Entries this day: Checkup Journal_book Possible_new_Mac! Shoulder_update Site Ubuntu first_EV_lessons

Checkup

10:20am JST Tuesday 4 July 2006

For some reason my final(?) shoulder checkup at the hospital is taking forever compared to previous times. (not including the initial surgery scheduling, but the post-op checks)

Journal book

10:21am JST Tuesday 4 July 2006

Good news is I've been reading a scad of articles, including reviews of eefoof.com which pays users for ad revenues generated for cool videos, and lulu.tv which does the same (but only for pro users), and has a print-on-demand thing for books, .... which I could use to print my journal... or parts of it. or something.

Possible new Mac!

10:36am JST Tuesday 4 July 2006

Hitomi has offered to help me purchase a new Mac, though I am not actually sure why. I certainly don't mind the support, but doing more than just recovering my old HD is more than I judge she needs to do.

((Just for a bit of clarity: my computer began to lock up within minutes after booting after my shoulder-breaking TJ Bike adventure. Hitomi, knowing how much I love my Mac-time, offered to let me copy my HD to her HD and let me use her computer. She had the hardware to do the transfer, so we got all set up to do it. In her excitement to get it done quickly, she accidentally killed my HD.

She felt super duper bad, and I was totally like, "don't worry; the data is fine, just the motor is dead," etc. She took it to her HD mechanic who didn't have the replacement parts for such an old drive, so (just last night) I ordered an identical model number from ebay for $40 (thanks, froogle!) (but for $35 shipping (it turns out (the shipping price made a big jump from $9.95 (after I confirmed my desire to purchase))) since it's being sent overseas).))

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I would like to get a PowerMac Pro, but certainly don't need it. But, but... glowing keys!! auto-screen brightness!

Shoulder update

10:51am JST Tuesday 4 July 2006

They just called me.

11:08am JST Tuesday 4 July 2006

My doctor (still don't remember his name) said I have 80% bone-reconnection (at 5 weeks after surgery) and everything is looking good.

I can begin stretching and exercising the shoulder, and basically have 240 degrees of forward vertical freedom from almost straight up to a bit beyond straight down, and 180 degrees of forward horizontal freedom, which will come in handy for washing my other shoulder.

No longer have to wear the back strap, so I'm going to give it to Hiroko the clothes shop owner near 桜新町駅, who wants it for her son.

Site

10:28am JST Tuesday 4 July 2006

I haven't heard a peep from webquarry after I complainfully wondered why their service levels have declined recently.

Still a couple of obstacles to overcome in a move to new server (dreamhost.com), like how to get mySQL dbs transferred (I have instructions, just haven't done it), and all the perl modules I've installed recently. May use Shlomi (sp) Fish's module-list-thing which apparently simplifies installation of modules for running Shlomi's site.

Good progress on images. Now working on imagesadmin, which features basically the best programming I've done, not including making a grand plan and flowcharting the design. But except for that, the code is great!

I have thunderrabbit.com restored on dreamhost, and I think I can test robnugen.com functionality on the new server at rob.thunderrabbit.com, though I haven't tried to set that up yet.

Not sure what the heck else to do with thunderrabbit.com; perhaps write write write and let lulu.tv bind some books.

If I get kick-ass images code written, I may set up a wiki for documentation / discussion, though it will probably be just me yammering in a big empty room.

3:550pm JST Tuesday 4 July 2006

Nice. Got the main div to display the tree starting from the branch clicked on the sidebar panel.

Ubuntu

1:01pm JST Tuesday 4 July 2006

I just burned a bootable CD of ubuntu, after reading an article that a couple of high profile Mac OS X cats switched over, and the ubuntu site says I don't have to change my computer to check it out.

Not sure how to tell my Mac to boot from CD, though. Ah. C or Option

2:36pm JST Tuesday 4 July 2006

That was fun. I wasn't able to effortlessly get it to do more than what OS X can do already, so I likely won't switch. But I'll keep the CD slash idea.

However, I will grant that it reconfigured the keyboard settings to the way I want! Except I couldn't find the ~ character. Pretty important in linux. Perhaps I will try again when I get my own computer again.

first EV lessons

4:37pm JST Tuesday 4 July 2006

Heading out to Kanda for my first demo lesson at English Village, probably hereinafter to be referred to as EV.

5:31pm

Interesting.... I changed this title from lesson to lessons. And they are not demo lessons, like new students learning about EV, but just first lessons for me.

I will be teaching 4 different lessons - three 1-on-1 and one couple. First lesson starts at 6:20pm: 40 minutes with Rie, next is 60 minutes with Masayo, then 40 minutes with Nobuhiro, then 20 minute break and then last lesson is 40 minutes with Yuko and Akira.

There are no breaks between the first three lessons! Just like zoom zoom work and be done.

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I think I like this better - the scheduling is more dynamic than Gaba, and the writeups (at least for these students, who are all pretty high level according to the notes) are all like FC Globalization; FC translation stuff; FC Life, English Language; FC North Korea.

Like each of those is the entire writeup for one lesson; there's only one line! No time wasted blabbering some BS on the computers. Bang.

Damn.. now that I think about it, I definitely like it more than Gaba. Unless something really wack and surprising crops up... this is rad.

9:48pm JST Tuesday 4 July 2006

Rie is a part time translator; she asked me about some language in a movie script she is translating.

Masayo and I talked about travel and stuff.

Nobuhiro and I talked about travel and semi-conductors.

The last couple were actually siblings, with Yuko more talkative than Akira, and I really enjoyed chatting (more like me 100% blabbering) about PB (after giving some vocabulary about nuclear families featuring divorces: half-sister, step-brother, in-laws, brother/sister-in-law, mother/father-in-law)

I realllly enjoyed the lesson, and am thankful they did too.

Yuko said she had never spoken with someone who's been on PB. Hmmm.. Me? unique? something different? world traveling? Hmmmmm.

9:55pm

Hahahaha... I am half-amused, half-unimpressed with this: my boss just reported that "they all said 'not bad'," referring to how the students enjoyed my lessons. This booth is right next to the exit (and his desk); I heard what he said to each student as they were leaving. In three cases he was distracted and didn't talk to them, and in one case the woman (Masayo) said 大丈夫, which means fine or good.

Besides that, I have enjoyed this day quite thoroughly. I assume he was just covering his own ass in case the other four students hated me (which he doesn't know cause he didn't talk to them).