Entries this day: Bike_plans Work today

Bike plans

8:19am JST Saturday 11 September 2004

Have received an email from a man who lives in China who says it would be quite dangerous for me to broadcast my location in realtime because of the lockdown on radio communications in China. He says that even he, a Chinese citizen, can't get a radio broadcasting license. I might have that last part wrong because he seems to be a HAM radio operator. But I don't know where he lives; he could be hamming outside China. Anyway, he urged me to just take a GPS and upload my list of previously traversed coordinates when I reach internet cafes.

I have decided (had decided even before this email arrived) that I want to go north in Japan first, to see Hokkaido during the summer. (I wonder if I'll choose to see Hokkaido (by train) in the winter.)

And I have hypothosized that I can make a profit during my ride by teaching English. I know I can live on 1000 yen per day of food (easily, if I maintain dilligence) and I can make 3000 yen per hour teaching. I imagine I can find one person per 3 days to pay for an hour of English yammering. My plan is to write a little sign on a stand in Japanese: [I'm traveling by bicycle from Tokyo to Hokkaido; donations accepted, and I can help you with your English.] or something like that and bang: Money flows freely into my life.

Work

2:02pm JST Saturday 11 September 2004

A bit of a slow start at work today. Had to reconfigure the programs for some new hardware. Jen and I cleaned the office some and ate lunch while they were working on the hardware.

Gonna see if I can study Japanese now.

today

1:12am JST Sunday 12 September 2004

Today has been a great day.

Got lots of good information regarding tracking and stuff. Two emails I sent to Dude:

Dude

I'm looking to buy http://www.garmin.com/products/geko201/ or
http://www.garmin.com/products/geko301/ the difference being ($90 and)
compass, altimeter, and weather thing.

What do you think? Do you want/use an altimeter?

An altimeter would be cool, and I think I'll want a compass, and the
price difference is only 3-4 hours of work, so I'll get the 301.
Okay, thanks for your help!

- = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = -

Yo dawg

I've asked several people several questions about this, and the
answers are coming together. I still have my Handspring Visor, with 8
megs of memory on it. I won't likely fill that much memory with text
entries from my journal, so I can use that.  janette has found my
collapseable keyboard, so that is perfecto.

For realtime GPS, I've found some guys (http://www.findu.com
http://www.aprsworld.com) who are well aware of realtime tracking. It
basically requires me driving with a radio *transmitter* that
broadcasts my signal/location and a network of digipeaters that tell
all their friends what all their other friends are saying until
everyone knows what everyone said!

BUT China doesn't allow just any schmo to broadcast radio. So I can't
do it in China.  I dunno about other countries, but because the
infrastructure isn't there to support it, I doubt I can do it in
realtime.

If I care, I can do it once (if) I get to Europe.

Just wantin' to let you know how the plans are going...

I got an email from Charyl saying that she was without email access for a bit, but she'll get on the ssh problem for chatbotchats.com and I had big fun chatting with Masashi today during our second to last lesson before he goes off to New Jersey for 6 months of training and then Chicago for 18 months of living.

Got to chill with Miki after that, and she taught me some Japanese. My goodness she is beautiful! Part of it is that she is happy. She is happy with her life and she is comfortable with that. I could learn a lot from that. I could, if I were ready and willing.

Chowed cereal with the gang downstairs while watching a soccer match and OH! And I found out from janette that she has found my collapsible keyboard for my handspring visor!! Whooohhooooooo!!!

Good things, I think.