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Dream

9:44am JST Tuesday 9 March 2004

Inside a house that had a pool out front. On the bottom of the pool a large, realistic image of a woodpecker had been painted. I wanted a picture of that woodpecker, but I couldn't get a good shot of it from inside the house. I needed to be farther away, and up higher or the image would be too oblique. Fortunately, the house was built somewhat like a ferris wheel. It started as a normal one story house, and then a lower story kinda grew up underneath that first story, causing it to become the second story. The action wasn't a straight vertical growth, but as the new bottom story grew larger than the top story, the top story slid back to remain centered on the bottom story. So my point of view of the woodpecker shifted just like I needed it to; higher and farther back. But then the lower story itself eclipsed my view of the woodpecker as the lower portion of the house grew large enough to cover part of the pool.

Doh; it became apparent that I needed to climb up onto the roof of the house. There were several non-specific students plus Kaori there, but no one expressed surprise nor concern about my climbing onto the roof. I held my camera in one hand and tried to climb out the window and up onto the shingles of the roof with the other. I realized it was a bit silly to do that so I turned the camera off and put it in my pocket and then climbed the rest of the way up onto the roof.

As I turned my camera on, someone started fucking with the house and it began to close up again. Actually this was perfect because I would have just the right moment to take the picture after the lower portion had moved fully out of the way and the upper portion was still far enough away. I took the picture, but the camera was moving at the time as I was trying to stay balanced on the roof, and the roof shifted past the point where I could stay balanced so I lept to the ground.

Hmmm. I saw that I could take a picture from the opposite side of the pool by climbing some thin but basically stable trees over there. The trees were rather small, but kinda gnarled like large vines that had grown haphazardly through small spaces and back out again. I found lots of tiny twigs that impeded my way, but I generally was able to climb past them without breaking them off. A rather large spiderweb tent thing (cross between a web for a spider and a tent for tentworms) (built over the years it seemed) strung between some partially rotten branches and some good branches had captured several bugs and larvae and such, but didn't seem dangerous for me while I was taking a picture of the woodpecker in the pool.

I faced away from the web toward the pool and my view was partially obscured by leaves, so I shifted a bit higher past those branches and got a great view. Kaori was walking toward the pool and I told her to act natural. I took the first picture as an owl flew by the woodpecker, partially obsuring it. The second picture was taken while a squirrel ran across the pool partically obscuring it. The third picture was unobscured and included Kaori artistically posed next to the pool admiring the image that was the focus of these pictures in the first place.

Successful in my quest, I climbed down the tree and woke up toward the realization that the memory card from my dream camera couldn't be connected this computer.

Email

10:57am JST Tuesday 9 March 2004

The party was basically perfect.  Morita giving me the hanko (little
circle stamp thing that says ROB in katakana) is well up there on the
favorites; it was low key, given to me before anyone else had arrived.
(good for his low key personality) Um, number two is that I moved
around the table a bit.  I had to be pushed at first (hey Rob; go over
there to be in a picture with those peeps as well) cause my style
seems to be never wanting to be the one to move, to break a
conversation.  I'm not sure what's underneath that, and how that could
be compatible with not wanting to stay in a long term relationship
(these are easily orders of magnitude different timescales, but it's
still kinda the same idea I think).  Anyway, I moved around the table
and seemed to cheer people up by sitting next to them.  Is it
possible?

It's fureezing here.

I'm using your quilt to stay warm.  Have one more row to snip.  My
goal for today is to finish my scrapbook so I can pack and move.  I
have three days of no plans before I work at Gaba.

	With Love
	- ROB!


On 2004/03/09, at 4:01, janette wrote:

  i'm sooo happy you had a good party.  i'm happy you don't have to go
  back to nova again.

  i hope gaba is gabetter for you.

see ya.

 hey- tell me your favorite two happenings at the party.
 jack and i are going to the grocery store.
 it's 70*.
 it feels like spring and flowers are blooming.
love
janette 

FSD

3:32pm JST Tuesday 9 March 2004

I got an FSD update from Dave via Henry:

You asked about FSD... well, it's not doing very well
compared to when you were there.  The downturn in the
economy relly hurt it.  Most of the existing contracts
didn't get renewed, and there weren't many new ones.
Internal surveys apparently are a luxury for them (for good
times only). And Enron going bust didn't help either. 

There is just a skeleton crew left (Debra, Drew, and Minh).
 Kevin is working contract somewhere using SAS - of course!
 Karla is teaching at UH (I think). Patrick is working
contract at Wachovia (or some Bank).  Dave is just loafing
around since he got laid off about a year ago.  They are
mostly just doing paper surveys now.

Sigh.

day

9:54pm JST Tuesday 11 March 2004

Got a package put together for Stephanie, mostly colorful flyers and stuff, plus a one page letter saying wazzap.

Didn't mail it. Did eat lunch though.

Yuuko is over and will spend the night.

9:56am JST Wednesday 10 March 2004

Yuuko went home this AM; we'll meet in Kawasaki to buy some stuff for my new crib.