, and learn how to use chopsticks like a pro. They are still not going to learn "school" stuff, but will learn a crap-load of songs, have small plays, go on field trips, do art and have a mega fun time! Kindergarten here is called, "Yochien" and it seems to be so fun, that when kids start first grade, they all say that they wish they were still in yochien. Speaking of elementary school, Mika just began 2nd grade!

More photos of Alex's first day of the new year are HERE.

Good and Silly!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EfTtxuiZl0&feature=related

The Anthropoligists are at work on me a bit early...

Found in the Moore's basement... reactions follow in order of appearance.

High school. Wish I had this one, I still like it even after all this time. Never realized that the long nosed, big-eyed guys I drew looked like me, but guess that we draw people based on the faces we see most often. I have always been a big fan of the mirror.

Next, self portrait that I don't remember doing. Drawn with the back end of my brush on wet paint. It says I did it March 30th 1991. But even if it didn't have a date, I was only penning my name as "Kazetaro" for a couple years, and here I had long hair which only lasted 1 year, and buttoning up my shirts at the top button, which only happened when I was clubbing. That was a practical choice, because dancing with a button opened ended up making me feel "disheveled" and I was very much trying to look my best -- still trying to mate back then.

This last one I forgot about...rather wish it had been lost in a tragic furnace incident. But looking at it objectively, this one is about 2 ft. by 3ft. and for high school, was pretty large. That was before the 6ft. long paintings started -- a size where I could actually enjoy my long arms with larger brushes. I was still doing a lot of cartoon guys back in high school, thus the 3-fingered guy, and still using masking tape to draw straight lines as in high-school. I found that whenever I used pure imagination back in the day, there was too much freedom and my stuff ended up lacking skill. A LOT of life-drawing in college fixed that up.

Art Freedom?

This was a self-realization I had in my early 20's, but did not specifically understand that it was due to a lack of skill in using the visual tools of painting properly. My best works were usually nude figures because everything was provided for me, all I had to do was give translate what I saw into paint, ink, charcoal, oil pastels, etc. and my natural energetic personality and lack of patience created the energetic line which is seen in the self-portrait above. In fact, I realized later on that there is no such thing as artistic talent. There is practice, drive and personality. My art looked like it did because of my personality and whatever level of persistence and drive I had. This realization ended my career as a visual artist. I saw that there was nothing special about the artist except as a communicator of ideas, and with nothing that I particularly wanted to communicate in that way, I was done.

However, the knowledge I attained from this study has helped me quite a bit in motorcycle mechanics, in martial arts and other areas. One must master the basics -- not just have a working understanding -- before the rules can be broken. "Freedom"for those who have not mastered basics is translated as SHIT. That is why Picasso could make a bull's head out of a set of handlebars and a bike seat and you go...bull's head. He wasn't just a "free-flowing, whatever-man" fella, he mastered the basic art of seeing, and the media he worked with so that he knew which rules could be broken and which could not. That is why his artworks got more and more minimal at certain points, just pushing and pushing finding where the limit was before someone said, "Nope, thems just handlebars and a seat Pablo."

In martial arts, the masters don't move too much and the target person ends up until his or her control with little effort. That is decades of sweat and pain there in the "correct" position, angle and form in order to understand which parts are always necessary and which are simply tools.

The guitar strings aren't rock, the brush isn't art, the fist never actually punches anything. Young artists just "wanna be free", and most of them never learn that freedom is a farce. It does not exist in any state. Freedom will always come with its opposite -- the master understands that it is discipline, the novice sees it as bondage...which is why their art sucks. We can say the same for all types of art, and more.

So, you can see from my rambling the reason why I left behind the brushes and chose the path I did. I could not honestly master both painting and my chosen discipline. I am a smart guy, but I still have limitations, and I need all my attention to master one thing.

Old art is a good thing because if we look at it honestly, we can see that which lead us to success, the potential where we could have gone and the dead ends. Glad I was sent these photos today.

Battery Charge$!

What? $230.oo?? Ty? How much are motorbike batteries over THERE now? I didn't ride my bike for a while, and it appears that starting it once a month throughout the winter, and holding the rpms at 2k for 10min. or so wasn't enough to keep a good charge. So, now my battery is so low that only dash lights come on, but dimly. Cannot bump start im' either. I did try that several times, but after 5 or 6 tries, the thing is REALLY heavy.

A Yuasa battery costs $230, a charger is about $130. My only issue with going the charger route is that I have no idea how old the battery actually is. I have had the bike 2 years now, and have to asusme that it was a little old when I got it. Eat the $230 or eat the $130?

The more I own this bike the more I miss having a 70's Japanese bike!!! (Kick starts and simpler mechanics!)

For my future info: Current battery is a "Yellow Hat (Galdar) 30A19R"
Autobacs sells a compatible one for 6000yen, serial number "32A19L"
Apparently these are small CAR batteries, but fit my bike.

Kid Photo Opp

Alexander seemed to really like this hairstyle, so we did it up right with some styling wax and he wore it all over town. Interestingly, other kids usually treat my children as if they were just Japanese kids -- even with the big ol' American flag patch on his jacket -- but with Alex's hair up like this, I heard kids saying "Look at the American family" a couple times yesterday. Guess a mohawk makes him look more white than usual. Luna was incognito and Mika had her usual movie-star shades. No, I don't think she is flipping anyone off on purpose. Now if it were Alex...

He did make sure to put BOTH fingers up his nose for our "first BBQ of the year" photo however.

Fun-Packed Week with My Sis and Zac

"Auntie Shirlee" as the kids know her, and Zac, my nephew/their cousin came over to Japan for a busy week of exploring Western Japan. I took them on tours of Kyoto, Nara and Kobe and the rest of the time I showed them various spots in Osaka.

Nami admitted today that having them here gave her a bit of culture shock. She never experienced an American teenager, who drinks Coke from a 1 liter bottle, first thing in the morning. "If our kids grow up in America, will they be carrying around huge bottles of soda with them all the time?" she said with a tinge of worry. She also remarked that after spending so much time with my family at mealtimes, "I realize now just how willing you are to try different kinds of foods!" as my sis and nephew are pretty picky, comparatively speaking. Hopefully after this, she will realize just how open I really am to things.

Anyway, we got many good pics out of the trip and they are posted HERE.

???Choices???

I met a man in the poker room a couple weeks ago, he is a good power player. I love his style and I like to watch him play, I think he is the best tipper in the poker room!


He had a vintage, and very unassuming Patek Philippe wrist watch that most would never know it is worth a freekin fortune! I asked him to show it to me and he said "you have a good eye-this watch is one of the best-a hundred years old-most people don't notice it" I told him I would give my other thumb for a watch like that. After talking a-while he told me he is a watch dealer and works at the largest watch shop in Vegas Turneau's at Caesars Palace Forum Shops/Mall, come on by and he would show me some watches. I did yesterday! The store is Huge!! with all types of High end watches. It was amazing. Joesph was very friendly and let me fiddle with several watches. Looked at many others, and I tried on a 60,000 dollar Rolex. It was a blast!

After I left the shop we walked through the mall and I found the Swatch Watch store!....and they had a 40% off sale!...I couldn't resist....

I bought this very cool Swatch ....Just because I never had an orange watch, and my wife liked the looks of it...I'm wondering weather I will wear it to work today?, or my new Automatic wind vintage Helbros?? I got online for a song, or my new Hamilton???..... Damn I love these choices!

"Oooomm. Must maintain sanity...Ooommm"

Wow. This has been a long week. It is great to see the family, but showing them the sights is really tough. I have been to all of these places 3 times now, in a couple cases 4 times. That is actually not so bad because it is a new experience being in Japan with loud white people! I thought I stood out before, but with 3 of us...damn! Everybody noticed us. Most tourists here look kinda subdued...coming to a culture they see as "Zen" and all -- not MY family! My sister is how she wants to be anywhere in the world. Which is cool, because she is not bound by any culture but her own, but it does end up getting us noticed.

I never realized it so much, but my family has a smart-alec remark for EVERY sentence that comes out of someone's mouth. I finally just had enough today and needed a break, so I came to my room for some Internet brain drain. Tomorrow and Friday are both pretty big traveling/walking days and I think one of them may end up getting real short. I am just about broke...and was broke when they got here. Just complaining about money again, but I have been enjoying getting out on the town though.

Spring has sprung, and the Japanese girls are in full-bloom now and I am without my medication. Oh my.