Topic: Home Improvement
Maria left for Prague with the boys last week. She’s teaching a class there this summer. They’ll be there for 7 weeks, and I’ll join them for the last 3 of those weeks. In the meantime, I’ve been busy destroying the house.
In the evenings after work I’ve been dismantling one side of the kitchen, piece by piece. We’re taking down the wall between the kitchen and the dining room, and replacing it with a bar counter. So I’ve been taking down the cabinets, packing away all the dishes, food, and appliances, and removing all the electrical wires from the wall. Today a contractor came to start taking the wall down. He’ll also put in proper structural support to make sure the 2nd floor doesn’t come crashing down on us 
. It doesn’t seem to be a load bearing all, but the house was constructed in an …unusual… way, so he’s playing it safe (the 1st floor ceiling joists are parallel to the wall, but then there’s a wall above it on the 2nd floor, offset by about a foot, and the 2nd floor ceiling joists run in the opposite direction; I’ve never seen anything like that before, and neither has my contractor).
I’ll use the 3 day weekend to do a little demolition of my own – I’m adding a doorway on another side of the kitchen, leading into the living room. With all the changes to the walls, I also need to re-configure most of the electrical wiring in the kitchen.
The kitchen is actually one of two projects I’ve got going. The other is remodeling our sunroom. Pictures of that coming soon.
The dining room wall, on the eve of its destruction30-Jun-2009 12:52 – SONY DSC-T1, F 3.5, 6.7mm, 0.025 sec, ISO 160
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The kitchen side of the wall, with oen base cabinet and one wall cabinet already removed30-Jun-2009 12:53 – SONY DSC-T1, F 3.5, 6.7mm, 0.025 sec, ISO 160
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The cabinets and various kitchen items in their temporary basement home. There are also lots of dishes, etc. in boxes in the living room01-Jul-2009 16:26 – SONY DSC-T1, F 3.5, 6.7mm, 0.025 sec, ISO 160
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The kitchen wall, with the gas line capped, and all cabinets and wiring in the walls removed01-Jul-2009 17:43 – SONY DSC-T1, F 3.5, 6.7mm, 0.025 sec, ISO 160
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All the lathe and plaster is removed – the framing will come out next02-Jul-2009 11:19 – SONY DSC-T1, F 3.5, 6.7mm, 0.025 sec, ISO 160
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Topic: Mike on Twitter
I was an early adopter with blogging, but I’m late to the game with Twitter. I finally decided to give it a try: http://twitter.com/mtoppa. Someone in New Zealand already claimed “toppa”, but they only posted once, last October. A perfectly good username gone to waste. I’m sure that soon enough there will be a booming secondary market for Twitter usernames, like there is for domain names.
I waited so long because, at least for me, I didn’t see the point. I don’t think the world is particularly interested in what I ate for lunch, or that I just vacuumed the staircase. But I think it might be useful for sharing thoughts that don’t really call for a full blog post. We’ll see what happens.
I’m using Alex King’s Twitter Tools WordPress plugin to share my tweets in my blog sidebar, and to automatically collect my Tweets weekly into an blog post.
Topic: 2007: Living in Tokyo
With the new Transformers movie opening today, I feel the need to let all the kids know that Gundam are way cooler than Transformers. There’s one simple reason for this: Gundam are real. They’re not just toys or computer generated images – here are the pictures to prove it .
 Gundam statue in Odaiba, from pinktentacle.com
Gundam statue in Odaiba, from pinktentacle.com12-Jun-2009 15:40 – Canon Canon EOS Kiss X2, F 10, 24mm, 10 sec, ISO 100
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 Gundam statue in Odaiba, from pinktentacle.com
Gundam statue in Odaiba, from pinktentacle.com12-Jun-2009 14:30 – Canon Canon EOS Kiss X2, F 8, 46mm, 0.005 sec, ISO 200
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Kai with a giant Gundam, at a toy store in Ebisu, Tokyo
Kai with a giant Gundam, at a toy store in Ebisu, Tokyo16-Feb-2007 22:17 – Canon Canon PowerShot S230, F 2.8, 5.40625mm, 0.01666666 sec, ISO
These are photos of the recently completed Gundam statue, measuring 60 feet tall and weighing 35 tons. It’s in Odaiba, one of my favorite places in Tokyo. When we were living in Tokyo, Kai was crazy for Gundam, along with at least half of Japan’s male population. We spent many evenings building and gluing model Gundam sets, and we filled a suitcase with them for our trip home. Japanese toy stores – as well as electronics stores like Yodabashi Camera – typically have multiple aisles dedicated to Gundam merchandise.
Many toys and anime from Japan have been successful in the US. It surprises me that the massive, decades-long popularity of Gundam in Japan has not spilled over to the US at all.
The photos above are from this Pink Tentacle post. They also have pictures from last month, partway through its construction.
Topic: Politics 2009
I’d like to point you to a couple of particularly good blogs for understanding the turmoil in Iran right now. Gary Sick, who served on the National Security Council for Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan, provides this context in his blog. His post, Iran’s Political Coup is particularly good. Middle East History Professor Juan Cole is often insufferable, but his blog is a great source of first hand accounts emailed to him from the streets of Tehran. His recent post Class v. Culture Wars in Iranian Elections explains why – when placed in the context of the past 10 years of Iranian politics – the official election results are completely implausible.
It’s also fascinating to see the online battle between the protesters and the Iranian government, with the government shutting down cell phone networks and blocking access to services like Twitter and Facebook. Their goal is to disrupt communication between the protesters, as well as stifle their communication with the outside world. In response, people inside and outside Iran are swarming to set up proxy servers to get around the blocks. CNET News has a good explanation of what’s happening in laymen’s terms.
Topic: Deko Boko, Shashin
This morning I uploaded minor upgrades for Shashin and Deko Boko to wordpress.org. The Shashin upgrade adds back the getAlbumList function I inadvertently removed in Shashin 2.3. It provides a non-widget solution for showing a Picasa photo album list in your sidebar. The Deko Boko upgrade offers new translations in Spanish and French, and fixes a small bug in the Settings menu (it would show English as the selected language even if you had picked a different one).
Topic: Kai & Eidan: 2009
Kai’s classmates signed the board congratulating him for his winning entry in the Young Authors’ Project15-Jun-2009 19:05 – SONY DSC-W55, F 5.2, 18.9mm, 0.025 sec, ISO 320
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Kai with his 2nd grade teacher and the school principal, holding his certificate for the Young Authors’ Project15-Jun-2009 19:07 – SONY DSC-W55, F 3.2, 8.2mm, 0.06666667 sec, ISO 320
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Kai and his classmates looking at the Young Authors’ Project book15-Jun-2009 19:10 – SONY DSC-W55, F 2.8, 6.3mm, 0.06666667 sec, ISO 320
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Yesterday, on Kai’s second-to-last day of 2nd grade, he was awarded a certificate for his winning entry in this year’s Young Authors’ Project. He wrote a story that was one of 97 selected from over 1,000 stories submitted by 1st-8th graders in Delaware County. The winning stories were collected into a book, and Kai was given a copy. His story was one he wrote for a class assignment about manatees:
Manny the Manatee
Have you ever seen me in the shallow rivers of Florida? If not, I’d like to tell you about me.
I’m gray or brown in color, cute and chubby with a paddle shaped tail. If you guessed a manatee, you’re right. I like to sleep and eat almost all day. Uh oh, I hear a motor boat! Let’s hope they see my Manatee Crossing sign!
Now back to my story. If someone is in my river, I like going up to inspect them. Don’t worry, I won’t harm you. I’m very gentle. I have to live in water that is sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit or warmer. I love to eat a lot of different types of grass. They are so tasty! You really need to try them. Speaking of food, it is lunchtime. We’ll see you later.
But, next time you come to Florida, make sure you visit a river. You might get to say “hi” to one of my manatee friends.
Topic: Deko Boko, Koumpounophobia, Post to Post Links II, Shashin
I just upgraded to WordPress 2.8, and all of my plugins are working fine with it so far. The only problem I’ve noticed is the headers on the Koumpounophobia modal dialogs are no longer styled correctly, but the functionality is fine. If you notice any upgrade-related problems, please add a comment to this post.
And while I’m here: Shashin was one of five image-related plugins (out of the 285 available at wordpress.org) listed in the Weblogs Tools Collection’s article Five Image Related Plugins for your WordPress Site.
(My blog has been quiet recently as I’ve got a big home renovation project going. I’ll post pictures when it’s done. I may not have the opportunity to blog much this month.)
Topic: Shashin
Beta testing is done, and Shashin 2.4 is now available for download at WordPress.org. The beta version was downloaded 54 times and no bugs were reported. For a description of the new features, see the post announcing the beta version. Russian and Dutch translations are included in the new release. Thank you to everyone who helped with the translations and with testing.
I’m almost done updating the Shashin documentation page. I’ve finished documenting the most important new features. I’ll finish the rest in the next few days.
If you encounter any problems or have any questions, please add a comment to this post.
Topic: Kai & Eidan: 2009, Trips to Newport, RI
Kai flying his kite at Brenton Point in Newport22-May-2009 19:44 – SONY DSC-W55, F 5.2, 18.9mm, 0.0015625 sec, ISO 100
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Mike and Kai at Brenton Point in Newport22-May-2009 20:25 – SONY DSC-W55, F 5.2, 18.9mm, 0.004 sec, ISO 100
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We spent Memorial Day weekend in Newport. Kai was excited to fly his kite, so we went to Brenton Point. It’s the most popular kite flying location on the island – it’s right where the Narragansett Bay meets the ocean, so it’s always windy. All you have to do to get a kite airborne is lift it off the ground. We also went down to the shore to climb on the rocks.
Eidan, Kai, and Mike flying a kite at Brenton Point in Newport22-May-2009 19:43 – SONY DSC-W55, F 5.2, 18.9mm, 0.002 sec, ISO 100
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Kai flying his kite at Brenton Point in Newport22-May-2009 19:44 – SONY DSC-W55, F 5.2, 18.9mm, 0.0015625 sec, ISO 100
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Kai flying his kite at Brenton Point in Newport22-May-2009 19:44 – SONY DSC-W55, F 5.2, 18.9mm, 0.00125 sec, ISO 100
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Kai flying his kite at Brenton Point in Newport – that’s Eidan running nearby22-May-2009 19:50 – SONY DSC-W55, F 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.003125 sec, ISO 100
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Eidan and Kai flying a kite at Brenton Point in Newport22-May-2009 20:09 – SONY DSC-W55, F 7.1, 6.3mm, 0.005 sec, ISO 100
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The boys also had a good time with their cousins. They especially enjoyed blasting each other with the amazing, fully automatic Nerf Vulcan gun – check out the video below.
Kai getting riddled with nerf bullets by his cousin Matthew25-May-2009 01:20 – SONY DSC-W55, F 2.8, 6.3mm, 0.004 sec, ISO 100
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Kai blasting his cousin Matthew with the amazing Nerf Vulcan gun25-May-2009 05:23 – , F , mm, sec, ISO
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Kai with his uncle Jim25-May-2009 01:28 – SONY DSC-W55, F 2.8, 6.3mm, 0.00625 sec, ISO 100
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