Best birthday present ever!

I must be getting sentimental in my old age. Today I received what I consider the best birthday gift ever! One of my sisters (you'll occasionally see her comments here under than pen-name of "shiloh") put together a scrap-book of sorts for my 40th birthday.



It includes photos from various times of my life, interspersed with comments and greetings from friends and family written on index cards , along with a healthy dose of Buddhist quotes and sayings. It must have taken her quite a long time to coordinate and put together and I definitely appreciate all the hard work. It made for a nice close to my birthday - quietly sitting at home alone after karate class thoroughly enjoying soaking up the words and photos from the scrap book.

To all who took the time to leave a message in the book, a heartfelt thanks. And to "shiloh", thanks a million! I couldn't have asked for a happier birthday.

Why Work?

Some friends of mine recently gave me a book. It's called Zen and the Art of Making a Living. Yes, you might say, it's yet another product riding on the trendy "zen" name recognition, but so far it looks to be a very good book. It even mentions Zen more than just in the title of the book. It's a thick meaty book about career choices and finding personally meaningful work. I haven't yet gotten through the first chapter, but I found the following quote thought provoking:

"Work offers the individual the opportunity to share acts of love and beauty, to see himself reflected in the image of his work. By the work that a society chooses to do or not to do, it defines its values and shapes its future. Since work is what we do with most of our waking lives, we must, if we count life valuable, consider what we are working for."

That seems like a pretty good explanation of why I keep revisiting the thought of what I'm doing with my life and the question of should I be doing something different and more meaningful. It's a thought I imagine most people have from time to time. The big question for me is what to do about it. If I ignore the thought, I know it will eventually go away for a time - especially if I just surround myself with enough distractions. Then I can continue in my blissful self-obsorbed existence. But, it does seem to be a compelling thought and given enough time I'll start thinking again about choices I've made in my life, what, if anything, I've been doing that is actually meaningful or helpful to others in the long-term, and wonder why I still haven't made any serious change in what I'm doing. Sure, I donate money to charity, I volunteer some time at a soup kitchen every week, but couldn't I be doing more? Shouldn't I be doing more?

I dunno. It's something I'm trying to figure out. Me and a whole lot of other people, I suppose. Especially given that this Zen and the Art of Making a Living Book is in it's second "expanded and updated" edition.

Most bizarre arcade game

While at my sister's this weekend, I played what I think is the most bizarre video arcade game ever. It's called Ganbare Ginkun and it is a Japanese arcade game from 1995. Here's a link to some screenshots from it. It's a game where two players compete in various "mini-games" - fairly simple games that last about 30 seconds or so. The whole thing is in Japanese, so part of the fun was trying to deduce from kanji and acompanying diagrams what the instructions were for each minigame. There were at least a dozen or so different mini-games and they involved such tasks as trying to land your head back on your body after it was shot up into the sky, trying to be the first to fire a cannon at your opponent when the referee yells "Go!" but not when he yells other things like "Cool!" or "Boom!", trying to eat the correct sushi as various plates whiz by on a conveyer belt, and most bizarre of all, trying to put out a fire by peeing on it. Yes, you read that right - by peeing on the fire. The game uses a very simple "hand-drawn" line art for the graphics, so all the people are stick figures, adding to the silliness.

Here's a screenshot showing the end of a game in which the player did not land their head properly back on their body. As a result, some shaggy haired person ran out onto the field of play and kicked the players head away as a punishment! It's total silliness!

Wolfeboro visit

My mom's side of the family had a bit of a reunion up in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire this weekend. In all, about 35 relatives got together at my sister's family vacation house. One of my cousins remarked that it was interesting to note that all the family members present were there as a result of just two woman (my mom and her sister). It's an interesting observation on population growth, I suppose.

Late Friday night, while I was trying to fall asleep, I noticed a blinking yellow-green light outside the window. It turned out to be a firefly that had landed on the screen and was climbing around and blinking. I tried to take a picture of it in the dark, but this was the best I could do.

Due to the long exposure, I think I got multiple images of the firefly as it jumped around. (Either that or it was because I wasn't steady enough with the camera.)

It was nice to see the arcade machine I had built had made it to NH safely and was getting lots of use. Given the partly rainy weather, the machine probably got more use this weekend than it had the past few years it had been at my condo.


There was some interesting wildlife in the area. First off, I noticed these two empty husks of some insect. I have no idea what it was, but it looked interesting to me.




Notice how both empty shells have the same curly white threads where the insect ripped out. Odd.

I'm not sure what this furry thing was - but it did seem friendly:



At one point in the day, a family of mergansers swam by on the lake. There were about 12 babies!





Later that same day, I heard a sound in the nearby woods that kind of sounded like a monkey -you know, something like "oo-ooo-aaaa-aawwww!". My sister said it was a pileated woodpecker. Sure enough - she was correct. Someone quickly spotted it in a tree. Out of the twenty or so shots I took, I was able to get a few decent pictures before it flew off.




This was the first time I had ever seen a pileated woodpecker (other than watching the Woody Woodpecker cartoon when I was a kid). They're pretty impressive looking! I thought this entry on the USGS web site (under the category of similar species) was kind of funny: "No other living woodpecker could be confused with the Pileated."

My sister has many bird feeders on her property. She also leaves out a few sliced oranges on spikes. It turns out they are good for attracting Orioles. Both an adult and an immature one stopped by while I was watching.

Awesome Moth

When I got home from work tonight, I noticed this awesome looking moth on the ground:



Unfortunately, it was dead, but it's still quite beautiful and the wings were hardly damaged. I found the spots on the wings very interesting - parts of them are transparent. It's quite large, too. It's wing span is about 6 inches!

I think it's a polyphemus moth (see here). I've never seen one before.

Hide and Seek for Dogs

If you have a dog, here's something to try as an alterative to the normal game of fetch. Instead try a modified game of hide and seek. Many years ago - back when I had two dogs - I had discovered my dogs liked to play this game. If I threw a ball in the house it would give me enough time to quickly hide somewhere. The dogs would run to get the ball and then quickly return to search the house for my hiding place. They seemed to love then trying to find where I hid. All I had to do was say "Wanna play hide and seek?" and they would both start jumping around barking like crazy. (Although, I must admit, the dogs did tend to jump around and bark like crazy for lots of other reasons - so maybe that's not the best way to judge how good of a game this is. Maybe they thought "Wanna play a game of hide and seek?" sounded a lot like "There's a horse walking down the street! Wanna eat it?" They did go crazy whenever a horse walked by our house.)

A friend of mine just got a new dog (rescued from a shelter down south - Alabama, if I recall correctly). Why a dog this cute was in a shelter is beyond me:

Unfortunately there are plenty more dogs like him in shelters. Give Petfinder a visit some time if you are looking for saving a dog or cat from an uncertain future.

But, back to my other point - I discovered he (the dog, not the friend) also seems to enjoy a game of hide and seek. My friend was a bit skeptical when I suggested the idea, but the dog was quick to get the idea of the game. So, if you have a dog and you are getting bored with the throw a ball and wait for it to be brought back, give a game of hide and seek a try.

Soup kitchen troubles

Gah! I just read an article from today's Providence Journal (here) that says the soup kitchen where I volunteer in Pawtucket will be closing. It turns out two woman in the neighborhood complained that they were harassed by men who appeared to have come from the soup kitchen so the city's zoning board denied issuing a new permit to allow the kitchen's continued operation.

Sheesh! Talk about throwing out the baby with the bath-water. First of all, the women weren't even sure the men had come from the soup kitchen, yet this one complaint was enough for the zoning board to deny the permit. Secondly, even if the men had come from the soup kitchen, it seems like a very strange policy to punish all the people being serviced by the kitchen because a couple of the patrons have behavior problems. I guess people want to help the homeless and poor in theory, but they just don't want to have to actually see them in their neighborhood. Yes, some of the people being helped are going to have behavioral problems and/or hygiene problems, but they still need our help. What people have to realize is helping the severely disadvantage in a city is not pretty work, but it's important work. All people deserve help - even ones you might not like.

What I find really odd is the soup kitchen is located downtown in a somewhat industrial neighboorhood, yet people still complained. Of all the possible locations, I would think this location would be the least intrusive. What do people want? A special walled community for the poor and homeless? Then we wouldn't have to see them and we could just live our happy lives not having to confront some of the ugly realities of life. We wouldn't even have to remember the homeless exist.

Where've I been?

A month has gone by since my last post. A few people have asked what's up. I've not had much free time in front of a computer lately, hence the lack of writing here. I've spent most of this month helping a friend renovate a condo she just bought. The place needed a bit of work, so she pretty much gutted it down to the sheetrock walls. Working along with a couple other friends, I've helped replace lights, ceiling fans, electrical outlets, wiring, a sliding glass door, installed new hardwood floors in three rooms, new plumbing, kitchen cabinets, a dishwasher, garbage disposal, etc.

It's been a lot of fun. The construction work is very satisfying when you see the finished product. Plus, I had always wanted to learn how to solder copper pipes and I finally got a chance to do that. Now I know just about all I need to build a house from scratch. The only thing I haven't been able to help with is installing the ceramic tile. I've never done that before. I suppose if I ever do build a house from scratch, I'll have to avoid putting in tile.

The only downside to all this is it can be very tiring, so between this construction work, my day job, and karate at night, I've been feeling pretty worn out. I think missing meals hasn't helped either. I tend to get distracted when working on a project and sometimes won't remember to eat. The construction work is winding down, so I'll probably resume posting a bit more frequently here - and I'll hopefully be eating a bit more regularly.

Hitchhiker

I got in my car this morning and noticed there was some sort of bug on the inside of the windshield. Upon closer inspection, I discovered it was a baby praying mantis and it was eating a fly!



While I thought it was kind of cool that I had a praying mantis living in my car, I was initially wondering how the heck it got inside my car. Then I remembered I had been mowing a lawn a day earlier and the lawn mower was still in my car. (It's one of those spinning blade push-powered mowers that don't use any fuel other than human enegy, so there's no awful gas fumes.) Best I can figure, the praying mantis must have hitched a ride in the grass clippings that were stuck to the mower.

I was ok with the praying mantis hanging out in my car, up until I was on the highway and noticed the praying mantis started jumping around on the dashboard. I then realized it could move pretty fast when it wanted. Not that I was afraid of the thing - it's only about 1.5 cm in size and I could crush it like... well.. a bug. But crushing it was actually my main concern - I didn't want to lose track of where it was an accidentally squash it.

Fortunately, for my 1/2 hour drive in to work it kept to the dashboard area of my car. When I finally stopped the car at work and opened the door to get out, the praying mantis decided to hop out too - right into the door jam area patiently waiting to be squashed when I closed the door. So, I then had to find a piece of paper to shepherd the thing fully out of the car. I finally got it to climb on the paper and I dropped it off on some shrubs nearby. Hopefully it likes its new home.

Here's a picture to give you a sense of how small the thing was - note the car air vent on the right hand side of the picture.

Settling

No, the title doesn't refer to lowering one's standards - it refers to me finally settling in at my new condo. I still have a lot of unpacking and painting to do, but the bulk of the work is done.

When I first moved in but hadn't yet moved all my stuff from my old condo, I made the mistake of forgetting to bring my silverware. I had brought food, but had nothing to eat it with. Fortunately, there's a Stop & Shop just minutes down the street so I was able to pick up some needed utensils. I didn't want to buy a box of disposable plastic eating utensils (that would be wasteful!) so instead I found what I needed in the baby aisle:



Yes, they're tiny reusable little plastic forks and spoons. I figured they'll also be useful for hiking since they're so small. The only drawback of them is the spoons are so small I would only get a tiny amount of milk in the spoon when eating breakfast cereal. But it was definitely better than nothing and I wasn't about to drive 40 miles to my old condo late at night just to get some spoons and forks.

Here are a few pictures of the condo before I started painting - all the walls were initially white. Keep in mind the ceilings are about 15 feet high, although a lot of the pictures don't show it.

This is the kitchen.



This is the dining and living area (most of the dining area is out of view to the left of the pillar).



This is the entrance to the dojo room:



And this is the room that will be my dojo. The bed is no longer in this room - pretend it's not there.



In case your imagination isn't so good, here's another view with the bed gone.



This is the master bathroom. I get one sink for each hand! I find I tend to use the sink on the right most of the time.



Here are a few pictures of what the place now looks like painted.







And this last picture is not a picture I took, but is something I found on my camera. Apparantly while I was out there was some sort of Star Wars person sneaking around among the boxes in my condo and someone mysteriously caught a snapshot of him/her/it using my camera. Weird....