13 August 1998

A Summer Adventure

I reserved a Cessna 182 for 2 days this week, and decided we'd figure out where to go after looking at the weather. The weather reports this week have basically all read -- Visibility 10+, sky clear -- all over California, so we had our choice of where to go. At PR's house (a friend of mine from Avsig who is an air traffic controller) last Saturday night, we talked about crossing the Oregon border and going to either Ashland or Klamath Falls. Monday afternoon we decided to head to Ashland and called up to book a room at the Windmill Inn.

The flight up was gorgeous. We left San Carlos (SQL) at 4:30PM. The only hitch of the entire trip was that I couldn't get Oakland Radio to acknowledge my existence, so I never opened a flight plan. I picked up flight following about 2 miles out of SQL, crossed over OAK and headed north. A few miles north of Napa, we got turned over to PR's sector at Oakland Center, so I got to talk with her for about 140nm! That was fun to hear her at work; she acted very professionally even though there was a real bozo on the frequency. This guy said he was a CAP flight, and at one point even asked PR to figure out his ETA for Oakland. After that little exchange, PR just said, "Now do you believe me, Theresa?"

Landing at Ashland is fun coming from the south. We had to be at 8500 over the ridge that lies just over the OR/CA border, then circle down to pattern altitude of 2700 (900 AGL). The landing itself went fine; I love it when the kids applaud! The hotel sent a van out to pick us up and we were all checked into our room by 7:30. We went downtown on the off chance that we could get tickets to Tuesday night's performance of "Comedy of Errors" on the Elizabethan outdoor stage, but no luck. So we went to a nice restaurant called Alex's and had a fabulous meal. Kent and I split a bottle of Oregon pinot noir and I had a tasty garlicky rack of lamb. The kids had tortellini and Caesar salad, and we took the shuttle back to the hotel in a sated and sleepy state. One of the fun things we did over dinner was come up with slogans for the airline the kids think I should start when we get back to the U.S. I think the winner was, "Park your derriere on Carey Air and we'll fly you ANYwhere!"

Kent got up early yesterday morning and got in the line at the ticket booth around 7:45AM. They give out priority numbers at 9:30AM for that evening's sold-out performances which give the holders the opportunity to buy tickets that might have been given up by other buyers. What a deal for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival -- they can sell some tickets twice! Anyway, Kent got a couple of good numbers and we left with high hopes of getting seats at Midsummer Night's Dream. Quite a few people were around selling off tickets to Henry IV, Part I, but we didn't think the kids were quite ready for that one.

We spent the day goofing off in the town of Ashland, which is a fun place to just walk around and enjoy. Lithia Park, next to the theaters, kept the kids happy for several hours. We also went shopping for little trinkets and picked up sandwiches and drinks for lunch. We took those back to the hotel and ate them by poolside, then jumped in to cool down. It got up to about 104F yesterday afternoon, whew!

Back downtown at 6PM, we found that our priority numbers netted us 4 seats to Midsummer Night's Dream. Off we went for dinner, this time to Martino's, which is on the plaza near the restaurant. Following dinner we had a stroll around the park and a shot of caffeine, then we went to the Angus Bowmer theater (indoors -- and air conditioned!) for the show.

This is a terrific production of Midsummer Night's Dream. The casting was inventive and the staging innovative. They made the most of every single line, thanks to some physical antics that kept us all laughing. The audience burst into spontaneous applause after several speeches. The guy who plays

Bottom and the woman playing Helena are incredible comedians. Well worth the time in line. The kids loved the show and want to plan a trip back for next summer. I'm happy to oblige!

It was pretty busy -- and hot!! -- on the way back. To get back, I circled up to 7500 over the Ashland airport, then headed south while continuing my climb to 9500. We were hoping for some cool air, but no such luck. The circling combined with the headwind we picked up at 9500 meant we had to stop for lunch, so we picked Redding. HOT! The rest of the flight home was quite smooth, though I ended up talking to Travis for some reason. (I was with Oakland Center the whole trip north and followed pretty much the same path home.)

I don't think you have to be a Shakespeare fan to enjoy the goings-on in Ashland. There's lots of great theater there, and the Shakespeare productions are so well produced that even my kids can understand'em!

-- T.

25 August 1998

Howdy,

After nearly two months in the U.S. this summer for Teri, the girls and Hershey, we are back home in Tokyo.

The flight from S.F. took off more or less on time and we arrived at Narita Airport about 30 minutes early. Once we cleared immigration, Hershey was there waiting for us near the baggage claim area. Teri brought him to the Quarantine officials while Colleen, Kate and I snagged the luggage, all 8 checked bags! It took 3 carts just to move our luggage and a 4th to move Hershey around.

The Quarantine officials took Hershey away for evaluation while we went through customs. We arranged for a "wagon taxi" to meet us at the airport, so there was a driver right outside holding a sign with our name on it. I went to the taxi with Colleen and Kate while Teri went to plead with the officials to try to get home quarantine for Hershey.

When we got to the taxi it became clear that the luggage would not all fit. This taxi was the size of a mid-size station wagon whereas last year we had a small bus come to meet us. We filled the back of the taxi with bags and I went back inside to ship the extra luggage home. Kate came with me to take care of the shipping then we went upstairs to the quarantine office to see how Teri was doing.

Teri was coming out just as we arrived. She had a big smile as she had just secured home quarantine for Hershey. As of now they want us to bring him back to the airport once a week for checkups. We will ask our local vet to see if it is possible for him to give him the checkups instead, but even if we need to take him back it is better than leaving him in quarantine for 14 days at the airport.

Colleen has already taken off to visit her friends Lauren and Samantha. Kate is watching a video, Teri is going through mail (after a quick visit to the store) and Hershey is relaxing by our feet in the kitchen. Since we had Hershey fast beginning Saturday night (to avoid a repeat of his "accident" on the Narita to S.F. trip) he was quite hungry and actually ate like a dog instead of grazing in his usual style.

Thanks to all of your for making our summer stay in the U.S. fun and memorable. Keep us up to date on all your activities.

Kent

August 29 1998

Howdy,

Well, the girls made it through the first three days of school without any major problems. They each have enjoyed connecting again with old friends and making some new ones. Colleen says that volleyball will start next Friday. We have not heard yet when Aikido starts up again.

Hershey continues to cool his heels around the house. He has another week and a half of being restricted to the house and back yard. Theresa will need to take him back to Narita for check ups the next two Tuesdays.

While I was writing this message we had a good sized earthquake here. It lasted for nearly half a minute and felt like it was in the 6 range or so. Nothing fell out of cupboards or anything though.

We made a trip to Blockbuster last night and rented some videos. We watched "Men in Black" last night. The girls got up early and have been watching a double feature of "Father of the Bride" and Father of the Bride, 2."

Hope this message finds all of you well.

Kent

31 August, 2:30PM

Greetings, mailing list denizens. It's been a couple of months since my last Japan report but it seemed silly to write about our California visit. But being in the U.S. was a welcome break from the heat and humidity of summer in Tokyo, and though most of our time was spent rushing from one place to another, we still had time to do some vacationing. Highlights of the summer included lots of flying (including my checkout in a Cessna 182 and the start of training for a commercial rating), Colleen's 13th birthday celebration, a week in Aptos with Dana, Molly and Emily, a flying trip to Ashland, Oregon, and our annual visit to the Lair of the Bear (Camp Blue, Week 10, BE THERE!). I wrote a bunch of articles -- check out the current issue of Barron's for a piece I wrote in between coming back from the Lair and leaving for Japan -- so it wasn't all fun and games for me over the summer. The kids spent a lot of time with their Palo Alto-based pals, though they often said how much they missed their friends in Tokyo.

The transition back to Japan went incredibly smoothly, especially in comparison to the trauma of last summer. We arrived at Narita around 1:30PM last Tuesday afternoon, and I somehow managed to talk the quarantine officials into letting us take Hershey to our house for home quarantine. I'm so glad we didn't have to leave him at the Narita quarantine facility; last year, he lost about 6 pounds and chewed holes in his fur in a series of nervous frenzies. The downside of home quarantine is that I have to take him back to Narita for two inspections -- a 3-5 hour round trip, depending on traffic. Ugh. But that's better than having to leave him there all by himself. He doesn't understand why we don't take him for walks, though.

The kids started back to school last Wednesday and seem very happy with the situation. Colleen is in 8th grade and there are a total of 44 students in the class. Most of her classes have 20-21 girls in them, but her math class is smaller (14) because she's in the top math group. Kate's class is taught by Ms. Hewitt, an American, and there are 18 girls in her class. When I went to pick Kate and Colleen up after their first day of school, one of Kate's pals, Solene (from France) said hello to me and then added, "Kate is SO funny!" Another class clown in the works. The kids start piano lessons again on Thursday afternoon with Miss Reiko; fortunately they were able to practice quite a bit over the summer, so I hope they haven't fallen too far back with their skills.

The house was full of the kids' friends over the weekend since it was really too wet to go do much of anything. We've been sitting on the edge of Typhoon Rex (or Typhoon Yon-ban (#4) as the newscasters call it here) for 5 or 6 days now, bringing lots of rain and overcast skies. We had our Palo Alto friends, the Oppermans, over for dinner on Saturday night and compared notes on how much easier the 2nd and 3rd years are compared to the first. We also had a geological welcome back in the form of a 5.4 earthquake on Saturday morning. Nothing like a little shake, rattle and roll to get the blood pressure up! This was definitely the strongest quake I've felt yet here, and its epicenter was pretty close by. I keep a close eye on the retaining wall at the end of our street at times like that.

It's funny, but the weather now is so similar to what it was when we left -- hot, rainy, humid -- that I didn't feel all that jarred by returning. I jumped into the car and started driving around again and didn't have any trouble with that transition as I've had in the past. I know where the stores are and the basics of getting around -- there are fewer mysteries to solve this year. With any luck at all, things will continue to go smoothly for us this fall!

Colleen starts volleyball again on Friday, and I expect to hear about the start of aikido lessons pretty soon. Life goes on!

For those of you considering a trip to Japan in the near future -- do it! The CWAJ Print Show, the largest show and sale of Japanese contemporary art in the world, takes place October 15-18. I'm on the steering committee for this event, which raises money for scholarships for women and the visually impaired (two groups typically ignored by the Japanese establishment); let me know if you'd like me to buy you a catalog. There are 237 prints that will be in the show; some of them are absolutely stunningly beautiful. The weather is great in late October too, making it a good time to be here.

End of plug ... <grin>.

I'll apologize now for having neglected the web page for so long. I hope to have some new pictures to put up pretty soon. About all I did with the digital camera over the summer was have a few shots taken of all the Wilkinson siblings when we were together at the condo in Aptos, but those are definitely worth viewing so I'll try to upload'em soon.

Hope you all had a good weekend! Stay in touch.

• T.

7 September 8:30PM

Myrt (with copies to family mailing list) --

Thanks for the update. I'll have the girls send Kyle a Tokyo postcard.

The kids had a good day at school today. Kate came home singing and dancing, and both of them attacked their homework with enthusiasm. Kate is working on an atlas of the world; she asked me to help her figure out the difference between Slovenia and Boznia. This is not something I was concerned about in 4th grade. I'm really pleased with the global view they're establishing at Seisen.

Colleen had her 2nd volleyball practice this morning. Miss Daisy, the coach, told me last week that she's really counting on Colleen to be a team leader this year. Colleen's moods will be much more of a factor, so I hope she manages to stay positive and keep the team going. She's the only returning 8th grade A-team player -- all the other 8th graders trying out were on the B team last year -- and she's the tallest player by far, so that automatically puts her in a leadership spot. I think she's up for it this year; she's doing so much better now that I don't think I'd recognize the 7th Grade Colleen if she showed up at my door today!

I had a bit of a jolt on Saturday when looking at the Daily Yomiuri, which is the English-language newspaper we read here. Every Saturday, they run one or two articles from the prior week's issue of Barron's, and I usually look them over to see what they pick out of the 70 or so pages every week. Well, this week they ran *MY* column from 8/31 on online trading!! It was kinda fun to see my byline here in Tokyo. Barron's pays me a bonus for reprint rights, but they seldom use it except for online. I have to send my editor a note and tell him where the column ended up.

Talk to you soon ...

Love,

-- T.

14-Sep-98

Howdy,

It's Monday morning here. Colleen has already left for school and Kate will head up to the bus stop in a few minutes.

Yesterday afternoon, Colleen woke me up from a nap to tell me that she had a wonderful idea. If I would buy her a basket for her bike she would ride her bike to school at least some mornings. This was enough to roust me from my snooze as Colleen has been getting us to drive her to school at 6:40 AM for volleyball practice. I have been trying to convince her to ride her bike to school since last year as it should only take about 10 minutes, but she was not interested.

We rode our bikes down to a local bike shop and bought a large metal basket which they quickly installed on the back of her bike. We also got bells for both our bikes to warn pedestrians that we are coming up from behind them. Today Colleen arranged to meet her friend Sam (Samantha) up near St. Mary's school so they could ride to school together. She actually left the house at 6:20 AM (!!) to give herself plenty of time. They have two weeks before their first volleyball game and, according to Colleen, they need all the practice they can get.

Theresa says she'll write about the rest of our weekend later today, so I'll sign off here.

Hope your weekend was fun.

Kent

14 September 1998

Greetings, family and friends.

Further to Kent's report on Colleen's inspiration to ride her bike to school for those 7AM volleyball practices -- a development for which I am extremely grateful!!! -- here's a brief write-up of the rest of the weekend.

Well, I'll go back a couple of days further, to last Thursday. That was Hershey's second and last appointment with the quarantine people at Narita, but before that I had to attend a meeting of the steering committee for the College Women's Association of Japan Print Show. The Print Show is being held next month, October 16-18, so all the work I've been doing on this since last January is about to pay off. The meeting was held at the co-chair's house in Moto-Azabu, which is in the middle of the "gaijin village" near the Roppongi subway station. Since I had to take Hershey to the airport after this meeting, I drove. I picked a terrible route and the short drive ended up taking me almost 2 hours. (That includes 10 minutes of being terribly lost once I got close to Pat's house.) At one point, I turned a corner and found myself looking right at the house that our Palo Alto friends, the Oppermans, are living in now. I had to laugh at this one, remembering the time last spring that we got terribly lost trying to find *their* house -- and here I drove right to it without even trying. Ah well. I eventually got to Pat's place and stayed a couple of hours for the meeting. Hershey was a perfect gentleman, and stayed on his blanket in Pat's entry hall.

After the meeting, I took another hour-plus to get out to Narita. Hershey's final inspection took all of 10 minutes, then we were on our way back home. I dragged myself in the door after almost 6 hours of driving and 2 hours of meetings and collapsed. Fortunately, Kent and the kids decided that was a good night to go out for dinner!

On Friday night, we ate over at the Caster's house. Mike is some kind of mucky-muck with Nike, and their daughter Lauren is one of Colleen and Kate's best friends. Sue has been taking some cooking classes, so we were the beneficiaries of her studies. It was a great dinner and we all had a great time visiting. Mike had a pair of slightly damaged Nike Air shoes in Colleen's size that he gave to her, which was very nice of him. I can't believe how light these shoes are, and they'll be great for volleyball games. Now Colleen has two pairs of good volleyball/basketball shoes.

Saturday was kind of a lazy day, but a busy evening. Marge and Chris Van Woerkem came over with daughter Kelly, and Cindy and Kevin Smith came over too. Cindy and Kevin's twin daughters, Cheryl and Janice, are in 9th grade this year, but were on the volleyball team with Colleen last year. The girls went to a high school dance up at St. Mary's, so Kevin and Cindy were in the area. The six alleged grown-ups went out for dinner at the Thai restaurant nearby while Colleen, Kate and Kelly ate pizza and watched videos here at the house.

This week, I'll be setting up the computer system for the CWAJ Print Show, which should be fun. I'm computerizing the inventory management, which is meeting with a combination of incredible resistance and open-armed enthusiasm. This show, which makes about $250,000 in PROFITS for the CWAJ scholarship fund over a 4-day period, has been run by hand for 42 years, and I'm the revolutionary trying to streamline operations. It's been an interesting struggle for me, and an interesting exercise in cross-cultural relations. I'm trying to make things work better without criticizing any of the efforts that have gone before, which is a tough tightrope to walk. There's an incredible fear of computerization as well; I'm hoping that a demonstration of the benefits will help alleviate some of that. Wish me luck.

Back to it ... talk to you soon!

-- T.

Sunday 20 September, 9:30PM

So how is everybody? We have a new addition to the mailing list, having heard from Birte Ellenrieder this week. She's threatening to come visit next April, so plan your trips accordingly! Birte is now working in Bonn, and by my reckoning should be turning 22 pretty soon. Hard to believe that she went and got all grown up on us. We still remember cheering her on during her volleyball matches when she was our quasi-legal foster child in 1993.

Anyway, hearing from her was a highlight of the week, and it's good to be in touch again.

Other than that, it's been your basic September week in Tokyo: a typhoon, some heat and humidity, dinner guests that turn into overnight guests, and a few hours spent convincing an international group that computers Will Not Hurt Them. But first, a word from our sponsor.

(Technical problem: this email has no sponsor. Oh well. But for a minute there, I forgot how to spell "typhoon." Very strange feeling, at least for me, to completely forget how to spell a word and also not be able to picture it in what passes for my mind. Time to check that medication, you say?)

Tuesday was "Respect for the Aged" day here in Japan, which means it was a holiday. The government is hard at work trying to move all the holidays to Mondays or Fridays -- does this sound familiar? -- in order to encourage travel and simultaneous stimulation of the economy, but it hasn't happened yet. So holidays often fall on inconvenient midweek days, such as Tuesdays. Seisen had its back to school day scheduled for that afternoon, so Kent and I went off to school to meet Colleen and Kate's teachers and mingle with the other parents. Kate's 4th grade teacher, Ms. Hewitt, seems as enthusiastic and level-headed as her 3rd grade teacher, and she reports that so far there haven't been any emotional meltdowns in class (of which there were dozens last year). Could Kate be maturing? We're keeping our fingers crossed.

Colleen's classes all sound very interesting, and they'll also keep her in shape: her homeroom is on the 4th floor of the building, but some of her classes are held on the ground floor, so she spends much of her day running up and down stairs.

We were warned on Tuesday afternoon that school might be closed Wednesday because of the approaching typhoon. Well, it hit Tokyo hard in the early morning hours on Wednesday, and sure enough, Seisen was closed. The kids soaked up TV rays while I headed to the American Club for a CWAJ brunch meeting, with a guest speaker who talked about the global economy in the 21st century. Kenichi Ohmae, the speaker, was terrific. He kept a room full of people (over 200 women and 6 men) enthralled with his talk, which was very well done. He travels around a lot; if you get a chance to hear him, try to do so. He spoke of countries that are working economically, and why -- specifically mentioning Ireland and New Zealand -- and also talked about why Japan is in the mess it's in now. It's very rare to hear a member of the Japanese "establishment" criticize the government and the actions of the country's business leaders so harshly, but Ohmae-san really cut loose. By the time the brunch meeting was over, the skies had cleared and it was very hot (almost 100F) and extremely humid again. The kids had gone to have lunch with Kent in Mizunokuchi while I was out, avoiding television poisoning (whew!).

On Friday, I hosted a meeting here of all the CWAJ folks who are interested in seeing how the computerized accounting system I'm introducing this year will affect the operations at our annual Print Show. (By the way, you can check out the print show goings-on at http://anon.cyber.ad.jp/~cwaj/printshow/index.html.) Anyway, the meeting went very well, and I think I helped alleviate much of the fear that's surrounded this automation process. This year, we're essentially running in parallel with the old system, with plans to expand the process next year. The meeting started at 10 and went on until almost 3 -- whew! -- so I think I covered everyone's concerns. I hope so anyway.

Friday night, the kids and I watched Seisen's high school volleyball varsity and JV teams demolish the Zama teams, which was quite a surprise. Zama, an American military base out near Atsugi, had a very good team last year, but they were pretty pitiful this year. My two favorite players are seniors this year, and though I tried to recruit both of them to go to Cal, they're planning to attend college near their respective families (one in Sweden and one on the East coast of the U.S.). Hmph. Well, I tried.

Saturday was hot and sunny. Both kids started aikido lessons again, and had big adventures planned with school buddies in the afternoon. Kate went with her friend Lisa to the American Club for an afternoon of swimming and goofing around. Colleen got on a bus that took her all the way to Meguro, where she met her friend Katya for an afternoon of shopping and goofing around. Both kids had a great time. Kent and I went off to Kinuta Park, which is a huge place fairly close by, for a few hours of wandering around. The park features the Setagaya Art Museum, which had an exhibition of creations by an American artist who does strange stuff with light bulbs. It's not easy to explain. Much of the time in the exhibition was spent wandering down darkened hallways, hoping we were headed for the next display. The artworks were lights arranged ... well, artfully ... in darkened rooms that had been painted white. I walked out puzzled, realizing I don't have much of an appreciation for modern contemporary abstract art. Frankly, it puzzles me, but I guess I'm just not an abstract sort of person. I found enjoying the amenities of Kinuta Park itself very easy!

Now here's Kent with a Saturday night/Sunday update:

------------

Howdy from Kent,

GO BEARS!

From reading the news reports we learned that the Cal Bears beat Oklahoma today in a close football game in Oklahoma. Cal apparently has not lost one of their traditional core competencies, the ability to commit large numbers of bonehead penalties (getting 16 for 130 yards), but the defense held Oklahoma to just 12 points and Cal managed 13 points with its offense [aided by the defense putting them in great field position! -T.]. The Cal offense apparently discovered an ability to run the ball well enough to keep the defense from being on the field all the time.

SATURDAY NIGHT DINNER

We had two people over for dinner on Saturday night. Celine who is doing an engineering internship at Toshiba, the daughter of a Belgian HP employee who is currently based in Hong Kong, and Cathy, an HP Labs employee based in Singapore on a two month assignment to Tokyo.Cathy arrived late after a sightseeing trip to Kamakura. Between that and having trouble getting the BBQ to light, dinner ended up starting a little late. We had great fun chatting before during and after dinner, then suddenly noticed it was almost midnight. This is a serious problem here because the trains stop running at about 12:30 AM. By this time Cathy was not feeling too well so we decided it would be better to put them both up for the night rather than have them risk getting stuck looking for taxis at 1 AM. Celine was off at 6:15 AM to meet some friends in Tokyo. Cathy ended up staying until about 1 PM. I think this is our longest dinner party on record if you substract the planned overnight guests we have had.

SUNDAY IN THE PARK

Kate and I decided to take a bike ride to Kinuta Park today. Kinuta Park is about 3 km (2 miles) from here. It is a very large park with lots of open space, picnic tables, playground equipment and refreshment stands. This is the same park Theresa described where we went to the art museum yesterday. The weather was warm and sunny and we had a great time. We stopped at one of the stands and got some ice cream before heading back. Both coming and going we just kind of guessed at our route through some of the back streets. The only problem we got into was that on the way back we ended up on a bike path that Kate though was "scary" as in "lions and tigers and bears, oh my" scary and then this path lead us to a long stairway with about 40 steps we had to walk our bikes down. Kate kept asking me if I knew where we were. So little faith...

OTHER TOPICS

Thanks to Mom for the nice long note. Welcome to Birte, the newest edition to the "family and friends" e-mail list. She is currently working at a children's hospital to earn money between terms in school. Mom asked what kind of play the Clinton thing is getting over here in Japan. I am probably not the best one to ask as I tend to take the appearance of a Clinton/Starr story at the head of the news as evidence that there was no REAL news that day. There are stories on this in the Daily Yomiuri (our paper). They are often on the front page, but not the top story. Usually they are not even the top Clinton story as the papers here tend to be more interested in foreign policy developments.

Hope each of you had a good weekend. You are all in our thoughts.

Kent

----------

In other news, I've got our plane tickets booked for a Thanksgiving trip to Beijing, and we're all set for the New Zealand trip over Christmas and New Year's. Now if H-P stock would just head back up to 70 or 80, I'd start thinking this was turning out to be a pretty good year.

Talk to you soon ...

-- T.

26 September, 11PM

Busy day ... so a short note just to let you know that I uploaded a few pictures to the web page (accessible from www.oocities.org/~twcarey/today.html) from Colleen's volleyball games today. Seisen's season-opener was rocky, but the pictures are worth perusing. These Saturday gigs are long and tiring; they play two matches in one day, which makes for a long, long day. Seisen's first match was at 9AM, and the last ended at about 3PM. Fortunately, it was a home game, so at least the kids didn't have to sit on a bus for an hour or two in each direction. (You may notice I'm leaving out the match results. In brief, one tie and one loss -- sigh. Hopefully the early season jitters are all over now!)

After the matches ended, we headed home to regroup for a few hours, then went out to dinner at a restaurant we've looked at often for the last year. Just down the street from Seisen is a group of three restaurants in a truly strange-looking building. We had planned on going to Soho's West, and, based on looking at the menu earlier in the day, were pretty sure we were going to get Italian food. What we didn't count on was the maze we had to go through to get into the building.

After handing the car over to the valet parking guys (there were at least 5 young men working in a very small garage), we went into the lobby of the restaurant. There were metallic doors on both sides, and Colleen walked through the open one on our right, but it slid closed right behind her. We were facing a 3' high column covered in blinking lights, and pressed the ones that said they led to Soho's West. The door to our left opened, but we were still wondering how to find Colleen. The couple behind us pushed some other buttons, which opened the door on the right, so we all trooped through that door. We ended up going down some stairs, which put us below street level. The receptionist motioned us through yet another metal door, and we found ourselves walking across a catwalk suspended over a large dining room that was about 2 stories below us. We followed the catwalk over to some stairs, and negotiated our way down the metal staircases. The place was packed!! We were directed to a table on the other side of the floor, then were handed a menu which listed ... Chinese food. We had no idea how we'd managed this one, but decided to eat there anyway as long as we'd found our way down the treacherous staircases and had gotten seated. The food was good; we shared a bunch of small dishes and also had some coconut-laced desserts.

On the way out, we figured out that the restaurant we wanted was UPstairs, but in following Colleen through the maze, we'd ended up at the DOWNstairs restaurant. Oh well! Another adventure in Tokyo. It's been a while since we were completely lost, clueless to our surroundings, with no idea how we'd gotten wherever it was we ended up. A dash of deja vu all over again.

I also uploaded my latest Barron's column (in the 9/28/98 issue) to the Links page (www.oocities.org/~twcarey/link.html). Most of the article is about a technical analysis program called MetaStock Professional, but I got to put some fun stuff in the very last paragraph. Enjoy!

Hope you all are having great weekends, wherever you are. The latest additions to our email mailing list are Joe Margevicius and Tracy Fearnside, and their sons Ben and Sam (who are the same ages as Colleen and Kate). They're spending a year in Cuenca, Ecuador, having abandoned Palo Alto for some time in the Andes close to the Equator. What an adventure! I hope THEY put up a web page (hint hint, c'mon Jose).

Take care ...

-- T.

Thursday 8 October, 11PM

Hi there, mailing list inhabitants. Thanks, Edna, for passing on the news from Kyle. I'm adding him to the list with this update.

After what seemed like a month of rain rain rain, the weather has finally cleared up to where the streets dry out from time to time. The next two weeks will be insanely busy with the Seisen festival, CWAJ Print Show, two columns to write, and volleyball teams to help coach, but I figure it's good to be busy. Right? Right!

Last Friday night, the high school volleyball coach and two of the varsity players were hit by a speeding cab following the match against the American School. Dee, the coach, was in the hospital for 3 days and is still undergoing tests. Jenny, who was sitting in the front seat, was cut up pretty badly and has a broken arm. Yuho, the back seat passenger, was very seriously injured, and was only taken off the critical list on Tuesday. They're now saying she'll survive; we weren't so sure on Saturday morning. Think good thoughts for Dee, Jenny and especially Yuho when you get a chance.

Colleen's coach asked me to come in and help her with the middle school practices, so I've been getting up at -- ugh! -- 6:15AM or thereabouts so I can get to the gym by -- yikes! -- 6:45AM. I'm taking care of the B team so that Daisy can focus on the A team. (Colleen's on the A team, so this also takes care of the "coach's kid" syndrome.) It's a bunch of nice kids who are really working hard, and you know that they really want to be there if they're willing to get to school at that awful hour. Very different atmosphere from coaching Bobby Sox softball,where it seemed to me that some of the kids were there because of parental pressure and not of their own volition. The kids work really hard for just over an hour every morning, and I'm getting a workout too.

The Print Show activities are heating up as the show will open next Thursday night. I have my eye on two prints that I'll buy for sure, and I'm giving Kent a list of several others that he can buy if he likes them too. We're expecting about 2,000 people on Friday 10/16 ... wish us luck!! It'll be a zoo. Kent and I are attending the opening night show on Thursday night, so we'll rub shoulders with the Tokyo glitterati. I wonder if I have anything appropriate to wear ....?!?? MOM!??! <laughing!>

The yen dropped to 116 today for a while which puts us in an interesting situation. Our cost of living allowance is pegged to an exchange rate of 139Y per dollar. In a fit of forward-thinking, I exchanged a bunch of money in August when the yen was at 146. We still have most of that pile'o'cash in our Fuji Bank account, but maybe I should trade some back in for dollars! Ah, the life of the currency trader. Wait a minute, I already have too much to do.

Tomorrow night (Friday), Kate will spend the night at her new friend Annelise's place. Annelise's dad is the general manager of the Park Hyatt hotel in Shinjuku, and they live in an apartment on the top floor of the hotel. I played chaperone yesterday on a 4th grade field trip to the National Science Museum (great dinosaur display!!!) and was joking with Annelise about her living situation. "I suppose you have your own elevator?" I said, jokingly ...to which she replied, "Well, yes, we do!" I'm making sure Kate packs her Eloise books -- Annelise has never seen them, even though she's lived in a hotel most of her life, thanks to her dad's job. "Room service! And charge it please!" Maybe her parents have been hiding those books from her.

Colleen and Kate both continue their happy way through this school year. I think that their good behavior and attitudes this year are payback for the misery of last year. They both attack their homework without having to be subjected to parental nudging, and they're doing great on exams and projects. They seem very self-motivated all of a sudden, which is a wonderful gift as far as I'm concerned.

We had dinner at the Oppermans' on Saturday night, then joined them for a Sunday afternoon picnic at Yoyogi Park. Sunday was a beautiful day, not too hot, no rain ... it was nice to get outside. The kids rode bicycles and roller-bladed while Kent and I played pepper and football with Mark and Jonas. We had an H-P visitor from San Jose, Bob Weissman, over for dinner on Tuesday following his visit to the labs. Kent spent today in Osaka attending the funeral of Kamae-san's father; he's still on his way home as I write this. I'll be interested to hear about a traditional Japanese funeral.

Saturday is the annual Seisen Festival of Nations, the school's big fund-raiser. Evensong, the women's chorus in which I sing alto, will perform at 10AM, followed by Kate's dance class. Later, the 4th grade chorus will sing a bunch of songs; Kate's been singing them all week, and I'm looking forward to their performance. I'll spend a few hours tomorrow baking cupcakes and brownies for sale at the American Booth's bake sale. If you're in Tokyo, come on over to Seisen on Saturday -- and don't eat before you come! There'll be food from 40 different countries available. Yum!!

Hoping all is well with you ... stay in touch ...

Tuesday Morning Update, 10/13, 8:30AM (By Kent)

Howdy,

I have a few minutes before pedaling off to work, so I thought I would send off a quick note. The weather is cloudy today, but it does not look like rain. The temperature is starting to feel a little cool at times but is still quite nice.

As Teri mentioned in her note last week, I attended my first funeral in Japan last Thursday. The former HP Labs Japan director's father died last Tuesday. Here it is the custom that the company is expected to send at least one representative to such an event, preferably the highest ranking manager available. In this case, believe it or not, that was me.

The funeral was in Osaka. There were five of us that went for the ceremony from HPLJ. Since it started at noon, we took the 8 AM Shinkansen from Tokyo station. This was a Nozomi, the fastest Shinkansen train, so we arrived in Osaka at 10:30 AM. After stopping for a brief snack, we rode the subway across town and took a taxi to the funeral location.

When we arrived we were greeted by Kamae-san who introduced us to his 2 brothers, his wife and his daughter. There were about 150 people gathered waiting outside the chapel or whatever the appropriate Buddhist name is for such a place. The family went in first (about 1/3 of the people there) and then the friends and work affiliates. All around the room there were large bouquets of flowers send by friends and company managers who could not attend. Each bouquet had a hand written sign saying who sent it and their title. There were 8 or 9 from various HP managers. My secretary had sent at least two of the bouquets in the name of HP Labs managers in the U.S. and Bristol.

After a few words by Kamae-san, the oldest brother, a couple of monks came in and started chanting. About 20 minutes or so later, the family started getting up a few at a time, bowing to the group, to the altar, then going to the front and adding a pinch of something (that I later found looked like cornmeal) to a small bowl of hot coals. Again there were some formal bows and then they returned to their seats. Soon it became apparent that not only the family would perform this ritual, but everyone in the room. While the monks continued to chant the ushers were getting closer and closer to calling my row to go up to the front. I tried to watch what they were doing up front, but could not make out the exact motions as they were facing the altar and had their backs to me. I pinned my hopes on mimicking Yamada-san who was sitting next to me.

As we got to the front of the church, however, Yamada-san ended up behind me in line. I tried my best to duplicate what the others were doing, but I am sure I missed something important. At least everyone was polite enough to not tell me.

While outside waiting for the family to emerge, someone tapped me on the shoulder and said "Hello Kento-san, remember me?" I did not immediately recognize him, but I could not tell him that, so I engaged in some careful conversation until I realized he was the R&D manager at HP Kobe. I met him about 1 year ago. I was surprise to see him their as I knew that he barely knew Kamae-san, but perhaps HPJ sent him because he was the highest ranking manager available in Kobe, the closest HP site to the funeral.

Well, I need to head off to work now. Perhaps later I can write about visiting Prof. Akasaki later that day at Meijo Univ. in Nagoya and about the Seisen Festival on Saturday and the HP "Culture Club" BBQ on Sunday.

Hope you have all had a good weekend. Thanks to Mom and Dad, Dawn and Glen for sending notes this week.

Bye for now,

Kent

16-Oct-98 14:12:09 (By Kent)

Dawn,

I got both photos OK. I really like the one of your fifth birthday. I guess you are about the Stephanator's age in that picture. I am just a little younger than Kate in that photo and I have the same big smile closed eyes expression that still shows up in Kate's photos. I showed it to Kate a couple of days ago and asked her if she knew anyone who smiled that way for pictures and she did not hesitate, "yeah, me."

Sorry I did not write back sooner. It has been very busy this week as Wednesday night I was out until 11:30 PM with a visitor from Glen's division (Scott Kern) and last night was the College Women's Association of Japan's Print Show opening gala.

My job at the Print Show was to go around and make some final print decisions then purchase the prints while Teri was madly entering the sales data into a computer to provide the group with day by day sales information for the first time in it's history. I did not get home again until late, though this time just 9:45 PM. Kate said she was just about to turn off the light when Hershey stood up on her bed and then started barking as he heard my key in the lock. She stayed up a few more minutes to look at the prints. She decided that several of them should go in her room.

Mom, we bought you a copy of #138 in your Print Show catalog, the one with the trees in winter. I guess Teri will try to bring it with her in Nov. Kate was disappointed to hear that we weren't keeping that one, but happy to know she could visit it at your house <grin>.

Bye for now,

Kent

18 October, 10PM

Well, hi there family and friends ...

You may wonder why I haven't been writing much. Well ... my print sales coordinator job at the CWAJ Print Show turned into a full-time job for the last week or so. It's been exhausting, but it's over, and it looks like we raised a lot of money for the scholarship fund, especially considering we're in the middle of a major recession here.

I ended up somehow taking on the task of automating the inventory management system. This involved choosing the software and setting up the hardware for a small network, and then working around the antique paper inventory system they've been using for eons. Every small change I asked for was met with a stonewall, so I figured I'd just try to deal with the resources available and go for it.

One factor I hadn't counted on was the multiple faces of fear. Not only are many CWAJ members seriously afraid of using computers, but the longtime members are afraid of losing their hold on the information tallies. So it was an interesting political exercise for me -- and it sure underscored a good half-dozen of the fifty or sixty reasons why I'm self-employed. I just don't do politics well. I see a problem and I want to leap in and solve it, but I never expect others might not *WANT* the problem solved.

I hauled the computers in to The American Club on Wednesday and got the network up and running in the afternoon. I showed up Thursday around noon (after volleyball practice at 7AM and a couple of hours spent working on my next Barron's column) and helped with the rest of the setup, from finding paper for the printer to proofreading the cards attached to the 237 prints in the showroom. We had a photo session of the steering committee at 5PM, then the official opening reception began at 5:30PM. Only big donors, artists, and steering committee members are invited to the reception, and there were photographers from several newspapers there as well as a couple of TV cameras. I met a bunch of the artists, and tried my best to speak Japanese with a few of them. I was happy to bump into Karyn Young, who recently moved from Kyoto to San Francisco and now works with a gallery there -- her print, "Ame no Hi" (Rainy Day), was my favorite and I wanted to make sure I got a copy of it. Talking with her was fun. She's an aging hippie who liked living in Japan for 20 or so years, but is now enjoying being back in the Bay Area. I plan to visit her gallery when I'm in the Bay Area next month, schedule (and weather) permitting.

Kent showed up about 6:20 or so, just in time to schmooze a little and listen to the short speeches. The speeches were apparently supposed to go on a little longer though -- we suddenly found ourselves with some time to kill since there was still 20 minutes to go before the official opening. Someone in her infinite wisdom decided it would be a great idea to just open the show early, so my partner Joan and I sprinted to our sales station and hauled a few other volunteers in to get things rolling. They cut the ribbon at 6:45, and our first customers showed up to place their orders at 6:46. After that, it got busy to the point of insanity. We closed down at 9PM and nearly collapsed. "There are three more days of this!" one of the co-chairs reminded us. Argh! I was keying in invoices as quickly as I could, but it was obvious that this was a job that couldn't be handled by just one person (even if that person was me ... <grin>). I was about to drop after all this, especially since I'd gotten up so early and hadn't had much of a break all day.

On Friday morning, I snagged a couple of other volunteers and trained them to do data entry on the "other node" on the network, which was originally intended for lookup only, but having more hands working on the keyboard really helped. I got caught up around noon on Friday (we opened at 10AM and I got in at 9 after spending the night at my partner Joan's place in Moto-Azabu) and after that things got MUCH easier. I was able to demonstrate how the inventory management stuff worked, and many people were impressed.

I ended up staying at Joan's on Friday night too, but only because I couldn't even start to think of the one-plus-hour commute home after such an exhausting couple of days. I conked out around midnight at Joan's, woke up at 6:30, rolled over for a few more winks, and woke up again at 9:30. YIKES! So I rushed through showering and changing and Joan and I still managed to get to our stations by 10:15. Things were a lot slower on Saturday and Sunday, but some serious buyers came through -- including a gallery owner from Sacramento who bought quite a few things -- and we wrapped it all up about an hour after closing at 5PM tonight.

Kate and Kent came in to the show late this afternoon, and Kate ran through the exhibit and picked out a bunch of prints that she liked. Most of the ones she chose would have meant forfeiting her allowance for about 4 years though. It was fun to watch her study the prints and tell me what it was exactly that she liked or didn't like. The kid's got a good eye.

I'm going to go slip into the tub and then conk out. Tomorrow morning there's volleyball practice again, and I'm back to helping out after taking Friday morning off.

On the entertainment side,I've been enjoying reading the Janet Evanovich series that starts with "One for the Money." Her main character is sort of the anti-Kinsey Millhone (Sue Grafton's protagonist in the "A is for Alibi" alphabet mystery series) in that she's a nearly inept bounty hunter, going after bail jumpers. The dialog is hilarious and the character usually lucks into catching the bad guys. Fun to read if you get a chance. (Hey, it keeps me amused on the subway!)

Talk to you soon, and hope to see some of you in a few weeks,

-- T.

Sunday, 1 November, 11PM

Greetings, family/friends mailing list. How did it get to be November already? This has been an insanely busy month and it's been a couple of weeks since my last real note. (Joke mailings (The Hills are Alive) don't really count, do they?)

The main events of the past few weeks have involved wrapping up the Print Show, lots and lots of volleyball, visitors from the U.S. and a fun day trip to Kamakura. I just posted a new pile'o'pix on the web page (www.oocities.org/~twcarey is the place to be, click on "Latest Pictures") for those of you who want to vicariously experience today's fun.

The volleyball team I was helping with, the middle school "B" team, wrapped up the season last Saturday (10/24) with two matches at Yokota Air Force Base. They handily beat the Yokota "B" team, but got a challenge from Nishimachi's team. I was really proud of the girls when they came back from being down 11-4 and won the game, 16-14. I thought they showed a lot of poise, sticking in there to win. Colleen's team also beat Yokota with points to spare, but lost to Nishimachi. The big fun about playing at an American military base is the opportunity to eat American junk food. Colleen has been missing Taco Bell something fierce, but she got to eat some of their quasi-Mexican fare at Yokota. That may have affected her play against Nishimachi.... hmmm.

So the A team continued to practice this last week, but I chose to sleep in most of the week. That decision was partially inspired by the fact that I injured myself coaching again -- I'm the only person I know to hurt myself while hollering at a bunch of kids. OK, so I wasn't just standing around

hollering, I was also helping some of the A team girls warm up for their match against Yokota, and I pulled the top of my Achilles tendon *again*. (Some of you may recall I did this almost 3 years ago while coaching softball.) This just isn't a pleasant experience. The top of the tendon pulls a small muscle loose that's buried way deep inside the calf, and causes a lot of internal bleeding and a huge ugly bruise. It also hurts like crazy. I still look like Mark McGwire used my leg for batting practice, but the bruising is fading from deep purple to a lovely shade of green now. No, I didn't take any pictures of it for the web page!! But I'm still limping a little. I hope to fully recover before next Saturday's parents vs. middle school volleyball game! Wish me luck.

On Friday night, Lawson from H-P Labs (Palo Alto) came over for dinner. His kids had helped him pick out a selection of American Halloween candy, which made Colleen and Kate very very happy. We had a nice, albeit short, visit with Lawson; he had just arrived in Japan a few hours before ending up at our house for dinner, and our job was to keep him awake until 9 or 10 PM. I think we managed that task.

The A team had its end-of-season tournament yesterday, and made it out of the pool play and into the tournament level, but didn't last through the quarter-finals. A disappointing end to the season, but not an unexpected one. The kids got back to Tokyo in time to get home and go trick-or-treating, but I could tell that coach Daisy wouldn't have minded bringing home the trophy for the fourth year in a row.

Kate went to visit Tessa and go trick-or-treating near the gaijin capital of Japan, while Colleen stayed near our house and went out with a bunch of her 8th grade pals. She and some of her friends had discussed dressing up like boys from St. Mary's, but the other girls chickened out and were quasi-zombies instead. Colleen, however, went all out on dressing up in what looked like a St. Mary's uniform. We slicked her hair back and really stuck it to her head, and I took a brush and painted in heavy eyebrows. She wore a white shirt, some gray jeans and a black blazer, and one of Kent's red ties,

so she really looked like she was in the St. Mary's uniform. A couple of her friends freaked out when they saw her -- until she started talking, they didn't know who she was! One woman chastised her for not being in a costume.

Today's adventure started at Shinagawa Station, where we picked up Kate, met up with Lawson as well as Cathy (from HP Labs, Singapore) and her brother Ed and boyfriend Jonathan. (That's Cathy's boyfriend, not Ed's, fyi.) The seven of us (Colleen stayed home to do schoolwork) headed on the JR Yokosuka line out to Kita-Kamakura, which is yet another former capital of Japan that's crowded with historical sites. What we didn't know when we set out on this trip is that this is the weekend that Japan celebrates "Culture Day" and the major temples exhibit their treasures at this time. They only have them on display three days a year, and by chance we managed to hit it. I'd take credit, but I have to admit it was just dumb luck. Our first stop was Engaku-Ji, one of the older Zen temples in Kamakura. This one was originally built in the mid-14th century, then expanded in the mid-19th century. It features a beautiful garden (photo on the pictures page!) as well as a lot of beautiful buildings. One houses "The Sacred Tooth of Buddha" but we weren't able to get close enough to see whether Buddha flossed.

We wandered out and, acknowledging the six growling stomachs, went to a convenience store (kon-bini) and picked up a bunch of food for lunch, which we ate while sitting on a low stone wall in a nearby park. After lunch, we wandered on further another kilometer and toured Kencho-Ji Temple, originally constructed in the mid-13th century. Kate was impressed with the huge wooden gate and the Buddha Hall, moved from Kyoto in the mid-17th century and reassembled here. After viewing the treasures here, we ended up in a big room where we were hastily served some green tea by a group of monks. The woman next to me was kind enough to tell me what to do -- eat three pieces of some very sweet candy, then sip the tea. Lawson found out why the candy is necessary -- the tea itself is very bitter, and without the sugar sitting there coating your teeth, it's almost impossible to drink.

Kate and I left the group at this point and headed back home. Kent, Lawson, Ed, Cathy and Jonathan hiked up over the hill and down into Kamakura to get a look at the Daibutsu, which is a Big Buddha. It's REALLY big. I hear many claims of "This is the biggest statue of Buddha in <fill in geographical region>" but this particular Daibutsu is acknowledged as the biggest one in Japan. They got there as the sun was setting, though, so the pictures are a bit on the dark side. Lawson accompanied Kent back home, then we all went out for dinner. Before putting Lawson back on the train to his hotel, Colleen and Kate bought his kids a bunch of Japanese candy and treats, which I hope they all enjoy.

OK, that's it for now. I'll be seeing some of you in a week! Take care,

-- T.