Update: Check out the pics below. I’m still trying to get some more so we have the whole slew of pictures.

family

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一週間前ぐらいにトリプルA（AAA=American　Automobile　Association)に入会しました。　我が家の愛車２台とも中古車であり、いつ壊れるのが不安です。　僕は結構出張があるのでいないときにありさやエリーが何かあった時にトリプルAに電話するだけでバッテリチャージとか無料で牽引してもらえると思って入会したわけです。

ケンとジョージが予定がある場合に、向かいに行ったり、送ってあげたりしてもらう代わりにエリーは割と自由に車を使わせています。　昨夜はそうでした。ケン君が友達と映画を見に行く予定だったのでエリーが車で送ってあげていて、その後出かける予定でした。　そうしたら、映画館の駐車場で車を止めていたら、再度エンジンがかからなくなったことになりました。　エリーはバッテリーの問題かと思って、友達に電話してチャージしてまらったのですが、やはりエンジンがスタートしませんでした。

そうすると、仕方がなく僕を電話しました。　すぐにとまったところで行って状況確認しました。　そして、AAAを電話しました。 会員番号や住所を教えて、４５分以内に牽引車が来て、ガレージまで牽引してもらいました。　今はガレージからの連絡を待っていますが、昨夜はAAAを電話できると知っていたのでだいぶ安心しました。

トリプルAに入ってよかった

elly,

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Hattip to George Nemeth. Case announces a project to provide 1000mb/sec internet service to the community surrounding it.

case, initiative, internet, neo, technology

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Wow. I discovered this morning that I can use my google app private domain account as a google account. Perhaps I am slow, but what I had been doing is associating my gmail google account with my google app account. However, today I received a google wave invite to my private domain. In the process of muddling around I discovered the ability to create a google account using the google app domain. So for example, now that my rbh at neohawk.org account is also a google account, I have a google profile, picasa account, etc. Until today, I need to use my gmail account to login, but now I can use my neohawk.org account. See below:

You can see my profile below:

This is huge. One of may largest complaints with google has been the two different logins I needed. One for my google apps, one for google accounts. Now that they are the same, I’m a happy camper. I did have to remove my neohawk.org account from my gmail google account to make this work.

Did I just not know this or is this new?

google

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Hat tip to Cleveland Scene.

I’ve always wondered how an something like the Roman Empire could fall. Now I know.

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

politics

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Like this idea. I don’t think I’ll be in town for it, but if you have time this a great thought to help a complete stranger.

http://www.chefswidow.com/2009/11/23/2827/

Blog it forward.

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Turns out Arisa has never had candy or carmel apples. So we decided to give them a go. Pictures taken with my blackberry, hence they’re not very good.

We haven’t eaten them yet, but I’ll update this post when we do.

arisa, family

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The Cleveland Browns found a way to lose, 38-37, after being up 24-3 in the first quarter. But what a game. It was a lot of fun to watch, the first one since what, 2007? It's fun when to comparable teams play each other. I was originally worried that it was going to be a sleeper but after the ups and downs of a football game and 75 points later that worry was unfounded.

I have to be honest, I cheered and was laughing with delight when Detroit Lions scored with zero seconds left. And I'll tell you why. It's not because I'm not a Browns fan, it's because I am a Browns fan. There are multiple reasons I was cheering. Probably the first and foremost being, as I said many moons ago, I want Mangini, and by extension Daboll, fired. Yeah, yeah, I know. All you football gurus out there say no, give him time. Nevertheless, I called it back in September and I'm staying with the call to fire Mangini.

I am also aware that Randy Lerner has said he won't fire Mangini. I understand that. I also understand he intends to hire a “credible” football voice. What I want to happen is that the first thing that person does is to fire Mangini.

The game was lost due to coaching. First off, they went conservative way too early and stayed conservative even when it became apparent that Detroit was going to keep on coming. Run, Run, Pass, Punt. That's Mangini's “process”. Granted, they opened up the offense much, much more this week than in any previous week, but where in the world does it come into a coach of this team to go conservative? Idiocy.

And to add an exclamation point, we fake a field goal and get a first down just so we can….kick a field goal. Baffling.

Idiocy and Baffling.

After the interception to stop a Detroit drive with 3 minutes left one would think you'd want to get a first down. Why does this coaching staff continue to turn to Jamal Lewis. He's lucky if he gets 4 yard, mostly 2, sometimes 3 yards. And yet when it was critical to run the clock out we go to him. Result was a punt, setting up Detroit's stunning come from behind victory. Where was Jennings? In really his first game he was averaged 3.6 yards per carry (Jamal averaged 3.1), with which you get a first down (3.6 x 3 = ???).

Another reason: Poteat was in the game on the final play. Why? What has he done to show he should see any time inside the white lines? Inexplicable pass interference with zero seconds on the clock, giving the Lions one last opportunity from what, the 5 yard line. At a minimum, player selection is questionable.

Then we see Mangini arguing the timeout call. I questioned it too. I thought teams only got three timeouts per half, and subsequently thought the Lions had inadvertently gotten an extra time out. I was straightened out by some guy on twitter and confirmed on that oh so infallible wikipedia: After the 2 minute warning a team gets one injury timeout with no penalty, but 10 seconds run off the clock. All subsequent injury timeouts incur the 10 second run off the clock and a 5 yard penalty. So I didn't know this. My Bad.

But the Head Coach of the Cleveland Browns also didn't know it and argued quite vociferously with the referee. Meaning he didn't know the 2 minute injury timeout rule.

Idiocy, Baffling, Ignorant

To add insult to injury, he then calls timeout allowing the Lions to re-insert Stafford, the rookie quarterback that had already burned our defense for 4 touchdowns. The result? The Cleveland Browns allowed Stafford to become the first rookie quarterback in the history of the NFL to throw for 5 touchdowns in a game.

Idiocy, Baffling, Ignorant, Stupid

And overall, where did the defense go? The Lions first play from the line of scrimmage went 64 yards or some such. How can that happen? It appears the Browns D was completely unprepared for the Lions. Where was all the progress we thought we were seeing?

Idiocy, Baffling, Ignorant, Stupid, and Inconsistent.

Overall, just poor, poor coaching. Why on earth would you leave this team in Mangini's hands. So my hope is that whomever Lerner hires that individual sees that we lost to arguably the worst team in football over the last two years. And the quickly fires Magini, since these last couple of months have been wasted when we could have really been rebuilding and preparing for the future.

Granted some of the blame needs to fall squarely on the shoulders of the Browns players. You can't drop passes that hit you on the hands. You just can't. You can't cause pass interference with no time on the clock left. But overall, this loss falls more on the coaches than the players in my mind. I got the sense the better coached team won.

It was fun game to watch though. It really was. What I realized at that point is that at this point I'm more interested in a fun, competitive game, win or loss for the Browns, with a great game ending comeback game than anything else this football season. And that's a sad state of affairs.

cleveland browns,

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You may or may not have noticed but this blog is now available at a new url: http://robataka.neohawk.org. Please note that if you are seeing this post, you are at the new url.
If your not seeing this post, well there's really nothing to say since you're not reading this. In other words, the dns is still updating.

This is part of getting ready to move everything off of my current server to something else. The neohawk.org blog will come here, though it is still currently live.
So if you following along with an RSS reader, you'll need to update it. I'll post again when I take the other one down.

neohawk

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I realized this year that I hadn’t been to a bonenkai in ages. Of course here in the U.S. December is a month filled with “Holiday” parties. Well in Japan they’re called bonenkai. Literally “forget the year gathering”. Either way, it generally involves drinking, conversation, and general fun with friends, colleagues and clients.

So I’m happy to report that JANO is supporting a spontaneous “Bonenkai”. It’ll be on Saturday, December 19th from 6PM to 9PM. And what good bonenkai wouldn’t have Karaoke? So the “1st Annual Bonenkai” will be held at Karaoke Station (JANOサイトの日本語知らせ）

Please RSVP by 12/10/2009

Below is the map to Karaoke Station:

I must say that I’m looking forward to it.

Today, Arisa, Grandma Barbara, and I attended the Mayfield High School‘s National Honor Society Induction Ceremony. Both Elly and Ken were inducted. The pictures aren’t great, but here they are.

One of Ken’s friends asked me how Ken got in. I answered truthfullly….we had to pay.

This last Saturday, Arisa and I headed out to St. Ignaitus High School to attend the JACL’s 40th Japanese American Holiday Fair. I had a errand to run at Micro Center and so we were running a little bit late. We got there probably about 2PM.

By the time we got there, it was packed. I’d say close to a hundred folks or so were there. The Mame Taiko Drummers were already in action. At the entrance to what I assume is the cafeteria, there were booths with a silent auction, origami, and other things like soap sales.

It was our first “Japanese-American” event, as opposed to JANO, but I’m glad we went.

Yesterday and today, I ‘ve spent a lot of time installing Ubuntu 9.10.

I was going to write a long post about the Browns and the fact that Randy Lerner actually watched a game and was disgusted as the rest of us have been for the 7 weeks prior to that. I had some sage advice for him. I’m glad I waited because I ran across a blog post, Coming Out Of The Closet by Gary Benz, that expressed the same idea but much more articulately. It’s a must read.

His basic point and my unwritten one is the same — the only way for the Browns organization to turn itself around is for Mr. Lerner to take ownership of it. I don’t mean property law ownership, but deep down emotional, spirtual, intellectual ownership of the team and the organization. I don’t know where I read it but it was basically that what he thought he was doing with Manigini was cleaning out the organization and hoping to bring in a new philosophy.