Upland Brewing

We had a farewell dinner of one of our colleagues at Upland Brewing.

Move

I moved to a tiny one-room house as a temporally living place as my current lease ends in a week.

Air Show

I went to the Dayton Air Show with a friend. Before the show, we stopped by at the National Museum of USAF to see a lot of air plains.

Badminton

I played badminton with friends.

Lucky Express

This week's lunch was at Lucky Express again.

Badminton

I played badminton with friends.

Lucky Express

This week's lunch was Chinese food at Lucky Express. This was my second time to go to Lucky Express. I can only go to this restaurant with Chinese friends because dishes I like are not on the menu. We need to ask the owner in Chinese to get them.

Baseball

I join the baseball practice. I got a blister on my hand and it burst. So, I couldn't bat well during a practice game.

Badminton

My neck became better, so I resumed playing Badminton.

Picnic

I joined a picnic at Fairfax state recreation area.

Penn Station

I had a quick dinner with my friend before playing badminton at Penn Station. I liked their subs much better than the ones at Subway, but probably much less healthy.

I twisted my neck while playing badminton. Maybe, it's because I didn't stretch enough this time. I had hard time even to lay down on the bed because of the pain.

Fireworks

This is almost the end of my fourth year in Bloomington, but it's my first time to spend the 4th of July in town. I went out to watch fireworks with my friends.

Baseball

I join the baseball practice.

DeAngelo's

After playing badminton, my friends and I had dinner at DeAngelo's.

Basil Leaf

This week's lunch was at Basil Leaf.

Table Tennis

I played table tennis with some friends.

Golden Corral

I had lunch at Golden Corral with some friends. A couple of hours later, we played badminton.

Lennie's

I played badminton with my colleagues. After that, we had dinner at Lennie's.

The Pita Pit

This week's lunch was at the Pita Pit. It was like Subway, but with pita instead of bread.

ATM Card

My ATM card was swallowed to an ATM. I called them. The representative reacted as if it was nothing and simply told me that they would send me another card.

Baseball

We played baseball. We are getting better and having more fun.

McCormick's Creek State Park

We went hiking to McCormick's Creek State Park. We hiked a trail around Wolf Cave. We didn't have any flashlights, so we didn't go through the cave.

Noodles & Company

Today's lunch was at Noodles & Company. I ordered Japanese Pan Noodle, which I didn't dare to order last time.

It was supposed to be Japanese Yaki-udon, but tasted bit different. It had too much source. But some Americans liked it.

$2.99

I bought something that costs $2.99 and gave a cashier $3 with cash today. The cashier didn't event try to give me a penny. The purpose of labeling products as $2.99 instead of $3.00 is to make customers feel like it's cheaper. Without giving a penny back, it is really just "feel like."

It's not that I want a penny back, but I think they should label the product as $3.00 from the beginning.

Sansho the Bailiff

This week's movie showing was Sansho the Bailiff by Kenji Mizoguchi.

Baseball

I joined a baseball practice. It was fun.

Siam House

This week's lunch was at Siam House. We had Thai buffet.

Table Tennis

I played table tennis with some friends.

Casio EX-V7

A new digital camera I ordered last wee arrived today. It's Casio EXILIM HI-ZOOM EX-V7. This is my 5th digital camera. The following is the history.

Sanyo DSC-X110 (bought in 1999)
Canon IXY Digital 300 (bought in June 2001)
Sanyo DSC-MZ3 (bought in December 2002)
Casio EXILIM ZOOM EX-Z40 (bought in April 2004)

Noodle Town

We had lunch at Noodle Town. Their roasted duck noodle was quite good.

Anyetsang's Little Tibet

We had lunch at Anyetsang's Little Tibet.

Google Gear

I installed Google Gear. It seems working right with Google Reader. I would really like to see this to be used with Gmail and Google Calender.

LaTeX and PDFLaTeX

Last time I wrote the following to detect whether latex or pdflatex is used to compile a source, but I noticed today this will confuse the latex commend in Cygwin. The latex commend in Cygwin is a symbolic link to pdflatex and this makes pdflatex to produce a pdf file instead of a xdvi file even though you call latex.

\ifx\pdftexversion\undefined
\usepackage[dvips]{hyperref}
\else
\usepackage[pdftex]{hyperref}
\fi

After searching webs, the following works fine.

\usepackage{ifpdf}
\ifpdf
\usepackage[pdftex]{hyperref}
\else
\usepackage[dvips]{hyperref}
\fi

Google Maps Street View

This service will be useful when I look for an apartment or something.

For example, this is the apartment I stayed last summer.

Shogun

I was invited by my friends and played a board game, Shogun.

Sushi Party

We had a sushi party. Another Japanese ordered fresh fish from somewhere and he made sushi. It was fun. I brought pre-cooked sukiyaki.

Cafe Django

This week's lunch was at Cafe Django. I had today's special, peasant momo. I have had momo multiple times at a Tibetan restaurant, but today's momos were huge.

Bombay House

We had lunch at Bombay House again. It's a Indiana style buffet. We've covered pretty much all restaurants within walking distance from the university.

Pépé le Moko

Today's movie was Pépé le Moko directed by Julien Duvivier.

Baseball

Probably it's my first time to play baseball even tough I have played softball when I was in an elementary school.

Chopstick Helpers

Today's lunch was at Noodles & Company.

I found something interesting today. They are called chopstick helpers. It's best described if I say that they turn chopsticks to tongs. Honestly, with a chopstick helper, I cannot use chopsticks at all.

Latex Tips

I was playing around with the URL formating with Latex today and found the following.

\url{http://example.com} in the url package displays URLs inserting line breaks properly. But, the same \url{} doesn't insert line breaks if you use the hyperref package with the dvips option (hyperref is a useful package to create hyperlinks in PDF), but works fine with the pdftex option.

So, I started to use pdflatex to create PDF instead of the old-style latex-dvips-ps2pdf combination. pdflatex doesn't support EPS files, so I converted all EPS files to PDF using epstopdf.

But, I still want to use latex and xdvi for quick modification. It's because xdvi refreshes the updated dvi file automatically. I can just keep xdvi open showing some specific page. Every time I compile the TeX file, I can see the modified result right away. I don't need to reopen the file and move to the specific page. So, I did the following to make the LaTeX file compilable both with latex and pdflatex.

First, I load the hyperref package with the proper option detecting how the file is compiled.

\ifx\pdftexversion\undefined
\usepackage[dvips]{hyperref}
\else
\usepackage[pdftex]{hyperref}
\fi

Then, I removed file extensions, like \includegraphics{foo}, so that includegraphics finds foo.eps or {foo.pdf or foo.png} depending on how I compile it.

cygstart.exe

I have been using the following script to open files using Windows applications, but today I got to know about cygstart.exe, which does exactly my script does. How long has it been there?

#! /bin/sh
/cygdrive/c/Meadow/bin/fiber "`cygpath -w $1`"

Extra Battery for my Note PC

Because of the recall of ThinkPad batteries, I received a new battery today. I have been using the original battery for almost a year, so it's a good timing to switch to a new one (as you know, batteries wear out).

Badminton

I feel like I finally did some exercise after really long time.

Laughing Planet Cafe

Today's lunch was a burrito at Laughing Planet Cafe.

Ugetsu Monogatari

This week's movie was Ugetsu Monogatari, by Kenji Mizoguchi.

World Cup Final

Today is the final of World Cup of, ... well, cricket, a sport I knew nothing about except the name. Recently my friends from India and Sri Lanca, where cricket is very popular, kept talking about the games. So, I went over their place and watched the last couple of hours of the game. A game is usually around 8 hours because they play shorter version in World Cup. (The longer one lasts for 5 days.) Thanks to their explanation, now I know at least how they play it.

Picnic

Today was a picnic at Bryan Park. We played regular Frisbees and Ultimate Frisbees around here. (The satellite image of Google Map has gotten better even in this small town.)

Falafels Flavors From Jerusalem

Today's lunch was at Falafels Flavors From Jerusalem. It's a Israeli restaurant.

My Laptop is Back

My laptop came back this morning. It was fast. They seem to have replaced the mother board, which they call planar card, and the keyboard. I thought it was a problem of the fan or somewhere around, but anyway, the problem was fixed.

By the way, it's still handled by the IBM repair center, not Lenovo's.

Life without My Laptop

As I wrote in DVD Encoding in a Fridge, something has been wrong with my laptop, ThinkPad T60. I finally sent the laptop for repair. Thanks to Web-based email, schedular, blog, RSS reader, bookmark synchronizer, and memo combined with classic services like IMAP and CVS, I could easiliy move my working environment to other computer. But, still something is totally diffent without the laptop.

Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (Mr. Hulot's Holiday)

I watched Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot by Jacques Tati. It's a comedy and somewhat similar to Mr. Bean.

Actually, there will be a parody by Mr. Bean, Les Vacances de Mr. Bean.

Bombay House

We had lunch at Bombay House.

Sending a Package to Taiwan

I got the address to send in Chinese. Not even knowing how to pronounce it, I went to a post office and copied the address to the envelope. Because it contained non-printing materials, an post officer asked me to fill in a customs declaration form in English. Well, I need to go back to the post office tomorrow.

DVD Encoding in a Fridge

When I encode MPEG2 using my laptop (ThinkPad T60), it becomes very hot and either suspends or turns off automatically. I had the same problem last summer with my old ThinkPad X30, but I was disappointed that the same happened to the new T60.

I probably need to send back the T60 to check because it's still withing the warranty, but to circumvent the situation, I put the T60 in my fridge last night. When I woke up this morning, the encoding was done. (Of course, the computer was suspended because it's out of battery.)

ToDo List for Google Calendar

I have been using the ToDo gadget for Google Desktop to keep track of my ToDo list. But, somehow the Google Desktop nowadays uses a lot of CPU in my environment (probably after the recent update, I'm not sure). So, sometimes, I need to disable the Google Desktop. Then, of course, I cannot access to my ToDo list.

I searched a bit and found this (Google Operating System: ToDo List for Google Calendar) and decided to give it a try.

La Sirène du Mississipi (Mississippi Mermaid)

I watched La Sirène du Mississipi by François Truffaut.

Madama Butterfly

I went to watch an opera, Madama Butterfly, with my friends.

Local Google Calender

Although I haven't tried it by myself yet, this seems useful. It is still its early stage, so it has several restrictions, but we can hope for its future.

Edit (4/16):
I tried by myself and it turned out that it was not so useful because the Google Calendar provider doesn't cache the entries. If you cannot use it offline, what's the point of using Google Calendar from a standalone application? We'll hope for the future.

Cafe Ami

We had a Korean buffet at Cafe Ami for lunch this week.

Casablanca Cafe

This week's lunch was at Casablanca Cafe. It was a Moroccan restaurant. I had paella. It was really good.

Snow

Last weekend, we had a very good weather. That's why we even went hiking. But today, it went back cold again. It even snowed a little.

Nationality

When I told people that I had an engagement ceremony in Taiwan, two questions drew my attention. First question is "I thought you were Japanese." and the second question is "Did you get engaged with a Japanese working in Taiwan?" Even in this age, a lot of people seem to assume that people get married among the same nationality.

Hiking

Since the weather was good, we decided to go hiking at Paynetown, which has a hiking trail around Lake Monroe.

DVD to MPEG2 without Re-encoding

I needed to convert DVD to mpeg2 to re-author the video from our engagement ceremony. Somehow the authoring software I had, WinDVD Creator, doesn't process VOB files well, so I had to convert DVD back to mpeg2 first.

After a lot of searching, the followings are the steps I had to go through.

1. VobEdit [VOB to m2v]
- Open the first VOB.
- Demux
- Check "Demux all video streams"
*.m2v will be generated.

2. DGMPGDec (instead of DVD2AVI) [VOB to wav]
- Open all VOBs
- Select audio track (Audio -> Track Number)
- Audio -> Output Method -> Decode AC3 Track to WAV
- Audio -> 48 -> 44.1KHz -> Off
- Save Porject
*.d2v and *.wav will be generated.

3. TMPGEnc [wav to mp2]
- Select *.wav to the Autio Souce
- Check ES (Audio only)
- Load DVD (NTSC).mcf
- Start
*.mp2 will be generated.

4. TMPGEnc [m2v and mp2 to mpg]
- File -> MPEG Tools -> Simple Multiplex
- Type -> MPEG-2 Program (VBR)
- m2v to Video input
- mp2 to Audio input
- Run
*.mpg will be generated.

References
- http://www.digital-digest.com
- http://members.ld.infoseek.co.jp/hp_yamakatsu (in Japanese)

Snow Lion Restaurant

Back to the normal life, we had lunch at Snow Lion Restaurant. This is another Tibetan restaurant in Bloomington.

Flight Delay

The flight from Seattle to Chicago O'hare was delayed for more than one hour because of bad weather in Chicago. I was worried about the connection at Chicago to Indianapolis.

When I arrived Chicago, my next flight was also delayed for two hours, so I didn't miss the flight. After waiting for two hours, the flight was canceled. So, I was assigned to a next flight, which is delayed as well. So I waited another one or two hours at the airport.

Finally, I reached Indianapolis, but my luggage was lost again. I had to wait for a long time in the line for the baggage claim because a lot of luggages were lost. Finally, it was my turn, the person told me that my luggage should come with the next flight. So, I waited another 10 minutes and so, and luckily, my luggage did come out.

It was way passed midnight. There were no shuttles running at this hour. I had to take a shared limousine to go home. When I reached home, it was past 3 am.

Postponed the Flight

The lost luggages were still lost in the morning. On top of that, we had things to do before I could fly back to Indiana. I postponed the flight to tomorrow.

The luggages were arrived in the afternoon.

Back to Seattle

We flew back to Seattle. Since we couldn't get a direct flight from Taipei to Seattle. It was via San Francisco, where we had to go through immigration.

When we reached Seattle late at night. Our luggages didn't come out.

Breakfast in Taiwan

In Taiwan, there are a lot of breakfast places where we can eat cheap and good food. This video clips show how they make bread in a traditional way.

Engagement Ceremony

In Taiwan, there is a tradition to hold an engagement ceremony, which is more or less as important as a real wedding. Engagement ceremonies are held at bride's house. In the morning, a groom and his family visit bride's home with gifts for the ceremony. The beginning of the ceremony is a tea ceremony, in which the bride serves tea to groom's family one by one and each person returns a red envelop, which is a traditional envelope with money in it, in the cup. Then, they exchange rings, like in a western wedding, gloom's family puts a necklace on the bride, and so on.


Today, we had one, but we had it in our own way, a mixture of Taiwanese tradition and western tradition. In the morning, my fiancee got professional makeup and dressed up with the dress we rented from a bridal shop. We went to the cultural center to take pictures. Since I was staying at my fiancee's family place, my fiancee's brother in law took me out to drive around the block before visiting my fiancee's place, pretending that I was from home. We had a ceremony at my fiancee's place. We kept the ring exchange for the wedding, so instead of exchange, I put back the engagement ring, which my fiancee took out before the ceremony, to her finger. Following the ceremony, we had a reception in a restaurant.

Scooters in Taiwan

There are a lot of scooters in Taiwan. Finally, I videotaped it.

By the way, it's my first time to upload video to YouTube.

Taipei 101

We visited Taipei 101, the highest building in the world. This is the only pure sightseeing we did during the 11-day stay in Taiwan.

We asked a taxi driver to stop at the other side of the street in order to take this picture.

We paid around 10 US dollars to go up to the observatory on the 89th floor. The elevator was surprisingly fast. It takes only 39 seconds from the 5th floor to the 89th floor.

This is a scenery from the the observatory.

At night, we took the final high speed train and went back to Kaohsiung.

Starbucks in Taipei

In the morning, I spent time at Starbucks in Taipei while waiting for my company. It's kind of stupid to spent 3 US dollars for a cup of coffee when you can get tapioca milk tea (my favorite) with 60 cents from street. But, I needed the Internet and a place where I can stay forever without worrying about being kicked out.

When I'm using my computer, a middle-aged man said something in Chinese. I assume that he asked something about my computer or the Internet connection, but of course, I didn't understand. I told him that I didn't speak Chinese in Chinese, but somehow he got interested in me and started conversation. My Chinese were so bad and basic, but he was so persistent to me a lot of question, such as where I was from, why I was in Taipei, who I was with, how long I was staying in Taiwan, what I do in the US, about Tokyo and Taipei... I think the "conversation" lasted almost 30 minutes.

Taiwan High Speed Rail

We went to Taipei by Taiwan High Speed Rail, which is sometimes called Taiwan Shinkansen because it's based on the Shinkansen technology.


In Taipei, we met a friend who I got to know in Seattle in 1999 when I was studying in University of Washington as an exchange student. It was the first time to meet her after seven years!

Night Market

We went to a night market nearby and played some traditional games.

Toilet Restaurant

This is the restaurant we had dinner today. It's in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

This is the entrance of the restaurant.

This is the inside of the restaurant.

This is the dish I had.

This is the dessert.

Chinese 101

We went shopping. While adults were negotiating price in Chinese, which I don't speak, a niece of my friend (5, 6 grade) and I were left out. So, we started a "conversation."

Most of the conversation was like this. (Everything is in Chinese.)

Pattern 1
Niece: <a sentence>
Niece: Do you understand?
Niece: You don't understand.
Me: I don't understand.

Pattern 2
Niece: This is a <noun>.
Niece: Do you know that.
Niece: You don't know.
Me: I don't know.

Sometimes, she said something I can understand with my very poor Chinese knowledge. Then, I say either "I understand" or "I know." Then, she became very happy and replied with even longer and complicated Chinese sentences.

Anyway, we had fun like this for a long time. I feel like if I spent a week with her, my Chinese would be improved a lot.

Arrived in Taiwan

Via Taipei international airport, we arrived in Kaohsiung. This is my second visit to Taiwan. Last time was almost seven years ago (August 2000).

The first thing I noticed is that it was host! I felt like it was already summer. I was wearing a jacket that is thin for the weather in Indiana this time, but Taiwan was hotter than I expected. The first thing we did is to buy short pants and sandals.

Like other Taiwanese, we went shopping by scooter. It's also the first time in seven years. The last time I rode a scooter, which is also my first time in my life, is when I visited Taiwan seven years ago.

To Taiwan

The flight was at 2 in the morning. We fell asleep right after it landed.

All of their flight attendants look the same because they have the similar hairstyle and makeups. Their services are very good, compared to the service of American airlines.

To Seattle

The flight to Seattle is at 8:15 am. To get to Indianapolis airport, I need to take a shuttle at 4:50 am. For that, I need to get up at 3:30 to 4 am. But, today I need to forward the clock for one hour for the daylight saving time that starts three weeks earlier from this year. If I go to bed now, I can sleep for only two hours?

This was what I was thinking around 1:30 am, and I decided not to sleep. Instead, I slept on the shuttle, on the first airplane, and the first half of the second flight. The connection from the first flight to the second flight was very smooth because the first flight was delayed a little, so I didn't have to worry about falling asleep while waiting for the second flight.

But because of the smooth connection, my luggage didn't show up at the Sea-Tac airport. I had to be in a long line to report for a lost luggage.

While waiting for the first flight and for the second half of the second flight, I was reading books I bought a couple of days ago. I can read Japanese books much faster. I finished the first book and the half of the second book.

Skiing under Hot Weather

I went skiing to Paoli Peaks with a couple of friends. We were planning to go to skiing from last year, but we had been procrastinating until the last weekend for Paoli Peaks. A good thing is that we could ski for a whole day with the half day price.

It was hot. Today's highest temperature was 63 degree. I only wore T-shirt under my ski ware, but I kept sweating. I saw several people skiing/snow boarding just with T-shirts.

Although it was really a small place, but we had a good time there.

Mandalay Restaurant

We had lunch at a new restaurant, Mandalay. It was Burma cuisine. The dishes were somewhat like a mixture of Chinese and Indiana.

YesAsia.com

Japanese books I ordered at YesAsia.com arrived today. It was $6.99 each with free shipping because I bought more than $20 this time. It's kind of expensive when the original price is 540 yen each, but this was the best deal I found. Of course I can buy from amazon.co.jp with the original price, but they charge 2700 yen plus 300 yen a book to ship to the US. And it's more expensive ($7.60) from kinokuniya.com and they don't have any free shipping.

Backache

A tendon from my left solder to my back hurts from this morning. I'm guessing it's due to the laying pose when I use my laptop on the bed. I need to stop using the laptop on the bed.

Repulsion

This week's movie was Repulsion by Roman Polanski.

Snow

I thought it was almost spring, but it snowed again.

Chow Bar

This week's Friday lunch was Chinese buffet at Chow Bar.

Nóz w wodzie (Knife in the Water)

We are done with Luis Buñuel and now move on to Roman Polanski, who was the directory of The Pianist. This week was Nóz w wodzie (Knife in the Water).

Bombay House

This week's launch was Indian Buffet at Bombay House.

Empty String with Java Web Start

Java Web Start JNLP doesn't allow us to pass empty string or spaces as an argument. There are valid cases to pass them as arguments. I don't know why it's not allowed.

This is the exception I got.

BadFieldException[ The field  has an invalid value: ,]
   at com.sun.javaws.jnl.XMLFormat$8.visitElement(XMLFormat.java:549)
   at com.sun.javaws.jnl.XMLUtils.visitElements(XMLUtils.java:258)
   at com.sun.javaws.jnl.XMLFormat.buildApplicationDesc(XMLFormat.java:545)
   at com.sun.javaws.jnl.XMLFormat.parse(XMLFormat.java:99)
   at com.sun.javaws.jnl.LaunchDescFactory.buildDescriptor(LaunchDescFactory.java:48)
   at com.sun.javaws.jnl.LaunchDescFactory.buildDescriptor(LaunchDescFactory.java:60)
   at com.sun.javaws.jnl.LaunchDescFactory.buildDescriptor(LaunchDescFactory.java:117)
   at com.sun.javaws.Main.launchApp(Main.java:182)
   at com.sun.javaws.Main.main(Main.java:136)

Icicles

I found icicles outside of a window of my apartments. Some are really long.

Ice Skate

I went to ice skating for the first time after I caught a cold. Because my condition is not perfect yet, I skipped badminton I usually play on Saturday.

Tibetan Restaurant

Lunch at Anyetsang's Little Tibet again.

Blizzard

Because of the blizzard warning from yesterday, the school was closed for the morning. The international office as well was closed and my appointment from last week was ended up with being postponed for another week.

Cold

I have been feeling tired lately, but finally today, I'm down completely. I spent a whole day at home resting. I wanted to get some medicine, but gave up because the outside was around 10 degree.

Super Bowl

I watched Super Bowl at my friend's place with a big projector screen. It was a very excited game and our Indianapolis Colts won the victory.

In these two years, I learned a lot about American Football and became a big fan of it.

Two-dollar Bill

I had a breakfast at Runcible Spoon and received a two-dollar bill as the change. I had seen one before, but it was my first time to actually own it.

By the way, I have never seen a half-dollar coin.

Cafe Django

Lunch at Cafe Django.