Monthly Archives: April 2016

A Slow Finish to a Good Day

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For a while I was going to have to do things by myself, but then the entire family arrived and things slowed down considerably.

The started well though whenI led another pen tour. The twist this time was the wife was a pen addict and the husband wasn’t interested at all. (Although he was helpful in acquiring rare ink by helping bypass the only one bottle of each color for one person rule.) In the end I plied him with beer, which seemed to help. (He even seemed to notice a couple pens and express how nice they looked meaning there may be hope from bringing him to the dark side.)

Unfortunately, I had to send them on their way and return home to help a teenager acquire a smartphone.

When I asked She Who Must Be Obeyed where I should go (home or to the phone shop) I was informed that our oldest had already been told where to go, so to speak, and that she’d be arriving by herself and I was to handle the purchase. This, of course, confused me more because 1) She Who Must Be Obeyed doesn’t trust me to make financial decisions about things involving money; and 2) She Who Must Be Obeyed needs a new phone as hers has, among other things, by passe the life of its internal calendar. (It stopped counting days at the beginning of this year.)

I was even more confused when all my girls arrived and we got in line to buy a phone. Our oldest, of course, insisted on an iPhone 6S (which is why SWMBO told her where to go earlier), although our oldest was also intrigued by the “new” old style form iPhone SE as it actually fit her hands comfortably. In the end she opted for the larger 6S.

This led to a two hour wait as this particular store spends a lot of time attempting to upsell things. (One of which we got.) After all that, time, though, they still managed to get our family name wrong on the license agreement.

I hope that means I don’t have to pay. But I’m pretty sure our oldest has already used up all her bandwidth for the month.

Both Awesome and Boring

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The best way to describe how I felt was “bored sardine.”

Our oldest had her high school entrance ceremony today and that meant I had to find a jacket and decent trousers and put on a tie. Unfortunately, it also turned out that we had to bring indoor shoes which meant we had to change out of our outdoor shoes, although we then had to carry them in a plastic bag. As a result, I was in the dress up version of a mullet: a blazer, trousers, and tie on top; Denver Broncos flipflops on the bottom.

Math and masses then took over to make things less than comfortable. The first year class has 367 girls which meant around 734 parents and various and sundry grandparents had to fit in a gym along with nearly 800 upperclasswomen and their teachers. This meant we had to squeeze into small chairs organized in tight rows that even Ryanair would find excessively cruel.

The ceremony started awesome as our oldest and a bunch of other girls walked in and all the older students sang Handel’s Messiah (which was invented in Lindsborg, Kansas) and then sang the Japanese national anthem.

After that things took a turn for the boring as each new girl’s name was read out as part of the first official roll call and they each stood, said “here” and bowed to the principal who bowed back. Now that’s about 5 seconds to hear a name, say “here” stand and bow and receive a bow from the principal times 367 girls which is around 30 minutes of time so boring I was actually looking forward to the speeches.

Then the speeches started and I could see people all around me nodding off (including She Who Must Be Obeyed). I even caught myself drifting sideways during the speech given by the head of the Parent Teacher association.

Eventually, half the crowd was turned loose to go home (where our youngest was waiting patiently/watching television) and the rest stayed at school to attend open classrooms and get more information.

Then, after our oldest and She Who Must Be Obeyed came home, we went out and ate way too much steak and salad bar, but it was all delicious.

Not Snow, Not Wind, But Rain

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I’m not made of sugar and I’m pretty sure I won’t melt, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

I had to go to an afternoon meeting at the company I work for and my plan was to spend the morning ink hunting.

However, we woke up to a fairly heavy rain storm. This put me in a bad mood and I quickly changed plans. It’s annoying enough having to go to the orientation meeting. Getting soaked by rain and having to sit in a meeting is even more annoying.

After I cancelled my plans to go ink hunting I discovered that several train lines were delayed or stopped. I consider this divine validation of my decision.

However, I also began hoping that the meeting itself would be cancelled. Alas, it was not cancelled and I ended up having to traipse through the rain to the train station in order to go to “work.”

The trains were on time but I had to deploy the built in rain cover on my book bag, which is also annoying as it’s designed for when the bag is sitting on something, not when it’s over your shoulders being carried.

I also ended up with we feet and, even more annoying had to  drag around a large umbrella. Such things never fit anywhere and, if you don’t get the end seat on the train, you will drop it if you fall asleep. This means you have to stay awake or you drop the umbrella. (If you get the end, you can hook it over the bar.

I finally arrived a the meeting and, for the most part, there were a couple interesting revelations, but nothing particularly useful.

The only good things were we finished early and the rain stopped. But I still had the umbrella to lug around.

An Oddly on Schedule Day

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Strangely enough, I actually stayed on schedule today, for the most part. What’s odd is the part I didn’t do was the part where I scheduled time to play a game.

I do not believe this is because, after all these centuries (give or take a few years)  that I am suddenly become a responsible person. Rather, it just took a long time to make a box.

I actually woke up later than I’d plan which put me behind. I then managed to catch up, somewhat, by knocking out my daily 10 ideas and a page or so of writing. That was followed by doing my actual “job” by producing “work” now that the company I work for has decided to trap me in my house on days I’m not assigned to the school where I work.

Note: Despite my whining, I’d much rather face the current house arrest than be forced to go into the office and work. Not only would I have to wear a tie but there is evil there that does not sleep. The great eye is ever watchful. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire, ash, and dust. The very air you breathe is a poisonous fume.

Unfortunately, the poisonous fumes have damaged the brains of management meaning I couldn’t send the “work” in until much later. (That’s part of the house arrest: appearances must be maintained.)

After the house arrest portion of the morning was finished, I focused on selling ink. That involved lots of bubble wrap, some packing peanuts and a small box that I crafted out of a larger box and then kept tweaking to see if I could reduce the weight to lower the cost yet still protect the contents. I then took that to the post office and sent it off.

After that some new ink arrived and I made some sample pages. That led me to stare at the growing pile of odd and rare inks in the variety room and ponder the best ways to dispose of it, (after ordering more of the ink that had arrived, of course).

At first I tried to implement one idea. That involved attempting to use the features provided by my webpage host and then swearing a little and abandoning that attempt when the features proved to be less intuitive than I’d hoped. At this point the overthinking took over and I felt a bit of panic caused by freaking myself out and I finally distracted myself for a bit with a game.

Now I think I have a plan. A lot of ink and a plan.

Lost and Police, or Fail and Lesson Two

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It took a while, but I finally took our oldest to the police. She thought the police officer was kind of cute. (Officially, I didn’t notice.)

Our oldest, despite being a vampire, is also a teen, which means she is, on occasion, especially after the last fail and lesson, able to set aside her vampirism and wake up early for the chance to hang out with her friends for the day. However, being a teen, she is also prone to lapses in judgement, which is what ultimately led us to the police.

A short time after she left we got a call and our youngest started searching our oldest’s desk. We eventually figured out that she had lost her train pass. This was both an annoyance (as she had to pay each time she entered the station rather than swiping the card) and crisis (as it makes it slightly more difficult for her to get her official train pass when she starts high school which is important to She Who Must Be Obeyed who will go with her).

After our oldest finally came home (late) there was much arguing and, in the end, to preempt more arguing, I decided to take our oldest to the station to fill out a search request and incorporate a short train pass search on the way. (The latter involved flashlights and funny stares from fellow pedestrians.)

As we approached the station, because the card hadn’t been turned in at the station (which is normal for Japan) I suggested we see if it had been turned in to the police. It hadn’t, but our oldest got to fill in–to the best of my knowledge–her first police report. The policewoman on duty was very friendly and our oldest declared her “cute” to She Who Must Be Obeyed after we returned home which earned me suspicious glares even though, officially, I hadn’t noticed the policewoman was cute (albeit a bit heavy for a policewoman).

After the police report we went to the station and, in a surprise twist, was able to cancel the card and get a note that will slightly assist getting the official pass.

If our oldest remembers to take the paper with her when she goes to get her official pass.

 

Day After Day Old School

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Just when thought I’d get out with no swearing, it pulled me back in.

I saved one of my annual rituals for today’s “work” day. Despite the advances in time keeping and scheduling technology, and their easy availability in stores or online, I still use a paper calendar at home and still make it myself. I do this partly to keep She Who Must Be Obeyed informed of my schedule and partly to make sure I get what I want.

The tradition is to start with one of Microsoft Publisher‘s calendar templates and then to tweak it and distort it until it’s the way I want it to be. I make it as large as possible on an A4 page to allow lots of space to write on each day. I also add Japanese national holidays and important days like birthdays. (Because it is used to inform She Who Must Be Obeyed, I also include my birthday.) This takes a couple hours and lots of swearing is involved.

However, today it took less time today because I passed on two traditions: reducing and changing the fonts and trying to mechanize all this by creating my own template. The former was done to maximize writing space, especially when I enlarged it on a copier to make a desk blotter that I used as a planner. (That mission has been replaced by Google Calendar.) Building a template had been attempted in order to save time and reduce swearing. Those attempts usually ended with swearing.

Today, though, I kept the process as simple as possible, and even made two variations: one to satisfy my “work” day requirement (as other people might be able to use it) and a second that is the real calendar with birthdays.

Everything was fine until I attempted to print and certain flaws revealed themselves: 1) I hadn’t st the page for A4. 2) I didn’t know what the hell I was doing and the calendar got messed up. Fixing the former was easy, the second, though, took some time and a lot of swearing.

There was also the matter of dwindling ink supply.

Eventually, I got it printed out safely. Now I have to resist the urge to submit the revision as tomorrow’s “work” day requirement. I also have to remember to change the ink cartridge. If I don’t the next time I use the printer there will be swearing.

The Accidental Barista

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About 20 days ago She Who Must Be Obeyed commented on how well our coffee maker had held up after several years of use. Ten days ago our coffee maker died.

SWMBO then decided she would first call the manufacturer and see if it was possible to get it repaired. (More on that in a minute.)

The death of the coffee maker also coincided with the end of our supply of ground coffee. Luckily, SWMBO had a secret stash of coffee beans she dug out and we began a much different coffee making ritual.

The ritual involves grinding beans with a grinder I got over a decade ago and that’s lasted a long time (I only bring this up to see if that phrase is a curse.) The beans are ground whilst the water boils and then we spend several minutes carefully pouring hot water over the grounds in a manner that makes me yell at trained baristas when they do it.

The problem is we can’t decide on a suitable replacement coffee maker and we’ve slowly gotten hooked on hand-poured coffee. The boiling water does make a difference.

Of course, the other issue is that because we’d run out of pre-ground coffee, we’ve been enjoying a higher quality coffee than usual. I also suspect this is why SWMBO put off calling the manufacturer. When she did, the manufacturer informed us (as I suspected) that the coffee maker was too old to be repaired. (Note: I suspect SWMBO was hoping to discover the coffee maker was under a recall and we’d get a free replacement; something similar happened with our electric carpet. Long story.)

While SWMBO and the girls were visiting the in-laws, I acquired more bags of good coffee. This has also slowed down the desire to get a new coffee maker.

Maybe, when the good coffee runs out, we’ll get a new coffee maker. Until then, we’re living in a handmade coffee world.

 

Bringing an Ink to a Knife Show

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Today was the Japan Custom Knife Makers / Japan Knife Guild Custom Knife Show. Right away you see there are problems.

To my mind a custom knife is one made to my specifications. Although I could have ordered a custom knife (and one of my friends has done so a couple times in the past) what the show should actually be called is the “Japan Handcrafted Knife Show” or, perhaps more accurately, the “Brutal Walk of Expensive Temptation”.

The most dangerous table was a knife maker from Fukui Prefecture. His knives were not only nice, they were solidly within the “yeah, I could totally justify that” zone. I walked the brutal walk of expensive temptation a couple times and then left to run a few errands.

My first errand was a trip to Ito-ya to acquire a couple fountain pen converters that are hard to find in the USA. While I was there I discovered bottles of ink from a now defunct pen company and added those to the purchase as they have some resale value.

From there I went to a bookstore to pick up one kind of ink and discovered, much to my surprise, a different kind of ink in a cool, old-style bottle. I also saw the note saying “only one bottle per greedy reseller” (something like that). Luckily, they also had some hard to find flavors in newer bottles, too and I was able to get some of those.

(Note to self: plan a special outing with the girls.)

(Second note to self: make the ink buying part a surprise.)

I then remembered that the department store across the street also used to have bottled ink in the cool old-style bottles. After some searching, I found them and then engaged in the even more difficult quest of “finding a clerk”. After that difficult mission was accomplished, I was surprised when the clerk let me have two bottles of each flavor.  (The cashier seemed a little more suspicious of my motives though.)

(Note: if you’ve lost count, that’s 11 bottles of ink.)

I then got home in time to prepare the room for the girls’ return from the in-laws. I also managed, after posting a picture to a forum, to sell two bottles of ink and one of the converters.

Now I just have to sell the rest and make room for more. (Something like that.)

Peanuts and Construction and Boxes

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It’s a truth universally acknowledged that most people going about their daily lives don’t worry much about the price of packing peanuts. They are an annoyance that manages to find their way to secret places you discover weeks after spilling them whilst opening a box.

Today, I was worried enough that I looked up the price. I was also worried about boxes and duct tape. This was from a blend of wishful thinking and immediate desperation.

What happened is today I sent out five orders. Those orders included four boxes with ink and a package with one pen I stopped using a while back. The pen was easy. It involved a small box and a padded envelope. The biggest boxes of ink were also easy as I had a couple spare boxes from previous shipments.

Everything after that got weird. First, I didn’t have any boxes that fit the orders and had to fabricate them from other boxes. This required a pocket knife, several swear words, forgetting the notion of “measure twice cut once” (my version is more like “cut, measure, swear, improvise”), and lots of duct tape. The result was a couple misshapen boxes with duct tape in odd places. Including duct tape to hold down folds in the duct tape.

As I got to the the last box, though, the supply of duct tape began to look disturbingly low. (More on that in a minute.)

As I packed, I used up a supply of packing peanuts i’d saved from an order I’d received from somewhere right after I started reselling ink. Unfortunately I used the last of it before I got to the last box.

The last box was an odd construction of bubble wrap, badly cut cardboard that required a lid and duct tape. The problem is, there didn’t seem to be enough duct tape but, luckily there was.

Now , as result of all that, I’m spending time looking up packing materials instead of looking up pens and ink. I’m not sure that’s an improvement.

An Awesome Institution For What It Was

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The only museum in Tokyo exclusively dedicated to pens closed today and I couldn’t be bothered to travel an hour to see it off. That pretty much tells you all you need to know about Pilot Pen Station.

The outside of Pilot Pen Station. This, and the building, will soon be gone.

The outside of Pilot Pen Station. This, and the building, will soon be gone.

The PPS is one of those places that was more interesting than it was impressive and it wasn’t even that interesting. It had a collection of maki-e pens but, quite frankly, the expensive pen floor of Ito-ya has an equally impressive maki-e collection. There was also a wall that detailed the history of Pilot pens and a few displays on making ink and the various types of nibs Pilot makes. But that was all in Japanese.

There was also table where you could try out the various Iroshizuku inks. But that was just promotion.

The maki-e display on the left looking down toward the Capless display.

The maki-e display on the left looking down toward the Capless display.

My favorite part was the display of the history of Capless pens, which included charts and examples of their internal workings. My only complaint about this was that the two pens were clearly in the wrong places but no one ever bothered to correct the mistake.

The Capless display.

The Capless display. Mistakes were made.

Unfortunately the building itself is scheduled to be demolished and rebuilt and the museum collection will be removed and stored somewhere, probably never to return. That said, although the PPS was worth a visit, but it wasn’t worth a linger or more than one visit.

When I took some guests there last week, the museum was already in shut-down mode. Half the pens on the display of Iroshizuku inks were dry and at least one had a damaged nib. (That said: Pilot, if you need to dispose of those pens, I’ll take them off your hands…)

It had a weird schedule and would shut down on national holidays, meaning it was closed on days new pen customers might actually have a chance to see it.

Being in a business district, it also suffered from not having much around it. I treated it as a way-station between Maruzen and Ginza, especially in summer when the air conditioning was the best part of the museum.

Now it exists only in Google Maps. You can take a virtual tour here. That tour, quite frankly, is about as interesting as actually going there.

(The link to the Google Map comes from Bruno Taut at Chronicas Estilograficas.