tales from the rock

well, they did it. saddam hussein has been hung for his crimes against humanity. personally, I’m pretty suprised that they pulled it off without more static from other nations of this world, but I’m sure there will be a price to pay in the days/weeks/months to come.

I’m certainly not taking his side on this. from what I know and understand, he certainly deserved to die a horrible death. the same source of knowledge tells me however, that he was convicted in a kangaroo court, without any real defense, and in ignorance of many standards of trial the UN recognizes.

(more…)

I really didn’t want to write anything negative about christmas. so much happened that was really nice, I thought I could just get away with a simple recap of the day. wouldn’t be a day on the rock without some gravy though - at least it didn’t belong to me.

day started fine, if not a little late (which actually makes it better.) the kid starts to open the first of the hundreds of presents while the family eats breakfast and watches. soon enough, baby starts to wear out, so the family leaves, and we all try and take a nap before heading out to various parties and events.

around noon, the wife tells me she has been hearing water running on the side of the house, so I went out to have a look. nothing on our house, but it appears as if the neighbor’s house has a storm system under it, as water is pouring out of the walls and floor (post and beam.) the adventure begins.

(more…)

attended the Oahu edition of the Shitsu family christmas gathering to witness the announcement of the year! Tom and J9 have finally managed to produce an heir to the Tomishizu fortune.

child (gender unknown right now) is due on July 1, 2007. wowee!!

this is very good news, and both future parents are well prepared. J9 has been waiting her whole life to raise a child, and has practiced for many years with Tika.

Tombo also cannot wait, since this finally means he is not the lowliest slave in the household anymore - unless they birth a girl! trust me on this one.

(more…)

SP (stink press), 12/22/2006

kim taylor reece, champion of all artist’s rights, has sued the State of Hawaii for blatant copyright infringement.

seen here in Star Bulletin, the design in question is the 5th ‘hula dancer’ design.

says reece, “clearly, this an attempt to take a derivative work and pass it off as an original. as you can see, there is a hula dancer, there is water and coastline - thus a beach, and the use of a single metal in relief casts shadows that makes the image appear to have 2 colors - duotone. there is no way you can say that this isn’t practically a photocopy of my work.”

no response yet from the design committee, but after being informed of the pending lawsuit, one member was heard to remark, “are you f*cking kidding me?!?”

(more…)

so last night we went out for the father-in-law’s birthday party Momomo, a relatively new Japanese restaurant near UH, in the old Eastern Garden location.

the current fad style restaurant in Hawaii is the Izakaya, share small dishes and drink kind of place.
usually, the problem with these places is either the prices are super high, or the dishes are totally lame, teriyaki style stuff.

I must say though, Momomo is awesome. food is very good and authentic, lots of japs eating in the place, and the price/portion ratio is excellent.

(more…)

so a few days ago, I was wondering at what point kim taylor reece proclaims his work ‘art’. well, in an attempt to push the limits of his artistic ability, he has just released this book of *gasp*, duotone photographs of BALLET DANCERS on the beach.

this guy is mocking himself now. Ansel Adams is turning over in his grave.

dude - you are never going to get to stained glass at this rate. the lady traced your work - we get it. no one is fooled. leave her alone.

I’m going to shoot some sepia shots of cute puppies on the beach before he gets to that….

I definitely need a better method of identifying what is blogworthy. finishing 1 post a day is definitely much harder than it would seem…

anyway, Sunday was a day filled with cleaning, as the wife went on a j9 like rampage of cleaning. it’s very odd how things can be fine for so long, and then instantly cross the line of filthyness just like that! I must also say, none of us dudes deserve any of the abuse we receive about this crap.

(more…)

whew - I tell you man, this daily blogging thing is rough! first of all, since one objective is to actually work on my writing, I find myself starting posts, but then burning out in the editing process, thus, no post. then I have to deal with the Tombo quality bar - a dubious measure at best. and of course, it’s near impossible to find some quiet time in front of a keyboard on the weekend now that the kid runs the household. when I get my 45 minutes of peace at night before I pass out, I have to choose wisely - 2 week old TV program, disk 1 of 1000 blockbuster ‘rentals’, or *gasp* a few minutes reliving my happy past playing xbox. tough times man!

this weekend was actually not too bad though. lots of productivity, a party, and even some rest.

(more…)

like G-Money, I wonder if my career is going anywhere, if I should be doing more about it, or if I’m doing just fine.

working at the ‘hou, I’m never going to develop any kind of technical skills. best case is tread water. there are a lot of opportunities to work on projects with potentially high profile, but really, lots of breadth, not a whole lot of depth.

another problem is lack of peers. really, there are no other engineers employed here, and the rest of the department don’t have a whole lot of deep knowledge, if you get what I mean.

there are many upsides to working at this place, and here in Hawaii, I still think it has to be one of the best jobs I could get. if I live here for the rest of my life, this job will do me just fine.

somehow I feel like I’m cheating myself though - like I should be working harder, developing myself, challenging my skills, etc. I’m never going to be able to work at Google, but I’m certainly better than the work I’m going to see here.

(more…)

so I want to be a better communicator. I think one of my biggest deficiencies right now is that I have lost the ability to express my professional opinions to people outside of my field. now that I work at the ‘hou, this is a daily requirement. not only can I not find the right words, but actually using them once found seems way to hard. I can’t write a decent email/memo/white paper without rambling on and on. in meetings, I’m totally comfortable standing in front of whoever and sharing my thoughts and ideas, but when no one gets them, my level of frustration quickly escalates, and I regress into a mumbling fool.

(more…)