Randomly Generated

One Year Ago...

2011-05-02T09:09:00.000-07:00

As I commence packing for a lengthy bi-coastal business trip (and a couple days on the beach in North Carolina with my sister), I can't help but think back to what I was doing this time last year: Riding! I was about halfway through a 9 day mountain biking trip to the Fruita/Moab area of the southwest US with some new friends. But rather than tell you about this incredible trip, let me show you. Here's a two-part video I shot with my Kodak Zi8 pocket HD camera.

I did 99% of the filming and all of the editing. There's a couple of shots of me in there (usually in a red top, on a white Specialized Stumpjumper 29er). Unfortunately, YouTube replaced the third song "Venice Queen" by Red Hot Chili Peppers with some muzak. Best moment? Definitely part 2, at 2:20. Oh, and definitely bump it to 720p and full screen for the proper effect.

Losing Weight the DBLDBS Way!

2011-04-28T10:01:00.000-07:00

It's been five weeks since I stepped off a plane from San Francisco weighing a few pounds more than at any previous point in my life. Nine days spent sitting idle behind a computer. Nine days of eating way too much for breakfast and drinking too many beers with dinner. We need not discuss the desserts. I can't pin all of this blame on Duke though. My eating habits in general had deteriorated over the winter and the frequency at which I was working out could be measured in lunar phases. I wasn't getting fat, but I was certainly getting soft. Something had to give.

This is where I could write about how hardcore I've become in terms of working out and watching what I eat. I could tell you that I'm again training for marathons and Ironman triathlons and stage races in Canada. But it'd be a lie. As it turns out, I'm enjoying pretty significant results with what I would consider a very non-drastic course of action. I call this the DBLDBS plan, short for Don't Be Lazy, Don't Be Stupid. All rights reserved, copyright 2011, property of Randomly Generated blog. Rebroadcast or description of events prohibited without the expressed written consent of Major League Baseball. Oops.

Before I share the details of my plan, a few results are in order. I've been using our wonderful Omron scale every Thursday morning to chart my progression in terms of weight loss, body fat percentage, visceral fat, and skeletal muscle percentage. After five weeks of DBLDBS...

Weight: Lost 9.4 lbs OR 4.6% improvement.
Body Fat: 1.6 percentage points lower OR 6.4% improvement.
Muscle: 0.9 percentage points higher OR 2.5% improvement.

Most importantly of all from a long-term health perspective was my decrease in visceral fat. I dropped from a reading of 10 to an 8. Visceral fat is that which builds up around your internal organs and potentially contributes to higher cholesterol and diabetes. According to the log sheets that come with the Omron scale, a rating of 10-14 is considered "High" whereas 9 and below is considered "Normal" (15 and above is considered "Very High). I'd love to get it down to a 6 or 7 just to on the safe side, but I'm happy to have it down to an 8.

So what have I been doing? Well, like the plan states, I stopped being lazy and stopped being stupid.

Exercise
The first thing I did that Thursday after I got home was go for a run. It didn't go well. I hadn't run in a year and I was very heavy on my feet. I was slow and I even had to walk a short hill just 2 miles into the run. But I felt good having done it. It was a 2.9 mile trail run at a pedestrian 8:59/mile pace, but I was feeling good. Good enough to want to go biking the next day, and the day after that, and the next day too. Essentially, I've finally embraced the idea that even 30 minutes of daily action is better than inaction. That a bike ride doesn't need to last for 3 hours to be worthwhile, that I don't need to beat myself up over running so much slower than I used to.

I also discovered the Garmin Connect website which works wonderfully with all manner of Garmin training devices. Kristin and I both have a Forerunner 305 for running and I have the Edge 305 for cycling. I've been uploading the data from each workout to the site the past five weeks. The blue squares are running, red is for cycling, and purple is for strength training (done exclusively with Active 2 for Xbox Kinect).

March Garmin Connect Calendar

April Garmin Connect Calendar

Admittedly, there's not much information in the calendar view, but if you were to click one of those days on my Garmin Connect site, you'd be able to get a much more detailed view of the activity like this entry from last weekend's mountain bike ride. I mention all of this to show that 1) I've been working out 5-6 days a week, 2) that my weekly totals are rather modest, and 3) that having little gadgets and software like this makes it easy and fun to track your progress. All of the routes you upload are shared with other Garmin users too and are searchable by city and zip code. I've already downloaded a running route two miles from the hotel I'll be staying at next week in NC.

As an aside, regarding Active 2 for Xbox Kinect, I've been strictly using the "trainer generated" mode. Many of the squat and jumping exercises were destroying my knees (we have bamboo hardwood floor in the room with the Xbox and the yoga mat I workout on wasn't helping at all). Depending on my mood, I either tell it to generate a 30 minute upper body workout (Hard difficulty), or I'll do 20 minutes of upper and 15 of core. Or some other combination. I can toggle on/off exercises I don't wish to do. This ends up being a very solid workout yielding results that I can see in the mirror.

One final note on the workout schedule though. I learned the hard way a year ago not to ramp up the running mileage and pace too suddenly. I did that in the fall of 2009 and wound up hobbled with a stress fracture (in my femur of all places). So I've been limiting myself to just 3 to 5 miles for the time being, with my "longer" runs being done with Kristin so it forces me to slow down (and her to speed up). That said, I did manage to bang out a 7:45/mile average during yesterday's 3 mile rain in the run. Not exactly fast, but it felt really good.

Diet
This is where we address the DBS portion of the plan. There's the obvious things like cutting back on beer and sweets and yes, fast food too (as an aside, I honestly believe the McDonalds Double Cheeseburger is penny-for-penny the best tasting food of all time... unfortunately, I can't not eat 3 of them) but I had to cut deeper than that. After all, it's not like a drank a beer every night or passed through the Golden Arches more than once every two or three weeks.

So I started with breakfast. My typical breakfast was either two huge bowls of cereal or a couple of toasted bagels with butter. Too many carbs, too much buttery fatness. So, thanks to Costco's reasonable prices, I've been enjoying Chobani Greek Yogurt (non-fat, full of protein) with some granola every morning for the past 5 weeks. Yes, every morning. I've also been waking up much earlier, eating earlier, and having a snack during late morning. Which brings me to my other change. Out with the Pop-Tarts, in with the Nature Valley Fruit&Nut granola bars (again, thank you Costco). For lunch, I've managed to restrain myself to a single sandwich and not two. Afternoon snacks are now fruit or a nuts/trail mix instead of Pop-Tarts or chips & salsa. Kristin and I have also been better about dinner lately. We've always eaten pretty healthy at dinner, but we've cut back on various saucy chicken dishes and have been eating a lot more grilled chicken with a light seasoning. More fish too. We've also adjusted our eating out habits to lean more heavily towards sushi and Panera Bread instead of pizza and Chipotle Grill. Exceptions can be made though.

Finally, the other change I've made is in the realm of vitamins. Now, I don't actually know if this matters at all -- there's always a strong placebo effect at work when you talk about vitamins and people's dietary supplements -- but I've been much better about taking my adult gummy vitamins in the morning, and an Emergen-C and multi-vitamin after working out.

So What's Next?
Seeing 204 pounds light up on the scale last month was a wake-up call that gave me a few goals. For starters, I wanted to get back under 195lbs by the end of April. Mission accomplished! Next up is to get below 190 by the end of our bicycle trip in June/July, and be firmly back under 185 before my birthday on October 1st. That would really enable me to better enjoy the new Stone Gardens location when it opens this fall in Bellevue (bouldering at 196 pounds was not fun).

I was in the best shape of my adult post-college life in 2002 when I was running ultramarathons and doing long distance triathlons. I weighed 176 pounds back then, had single-digit bodyfat and was in excellent shape. I was also swim/bike/runnning over 25 hours a week. I won't be doing that again, but there is a lot of room for improvement between where I sit today and that pinnacle. And somewhere in the middle perhaps sits a pleasant plateau at which I can hopefully set up camp and stay a while.

Care to join me?

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit

2011-04-26T11:38:00.000-07:00

It's rare for me to watch a movie that I remember two years later, let alone one that I not only import on DVD, but that I even end up buying the accompanying comic books too. Or, in this case, the manga. Actually, it's not rare; it's unheard of. While this may not shock those of you who know me well, many suspect that because I work in the videogame industry that I have certain, shall we say, traits. Assumptions are made that I'm into action figures, that I like science-fiction and superheroes, and that I've collected comic books, played Magic: The Gathering or Dungeons & Dragons, and, well, you get the idea. The truth is, the only action figures I've ever owned were a couple of ThunderCats when I was 10; I hate all things Stars, particularly Wars and Treks; I couldn't tell you who the Superfriends are. I'm not even sure if there are Superfriends or if I just made that up. And though I did buy a couple of "Ghost Rider" and "Silver Surfer" comics as a child, 90% of the reading I've done since then has been, gasp, non-fiction. I'VE. NEVER. ROLLED. TWENTY.

Alas, I am a very poor excuse for a geek. But this doesn't mean I can't be swayed. My time spent writing the Batman: Arkham Asylum Official Strategy Guide two summers ago sparked such a keen desire in me to learn more about the Batman universe that I actually bought the "Arkham Asylum" graphic novel by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean (an exceptional piece of storytelling and art). Though I now have no idea where that book went, I do recall enjoying it considerably (and yes, I do hope to be writing the guidebook for the sequel later this year... fingers crossed).

And that brings us to my foray into manga and Ikigami...

I first watched the movie Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit somewhere over the Pacific, on a flight home from Osaka two winters ago. There are few movies that left such an impression on me. I remember sitting motionless in my seat, eyes tearing: I felt frozen, run over, shocked, and tortured all at once. I tried to describe the movie to friends on multiple occasions, but it always comes out weird. I tried to track it down on Netflix, but it's not available. Alas, I recently found a seller on Amazon with an imported copy (English subtitles, Japanese language audio).

The movie is set in Japan, in an alternate reality in which the government, as part of a plan to increase national prosperity, gives all children a vaccine. One in one-thousand of the syringes contains a tiny capsule that will release a lethal heart-blockage at a known hour, at sometime during their early twenties. The victim is contacted 24 hours prior to the their death and notified that they carry the capsule and will be dead the following day. The government's [flawed] rationale is that by killing 1/1000th of its citizenry, the remaining population will come to value life that much more and better devote themselves to making the most of their time on earth.

The story follows the career of one of the government's messengers, one of the many men whose job is to hand-deliver the death notice (the 'ikigami') to the victims 24 hours before they are set to expire. Each victim's life yields a different tale and the movie centers around three very different final days in the lives of three young Japanese citizens, sentenced to die for seemingly no reason other than to try and encourage others to live more fully.

This is a very interesting philosophical and sociological question. Could eliminating 0.1% of the population be a justifiable means if it ends in a greater life for the other 99.9% of the population? Perhaps. So long as you're not that 0.1 percent. Would seeing someone--an innocent--die a senseless death invoke in you feelings to try harder and make the most of every day? Or would you succumb to feelings of helplessness knowing that you could be next?

Little did I know that the movie was actually based on a long-running series of manga. Amazon is very good about recommending additional purchases to its customers and I hesitantly added the first volume to my cart upon discovering the books. The series began in 2005 by Motoro Mase and consists of eight volumes under the genre of psychological thriller. The books maintain the Japanese right-to-left design ; the only differences is that the speech bubbles have been replaced with English text. It reads quickly and I was flipping the final two-hundredth page in no time at all. And I was hooked. Like novels, the manga not only provides far more detail than the movie has time to include, but it also covers a variety of story arcs. Some of the character-stories from the movie are in the first volume, but also others that aren't. There's also more emphasis on the internal struggle the messenger, Fujimoto-san, must confront with his new career.

I wasn't going to purchase the other volumes at twelve-bucks each on Amazon but Kristin quickly discovered that the King County Library actually has them in their system. She had volumes 2 and 3 delivered to our little Snoqualmie Library the other day -- and the stories keep getting better. I highly recommend checking out the movie and, if you like it, see if your library has the manga. Even Kristin is enjoying them too and she's even got fewer geek genes than me!

Deciphering Your Xbox Stats Email

2011-04-04T15:00:00.000-07:00

So I got an email today from Microsoft detailing my own personal usage stats for March, 2011. But before I share with you a bit of my own time with the system, allow me to show off my avatar's new pant. No, I didn't forget to make it plural.

Behold the Plaid Attack!

Yes, it's a hideous concoction (though he seems to look perfectly dressed when sitting at the table in the new Full House Poker game). Think what you will about his appearance, what everyone wants to know is where did I get my pant. Well, it's actually an unlockable item in the new version of "You Don't Know Jack." Each episode in YDKJ has a sponsor-themed wrong answer. Answer incorrectly (by accident or intentionally, it doesn't matter) and happen to choose that right wrong answer during the show and you get a prize. My fabulous pant was provided by a world famous designer of high-fashion pant and slack.

Now, about those stats. First, the fine print says that the personal data is current as of March 22, 2011. The gameplay information is for the month of February, 2011. So right off the bat we can already tell that these stats are probably more confusing than necessary. Hopefully MS can find a way to generate month-end stats for both personal data and gameplay information (and get them out in a more timely manner), though the only thing that really changes with the former is your Gamerscore.

According to the email, my Gamerscore was 37,170 when the report was generated. My current Gamerscore is 38,525, but I've only unlocked another 100 or 200 points since the middle of March, so this tells me that the Gamerscore data contained in the email is, like the gameplay information, only current through the end of the month of February. In other words, everything about this email is essentially a month old. The more current personal data is little more than the date I joined Xbox Live (11/26/03) and when my membership expires.

So, on that note, here's what my February looked like with Xbox Live.

February, 2011 (Enduro)
Total time on Xbox Live: 37 hours 36 minutes.
Most frequent Activities: Netflix, Mafia II, EA Sports Active 2.

Netflix: 10hrs, 49min
Mafia II: 8hrs, 02min
Active 2: 4hrs, 20min

I suspect March's report will be dominated by Monopoly Streets and Full House Poker as those two games dominated recent time with the system, not to mention I was out of town for 9 days for work. Unless Kristin was binging on movies or doing the Active 2 workout every night, I doubt either of those activities will crack the top three in March.

Other interesting tidbits from the email:

Highest confirmed USA Gamerscore: 894,540
Average Gamerscore among Gold subscribers: 7,282
Average Gamerscore among free members: 1,083
Most common Achievement: "VIP" in Call of Duty: Black Ops

Oh, and speaking of Monopoly Streets and Full House Poker, if you are even a mild fan of either Monopoly or Texas Hold 'Em style poker, than I highly recommend you pick them up. They are both excellent recreations of the traditional games and both feature excellent single player as well online multiplayer options.

Ride Report: Blanchard, err, Chuckanut Mountain

2011-03-27T10:59:00.000-07:00

Did I really think the ride wouldn't be that hilly? What made me believe Preston would bother looking for others to join him if he wasn't going to at least be leading a relatively serious ride. Sure, he "takes the winter off" and it's "just an early season ride," but me? This year? They say luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. What about when zeal meets sloth? Pain and embarrassment, that's what...

I had never heard of this place Preston called Blanchard (Google Maps insists we were actually at Chuckanut Mountain). I tried to find it on the Evergreen Trail Wiki (an outstanding resource) and came up empty. I asked Preston, and was told it's just a place he likes to ride up by Mount Vernon (a lie, it's actually much closer to Bellingham but he didn't want to scare me off with a longer drive). I should have asked how far we'd be going, or how much climbing we'd be doing. After all, I had only been on my mountain bike for longer than an hour once or twice in recent months. I was also walking quite gingerly thanks to going for a run on Thursday -- my first run in a year. Forty-eight hours later is when the true muscle soreness sets in. Way to time it perfectly, Doug. All I knew was the trails "kicked the shit out of the ones at Tokul." I like Tokul. It's my favorite local ride. And I really wanted to ride someplace new, with guys I don't usually get a chance to ride with. It was settled, agony be damned.

Across Bellingham Bay to Anacortes and beyond...

The climbing started at once. The grade was rideable, but my breathing was loud and instantly betrayed my lack of conditioning. My continued gasping for air would be a subject of much mockery throughout the ride, that is whenever Preston was close enough to hear it. At one point I apparently sounded like a scene from "Debbie Does Dallas." The dude, I hope. I was prepared for some hills, of course. And it's not like I forgot how to ride a bike or put on that much weight. But I wasn't ready for a 750-foot climb over the first 2.5 miles. If only this was the hardest climb of the day... but enough about hills for a moment.

Chuckanut Mountain: 14.5 miles, 3150' elevation gain

I must say, as a first-time visitor to Blanchard, err, Chuckanut Mountain, that the trails were in excellent condition. They were very dry and tactile -- in March! The occasional rock and root step-ups made for just enough technical challenge to keep things interesting and to even provide the occasional spot to stop and session. We started on the backside of the mountain, just west of I-5 near the town of Alger. We climbed and climbed through an empty forest, not seeing any hikers or bikers until reaching a beautiful overlook, looking out across Bellingham Bay towards Anacortes and the snow-capped mountains of Vancouver Island further west, beyond the San Juans.

Preston had been talking of the hole periodically throughout the ride. As in, "Not sure if you're up for the hole." and "We should probably skip the hole." Now, to me, the hole doesn't sound like much. It sounds steep, but not very big. It was at the viewpoint where the decision to ride the hole was made.

"How far down does it go?" I asked.

"Oh, about a thousand feet," Preston replied with a smirk.

"We can't even be a thousand feet above sea level, it's gotta be less than that."

Farmland in northwestern Washington.

We were higher than I thought, but not by much. We were at 1240 feet. And though the descent didn't take us straight to water's edge, it might as well have. For two miles we descended, sometimes gently, sometimes much more steeply. The trail was benched the entire way, providing plenty of exposure to keep you honest, along with the occasional root and rocky pile. The trail continued down, down, down all the way to Chuckanut Drive, one of the most popular roads in all of Washington. And coming up the other way were two dozen hikers, trail runners, and dog walkers. Preston, ever the model mountain biker, dismounted for every hiker we saw and slowly carried his bike past. I followed suit. Truth is, I can't believe we're allowed to bike this trail. It's a short, 2.0 mile trail with 1100-feet of climbing, and it's crowded. The descent was exhilarating, but the climb back out? Well, now I know why he called it the hole. Agony. I pedaled maybe half of it, and had to push the bike the rest of the way. My tender legs were screaming in revolt from my run on Thursday and the short spin I did on Friday did little to stretch them out. This was shock therapy to my system. This was knocking the rust off with a sledgehammer and melting the soft surface below with a blowtorch.

This was exactly what I needed.

Back at the viewpoint, we sat and ate some food. Me, not really thinking along the lines of preparing for an epic, or even a mini-epic as this ride has become for me, didn't bring a proper lunch. Cliff Bloks and Gu. Yum. Preston explained our options: we could descend back to the car or we can add a little loop that leads to an even better descent, but it has a bit of climbing. A bit of climbing. Apparently "a bit" means 800 feet of gain. This is where I finally, truly, ran out of gas. I seemingly had to push whenever the trail tilted up, even in the slightest. I had no energy. No strength. I'd say I bonked, but I really didn't have anything in the tank to begin with. I was bonked when I sent the email off telling him I'd come.

We eventually reached Lily Lake, or was it Lizard Lake? I forget. My mind was focused on staying upright and getting back to the car safely. Which we eventually did. We descended for nearly four miles along an exceptional stretch of singletrack, virtually free of hikers and bikers. It truly was an outstanding stretch of trail. Fun, fast, and with plenty of little hits to catch air off of. That is, if you're not like me, and struggling to even stay awake. I cruised it at a comfortably fast pace and enjoyed it the best I could, but all I kept thinking about was making a return trip later in the season when I'm actually in better shape.

There's a lot of work to be done.

Get the details on this route at my Garmin Connect page: Click here.

New Pounds, Garmin Connect

2011-03-25T09:43:00.000-07:00

I returned Wednesday night from a nine-day trip to the San Francisco Bay area for work and brought a little something extra home with me. There was the usual suitcase crammed with dirty laundry and a pouch filled with dozens of receipts for the expense report, but there was also an extra four pounds around my mid-section. I knew we were eating well, but I didn't realize just how well. The extra poundage comes at a bad time, as I've yet to shed my winter weight. And the fact that I just nonchalantly typed the words winter weight makes me want to punch myself in the face.

A rather unfortunate pattern has developed these past few years. The Seattle weather and increased workload of the late fall and winter conspire to shift my weight 10-15 pounds above what it is in summer, typically going from 188 to 200 pounds every season (for the record, I'm a smidge over six-feet in height). The problem is that both the lower and upper limits of this range have been creeping up ever so slightly each year. The creep apparently built up enough speed to make a full-blown leap yesterday. After these 9 days in Marin County my weight shot up to several pounds above my previous heaviest weight of all time. I'm not quite in fatass territory, but this is certainly not cool.

Apparently my periodic mountain biking and occasional working out with EA's Active 2 for Kinect is no longer enough. Not that I wasn't already excited about the improving weather and anxiously awaiting long days in the saddle on my mountain and road bikes, the true tale of the tape is thus: I need to start running again. But this time I need to ease into it gently. During my hiatus from blogging last year, I had gotten back into running. It was painful at first, as running always is if you haven't done it in a while (e.g. years). But my pace and endurance soon came back and I was back to doing regular 10 mile runs at a 7:30 pace within a couple months. A pace not even within the same zip code of what I was formerly capable of, but not shabby for someone who hadn't run in years. This unwillingness to hold myself back led to a stress fracture in my femur followed by some severe plantar fasciatis just in time for a couple 25k trail races I was doing with Kristin. I had custom orthotics made, but we just couldn't ever get the shape right. They seemed to hurt my arches even more. The pair I had from my days running track and XC in college were shot and the doctors convinced me that though I still had the molds from 1995, new ones were warranted.

Yesterday was bright, sunny, and warm enough to go running in shorts and a t-shirt (oddly enough, the mountain pass just 30 miles east of me got a bunch of snow later that night). I decided to charge up the Garmin Forerunner 305 and even downloaded the new firmware for it. While playing around on the computer I came across the site for Garmin Connect. It seamlessly blends the logging characteristics of the Garmin Training Center software that comes with your various Garmin fitness devices (I also have the Edge 305 for cycling) with Bing maps and does an absolutely fantastic job of presenting info for your workout, whether it be running or cycling or something else entirely. The ability to search the online database for routes from other users and download their workouts as courses to your device makes it all the better. Best of all, it corrects the elevation numbers. While the Edge 305 does a very good job of tracking cumulative elevation gain thanks to its barometric altimeter, the Forerunner series relies on GPS for elevation. The unit itself measures elevation very accurately, but the Training Center software does a laughably bad job of summing it all up.

For example, my 3 mile trail run yesterday is mostly flat. I've done the loop many, many times on bike and have always clocked it right around 150 feet of elevation gain. Well, yesterday Training Center told me it contained 551 feet of gain. Nonsense. But when I uploaded the data from the Forerunner 305 to Garmin Connect, it corrected the elevation and reported it as 151. You can see my workout file from yesterday here. The pace was pretty slow, and I decided to briefly walk a short bit after the 2 mile mark (where my pace drops) but it felt good to get back out there. Even if it means, predictably, that I'm sore today.

Going to go for a short ride on the Moots today to stretch the legs out and get the Stumpjumper ready for a ride tomorrow with some hammerheads I know. They're going to show me some trails up near Mt. Vernon I hadn't ever ridden yet. Can't wait. Then we're going bike shopping for Kristin, as she wants a proper road bike to go on group rides with some ladies she knows. Probably put our 20% off coupon to use and get her this one. Take it for a maiden voyage on Sunday if the weather isn't crummy, otherwise we'll probably go hiking or take the mountain bikes up to Poo Poo Point for a hill climbing cardio ride.

I recently discovered that the climbing gym we used to belong to will be opening a second massive new location at the site of a former Circuit City in Bellevue, about 25 minutes closer to my house than the location we used to go to. Kristin and I spent a year or so going bouldering twice a week and loved it up until the 45 minute drive got to be too annoying and the imbalance of my strength-to-weight ratio started to really hold me back. The new climbing gym is set to open on October 1st, 2011. My birthday. I'm really hoping to give myself a proper gift and get my weight back down to 185 (or less) by then so that I can better enjoy climbing and not be held back by my own unwanted mass.

Watch this space for updates.

Tactics Ogre Strategy Guide: Don't Take My Word For It

2011-03-09T09:24:00.000-08:00

Some reviews are starting to pop up on Amazon for our Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together strategy guide.

Both reviewers love the content and the writing, but would have preferred heavier paper. I don't blame them, but it was a simple matter of economics. The book is 400 pages... for a game that is played on a handheld device. In order to keep both the heft and the price of the book reasonable, cheaper paper had to be used. Now, I'm not privy to the discussions that take place regarding page count and paper stock, but my guess is that going to heavier weight paper would have pushed the retail cost of the book up to that of the game. And nobody wants that, especially for such a niche game as this.

Guidebook Giveaway: Tactics Ogre

2011-03-05T12:05:00.000-08:00

I have three copies of our absolutely enormous strategy guide to Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together to give away. It's not often that I say having a strategy guide is essential for getting the most out of a game, but I can't imagine anyone discovering more than 70% of this game without the help of this guide. It's over 400 pages of densely packed maps, side-quests, data, and strategy.

My co-author and I (with help from the lovely Mrs. Walsh) submitted over 1200 pages of manuscript for this book. There are hundreds of maps, countless items and weapons detailed, and hundreds of skills and spells described.

And I've got three autographed copies to give away. All you have to do is sign up to become a Friend of RG (see links on the left) and post a reply to this thread. Take a moment to tell me why you want the book, your memories of playing past Tactics Ogre games, or even let me know what you're favorite character class is. I'll do a drawing of names on 3/12 to pick the winners.

A Punch to the Gut

2011-02-09T22:08:00.000-08:00

The year has gotten off to a busier start than I ever dared imagine. My work on the strategy guide to Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together carried through the New Year and nearly all the way to the end of January. At one point I averaged over 7 hours a day for 27 straight days, not including a single minute for time spent checking email or making coffee. I started my current project just a few short days later and already have another waiting in the on-deck circle for me to begin as soon as this one ends.

Nevertheless, I came across a bit of news last night that I just can't shake from the back of my mind. It hit me with such force, I nearly doubled-over in shock.

I've spent the past week reading the book "Miles From Nowhere" by Barbara Savage, what I believe is the best-selling and most well-known travel memoir on bicycle touring. And it's obvious why. Barbara writes with an honesty and pacing that is as easy to read as it is enjoyable. And she tells a great story too. She and her husband set off in 1978 from southern California on a journey to bicycle around the world. Recently married and not too far removed from their college days, they were already tired of the humdrum routine of wake, work, sleep and set about giving themselves a memory to last a lifetime.

Barbara's storytelling voice feels eerily similar to my own. Her sarcasm, her self-effacing humor, and her tempo and word selection feels very much like reading something I have written for this blog; a race report or a travel essay, perhaps. I've read a lot of travel writers over the years, but this was the first time I encountered one that felt so familiar. I found myself actually completing more than a few of her sentences as I read the book, even though it was written nearly 30 years ago and about places I have yet to visit.

I took one of the bikes out for a quick spin on the neighborhood trails yesterday and found myself thinking about the book (Kindle tells me I'm 86% through to the end) and her and her husband Larry's journey. I wondered if she had written any other books, and if she and Larry were still out there, perhaps, cycling back and forth across every stitch of the world.

So late last night, just before turning off the monitors and sending the computer to sleep, I decided to Google her.The first link I clicked directed me to a page on The Mountaineers website. A quick glance revealed a writing grant of $2500 awarded to first-time authors submitting unpublished works. "That's nice," I thought and promptly clicked the back button my mouse.

The arrow hovered over another link on the list of search results when a thought popped into my head: grants like that are often left in memoriam. I returned to the page describing the grant and, sure enough, it describes the award as the "Barbara Savage Miles from Nowhere Memorial Award."

Below it, reads the following:

Barbara was killed in a cycling accident shortly before the book’s publication; the story of Barbara and Larry Savage’s two-year, 25,000-mile, round-the-world bicycle adventure continues, however, to embrace a wide readership and to generate letters from readers who have come to know Barbara through her book. The author’s husband, Larry Savage, created this award in cooperation with The Mountaineers Books by donating royalties to encourage adventure writing in the genre of Miles from Nowhere.

I was shellshocked. I stared in disbelief at the screen and suddenly felt very exposed. We read about death all the time, but this hits way too close to home for my liking. As further reading on other websites revealed, she had survived her at-times harrowing journey around the world with her husband, only to return home and be killed while cycling in her native land. Her book was just weeks from being published. She was training for a triathlon.

I turned the computer off and dragged myself into the bedroom where Kristin was already asleep. I stood and stared at her and imagined. I imagined how close Barbara and Larry must have become during their journey, through the hardships, the joys, the arguments, and the struggles. I envisioned how much closer Kristin and I will become on our own journey. I dreamt the book I intend to write. And then I closed my eyes and imagined Kristin being taken from me after all that. I couldn't. That's how hard it is. We can't imagine. My brain doesn't even allow contemplation of it. We can't know what Larry, this man I know only through his wife's book, was feeling. We can't imagine his pain and sense of loss. The more I tried to imagine what that would be like, the larger the pit in my stomach seemed to grow, yet I know I still couldn't approximate the hurt. I couldn't think about Barbara's zest for life or how much living she managed to pack into her final years, as some commenters did.

I could only think about Larry, the one left to ride alone.

Toms

2011-01-28T00:43:00.000-08:00

I first thought they were slippers. We were opening gifts from Kristin's sister and the brown corduroy shoes in my hand bore a striking resemblance to the types of slippers an uncle might wear. Not necessarily the uncle with the cane and ear hair so visible you can see it across the room, but an older uncle for sure. Then, as Kristin opened her box to uncover a pair of red ones, I recognized the little blue and white flag in the bottom. Toms!

I meant to write about Toms early last year, during my hiatus from blogging. I meant to check out their website and order a pair, but one thing led to another and the story I heard on the radio slipped from my memory. Toms Shoes isn't your typical shoe brand. Founded in Santa Monica (naturally) a few years ago by Blake Mycoskie, an American traveler during a trip to Argentina, Toms was created as a way of bringing free shoes to the barefooted children of the world. For every pair of shoes purchased, another is given to a child in need as part of the company's "One for One" mission. They've given out over 1,000,000 pairs of shoes as of September, 2010.

As someone who practically grew up sockless in Vans canvas classics (my favorites being a pair of fluorescent green ones, circa 1993), I was ecstatic to not only have a pair of shoes meant to be worn sockless, but that wouldn't look ridiculous on someone whose neither a teenager nor who lives near the beach. The brown cords I was given (thanks Erica!) were a little too small so I exchanged them for a burlap pair. Yep, burlap. You see, the shoes are very simple. Just a lightweight upper, a thin suede insole that is surprisingly breathable (i.e. no foot stink!), a spongy arch insert for a touch of support, and a very thin outsole.

To say these shoes are light is an understatement. They weigh next to nothing. Your footfalls are so soft that -- pardon the nauseating marketing speak -- you actually feel a lightened carbon footprint with each stride. Which is part of the point of these shoes as Toms Shoes strives to use sustainable materials in their shoe construction. And they're surprisingly comfortable. I already look forward to bringing them on bicycle tours, as sandals and cycling shoes are just not appropriate in some places and it will be nice to have a super light pair of shoes that look great to slip into.

This isn't to say that the shoes are perfect. If I'm being completely honest, I have to say that the shoes are a bit pricey for what you actually get. The standard plain-Jane canvas classics are $44 (compared to the $40 for Vans) but the outsole is surely not going to hold up as well as Vans. The shoes are light, flimsily so, and there's nothing about them that screams durable. My burlap classics were $54 and though I really like them (and have my eyes on at least three more pairs), there's nothing about the shoes on their own that convices me that this is a good deal.

Of course, the shoes aren't all your paying for. You're paying for the knowledge that a second pair of shoes, designed specifically for children 18 and under, is being cobbled for their specific terrain and living conditions. One of the customer reviewers on the Toms Shoes' site comments "For those of you complaining that they wear too fast or don't like them, you're completely missing the point of TOMS shoes." I get what he's trying to say, that the point is the kids, but I don't believe the point should be to fill up landfills with used-up shoes either. I've been wearing my shoes for a few weeks now and though they show no signs of wearing down, they've barely seen the outdoors. January in Washington isn't exactly the weather for sockless slip-ons. Maybe I need those wool botas... Either way, I'll be sure to post a follow-up concerning their wear and durablity in the spring after I have pounded some pavement with them.

I can only hope Kristin and I will be inspired through travel to launch a company that finds such an original solution to a global problem as this. Kudos, Blake. Kudos.

Get Used to this Name

2011-01-27T00:42:00.000-08:00

Hannah Cunliffe.

The world's fastest 15 year old. Last year, at age 14, she walked away from the field in both the 100m and 200m sprints at the American Athletic Union Junior Olympics winning by an obscene margin in both events. Despite then being in the 8th grade, her time of 11.71 (wind-aided) would have won the state championship in the two largest classes in Washington state, would have placed her 3rd overall at the Pac-10 Championships, and would have placed her 4th all-time in the University of Washington record books. Her performance in 200m was even more incredible, clocking a 23.91 and winning by over a second! Again, as an 8th grader.

Now she's in high school and she'll be competing (as a freshman!) at the UW Invitational this weekend against some top Division I collegiate talent from the PAC-10 and beyond. She's just a half-second from qualifying for next year's Olympic Trials. She could very well be racing for the Stars & Stripes at age 16.

Source: Seattle Times

Not Running From Xian to Trafalmadore

2011-01-24T00:03:00.000-08:00

It's high time for a books post, but first a word about Kindle. As it relates to my preferred reading medium, I had long considered myself firmly in the camp of the traditionalist, wanting to feel the heft of a book in my hands, flip and dogear its pages and, yes, admire the cracked spines aligned vertically on my bookshelf. And then I saw a Kindle in person. One of the guys I worked with on the Official Halo: Reach Strategy Guide brought his first-gen Kindle in to show me. No amount of marketing or online advertisements can ever be as effective as those first ten seconds with a borrowed device. For it only took those few seconds to get it. The screen's eerie similarity to that of newspaper or a paperback immediately washed away my main reservation--the screen--and the ease of use, incredible battery life, and massive storage capacity won me over.

I went home that night and scoured all the information I could find on Amazon's site to see how many holes I could poke in its glossy veneer. None. One of the biggest selling points for me was the ability to share books with up to six Kindles on a single family account. This meant I could buy a book once (often at a steep discount over the physical form) and Kristin and I could be reading it simultaneously. Then I thought to travel guides and our future trips and realized I could pre-purchase all the guidebooks we would want and have them stored on the Kindles. A fine alternative to lugging around heavy travel guides, not to mention the challenge of finding English language guidebooks (or books in general) where nobody within a thousand miles speaks the language. I ordered a second-gen Kindle one evening late last summer, the 3G model, and have since purchased books while laying in bed well past midnight, in an airplane stuck in a lengthy queu on the runway, and, yes, in the bathroom. Kristin now has a Kindle too, one of the newer graphite-colored third-generation ones. I actually think the newest one is a little too sleak and prefer mine. She, of course, loves it. Kristin's sister gave us both Amazon gift cards for Christmas and I must say it was a lot of fun to pick out four different books each and have them beamed to both devices within seconds. We're both reading Ian Frazier's "On the Rez" right now, in fact.

Kristin was immediately impressed with the device, just as I was, and then I showed her the ability to instantly look up a word with its built-in dictionary, highlight passages, enter notes, and export your comments and selections as a PDF. She didn't appreciate these features right away, but moments later I heard her exclaim as she looked up her first word. Just as I had done the previous night, she too wondered what a "genet" was and didn't want to wait for the author to explain it, which he did a few sentences later. But enough about the Kindle, let's talk about some books.

I've been reading a lot lately, in part due to a serious case of insomnia, and I want to mention a few that I finished recently. First up is "The Shadow of the Silk Road" by Colin Thubron. Thubron is often mentioned in the same sentence as Paul Theroux when it comes to the world's great travel writers (that is, when people aren't discussing Theroux's penchant for being, in polite terms, an old crank). If you've read The Big Trip page on this blog, then the draw to a book about the Silk Road should be obvious. Thubron walked, bussed, and hitched his way along the historical trading route, from its eastern terminus in Xian westward across China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey, to the Syrian coast. The book's title provides an important hint about the true focus of the book. This is not one of those "and then I did this, and then I saw that" travel books. This is about history. More specifically, about how the cultural boundaries that lie as residue from the ancient trading caravans bear little resemblance to the current political boundaries. Thubron writes not about himself, or even what his emotions are, but rather about what he sees and hears, and how it relates to history. He meets some very interesting people along the way, explores substantially on his own, and even gets himself locked in a Chinese quarantine at one point. But rarely does Thubron deviate from his effort to overlay the historical roadmap of the Silk Route atop the current layers of politics, religion, and culture and vice-versa.

This isn't my first time reading Thubron, but it is the first book of his I was able to finish. I received his "Lost Heart of Asia" as a gift several years back and had to shelve it after just a few dozen pages. I wasn't ready for it. It was heady material and my lack of knowledge and interest in the region at that time made my head swim. Having read a lot of travel literature (and just travel essays in general), I've noticed that there is a broad spectrum of styles out there ranging from the simple journaling entries to those books that strive to be literature. Or is that Literature? I forget. I would place Thubron, or at least this book, at the far end of that line, representing the lofty pinnacle of literature and seriousness (but not pretentiousness). His anecdotes and personality seldom bleed into the story, he offers little in the way of editorializing, and his level of understanding and breadth of his research are beyond equal. You read these books not to be entertained but for knowledge. I mentioned Theroux earlier, almost out of obligation. I'd place him slightly down the line, but not far from Thubron, though the differences between the two men are large. Both are masters of language, I will say that. But there is a lot more personality in Theroux's writings along with much more emphasis on the actual act of traveling. You'll hear Theroux comment--complain, mostly--about his arrangements, his traveling partners, and his food far more in one chapter than you will Thubron in an entire book. Theroux is certainly an easier read and, despite his penchant for being a bit whiny, more entertaining as well, for what it's worth. Other books, like the lighthearted "Sex Lives of Cannibals" by J. Maarten Troost and the family-journaling of John Higham's "360 Degrees Longitude" occupy the other end of this spectrum where the emphasis tends to be less on the location and culture, and more about the travelers. Having designs of my own to enter this genre soon, I've been thinking a lot lately about where my "voice" will fit on this spectrum. Somewhere in the middle, I hope. Regardless, the one thing I know for sure after reading "Shadow of the Silk Road" is that Thubron is certainly in a league of his own.

Wanting something quite a bit lighter, my next book was actually the serial story "The Game" by Jack London. This was London's seminal story about his favorite sport, boxing, and was published in the spring of 1905 in the Metropolitan Magazine. Set in Oakland, California the story follows the love affair a young neighborhood boxing champ has with both with his sport, the game, and his delicate financee who wants him to quit boxing. They are one another's first true love and in honor of their pending marriage, he agrees to make his next fight his last, despite being at the top of his boxing career. London's experience in the ring and love of the sport as a reporter are evident here as he tells a fantastic heart-pounding story. The language can feel a bit dated, but the excitement can match anything from today.

Normally I make a point of not making any resolutions come the turn of the new year, but the Kindle made it easy to start a new one: reading at least one quote-unquote classic each year. First up was the most popular book from one of my favorite authors, and a book I have long felt shame for having not read. Yep, it was time to read "Slaughterhouse Five" by Kurt Vonnegut. And so I could say, with a certain amount of confidence, that my first week of 2011, in my thirty-sixth year on this planet, was spent in much the same way as more than a few high school sophomores. Go figure. Crazy as it may sound, I managed to approach this book with no prior knowledge of its subject. Whatever I may have gleamed from second-hand reports over the years had escaped my memory. So it was with pleasant surprise that I soon came to find, in that familiar Vonnegut voice, a book about World War II, space aliens, optometry, the faraway planet of Trafalmadore, time travel, zoo-exhibit sex with a porn star, and the seemingly forgotten assault on the city of Dresden, Germany that, at the time of this book's publication, was erroneously believed to far exceed the casualty tally of Hiroshima.

Vonnegut's trademark style of writing in a series of short entries and blurbs keeps the story moving quickly, as does his ever-present wit. The book is indeed quite funny at times, but also somber. Vonnegut clearly calls on his own experiences as a prisoner-of-war during WWII and the memories of what he saw during the aftermath of the fire-bombing of Dresden and it's startling. Just last winter I stood in the main square of Frankfurt's old-town neighborhood, comparing the current scene built to imitate the past to WWII before-and-after postcards. The aerial shots of the utter destruction made me gasp at the devastation we humans can inflict on one another. A quick bit of research now tells me the devastation of Frankfurt quite possibly paled in comparison to the assault on Dresden. We're all lucky Vonnegut survived this journey to the "moon's surface" and, if like me, you've made it this far without reading "Slaughterhouse Five" then you owe it to yourself to pick it up. Vonnegut may have passed away in 2007, but this story is timeless.

Lastly, I direct your attention to the extremely entertaining page-turner "Whatever You Do, Don't Run: True Stories of a Botswana Safari Guide" by Peter Allison. Poor, poor Allison. Coming on the heels of my readings of Thubron, London, and Vonnegut, the poor guy didn't stand a chance. I all but threw the Kindle down in disgust during the first chapter, turning up my nose at his amateurish language, lack of details, and his tendency to gloss over large chunks of story. Fortunately, those first two chapters bear little resemblance to the quality of the storytelling of the remainder of the book. I'm so glad I kept reading though as this book had me laughing out loud, groaning with embarrassment over the imbeciles attending his tours, and completely mesmerized by the recounts of his man-meets-predator encounters. It's clear that Allison has kept many a campfire audience completely entranced by his tales from the bush and that he was convinced to write a book. This book is essentially a collection of stand-alone stories accumulated from a decade of guiding tourists on safari in Botswana. I think it's pretty obvious how a job like that can produce more than a handful of entertaining stories. I know it's not summer, but if you want a "beach" book to read as a guilty pleasure, make it this one. At the very least, you'll learn what a genet is.

Coming Soon... I hope.

2011-01-17T00:50:00.000-08:00

I have post-it notes sticking all over my monitor, reminding me of topics to write about. They're primarily about the several books I've read recently, the Kindle, our dances with unemployment, and looking ahead to 2011.

The only problem is that I'm positively crushed with work right now. I've submitted nearly 700 pages of manuscript for the guidebook I'm currently working on, my co-author has submitted over 200 additional pages (mine contained hundreds of pages of data tables), and neither of us are done. The game we're writing on was released in Japan in December alongside a 704 page strategy guide written by 11 people.

Lucky for us, we were able to get my wife hired on to assist with the data entry and some match-and-find style translation work with a 4000 word English-Japanese glossary. Never thought I'd be saying "lucky" with respect to her having become suddenly unemployed, but it was a real blessing (in more ways than one, but that's for another post).

I should be wrapping up my work on this guide in the next couple days and will have a proper post soon. I realize this is in bad form, to bring the blog out of the closet only to post so infrequently.

Nevertheless, I hear that you're always supposed to leave them wanting more. And on that advice I'll tell you the next post will be titled "Not Running from Xian to Tralfalmadore."

I hope that piques your interest.

Flash Flood in Australia

2011-01-11T09:14:00.000-08:00

Incredible footage of a flash flood cleaning out a parking lot in Australia.

The Trail Unblazed

2011-01-05T11:04:00.000-08:00

I unlocked a rather unique Achievement yesterday while playing with the Xbox: Squat Master. I did my one-thousandth squat-based exercise with EA's Active 2. I also dodged 1000 balls in the dodgeball exercise of the same game. Not at once, mind you. Over time. I've done 10 workouts in the game's 9-week "hard" program so far and the milestones are starting to pile up. The game has a number of these quadruple-digit based Achievements. I'll unlock another one once I complete my thousandth lunge, pushup, crunch, etc., etc.

I wrote about Active 2 earlier and I'm every bit as impressed with it now as I was when the novelty of Kinect was still day-one fresh. EA also released a patch for the game that has done a good job of eliminating the chance of the game confusing your arm movements for wanting to pause and see a tutorial. I'm not sure if that was what the patch, err, "title update" was for, but it seems to have gotten much better since then.

My workout yesterday concluded after 38 minutes, with me drenched in sweat after sustaining an average heart rate of 143bpm, including warm-up and cool down. The calorie-counter says I burned 517 calories, much higher than the projected burn at the start of the workout. I try to stay right on the border between zones 4 & 5 in the heart rate scale (out of a scale of 1-5) and it seems that the game expects players to spend more time in zone 3. I routinely pop my heart rate above 175bpm while playing.

But back to the Achievements. One of the reasons I enjoy this "game" so much is that the developers did a great job of keeping the carrot out in front of you, allowing you to sniff, lick, and taste tiny bites just often enough to keep you coming back for more. Unfortunately, a bit of lazy design in regards to the Achievements has given this game what may be the most difficult Achievement in all of the Xbox-land:

Trail Blazer - unlocked by running 1,000 kilometers/621 miles.

Before I get into the absurdity of it, let me give you a bit of background on how one "runs" in their living room. Active 2 has a number of running-based exercises sprinkled throughout each workout. It often begins with a sequence of high-knees and fast-kicks, but there are also some sprinting exercises and some mixed-pace running exercises as well. They are long enough to let you really crank out a sweat if you push it, but only last a minute or two at the most if you don't. In other words, they're only about a quarter-mile to a half-mile long in duration (and this is on the hard setting).

I'm willing to look past the awkardness of running in place (it's actually not as bad as I feared) and admit that you can get a good workout from it. However, it's clear that whoever put the Acheivements together for this game simply settled on the number 1000 for the other repetitive exercises (steps, squats, pushups, soccer goal saves, boxing punches, etc) and copied/pasted it straight over to the mountain biking and running exercises without any thought to how ridiculous it would be.

You might be thinking that I'm being unfair. That I'm simply not working hard enough or am, to borrow Governor Rendell's phrase, too much of a wussy to run 1000 kilometers. Not true. Let's put this number into perspective.

As a former Division I NCAA middle-distance runner specializing in the 800 meter run, my weekly workout schedule looked something like this:

Monday - Intervals totaling 2.5 miles + 4 miles of warm-up/recovery/cool down.
Tuesday - Run 9 miles
Wednesday - Intervals totaling 2.5 miles + 4 miles of warm-up/recoery/cool down.
Thursday - Run 9 miles
Friday - Run 2 miles
Saturday - Race Day (roughly 2-3 miles including warm-up, races, and cool-down)
Sunday - Rest

That's only 35 miles per week, and lest you think it was too little, I'll add that workout schedule was good enough to help my 4x800 relay team place very high at conference championships and set a school record.

If I replicated that workout schedule every week, running in place, in front of my Xbox Kinect, it would take over 17 weeks to unlock the "Trail Blazer" achievement. It would still take a gaudy 10 weeks if I was to use the typical mileage we ran during cross country season, or for when I was training for marathons for that matter.

So how long will it take doing Active 2's workouts? Roughly 77 weeks. Yes, that's right, almost a year and a half.

I've done 10 workouts in the 9-week "hard" program and, according to the in-game stats, each of the full workout sessions tends to yield an average of roughly 2 miles of running per workout. Since the program has you doing four workouts per week, that works out to 77 weeks worth of two-mile runs in front of your television.

Good luck with that.

Tooth the Nightmare Before Christmas

2010-12-27T11:18:00.000-08:00

The resort manager had barely finished extolling the virtues of our room -- "the best in the lodge," he promised -- before Kristin began what would be a brief obsession with the concierge, Floyd. He was taller than me. He was darker than me. And try as I might, I have to admit Floyd is even a much better listener. And we all know how important that is to the ladies. Lucky for me, Floyd also outweighed me by nearly two thousand pounds and was quite hairy. And dead. Floyd was a stuffed bison on display in the main lobby that, according to Kristin, was just oh-so-cute. Whether or not he performed concierge duties we don't know for sure. We never saw anyone at the desk adjacent him, yet the reservations were always well taken care of.

As for our room, it was every bit as fantastic as we were assured. We entered to the sound of classical music playing on a stereo, a ready-made wood fire waiting to be lit in the fireplace, and a view looking out to an endless winter snowscape every bit as pillowy as the down-clad bedding. The four and one-half hour drive went smoothly with clear roads over both mountain passes, yet we were anxious to commence with the relaxing. Armed with a couple bottles of pinot noir, a favorite single malt, some books and a backgammon board, we embraced the lack of a television in the room and set about putting the stress of the preceding weeks behind us. Back home in Snoqualmie I'm neck-deep in one of the most frustrating and difficult projects I've been a part of in years and Kristin, well, she just got laid off two weeks prior. But here at Sun Mountain Lodge, none of that mattered. All we had to remember was that our couples massage was scheduled for three o'clock on Friday and we had a dinner reservation for seven on Christmas day. It would be four days of blissful relaxation.

We settled into a pair of leather armchairs near one of the two massive fireplaces in the lobby, just feet from a towering two-story artificial Christmas tree, to do some reading while the local Cascadia Choral group filled the room with a harmonious hour of Christmas carols. Kristin sat working her way through one of my favorites, "The River of Doubt" by Candice Millard, while I read Colin Thubron's "Shadow of the Silk Road." The choir was explaining the finer points of miming along to the reindeer song as I came upon the following passage:

"For several hours my mouth had been filling with pain, and now I was seized by nausea. In the train's mirror I saw a swollen, discoloured face. Its two halves might belong to different people, one cheek so inflated that its eye was closing. Beneath a wobbling tooth, the gum was inflamed by a livid abscess. I wondered with misgiving what dentist might work in the old Mongol town of Maragheh ahead of me, and regretted leaving behind the delicate hands of Persia."

And then, after finding an Iranian dentist with whom he could not communicate...

"In the basement an old man worked an antique X-ray machine. On its photograph my tooth looked like a rotted mandrake, its roots coagulated. The dentist held this to the light, and murmured foreboding. Then he motioned me to his divan and chose his instruments. He gave no anaesthetic. Overhead a lamp shed a baleful pool. For two hours he drilled and dug and chiseled, first at one tooth, then at its neighbor, and I had no idea what he was doing. From time to time he realigned my head left or right by pulling my nose. He seemed to be grinding my skull with pumice stone. I mewed again that I wanted to keep my tooth, most my teeth, any teeth, but he only grinned uncomprehendingly, and went on excavating with the help of medieval-looking tongs and files, while I tried to recall what instruments my London dentist used."

An hour later, sitting in the rustic Wolf Creek Bar & Grill, drinking our pints of Twisp River Brewery's seasonal ale, I told Kristin about that scene in the book. Kristin is well aware that my biggest fear regarding our trip around the world is not of our bikes being stolen or us getting mugged. Nor am I terribly concerned about being blackmailed by unscrupulous border police. I expect it. Rather, my single biggest fear is having to lay myself at the feet of a third world dentist. I have notoriously problematic teeth and only this month, after finally getting my two front teeth crowned, did I complete a three-year marathon of dental procedures involving multiple root canals and more crowns than I care to admit. Thubron ultimately survived his ordeal -- a four-hour root canal without anaesthetic -- but the thought of developing an oral emergency so far from the comforts of modern dentistry is enough to give me goosebumps.

I wasn't two bites into my prime rib sandwich when the first jolt of pain hit. It struck sharply at first as it pierced my gums then blunted itself against my upper jaw and spread to my eye socket. Sudden throbbing pain, the likes of which I had never experienced. I reached for my tooth, a bicuspid I had crowned just two years ago, and it gave no signs of moving. My touch neither intensified nor dampened the pain. Three minutes later, it was gone. As swiftly as it emerged, the spontaneous face-melting anguish vanished. All that was left were the beads of sweat that dotted my brow. The pain struck again, in the elevator on the way to the room, but I was able to quickly nullify it by splashing some whisky onto the guilty tooth. I washed a pair of Advil down with a finger of scotch and tried to enjoy my time with Kristin, but my mind was running wild with the fear of what may be. The level of my preoccupation was evident on the backgammon score sheet as Kristin, who had never before beaten me, had built an impressive lead of thirty to naught thanks to my absentminded use of the doubling cube.

The nicest room in the lodge with a king sized bed of feathers, and I couldn't sleep a wink. I had ravaged the first-aid kit I keep with my snowshoeing gear and swallowed nearly a dozen Advil that night. I tossed. I turned. I was up and out of bed every fifteen minutes, padding around the room in fleece-covered feet, one hand clutching a glass of painkilling single malt while the other cradled my fracturing face. The flickering remnants of our bedroom fire cast a haunted silhouette of my pathetic form onto the wall above my sleeping beauty.

Daybreak comes late this time of year in northern Washington and gift shop owners rise even later. We begged our way into the locked hotel shop to buy some more Advil then set about finding a dentist. Not only was it a Friday, the national day of rest for dentists, but it was Christmas Eve. I hated the thought of calling a dentist I never met on his day off and I despised even more the thought of being the stereotypical city slicker who couldn't handle a toothache on his vacation to the country. I knew I wasn't being that guy, that this was a serious matter, but I hate to put people out. I finally decided it was better to make that call on Friday and try to coax a prescription or two out of him than to wait for Christmas morning and beg for a surgery. The woman working the front desk gave me the number of two dentists: there was the local guy her family sees and a clinic in nearby Twisp called Sawtooth Dental Care. I applaud the latter dentist's commitment to celebrating the local mountain range, but would recommend a correspondence course in marketing. I went with the first option.

True to his wife's word, Dr. Harrop called me back as soon as he returned from the grocer and gave me directions to his practice in Winthrop, the tiny old-west town just eight miles back along the snow-covered road winding down off Sun Mountain. As if Winthrop, population 1,916 as of the 2000 census, wasn't already one of my favorite places in the United States, Dr. Harrop's friendly demeanor and hospitality is just the sort of thing that makes people leave it all behind and move to the Methow Valley (just as he did several years ago). He met us outside his practice in trail sneakers, nylon running pants, and a fleece pullover and quickly ushered Kristin and I inside with a smile and a don't-mention-it wave of his hand as I thanked him for agreeing to see me on his day off. The office lacked the high-tech wizardry of my dentist's practice in Seattle, but made up for it with a warm, cozy atmosphere resembling a quaint mountain cabin. While waiting for the x-ray to develop, we got to talking about our shared love of the area and compared notes on nearby trails with him educating me on the wonders of the nearby Maple Pass loop and me encouraging him to bring along his mountain bike the next time he heads up to Angel's Staircase.

Sadly, my chattiness waned when the x-ray showed that an abscess was developing and that I would need a root canal as soon as possible. This word, abscess, means nothing to me other than misery, the exact opposite of the bliss we were supposed to be experiencing on this trip. I can't even recall ever hearing the word prior to reading about Thubron's experience with one the prior night. Dr. Harrop gave me a prescription for some vicodin and an antibiotic that would reduce the inflammation and put an end to the pain, but there was a catch. The antibiotics wouldn't really kick in for at least 24 hours and the pain was likely to get much worse before it got any better. Kristin and I thanked him and raced off, prescriptions in hand, in hopes of reaching the pharmacist in the next town before they closed up shop for the holiday weekend. We made it in time, but they were nearly out of the prescribed antibiotic. I would have to drive to the next closest pharmacist, forty miles and a steep mountain pass away, to fill the prescription. That was not an option. A couple phone calls later and Kristin and I were on our way back to Dr. Harrop's office to collect his remaining stash of the abscess-fighting wonder drug.

Maybe it was the vicodin working its magic or perhaps I was just buoyed by the relief of having actually gotten to see a dentist and received the drugs I so desperately hoped to get my hands on, but I was riding high. We sped back up to the lodge, donned our snowshoes, and hit the trails for a quick two mile hike. It was but a fraction of the route we planned, and quite a bit manicured for our liking, but the unobstructed views of snowclad peaks and fog-shrouded valleys more than made up for the lack of challenging terrain. As did our reward. Waiting for us back at the lodge was a super-indulgent appointment at the spa. Merry Christmas to us in the form of a bottle of champagne, a platter of delicious chocolate truffles, and his and hers 90-minute massages. We thought about cancelling the treatment on account of my dental problems, but washing another pill down with some bubbly left me pain-free all the way to dinner. And it's a good thing too, else we would have missed out on the best massage either of us had ever experienced.

The massages weren't the only gifts being given that night though; it was Christmas Eve after all. There was a building sense of excitement in the air as the night passed on. Though many of the guests were many years our senior, there were also a number of younger families staying in the lodge and in the cabins down by Patterson Lake. Having no children of our own, it was fun to see the anticipation in the faces of the younger kids as they wandered the halls in their pajamas, and we had to smile at overhearing more than one ask their parents how Santa will find them if they're not at home.

Though the abscess attacked with sporadic bouts of cringe-inducing ferocity during dinner, I had managed to endure its wrath and continue on. I soon realized that each bolt of pain would only last for a couple minutes, then life would return to normal. This was how it went throughout dinner, while we were exchanging the few gifts we got one another, and after as we laid by the fire. But this was merely the quiet before the storm. Perhaps sensing the building concentration of Clindamycin in my system, the abscess unleashed a last-ditch unrelenting sequence of assaults on my sanity and pain-tolerance that lasted through the night. The vicodin was useless in this war. Countless times, I would jolt from sleep and make my way to the bathroom where a pile of cotton swabs and a tube of Anbesol awaited me. Four times per day as directed? More like four times per hour, applied vigorously! I smeared the gel around my tooth and gums and welcomed the immediate, though short-lived reprieve it afforded. Back in bed, I fell asleep the second I hit the pillow only to be stirred awake sixteen, twelve, and sometimes just seven minutes later. More Anbesol. More vicodin. More whisky. Anything. I had never before felt a pain like this. I would happily trade away the abscess for another broken collar bone or crack in my femur. It was all I could do to not curl up in a sobbing heap on the floor of the bathroom.

Christmas morning brought no relief. Dashed were the plans to videochat with family on the east coast as I couldn't bring myself to search the lodge to find where the wifi signal was strongest. Breakfast wasn't much better. Once again we had the table by the window in the restaurant, but I was in too much pain to even order, let alone enjoy the view. I hated the thought of us not getting in the full day of snowshoeing as we planned and though Kristin could have gone without me, neither of us wanted that. Finally, I convinced myself that the pain came and went irregardless of whether I was lying on the couch or out hiking in the snow. So we added a small mirror, some cotton swabs, and more Anbesol to my pack and set out for a six mile trek through the snow.

This time we abandoned the well-traveled tracks atop the ridge and descended to Patterson Lake, then continued onto a seemingly forgotten track that wrapped around a nearby knob. There is no better stimulus for having long, private conversations with a loved one than snowshoeing. The utter stillness of the snow-draped forest combines with the majestic views of distant mountaintops to inspire the daydreamy talks we too often don't make time for in the course of our daily lives. Step by step we made our way over hills and across streams, over fallen logs and under snow-burdened branches. We paused in a clearing ringed with towering cedars to dig out the garland and ornaments in my pack to decorate a small evergreen poking up through the snow. The abscess was no match for the surrounding beauty of the land. We broke trail for four hours before finally cresting the ridgeline leading back to the warmth of our room.

The antibiotics finally began to win the battle and though I hesistated to go anywhere without the Anbesol (or a flask of whisky and pocketful of vicodin), we were able to enjoy a special dinner and our final night at Sun Mountain Lodge. And Kristin was able to get what she wanted most from the trip: a photo of her and Floyd.

And I finally got to enjoy a proper night's sleep in that luxurious bed. I'd worry about the pending root canal another day.

Fargo: It's a Wrap!

2010-12-21T11:34:00.000-08:00

Finally received delivery of the gel padding that I wanted to include under the leather handlebar tape (and red anodized Salsa skewers to match the headset!) and was able to finish up the build. Had a request for some close-ups of the cockpit so I'm attaching a couple extra down below. I admit this is a pretty unorthodox setup. Butterfly trekking bar, disc brakes, grip shifters, and leather Brooks bar tape... wha-wha-what?

The orange gel padding that was holding up the show. Looks ugly now, but should add some
comfort for the hands during those long days in the saddle.

Head-on view of the control arrangement. Installed the brake levers on the edge of the bars and the grip shifts just inside of them. It gets tight underneath with the brake and shifter cables dueling it out in close-proximity, but it works well!

My baby's first track-stand!

My first time wrapping handlebars didn't go too bad (thanks for the second set of hands Kristin!). I realize it's not normal to wrap the lower end of the bars with tape, but the grip shifters don't allow for excess to be tucked in behind the bar plugs. It's a bit unsightly, but a pretty good insurance policy against it unraveling.

That's it for now. I'm off to go take this thing for its maiden voyage. Finally! Can't wait to install the racks and fenders. Anyone know where I can get a half-dozen red anodized bottle cages? Just kidding. I'm only going to install four.

The Fargo Build

2010-12-09T09:34:00.000-08:00

There's something really magical about building up a bike that was purchased for the express purpose of being ridden around the world (although it's maiden tour will be a slightly more modest 500 mile trip around the Olympic Peninsula next summer). I hemmed and hawed over each part like never before. Weighing the pros and cons of frame materials, disc brakes versus rim brakes, standard 26 inch wheels or 29er, drop bars versus flat bars versus trekking bars. The list goes on...

Bike parts galore, spread out like a buffet for our building pleasure!

Behold the "Funguy Green" Fargo by Salsa... and its family of future stablemates in the background.

First things first, the frame. The Salsa Fargo is billed as an adventure touring bike, a steel framed mountain bike built to accomodate drop bars (think road bike handlebars), six water bottle cages, fenders, racks, and panniers. It's a 29er (sorry, but I can't ever go back to 26-inch wheels after four years of riding the bigger hoops) and it's disc-brake only. It even has welded on bosses for a downtube shifters, should the need arise for an on-road repair from parts salvaged from third-world bicycle parts. I fully loved the concept of the Fargo, but didn't intend to buy it. That is until I saw the frame hanging in a forgotten corner of a bike shop. The manager, a generous supporter of Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance, told me that nobody wanted just the frame, that they could only sell complete builds. I, however, only wanted the frame. I was expecting him to take enough off the price to make me really have to think about it. When he quoted me $375, I jumped on it. A savings of almost $200!

Itemized list of price (including shipping/handling) and where I bought the parts.
This had to be a true DIY job (a learning experience), hence the profliferance of online shops. Sorry local guys.

Aside: I know the bike-touring community is slow to embrace 29er wheels and disc brakes as disc brake and 29er parts are quite a bit harder to come by in the undeveloped corners of the world. Then again, so are a lot of things. I'll take my chances and plan for the worst. I'll carry extra pads and a spare rotor for the brakes and a spare tire and tubes. Worse comes to worse, I'll order parts from Jenson. They ship to just about every country in the world. I'd rather have to suffer an occasional headache and maybe pay a little extra later for shipping in new parts, but spend most of my time riding a bike I am comfortable with. Your mileage may vary.

As for the rest of the parts, my thinking was to opt for the most reliable, quality parts I could when it came to parts that, if they failed, would render the bike inoperable. So I splurged on a Chris King headset and Thomson stem and seatpost. I've never heard of any of these failing. They're pricey, no doubt, but they're virtually bombproof. After four years of flawless shifting from the Sram X0 twist-shifters that are on my Moots, I knew I wanted that style shifter for the Fargo (not to mention the ability to make on-the-fly micro-adjustments to remove any chain-rub is wonderful!) which demanded a Sram rear derailleur. I opted for X9, as it's cheaper and a bit more stout than the X0 grade. Shimano XT triple-ring crankset and front derailleur round out the drivetrain with Sram cassete and chain. This is virtually the exact build I have on my Moots, although I have XTR and X0 on that bike. And yes, it's perfectly fine to combine the parts from the two different brands in this manner.

Had to pilfer the wheels off the Moots to help with shifter/brake lever positioning.
Waiting for a battery to charge to drill out the valve hole on the rims for this bike to accomodate schraeder style stems.

Though I was definitely going with disc brakes, there was never even a moment's thought to installing hydraulic disc brakes. While it's true that they are very durable and need very little adjusting/service, the service they do need is not something I'm completely comfortable doing on the side of the road. And lines do get yanked out of the caliper and/or levers occasionally (I saw it happen on day one of our Moab trip this past May). The natural choice was Avid's BB7 mechanical disc brakes. They operate much the same way as a rim brake, but they're disc-based. They came on my Kona singlespeed, and I love them. The BB5 lacks the adjustability of the BB7, hence my decision to go for the better grade.

Huge thanks to my friend Doug for teaching me how to build a bike and
for bringing over his various torque wrenches.

In attempt to add a little style to the bike, I opted for a Brooks leather saddle and matching bar tape (not pictured). The seat will be a torture device until it breaks in, but it should be worth it. I'm waiting to pick up some gel handelbar pads to put under the bar tape.

Nothing like a shiny new drivetrain!

Lastly, there's the wheels. I didn't include wheels in the pricelist above because the plan is ultimately to order a custom set of touring wheels that may or may not contain a dyno hub for lighting/recharging capabilities. In the meantime, I had picked up a spare set of 29er wheels before doing TransRockies stage race in 2007 that I never used. They have XT hubs and WTB SpeedDisc Trail 29er rims. These rims can take a beating, but I want 36-spoke wheels with heavier gauge spokes before I head out for a longer tour with 50+ pounds of gear. I mounted the Schwalbe Marathon Plus touring tires that I was using throughout this year. They have thousands of miles left in them.

Still needs bartape, fenders, racks, and a slew of bottle cages, but she's ready to be ridden!

Crossing the Congo in a Toyota

2010-12-03T14:09:00.000-08:00

I just spent the better part of the day reading what may be one of the most entertaining and exciting trip reports I've ever seen on the Internet (thanks to the Dubious Quality set of Friday Links). It's a trip report about a Belgian couple's crossing of the Democratic Republic of Congo in their Toyota Landcruiser. They spent 40+ days driving through jungle and savanna, along many of the worst roads in the world, if you can even call them roads (they were little more single-track trails at many points). And that doesn't even begin to touch on the hostility of the people they encountered.

Frederick's trip report was posted over time on a message board here. It's filled with incredible photos and lots of questions, answers, and criticism from other readers. Don't be intimidated by the length of the thread. Just scroll ahead for posts made by Frederick, aka "RadioBaobab". You'll be glad you did. Note ahead of time that this was just a small part of their 2-year long trip. They had already been on the road for over a year before embarking on this leg of the journey.

There were several comments that Frederick made in his report that I felt were particularly wise and offered some good advice for folks planning a trip like Kristin and I are. One was his saying that "It's better to be sorry for what you did do, than be sorry over what you didn't do." Let that one sink in.

The other came up at the end of his telling of a particularly harrowing ordeal.

"As agreed before we would not try to convince each other to push on. She contemplated the situation for half an hour with a warm tea. She is no quitter, she wanted to continue!"

Trips even less ambitious than theirs will always have their tough times. And sometimes the stress can be too much. I think promising one another ahead of time to not try and convince the other to push on is a great idea, as that can only lead to resentment and greater problems down the road.

Return of the Guidebook Giveaway

2010-12-02T12:51:00.000-08:00

Twas the last day of rest, and all through the house

boxes of books stacked high, many edited by a man we call Haus

The guides I've written, stored away with care

In hopes they would one day see eyes in a pair

Taking advantage of this final day off today to tackle some of the things I've been meaning to do since I sent in my last bit of text for the Splatterhouse strategy guide back on October 29th. Boring stuff like backing up files and cleaning the closet. It took four trips up and down the stairs, but I've finally recycled the mountain of boxes and user's manuals I was holding onto for some inexplicable reason. We don't even own half the stuff that originally came in those boxes anymore.

The other big task was pairing down the volume of strategy guides I have stacked in my closet. I used to receive 10 author's copies for every guide I'd write, but that number has fortunately shrunk to 5 as the books grew in size and paper/shipping costs increased. I was fine with this as I was literally running out of space to store them. And now that the blog is back up, it means it's time to revive the Guidebook Giveaway!

My copies of our guide for Halo: Reach were spoken for long before the book was even printed, but I do have copies of a few of my other recent titles, namely Fable III, Splatterhouse, and Darksiders.

Need the guidebook? Reply to this post!

Post a comment in response to this thread with the name of the guide you're interested in -- one per person please -- and tell us what single game you are most looking forward to in 2011? Mentioning a game I end up writing the guidebook for will win you a copy of the book once it's published!

Kinecting With Friends

2010-11-24T13:04:00.000-08:00

I just cancelled my gym membership.

It was a nice place, only a half mile from my house and never crowded when I went. It had everything I wanted in a gym, but it turns out so does my living room. Ever since buying EA Sports Active 2 for the Xbox Kinect, that is. But more about that later...

We arrived home from my sister's wedding in New Jersey to find the Kinect bundle on the front porch and a copy of Harmonix's Dance Central in the mailbox. Yes, the same Harmonix that birthed the Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises. Nevermind the lingering hangover, the cross-country flight, and onset of one of the worst head colds I've had in years, I rushed downstairs the following morning like a child on Christmas morning and immediately connected the Kinect sensor and booted up the packed-in Kinect Adventures title.

Setting the sensor up was a breeze. I had read plenty of tips in the weeks leading up to the Kinect launch about lighting conditions and space requirements and was ever thankful for our house's large open floorplan. I shoved the couch back about 6 feet towards the kitchen, turned on all the lights behind me and was immediately detected in the "best" position for Kinect enjoyment. Kinect Adventures delivers a wonderful first impression of the technology. The disc includes a half-dozen different mini-games that seem designed to show off the Kinect's ability to track your skeleton in three-dimensional space. The games themselves lose their appeal quickly (only Achievement hunters and small children need apply), but as a tech-demo, it does its job admirably. I was at once impressed with the sensor's ability to not only track my hands and feet forward, but my head as well. And the game's ability to take random snapshots of you while playing and then upload (with your permission) Polaroid-like memories to a central website is a bit of genius.

Yours truly jumping for coins during the river rafting game.

Dance Central (gameplay video) is the real star of this show, however. My wife and I have spent thirteen years mocking one another's [lack of] ability to dance, yet that didn't stop us from cutting a rug (technically bamboo flooring) and laughing all night as we attempted a host of dance moves set to music that I'd otherwise be embarrassed to have on my iPod. Learning to play is super easy, even for those with two left feet. Every song has its own specific set of dance moves and three difficulty modes (each successive difficulty setting builds upon the previous one with additional, more complicated dance moves). Simply pick a song, then a difficulty, and select "Break it Down" to learn the moves. The instructor will step you through the moves and you can slow it down even further at any time with a wave of your hand. Learn all of the moves then select "Perform It" to put it all together. You're goal is to try and mimic the movements shown by the dancer on the screen: the on-screen dancer's body parts glow red to show where your positioning is off.

Friends having fun with Dance Central.

One of the best features of Kinect, and especially Dance Central, was on display this past weekend during our Kinect party: the ability to track three people at once. We were all amazed at how well the system differentiated between the main dancer and backup dancers, even when arms and legs were crossing in front and behind of one another. Not only that, but the system's ability to instantly know when someone has left or entered the dancefloor was particularly impressive. Especially when it was Kristin or I since we both completed the facial recognition process and it immediately recognizes us by appearance. Kinect Sports (launch trailer) was also great fun to play during a party as well thanks to the ease at which teammates could jump in and jump out of the game as the events went by. No more passing controllers back and forth. No more loading profiles or signing players in and out of the game. It didn't matter whose turn it was; just step in front of the sensor and you were ready to go!

Gotta protect the face when the wife is coming at you with a right jab.

Unfortunately, my enjoyment with Dance Central and Kinect Sports has been somewhat limited due to the time I spend with Active 2 (game trailer). I'm simply too sore to play them. Active 2 by EA Sports is a fitness game that comes bundled with a heart rate monitor and a resistance band (the game supports using dumbbells also, which I do). I wasn't expecting a whole lot in terms of intensity so I set up a 9-week program on "hard" mode. The game uses your heart rate and weight to calculate the number of calories you burn. Each of the 9-week program's workouts typically consists of 30+ exercises and takes roughly 35 minutes to complete, that is if I didn't have to pause the game periodically while I lay collapsed in a puddle of sweat on the floor. I've burned as much as 250 calories in a single 30 minute workout with an average heart rate of 141 bpm (including warmup and cooldown).

The exercises range from pushups and squats to side-jumps and planks, but there are also several more "gamey" exercises that do a fine job of tricking you into thinking you're not working out. I was shocked to see how intense the mountain biking exercise was. It was only naturally for me, an avid mountain biker, to have pretty low expectations for this activity, but the combination of holding a squat during the descents, squat-jumping on the ramps, and sprinting the hills makes for a very intense 90 seconds of activity. Another favorite is the goal keeper exercise. Playing goalie while three players kick rapid-fire soccer goals at the net is not only fun, but exhausting. The precision of the Kinect sensor makes it clear on-screen when you're slacking. It also makes you stand up and celebrate a particularly impressive kick-save. The in-game character you create does an excellent job of mimicing your motions (even your bad ones) and the game accurately counts your reps and tracks body positioning so you know when you're slacking or not performing the exercise/lift properly.

Active 2 comes pre-loaded with over a hundred pre-set workouts that you can select from. You can also create your own custom workout by selecting which of the dozens of exercises you want to do. It's also possible to have a custom workout created on the fly by simply telling the game how much time you want to workout for, what intensity level, and what type of workout you want to target (core, legs, cardio, etc.). The degree of flexibility and customization with the game is pretty impressive and, best of all, it does a great job of encouraging you to keep at it. Weekly fitness checks help you monitor your weight and improvement through high-intensity heart rate test designed to measure your cool down. Active 2 retails for $99 USD, but I found it for $79 at Fry's and I've seen ads for Target giving away a $20 gift card with the purchase.

So am I impressed with Kinect? Yes. Does this mean I'm no longer a so-called "hardcore" gamer. Who cares? It's entirely possible to enjoy Kinect and still enjoy going online and blasting folks in Halo: Reach or settling into a game like Fallout. Kinect is not a replacement for traditional games, but rather a way for people to get more out of their Xbox, especially when entertaining. The ease of use, the laugh-out-loud fun you can have with the games, and the jump-in, jump-out nature of the experience makes it unlike anything I've played before. We had 9 people over last Saturday and every single person, including those who haven't ever owned a game system, went home intending to buy an Xbox Kinect bundle and Dance Central. And our friends with The Playstation Move were vocally wishing they had a Kinect instead. I don't expect many great games for Kinect -- just like there aren't many for the Wii -- but I am more than happy with the ones I bought. Which is saying something, considering I originally ordered my Kinect simply for the voice and motion controls for the dashboard.

RG Lives On

2010-11-19T00:31:00.000-08:00

Randomly Generated is back online. My ego can only hope this hiatus was that much harder for you than me.

As you can see, I've given the ol' blog a pretty drastic makeover with the help of Blogspot's new (and occasionally maddening) controls. For starters, I've created a handful of standalone pages linked directly below my mugshot that I will update when necessary. These are to give the blog a more informative touch and to make it easier to show essays or photos or whathaveyou that I'm particularly fond of. There's some other cosmetic changes as well, but the biggest change from the old RG to the new one will the be in the type and quantity of posts that I'll be making. I was averaging over 35 posts per month for quite a while, a pace that is not only too time-consuming to maintain, but one that doesn't allow for much selectivity. I'll be ratcheting back the posting frequency to just one or two entries per week, hopefully of substance. No promises though.

Be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think of the new look. And, as always, thanks for reading.

The Big Trip... By Bikes?

2010-11-01T01:12:00.000-07:00

I wrote three years ago that Kristin and I had made a handshake agreement about seriously, honestly, beginning the process of planning and saving for a trip around the world. A mid-life gap year, if you will. The plan was rather humble at first, at least as far as these round-the-world (RTW) trips tend to go. We'd beg for sabbaticals from work, lease our house, sell one of our cars. And we'd head off on a ferry to Alaska, then train and plane our way eastward around the world. At least that was the initial plan the morning after that talk when I posted this.

The plan has grown since then. Three years have passed since we promised each other that we would not allow our years to bleed into one another in an endless series of indistinguishable workweeks. Three years and rarely has a week gone by that we haven't talked about the trip; nary a day that I hadn't daydreamed about it, or a night spent researching and planning our route. We're still several years away, but much progress has been made towards making our shared dream a reality. Since the online journals and blogs of those who've gone before us have proven to be an invaluable source of inspiration and information, I want to dedicate this page to our own efforts and plans in hopes that it may provide a small amount of assistance to those curious enough to read this entry.

The How and the When
The plan, as it stands, has transformed. A funny thing has happened this year: we've fallen cleats-over-helmet in love with bicycle touring and have shifted our thoughts and dreams to a lengthy multi-year trip around the world by bicycle. If I get my way, we'll not leave the surface of the earth and will find a way across all oceans and seas by cargo ship, cruise ship, or ferry. If we have to work for our passage, so be it. I can think of no greater way to travel slowly--and independently--than by bicycle. And no better way to truly absorb the size of this rock called Earth than by eschewing the shortcuts that air transit affords.

I'm the first to admit that my second-hand experience in extended bicycle touring far exceeds any I've done. Kristin and I completed two 3-day tours in 2010, one in the San Juan Islands and another around Mt. Rainier, and we're smitten. We are in the process of building up proper touring bicycles this winter in preparation for a 10-day, 450-mile tour around the Olympic Peninsula next summer, starting from our driveway. That should give us a good feel for whether or not we are cut out for this, but even that's not going to be enough. Ten days is a far cry from three years. Though others have embarked on a RTW trip by bicycle with even less experience than we already have, our plan is to tackle the pacific coast route, from Vancouver to Tijuana, during the fall of 2013 as a proper shakedown tour to see if we--and our gear--are truly ready for the rigors of extended bike touring. If so, we'll blast off in early spring of 2014*.

*The issue of when is a sensitive subject. For starters, we need enough time to save. Though we plan to sell our house before leaving (along with the vast majority of our belongings), that money is to be set aside for our return. More importantly is the health of our dog and family. We always knew we would not take the trip so long as our dogs were alive. Never did we think that day would come so soon, but we did lose our male dog, Kimo, to a brain tumor this summer. Annana will be turning 12 in 2011 and is quite healthy. We hope to have her with us for as long as possible and I can think of no greater reason to delay the trip to 2015 or beyond than her living a long and healthy life. The other issue is family. We won't leave if any immediate family members are seriously ill or dying. Enough said.

The Why
If nothing else, this trip is about freedom. Not the politicized, sloganized freedom, but true freedom. The freedom that comes with waking up each morning to a totally new day and asking yourself, "where do you want to go today?" And being able to answer any way you dream. No office to go to. No lawn to mow. No bills to pay. No reservations. The bicycle helps make this a reality and has added a wonderful dimension to my research and planning, though we fully expect to zig when our original plans call for a zag. The only limitations will be those stemming from the stars & stripes that adorn our passports. In all honesty, the where doesn't even interest me nearly as much as the who. My goal in this trip isn't to check off a list of places to see before I die, but rather to meet our neighbors around the world. I want to see how the rest of the world lives. To eat their food; to drink their drink. To try and see the world through their eyes and, should they ask, to help them see it through an American's.

Of course, only a fool would embark on such a trip without any plan at all, and contrary to common belief, I am no fool. Not to mention I love maps and research far too much to forego this wonderful aspect of the journey. So, without further ado, allow me to gaze at the string and the pushpins on the world map in my office and tell you the general plan, as it stands now, subject to change a thousand times.

The Where
Our plan as currently envisioned (and very much subject to change as necessary) is to begin in Seattle in April of 2014 and head east across the northern states to Minnesota then turn left and follow the coast of Lake Superior up into Ontario then onward into Quebec before turning south towards New Jersey to spend a week or two with family. From there, we'll cross the Atlantic to the UK and bike north to south from northern Scotland down to London and cross the North Sea on a ferry to Denmark. Once on mainland Europe, we'll follow the coast of the North Sea southwestward through Germany, The Netherlands, and Belgium into France with the goal being to tour the Iberian Peninsula in a counter-clockwise loop and cross into Morocco by October.

Our foray into Morocco isn't just to "tag" the African continent, but to visit one of the places I'm most interested in seeing. After a loop in Morocco, hopefully before the snows bury the high passes of the Atlas Mountains, we'll cross the Strait of Gibraltar back into Spain and hug the coast of the Mediterranean as we journey back through southern France and into Italy. We'll make our way down the western coast of Italy before crossing the heel of the boot and sailing over to Greece. We'll likely head as far south in Greece and Turkey as we can get and take a month or two to let winter's bite pass. Our goal is to use one of these sites to arrange a work-stay. We very much want to take a side-trip into Syria and possibly Jordan before crossing back through Turkey to the north and into Georgia.

Here is where things get tricky. We want to bicycle that mysterious network of roads once known as the Silk Road. There's a number of ways to do so, but only a couple are likely for American nationals. The details will be worked out, but we'll likely avoid Armenia by looping through Georgia into Azerbaijan. From there, we'll take a ferry across the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan and make our way eastward through the "'Stans" and into China. We'll be giving Afhanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan a wide berth and aim to cross into China along its border with Kyrgyzstan.

We'll make our way eastward across China from the northwestern corner towards Vietnam in the southeast, keeping a steady eye to the Tibetan Plateau for possible passage to Lhasa. I'm not saying it's something we'll definitely do, but I found a guy who helps arrange permits and planning for self-guided bicycle trips from Lhasa to Kathmandu. Just saying, that's all. Once in Vietnam, we'll make our way south to Cambodia, Thailand, and down to Malaysia and Singapore.

From there? We'll just have to see, won't we? We fully intend to tour the eastern coast of Australia and to outstay our welcome in New Zealand, but Bali, Indonesia, and Micronesia/Oceania will also be calling. The biggest hurdle that I see as of now is finding a ship-based way across the South Pacific to South America. Ideally, we'll be able to find a freighter that is going from Australia (or Singapore or China, if necessary) to Argentina or Chile. Once in South America, we intend to spend a month or two at an immersive language school before beginning the long journey home along the west coast of South America.

It's exhausting to even put into words, but this is the route traced in string on my map. It's the route in my dreams. The towns and streets will work themselves out. We'll take what the weather gives us. We'll be leaves in a playful breeze, carried away in fits and starts with the only true direction being ahead.

The Cost
Money. No amount of daydreamy ideology can get around the fact that this is going to cost a tidy sum of money to pull off. Conversations about money are usually taboo in public forums, but I'll admit that finding out how much others have spent on RTW trips (and how they saved for it) was one of the first things I began researching three years ago. And fortunately there were plenty of people willing to share their expenses down to the penny. And because it was so helpful to us, I don't mind sharing our own savings goals and spending plan.

We began saving for the trip in October 2007 with a plan to put $200 per month into an ING savings account. We stuck to a strict schedule of increasing this amount by $50 every 6 months to give us time to pay off our cars and a student loan and to, fortunately, take advantage of any pay raises we received along the way. Our deposit in October 2010 was $500. We also use a Bank of America "Keep the Change" plan which rounds up to the nearest dollar on all of our debit transactions and dumps the change into a savings account. We're able to transfer an extra $200 out of this account and into our RTW savings account every 6 to 8 months or so. Yeah, we use our debit cards a lot.

The ING Orange Savings account was pulling in about 4% interest the first 18 months or so, as were the CDs we rotated the money in and out of every 9 months. This, we figured, would bring us to roughly $35,000 by the fall of 2013, but then the market tanked. The savings account is now only getting 1.1%. Fortunately, I made some smart stock purchases as the economy bounced back and came out ahead. I was a little risky with the money, but it panned out. Now we try to keep much of the money in cash, some trusty stocks, and put the rest in a mutual fund designed for folks planning to retire inside of 5 years. We're obviously not retiring, but the principal is the same: we want modest growth and income with minimal risk.

So how much are we aiming for? And what about the cost of the bikes and the gear? We've decided to separate out the cost of touring bikes and gear from the trip savings and pay for all of that stuff by selling things we no longer use. Ebay, Craigslist, and a garage sale have netted us more than enough to build up a Salsa Fargo for me and we have a couple other things to unload this winter to pay for Kristin's Salsa Vaya. Tubus racks and Arkel panniers will round out the gear purchases for now.

Our initial goal of $35k (plus the money from the sale of one or two cars) was based on a one-year sightseeing trip around the world by plane and train. We've seen estimates that traveling by bicycle can cost an average of $23USD for a couple per day if you cook your own meals, camp a lot, and use sites like Warmshowers to stay for free. We plan to do all of that, yet we also know we like to splurge. We want that nice hotel every now and then. We also know we'll want to eat out more often, hit the cafes in the morning on occasion, and certainly sample the world's great beers and spirits. We don't want to do this if it means having to pinch pennies every day. Our plan is to save a minimum of $45,000 for the trip, but also get as close to $60,000 as possible. We've tracked our expenses very carefully on recent trips and feel that an average of $60/day for the two of us is a reasonable goal that would allow for occasional splurging or high-priced activities (naturally, we'll spend a lot more in some countries than others). Not to mention that $60k would allow us to go 1,000 days at $60/day. And something about that makes me smile. The trip accounts have roughly $16,500 in them as of October 2010. We have a ways to go, but we're on our way.

Next Summer's Bike Trip

2010-09-07T11:05:00.000-07:00

Had a little fun with Google Maps over the weekend laying out the route and proposed camping sites for a 10 day, 450 mile trip around the Olympic Peninsula starting/finishing at our house in Snoqualmie. We'll take a day off from riding in Copalis Beach, but will ride the other 9 days, for a nice even average of 50 miles per day.

View Olympic Peninsula Bicycle Tour in a larger map

Birth Control

2009-09-08T15:43:00.000-07:00

So I'm out walking my dogs today and I'm heading down the path towards the pond near the park. School let out and a couple of boys are heading up the path towards me. Two moms, a stroller, and a leashed dog are about 30 yards behind them. The boys, about 8 years old each, look up and see us and suddenly start yelling, "Mom! Mom! The huskies! The huskies!"

I figured they were excited to see the dogs and the mom would tell them to ask if it was okay to pet my dogs. This happens all the time. There's probably over a hundred kids in the area that have at one time or another thrown their arms around Kimo or Annana's neck and hugged them.

That's not what happened though. Instead, mom stops in her tracks and starts to back up. She tells the boys to come back to her, that they'll go a different way. At this point I had stopped walking. I know some people are really averse to having dogs cross paths along a relatively narrow trail corridor (though it is about 15 feet wide). I ask the boys what's wrong and he tells me that they try to keep away from my dogs because my dog, Kimo, bit his dog in the nose.

What?

Having no idea what the kid is talking about, I ask him when this happened. He says a while ago. The lightbulb goes on.

"Did it happen about four years ago?"

He says it did, putting him at about 4 or 5 years old. Clearly second-hand information that needed correcting.

"Actually" I explain, "your dog jumped the fence and bit my dog. That's what happened." I had totally forgotten about this but, it's true. Not long after we moved in, Kristin was out walking the dogs and this family's dog leaped over their picket fence and attacked Kimo. Kimo defended himself -- and their dog may have gotten scraped -- but the end result was the owners of that dog (the boy's mom and dad) paying our vet bills.

So I yelled to the mom and told her it was fine, to keep coming and that I would stand off on the side with my dogs and let her pass. I knew at this point she was probably telling the other woman she was with all sorts of nasty untruths about my dogs. So when she got close I asked her if the dog she was with "was the one that jumped the fence and attacked my dog four years ago." A minor detail that I wanted to make sure was known.

She said it wasn't, that they don't have that dog anymore, but that "the incident really affected our other dog and I try to keep her away from them." Them was a reference to my dogs. She and her dog and kids passed without incident. My dogs stood on the grass and looked on. Her dog didn't even glance towards us.

It was at the them remark that I remember a brief run-in with her husband years ago, about 8 months after their dog jumped the fence and bit Kimo. I was walking down the sidewalk and he came out and essentially said my dogs were a nuisance and that I shouldn't walk past yards that I know have dogs in them (every yard is stylishly fenced by the way, this is a rather tidy neighborhood I must admit). Nearly one out of every three homes in the development has a dog. To not pass corner homes with dogs is an impossibility, not to mention it was his dog that jumped the fence. Not mine. I told him flatly to quit the "blame the victim" campaign and kept walking. I've walked past the house nearly every day for four years since and, again, never even thought about it.

But now it makes perfect sense. These parents are out of their mind. First, even though they had to pay our vet bills, they acted like it all our fault and tried to keep us off the sidewalk near their house. Then they apparently brainwashed their kids who were clearly too young to remember the incident that our dogs are mean and need to be stayed away from. And last but not least, they seem to think that this 20 second incident that happened over 4 years ago has given their other dog post-traumatic stress disorder.

All of this because of a relatively minor scrap the dogs got into years ago. An incident incited by a dog who is no longer even around.

I feel so bad for their kids. What's going to happen the first time the kid comes home after getting picked on at school or... GASP! with a black-eye from a fistfight? I'm surprised she just doesn't home-school them to better keep them away from all those mean kids who might be a nuisance. It's clear she can't handle living around other people unless everything is perfect. That's right, don't just act reasonable and pull in the leash on your dog, it's best to walk a completely different way. What a message to send to the kids. Run and hide. Stay home. Tell others to keep away. It's safer that way. Wouldn't want them to be "traumatized."

There are a lot of reasons Kristin and I don't want to have kids, but not wanting to have to deal with parents like these is in the top ten.

Kind of glad her boys didn't want to pet my dogs. I'd hate to see how she'd react if Annana managed to slip him the tongue, as she's known to do.

A Korean Mouthful (Part 3)

2009-05-04T13:32:00.000-07:00

There was something missing in Seoul that I couldn't quite put a finger on; a feature that marked the difference between western cities and their Asian counterparts perhaps even more than the exotic smells, unpronounceable foods and labyrinthine markets. I didn't notice its absence until I finally saw what it was: begging. We saw him in Busan. He was on a landing in the stairwell leading into the subway station in Seomyeon. A cigar box lay in front of him containing a few thousand won: loose coins and crumpled notes. Bent forward over his knees on a small piece of cardboard, the man maintained a motionless half-tortoise pose, the world's ultimate submissive. He draped a ragged blue jacket over his head and perfected an anonymity that was impossible to ignore. He was there in the morning and again in the night. For three straight days we saw him. In the same place, holding the same position. Never did he speak, never did he move. We knew nothing of his appearance other than he clearly had the hands of a man who had seen hard times. The South Korean society had imparted a burden of shame on this man heavy enough to crush. As a westerner, witnessing such a pathetic sight for the first time, I was conflicted. I found myself simultaneously hating this land that would force someone into such a state of surrender, yet also wishing the beggars and panhandlers at home in the United States would consider adopting his passive technique. I threw some coins into the box each time we passed him, South Korea's loneliest man.

The drive to Busan took nearly three hours, due in part to a lengthy pause for breakfast at a highway rest stop that would have been right at home on the Garden State Parkway. Mr. Jang led us to the lone traditional-style eatery on the otherwise vacant second floor of the complex, but the body language of our delegation was as vivid as the most brightly-lit neon signage: We wanted to finally eat real breakfast food. To his credit, Mr. Jang didn't force the issue, especially when a row of short-order cooks were downstairs assembling their own unique takes on ham-and-egg breakfast sandwiches, and pizza-flavored corn dogs (that contained neither cheese, sauce, nor a hot dog). Mr. Jang was a very likable fellow who I'm sure is very good at his day job, guiding Koreans on trips to Europe and China, but in this assignment he was set up to fail. He had never before led a tour in his own country, nor was his command of English up to the rigors of guiding people from the United States. He hopes to never do either again and I can't blame him one bit.

In continuing our gastronomical tour of the country, the itinerary called for just a brief one-hour stop in Busan for lunch. Though driving to a city hours away to do no more than have lunch is precisely the kind of decision that makes me long for independent travel, Mr. Jang couldn't have picked a better spot to eat, especially since the generous Mayor Hwang was still picking up the tab back in Gangjin. We pulled up to the Westin Chosun on Haeundae Beach, Busan's premiere western-style hotel, and were escorted to a window-side table overlooking the surf. It was the most splendid buffet I've ever seen with mouth-watering food from four continents and an endless selection of deserts and espresso drinks. Plate after plate of delicious food was put away into a stomach that was guaranteed to ache. Searching for a restroom, I felt my center of gravity being pulled to the right, as if the building was going to slide into the ocean. I thought it may have been something I ate. Turns out it was just the autographed photos of former President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice in a display case; a disruption in the Force if you will. The case also contained photos of the Duke of York, Crown Prince of Norway, President of Azerbaijan, and Prime Minister of Iraq, among others. It wasn't empty guidebook-praise, this was the place to stay in Busan.

Though the tour bus would be departing immediately after lunch for the UNESCO-cherished historical sites in Gyeongju, some 90 minutes north of Busan, Kristin and I would be staying behind. Though I felt like a deserter, abandoning the group in such a manner, the initial tour was planned to last just three nights and I already had reservations in Busan. It was only by coincidence that Mr. Jang was leading the group to Busan the day we were planning to take a bus there. And when that coincidence happened to include a five-star buffet lunch, all the better. We really enjoyed spending those few days with Mayor Matt, Tina, and Andrea and Bob and are glad for getting to know each of them better. We were also happy to be back on our own, free of a schedule, and able to enjoy one of our favorite hobbies: wandering aimlessly in foreign cities.

Busan, South Korea's second largest city, is home to some 4 million people and sits on the jagged coastline in the southeastern corner of the country. Though the aforementioned Haeundae Beach attracts nearly a half-million visitors each day in the summer, Busan is very much a hard-nosed port city with precious little to offer visitors seeking a cultural or artistic sojourn. It's subway system pales in comparison to Seoul's -- due in part to the irregular coastline -- despite the seaside city occupying a larger footprint than the landlocked capital. As a result, the visitor looking to explore the city has to rely more heavily on taxis and buses than perhaps expected.

Our first order of business after waving goodbye to the tour bus was to buy a suitcase. Kristin and I packed light for the trip and though we had room in our bags for one or two mementos, our three days in Gangjin left us inundated with expensive Celadon pottery and other gifts. We didn't dare lug several hundred dollars worth of tea sets, bowls, and statues into the metro system in loose shopping bags so Kristin staked out a corner of the Westin Chosun's lobby and watched over our embarrassingly large pile of bags while I made my way to a nearby department store to buy a cheap suitcase. Suffice to say, when we finally did show up at the Zen Backpacker's Hostel later that afternoon, we didn't exactly fit the mold of the typical hosteler. Then again, Zen barely fit the definition of a hostel either.

Occupying a four-bedroom condo on the fifteenth floor of the Neospot high-rise in Seomyeon, Zen was the opposite of what you'd expect from a hostel. Run by a thirty-something Korean named June, Zen is an excellent place to call home in Busan. June found a way to live the easy life in purchasing the condo and living off the fees of his visitors (he appears to spend his days hanging out, watching pirated movies, and, I suspect, getting stoned). Immaculately kept and decorated with trendy furniture and posters of Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix, Zen boasts hardwood floors, a spacious kitchen, a high-definition television, and a Playstation 3 and computer terminal. It also has a lengthy balcony with views of the northern reaches of the city. Kristin and I reserved the private twin room for 60,000 won per night ($48 US). Two couples from San Francisco were in the quad across the hall and the six-person dormitory on the other side of the condo was currently occupied by a young Canadian fresh out of college and a soft-spoken guy named Misha who, at 38 years old, had returned to his birth-country from Switzerland in search of his true parents.

Unlike our first Saturday in Seoul a week earlier, we were both wide awake and looking to go out and party that first night in Busan. We hopped onto the subway and rode it 16 stops back to Haeundae Beach late in the afternoon. We walked two kilometers along the boardwalk then bar-hopped our way back in the other direction. It's a nice wide, sandy beach and was not unlike your typical beach town in the United States. Lots of bars, dozens of cheap eateries, and plenty of shops selling everything from giant plastic sunglasses to beach balls to umbrellas. The one thing it had that we certainly could have done without was the horde of Australian spring breakers. In a startling realization and admittance that I am actually older than I feel, I must confess to having reached the age where spring breaking college students is a demographic I hope to never encounter again.

We spent several hours in an unnamed and otherwise empty nightclub two blocks off the beach, shooting pool and drinking bottle after bottle of Cass, a Korean beer. It was a nice place with a massive oval bar, numerous couples booths, and a roped-off VIP area yet it was barely nine o'clock and we were assured that the place was busiest from midnight till dawn. The bartender, Haeyo, was a twenty-something Korean with an androgynous appearance and way about him that reminded me of the Japanese talk show host in the movie Lost in Translation. He was friendly, let us play whatever music we wanted, and even poured me a complimentary glass of Scotch after hearing me comment to Kristin about the Glenmorangie poster on the wall. We were initially going to only stay for a sympathy beer (I hate to enter a place then turn 180 and leave), but wound up spending most of the night there, the only customers in the club, shooting pool and enjoying our run of the place. When we finally did leave, it wasn't without a stutter in our step.

Walking back in the direction of the beach, we suddenly found ourselves hidden behind a wall of concealing hedges placed conspicuously between the street and sidewalk. Before we could wonder why this towering hedgerow was where it was, we had our answer: to our right was a half-dozen dimly-lit abandoned storefronts showcasing a number of scantily-clad Korean beauties. Though prostitution was outlawed in South Korea in 2004, we stumbled onto one of Busan's remaining red-light districts, albeit without any of the attention-grabbing red lights. Dressed in lingerie and high heels, these women of the night stood not unlike mannequins in the windows of dilapidated buildings presenting their goods to anyone and everyone who walked by. Whether it was because I had my lovely bride by my side or because we were westerners, few of these women so much as acknowledged our presence. Though one or two smiled, nearly all of them looked past us with thousand-mile stares as if we were invisible. The very last one we passed said hello.

She was alone in a doorway, behind a partially-cracked screen door. She wore a yellow chiffon and lace teddy over a light blue thong with matching blue heels and was no more than 25 years old and no heavier than 100 pounds. She was cute, with petite curves, but certainly not gorgeous. To Kristin's amusement, I returned her annyong haseyo, smiled, then pointed to the girl, then Kristin, then back to myself and said, "Kugo olma eemneekka?" The girl laughed and smiled at Kristin who wanted to know what I said. "I asked her how much for a threesome." Kristin knew my query wasn't genuine, that this was simply another case in which my blend of curiosity and lack of taboos was getting the better of me. She shot me a look that told me she'd play along, but to not push my luck. The girl rattled off a fee in Korean that I couldn't understand so I grabbed a business card and pen from my bag and had her right it down. She was laughing, shaking her head in disbelief that she was having this discussion with a western couple, and wrote down 250,000 won, roughly $200 US. Not a bad price, I suppose. She then grabbed my left hand and pointed to the minute-hand on my watch and traced a full circle. One hour. Kristin nudged me in the ribs, as if to remind me that I was approaching the end of my rope, so I quickly thumbed the phrase book and told her the price was too high, to which she simply shrugged her shoulders and smiled. Enjoying the give-and-take, I countered by writing 200,000 won on the notecard and, in unison, both the girl and Kristin emphatically shook their heads no while seeming to fight back giggles. So I smiled and shrugged my shoulders in return and ended the negotiations with a friendly "Hengoonul peemneeda." I wished her good luck and continued our walk towards the beach, allowing the fantasy to play out in my mind while Kristin gave lighthearted jabs to my ribs and playfully reprimanded me.

We were out the door early the next morning, thankfully free of any hangovers, and had a quick breakfast at an overpriced French-style bakery before journeying north to Gyeongju. Two hours worth of subways and buses later, we arrived in this city of national treasures. It was a beautiful day out, sunny and near 80-degrees Fahrenheit, so we were happy to find a bike and scooter rental stall right near the bus station in Gyeongju. We settled on a tandem mountain bike that was both too heavy for its size and too small for mine, yet it worked. The attendant took no information down, no credit-card deposit, never asked for our passports, nor asked us when we'd return it. He gave us a lock and key when I asked for one, took our 15,000 won, and handed us the bike. Just as we started to pedal away I noticed that he had thrown a leg over a scooter and was riding off in the opposite direction, ignoring the crowd of would-be renters still milling around the bikes. Was that actually his rental shop? Did we just hand our money to a thief? Honestly, I didn't care. I welcomed the thought of having rented the bike from an impostor; I previously wondered what we'd do if the bike got a flat tire, but this latest development meant we could just lock it up and leave it. Nobody knew we had it and I was convinced we unwillingly rented it illegally.

The bike, awkward though it was, never did get a flat and despite having had no prior experience riding tandem, we managed quite well with me as the pilot and Kristin the stoker. Though many of Gyeongju's finer sites are located on the outskirts of town, nearer the coast and in the mountains, there are a handful of sites situated in the otherwise ugly downtown area that were within biking distance. We gawked at the massive earthen burial mounds in Tumuli Park (some measuring over 150 feet in diameter and nearly 40 feet tall), followed the well-worn path around Anapji Pond, and wandered amongst tens of acres of rapeseed flowers in Wolseong Park. Our days in Jeollanam-do had left us more burned out on cultural attractions than we had thought so we spent much of our time in Gyeongju simply riding the bike around town and window-shopping. Little did we know how sunburned we were getting.

We stayed closer to the hostel that night to make up for the bar tab we rang up in Haeundae Beach. The Seomyeon area of Busan has a number of neon-ensconced alleys lined with shops, restaurants, and bars as well as dozens of pojangmacha. We settled on a place that offered up a massive bowl of pork and kimchi noodle soup, big enough for two, that was as spicy as it was cheap. As was typical of the places we ate, we were again the only non-Koreans in the restaurant, but we felt right at home with all of the other twenty-something and thirty-something couples, sharing our bowl of soup, and wiping the spice-induced sweat from our brows. We bought a couple of bottles of soju at a convenience store after dinner and went back to the hostel to watch a movie with Misha. For the first time in my life, I browsed the illegal file-sharing networks and downloaded a pirated movie. The hoops one needs to jump to accomplish this task hardly make it worth the effort and I doubt I'd ever bother again.

Monday would be our last full day in South Korea and Kristin and I had a number of options on the docket, ranging from a hike to Beomeosa Temple on Geomjeungsan Mountain to a harbor cruise to a stroll around the coastal path on the Yeongdo Peninsula. Unfortunately, heavy rains forced us to abandon these plans and consider something indoors. We had given thought to going to the Hurshimchung public bath and hot spring for a soak and a scrub, but the sunburn we picked up in Gyeongju made that idea sound no more appealing than trudging up a muddy trail to yet another temple we weren't really that interested in. So we grabbed our books and headed to the luxurious downstairs food court at the awe-inspiring Lotte department store and sat and relaxed at a cafe nestled amongst the shops selling thousand-dollar canisters of tea and hundred-year old bottles of wine. There was even a Whole Foods grocery store in this fanciful basement selling, of all things, the putrid-smelling durian. Frozen, thankfully.

Though LG, Samsung, and Kia are the nation's brands most easily identified outside South Korea, Lotte is the giant within. Arguably responsible for fueling what I sensed to be a rapid rise in the ranks of the most shallow and fashion-conscious countries on earth, Lotte has brought the so-called good life (aka, the western fascination for designer brands) to Korea. Unlike the Japanese whose appreciation for western-style clothing seems to be kept in check by their own honored sense of isolationism and culture, Koreans appeared to be diving head-first, wallets-open into the maw of global westernization. The government's emphasis on learning English has given rise to what I saw was a misguided fascination with everything and anything English, to the point of absurdity. Western was it. To wear an American brand was a status symbol. To wear anything with English print was close enough. And so they did. The most attractive people we saw in South Korea were walking billboards advertising nonsensical gibberish; just a string of pronouns, adjectives, and verbs strung together on a t-shirt. To Koreans, they looked western and hip. To westerners like us they looked like fools.

The Lotte department store in Busan contained a collection of boutiques that would not fail to impress even the most upturned of noses from Rodeo Drive to 5th Avenue, New York City. But more startling than seeing such obscene sums of money spent in a place whose sewage system couldn't even handle toilet paper (used paper had to be discarded in a foul-smelling waste basket) was that which was on display in the eateries. You couldn't go a minute without seeing someone primping in a large handheld mirror of at least six inches in diameter. Maybe it was my seven years living in down-to-Earth western Washington, but the vanity on display in Busan was frightening. To be seen or not to be seen, that is the question.

In truth, Kristin and I wanted to both spend the day on the couch back at Zen with our books and a large mug of coffee. We wanted to spend the day doing nothing except perhaps some laundry. And on future, longer trips we will certainly look forward to rainy days such as this one in Busan to do just that. But on a trip as short as this one was, just 11 days, we felt compelled to at least get out and do something, rain be damned. So we took the subway to Jagalchi Fish Market, Asia's largest seafood market, and promptly walked in the opposite direction to see a movie in PIFF Square. We were burned out on markets too, you see. We bought cheap disposable umbrellas from a stand in the subway station and splashed our way around this attractive pedestrian center before going to see Duplicity starring Julia Roberts, complete with Korean subtitles. Not a bad film.

We whiled away the time that final night in Busan at a German-themed brewhouse in Seomyeon imbibing a two-liter growler of their in-house Hefeweizen. We sat for over two hours waiting for the rain to let up, reminiscing about the trip that was, the places we had seen, the people we met, and all we learned. In volunteering to host Hyeon Ju we thought it would give us a chance to travel without leaving the home. We never imagined it would lead to so much more. Thanks to Mayor Hwang's generosity and the Snoqualmie Sister Cities Association, we were blessed to gain some excellent memories, a deeper understanding of a faraway culture, and best of all, a larger family.

Staring out the window of the KTX bullet-train bound for Seoul, my mind drifted back to the dragons at the Buddhist temple we saw in Gangjin. We entered the country with mouths and minds open and were going home with our teeth clenched on an orb filled with knowledge, food, and friendship. The world is a big place, filled with pleasant surprises in unexpected corners. South Korea is one of them.

A Korean Mouthful (Part 2)

2009-04-28T22:27:00.000-07:00

As we passed through the elaborate wooden entrance gate to Borim Temple in Jangheung, our guide explained the two dragon statues we saw overhead. Both menacing in their gaze in hopes of scaring off evil spirits, the one with an open mouth symbolized the entering worshipper's need to be empty of distraction and receptive of knowledge. The other, with a large orb clamped between its sharpened teeth, represented the wisdom one would hopefully leave with as they made their way back home. "Maybe each of you will leave with a mouthful of knowledge too," she said. That was terribly unlikely, given that Mr. Jang only allotted a brief fifteen minutes in this Buddhist sanctuary. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but relate the symbolism in those dragon statues to the greater exchange student experience. We opened our minds as well as our home in volunteering to host Kim Hyeon-Ju, but it wasn't until coming here, to her country, and staying a night in her home, with her wonderful family, that we finally gained our own morsel of understanding. And I was hungry for more...

Our scheduled meeting with the rest of our delegation at Gimpo Airport for a 7pm flight to Gwangju, in the southern Jeollanam-do province, didn't go as scheduled. The plans were muddled at best and suffered from several last-minute changes that left me in a foul mood before we even arrived. It was nearly 7pm when a Korean man with a sign bearing our names walked up in jeans and a khaki sport jacket. He was in his thirties, with a broad smile, and though Mr. Jang would be our guide for the next few days things didn't get off to a good start. Our mayor's flight was delayed and we could no longer fly to Gwangju. We had to drive with him back to Incheon to meet the other host family and wait for the mayor to arrive. We'd then pile into a private tour bus for the nearly 6-hour drive to Gangjin. If we were lucky, we'd arrive in Gangjin by two o'clock in the morning. I wanted to grab my bag and sprint back down the stairs to the subway and disappear into the night. I wanted to put into words just how asinine I thought this plan was. I wanted to tell him to bugger off and that we'd take a train down in the morning. But I couldn't. I was a guest in their country at the invitation of Gangjin's mayor, the affable Hwang Ju-Hong, and non-compliance would be the height of rudeness. Also, I had little to complain about. The other host family on the trip, Angela and Bob, had gotten to Incheon at 2pm from Shanghai, where they were visiting family, and have been held captive by Mr. Jang for the better part of the day. Then there was Mayor Matt and Tina, a board member of the Sister Cities Association, who would be stepping off a trans-Pacific flight and stepping right onto the unfortunate 6-hour bus ride. In comparison, Kristin and I had it pretty easy.

We woke in the morning with a stiff neck from the bus ride and a sore back from a bed that was little more than a boxspring wrapped in a sheet, but the annoyance of the previous night vanished as I pulled back the curtain. It's a strange feeling to go to sleep without any concept of your surroundings and I was too tired when we finally arrived (to a smiling Mayor Hwang and his staff armed with massive fruit baskets and bouquets) to look around or ask any questions. But after my eyes adjusted to the sunlight flooding the room, I saw that our room overlooked a grassy field with tasteful statuary and that we were nestled between a low-lying range of mountains to the west and a misty bay to the east. Between the statues and mountains lay numerous fields of leafy greens and rice. We were staying at the Dasan Center, a newly-built YMCA of sorts complete with hotel-like lodging for out of town guests. The bed made me long for a futon on the floor, but I very much appreciated the surroundings. It was great to be out of the city.

Gangjin, located on Doam Bay at the southern edge of the peninsula, is a town with a heavy reliance on agriculture and feels every bit the lengthy bus ride from Seoul. Gangjin has suffered a massive population exodus over the past few decades with numbers dropping from roughly 100,000 in the 1980's to just 40,000 today and Mayor Hwang is working diligently, along with the mayors of neighboring towns, to reverse this trend by reshaping these towns in a new light. The problems of Gangjin are universal to small towns and agricultural communities around the globe -- the young grow up, attend college, and move to the cities in pursuit of bigger paychecks and faster living. Gentrification sets in, the population drops off, and towns die. Part of the reason for our trip, or at least for our mayor being there, was that South Korea is very interested in the development practices on display in our little town of Snoqualmie. They have an official from Seoul living in our town for 18 months and Mayor Matt as we call him was asked to give a presentation on the "Live, Work, Play" design ethos at work in Snoqualmie Ridge, the community we live in. The presentation was to a crowd of 100 bureaucrats at work in city and county government and that if I didn't already live there, I'd be jealous of anyone who did. I'm sure many were.

That first day in Gangjin was largely spent on official business with a few stops at local in-town historic sites mixed in. The Dasan Center we were staying at was named after a famous writer and thinker named Jeong Yak-Yong (Dasan was his pen-name) who was banished to Gangjin in the early 19th century for contrarian thoughts. Though he was largely known for authoring nearly 600 books, he also invented a number of devices such as the floating pontoon bridge and a crane for lifting heavy rocks. The people of Gangjin, his home-in-exile, consider him their own private Da Vinci. We'd later pile into a rustic room (crossed legs, shoes off) at Dasan Chodang, where he lived for 12 years upon arrival in Gangjin, and drink a milky rice wine called makkoli while a midday shower sprinkled down on the thatch roof. It was a relaxing break in the midst of a day filled with pomp, speeches, and more group photos than I care to admit. "Everybody say kimchi! One, two, kimchi!"

Following an exquisite lunch of grilled beef from regionally-produced shitake cattle (high quality beef is hard to find and very costly in this land of pork, seafood, and bulgogi), we moved to the county chief's offices for tea then back to City Hall for a lengthy exchanging of gifts with the city council and signing of an agreement that would further cement the ties between the two towns -- they'll be sending an official from Gangjin to Snoqualmie to study our culture and development practices for 6 months . I was asked to read the english version of the contract aloud which, I suppose, gives me the unique experience of having "had the floor" at a special meeting of a foreign nation's city council.

The highlight of our time not only in Gangjin, but of the whole trip, came later that night. Hyeon-Ju and her parents and brothers were waiting back at the Dasan Center to join us for a welcoming buffet that was arranged by the town. It was great to see her again and though her parents speak very little english, we were able to piece together enough to communicate well. Hyeon-Ju's mother (I am positively awful with names and must admit that I don't remember it) was much prettier than either Kristin or I expected. Though we didn't dare say so aloud, her mother had a similar impression of me and commented that I was much more fit than I had looked in the photo she had seen -- damn that wooly Scottish sweater! If this comment didn't make me feel at ease with her parents, then her father's first question certainly did. He asked us if Hyeon-Ju talked much with us in America or if she showed any emotion. He said Hyeon-Ju is a quiet girl who hides her feelings and that he was afraid we might perceive her reserved nature as a slight. Hyeon-Ju smiled and nodded along with her father's fragmented sentences as if she had read our minds and knew that we were a bit disappointed with the ease at which she said goodbye to us in February. It was upsetting to be the only host parents whose student wasn't crying their eyes out, but this set it right. We were unsure how welcome we'd be and suddenly had our answer.

We were two-thirds through our first plates of food at the buffet and starting to feel the effects of the day's near-constant feasting when Hyeon-Ju warned us not to eat too much, that her mom was planning a big dinner. Naturally, as a guest and especially when traveling, I always try to eat what's put in front of me and try a little bit of everything. I had even that next day eaten a very large piece of raw, fermented skate called hongeo hoe that tasted of pure ammonia (next time, I'll just urinate in a bowl and save the chef the hassle). I had never thought that being a gracious guest could lead to a dangerous metabolic situation, but I was fast approaching that point (and let's face it, the quality of the toilets in South Korea are something of a crapshoot... pun fully intended). Kristin and I simultaneously dropped our stainless steel chopsticks, intentionally this time, slippery that they are, and barely concealed our gasps. We each tried to muster an excited, flattered smile but on the inside we were pleading for a reprieve. The meal at Hyeon-Ju's would be our fifth of the day and these people weren't kidding around.

We quickly consolidated clothes into a single suitcase and piled into the Kim family minivan, a Kia Carnival, for the drive to their home on the edge of town. It's a modest three bedroom, one bath, single-story brick home at the end of a quiet lane surrounded by rice paddies. The living area consisted of three desks along the wall, a small table in the center, an exercise bicycle, and a state-of-the-art kimchi refrigerator by LG. The massive burgundy-colored chest was a technological marvel and clearly the wife's prized possession. Having a kimchi refrigerator may sound odd, but kimchi is eaten three times a day in Korea and an entire year's worth is made just once each winter -- satisfactory refrigeration is not an option, especially given its powerful odor. The other item in the living area, the one that really made us feel special, was a simple calendar hanging on the wall. The 15th of April, that day we were there with them in their home, was circled repeatedly. Someone had even drawn little stars next to it. It was the only day of the month that had any notation.

Hyeon-Ju and her parents must have sensed our sighs at the Dasan Center and understood how full we were because the big dinner never appeared. Fortunately, they instead laid out several bowls of snacks, and just a few banchan. I'm sure the massive spread put before us the following morning was the dinner they had planned for that night. So we nibbled politely at the snacks, drank a beer with her father, and tried our best to talk. Just when we were starting to really feel at home, they brought out the gifts. Hyeon-Ju's miniature 12 year old brother who spoke very good english (he's hell-bent on getting the grades to be an exchange student and says he only wants us as his host parents), and was forever running around the house doing curls with a pair of 3-pound dumbbells, brought us a box of cactus chocolate from Jejudo Island, an island off the coast of the Korean Peninsula that is the honeymoon capital of eastern Asia. Mom and dad went to Jejudo Island to celebrate their 20th anniversary the previous weekend and not only brought back the chocolate, but also a pair of dol hareubang carved out of a very porous basalt. They come in pairs and are considered to be gods that offer protection from demons and, hopefully to a lesser extent, increased fertility. They placed their half of the set in their garden outside and instructed us to take ours home and place it in our house; they will bond the families and protect us. "And now that you rubbed it, you'll have a baby boy," Hyeon-Ju's mom said as Kristin handled the idol. Hyeon-Ju must have told her parents that we don't wish to have any children because she was clearly teasing Kristin and laughing when she said this.

We brought gifts of our own, though unfortunately nothing as meaningful as the basalt idol. We had brought several one-pound bags of Hershey's miniatures, as big a hit in Korea as The Beatles in 60's America, for Hyeon-Ju and her two brothers and a bottle of wine from the Snoqualmie Winery for her parents. The mother disappeared as her father and I were opening our second bottle of Cafri, a very light-tasting beer that tasted surprisingly similar to Corona. We didn't see her leave, and she was only gone for about 30 minutes, but when she arrived back she had armloads of KFC fried chicken and sweet n' spicy boneless chicken wings. Trailing behind her were her two sisters, their husbands, and two of Hyeon-Ju's young cousins. And for the next two hours we sat and talked and drank and ate and got to know our new family, our extended Korean family. They sent their daughter to live with us, total strangers, and only by the generosity of their mayor did we get to meet, but the bond we felt with them was real. And as if to prove that it wasn't the Cafri playing tricks with our minds, the walk we took in the morning after the kids went to school, and the way Hyeon-Ju's mom held Kristin's hand and thanked us, made it all the more real. The language barrier was real, but you could read her eyes clearly. We returned her daughter home safe and sound, and took pretty damn good care of her while she was with us and gave her an opportunity no student in their town had previously had. We were family now.

Our delegation spent much of the next day feeling what it might be like to be rockstars. Gangjin doesn't see many westerners and when we walked through the halls of Gangjin and St. Joseph's high schools, the latter an all-girls Catholic school, we were greeted with a chorus of cheers and screaming and all-around hysteria. It was fantastic. High school in South Korea is the most important time in a child's life as their studies and placement tests dictate which university they can attend and, in some respects, what their future will hold. School runs from 7:30 am till 10:30 pm five days a week and for class again on every other Saturday. They wear uniforms, most students don't have hobbies, and few see each other socially. There is no time for that now, childhood all but ends at the start of high school for these kids. And knowing all this made it all the sweeter when the kids from a half-dozen classrooms threw up the windows and shouted down at us as we left. They waved and yelled and proclaimed their love, all the while their teachers tried fruitlessly to get them back to their seats. One young stud shouted down to Kristin an invitation to meet him in his dreams that night. I couldn't help but smile; at least he's got good taste.

We'd see our students one final time before leaving Gangjin. Much to our surprise, all 12 exchange students were waiting in a receiving line for us back at the Dasan Center that night for dinner. The speeches and introductions seemed to drag on forever, but there was plenty of soju and a wealth of food and Kristin and I got to enjoy one final meal with Hyeon-Ju and some of the exchange students who just two months ago we'd never thought we'd see again. Conversation was funny and spirited and a couple of the boys we were sitting with couldn't believe that I had eaten the dreaded hongeo hoe earlier that day and began daring one another to eat it -- right up until one of them ran to the bathroom to vomit. Boys will be boys, all around the world. As fun as the night was, it had to end with a goodbye; this time for an indeterminate amount of time. I hate goodbyes.

We packed our bags and left the Dasan Center the next morning and drove to Jangheung, a vibrant city an hour east of Gangjin. Though I pride myself on seeing through high-gloss promotional videos with a cutting glare, I couldn't help but want to inquire about teaching english in this fascinating town shortly after the mayor's video ended. A small city keenly aware of what they have to offer and what they stand to lose if they don't hold onto their youth, Jangheung is a place I wish we had more time for. It's a place with festivals, parks, a sculpted pedestrian-friendly downtown, natural seaside beauty, and an up-and-coming tech sector, surrounded by farmland and a short drive from national parks. If only Mr. Jang wasn't cracking the whip and driving us onward towards Suncheon just two hours after arriving. But so is the case when dealing with tour guides; always at the mercy of the itinerary they create, a one-size-fits-none schedule assembled in a vacuum with higher importance placed on available bus parking than the traveler's interests.

The one benefit to leaving Jangheung and continuing our trip eastward along the southern coast of the peninsula was that we had finally run out of officials to glad-hand. We left the Jeollanam-do province and headed inland to a folk village that saved itself from being a complete tourist trap of Epcot-proportions by instituting a set of rules that allowed for workers to live in the village, provided they maintained a traditional way of life. Set on the sight of an ancient castle, with some of the fortress wall still in tact (and open for walks), I found the Suncheon Folk Village to be a rather dull locale, albeit with a couple of very photogenic villagers. Sadly, the most memorable aspect of the stop was watching Kristin eat a beondegi .

Our final night with the delegation (whom, if not for the schedule that was out of our hands was a really pleasant group to travel with) was spent at a wild tea house, a retreat of sorts located a mile down a dirt road from the thousand year old Seonamsa Temple. We hiked up to the temple in the late afternoon and wandered amongst the countless brightly-colored lanterns strung up in celebration of Buddha's upcoming birthday and listened to the chanting, drumming, and bell-tolling of the Buddhist monks. Despite their being an entire cottage-industry of restaurants and shops set up near the parking lot, the two mile hike to the temple provided ample buffer and ensured all visitors were adequately reverent by the time they arrived. With a night at the smartly-appointed, yet utterly traditional and simple tea house costing the equivalent of $8 US, I couldn't help but dream about retreating here to while away the days and weeks reading, writing, and making daily trips up the path to Seonamsa or to the far more remote temple 6 miles up a steep trail into the mountain.

I woke that next morning before sunrise and took a stroll in the chill air outside and gawked at the meadows of camellia in the distance, and studied the glow of the sun glancing off the sides of the tea house buildings. On a hill just above the retreat was a group of older Korean men doing their morning tai chi. Though my hands ached with a cold that only an early morning in the mountains can bring, I wrote page after page in my journal and promised myself that I would return to this place one day if I ever needed time to heal.

Prior to the trip, whenever Kristin and I mentioned that we were headed to South Korea, those who know us best commonly replied by saying that we'd be able to remove the country from the list of places to visit in the round-the-world trip we're planning. Truth is, visiting South Korea never occurred to us and wasn't on any list. And up until that moment, sitting alone in the sun, in the total calm of my surroundings, returning to this country didn't really interest us either. Sure, we had the same moments of weakness and passing fancy that people feel when they say they never want to leave that all-inclusive beachside resort they honeymooned in, but that was it. Yet, there on that hillside, at that traditionally-styled tea hall with the ancient temple up the hill and the monks in their robes and a mountain of trails all around me, I realized I just might return.

When Kristin woke, I told her about my walk and told her that if something ever happened to her and I ended up alone, that this would be where I'd come. That I'd come here to write and to think, and to mourn. That I'd hike up the mountain and listen to the bells and the drums and follow the stream back down as my thoughts flowed out onto the paper. And though nobody on this planet would know where I was, she would know. And that if there really is a way to watch our loved ones from the afterlife, that she would know where to find me.

And there wouldn't be a tour guide hurrying me onto a bus to Busan...

A Korean Mouthful (Part 1)

2009-04-26T22:00:00.000-07:00

The bridge disappeared off to the right; a grand concrete and steel span crossing Kanghwa Bay and vanishing out of sight in a thick mustardy haze. Whether land was a mile out or five, I couldn’t tell. The air was impenetrable. Disturbing as the scene was, I couldn’t fault the people of South Korea for this unfortunate first impression as the suffocating blanket of smog rolled south out of China, rising on the onshore breeze like a tsunami of pollution. I was warned well in advance of the seasonal dust storms blowing out of China’s massive deserts, but this was no dust storm. There, on public bus #6011 from Incheon to Seoul, I began to wonder just how pointless my eco-efforts back home were as long as China continued to make 20th century industrial mistakes on a 21st century scale. I’d see only half of this bridge again, out the left-hand window eleven days later on my way back to Incheon International Airport, and though these wouldn’t be the only times my senses were so assaulted (Seoul’s sewage system is vastly outmatched by the population, as told by my nose), the vanishing half-bridge was a reminder of how this peninsula’s future will be just as influenced by its neighbors as was its war-torn past.

We arrived in Seoul four days ahead of the rest of our small-town delegation. Kristin and I were staying in a small hanok located in a traditional neighborhood known as Bukchon Village on the north side of this sprawling megalopolis. Once home to the city’s nobility during the fifteenth century, and nestled between the palaces of Gyeongbokgung and Chandeokgung just a few short blocks from Insadong, a popular pedestrian center home to numerous antique and tea shops as well as a few dozen street merchants hawking a number of snacks and kitsch, Bukchon Village was now the focus of historic preservation. Our hanok at the Seoul Guest House was devoid of furniture save for an unnecessary television cart and was a generous 90 square feet in size. It had no windows; we slept on a pair of thin futon pads stretched out over unplugged electric heating pads in a room in dire need of a breeze. We wanted traditional and paid for Spartan. It suited our needs perfectly.

Seoul is a city unlike any I've been to. It's routinely ranked in the top 5 most populated in the world with estimates placing the population between 10 million (city core) and 20 million (greater metropolitan area). One need only stare at a map of Seoul's ten subway lines and nearly 300 stations to realize the scope of this capital city. Partially ringed by mountains and bisected by the Han River, there is the feeling of some natural splendor amidst the concrete, but not much. Seoul is a utilitarian city, designed not to impress through inspired design and architecture, but to move large volumes of people from drab high rise lookalike apartments to work and back again. Space is not at the premium it is in Japan, as evidenced by the lack of the island nation's famed micro-cars and the overwhelming presence of American-sized Hyundai Santa Fes, yet you do feel that few people in Seoul have much personal space. We certainly didn't.

We woke our first morning in Seoul, Easter Sunday no less, at the uncivilized hour of five o'clock and found ourselves alone in the city under a blue and surprisingly smog-free sky. Nothing was open. We were starving and each of the convenience stores and coffee shops in Bukchon were closed. In this primarily Buddhist nation, our predicament had nothing to do with the holiday I once celebrated as a child, but because Seoul is a city that stays up late. Instead of opening, these stores had just closed a couple of hours before we woke up. I spotted a few shopping arcades on the map and led the way into a labyrinth of shuttered stalls and shops, hoping something would be open, that somebody would have some food. We called out random turns at each intersection and wandered deeper and deeper into what, judging by the drawings on the signs, was a maze of shops catering to electricians and machinists. None were open. No people were to be seen. I'm thankful the sun always rises in the east, else we might still be searching for a way out.

We wandered along the jogging path through the manmade canal, Cheonggye Stream, and practiced saying anyong haseyo (hello/good morning) to the smiling runners we passed. We spent much of that first day in Seoul searching for the most outrageously named counterfeit clothes we could find at Namdaemun Market. The ten-buck Bulgari and Gucci watches merely whet our appetite for ogling fake goods; it wasn't until we spotted the fake outerwear that we realized what a treasure trove this place was. Kristin spotted a fake Pore-Tech jacket with a "The Black Face" logo (we'd later spot one with a "The Red Face" logo in Busan -- so wrong, but so funny) and my big find was a pair of sandals with an otherwise indistinguishable red, white, and blue "Fira" logo. Unable to help myself, I promptly did my best animated Kim Jong Il impersonation and sang a few bars of "I'm So Ronery." Ultimately, our favorite was a tribute to a timeless movie classic; a hat that simply stated "I Love Cake: Goodgies Never Say Die". Baby Ruth, anybody? The upscale Myeongdong shopping district, home to very legit boutiques carrying every American, Italian, and French luxury brand you can name was just a few short blocks away, but we were far more interested in the festival-like atmosphere at Namdaemun. Trying to stick to a budget of just 120,000 won per day ($100 US) as practice for our round-the-world trip, we lunched on chicken heart skewers and ddukboki (rice cakes in a spicy red-pepper sauce) at a pojangmacha with a small plastic table and stools. We'd come to realize that each of Seoul's markets specializes in its own local street food, all the more reason to carry plenty of spare change and resist the temptation to have a sit-down lunch in a restaurant.

Knowing that our time in South Korea would unfortunately take the form of a guided tour come Wednesday morning and that I would have to surrender all independence and be led unwillingly from one cultural site to the next as an honorary -- and very appreciative -- guest of local government, I set to immerse myself in real-world Seoul as much as I could in the short time we had. I struggle to think of a better way to accomplish this than heading to Jamsil Stadium for a game between the LG Twins and Doosan Bears, Seoul's two baseball teams. Watching the Korean teams on television during the Olympics and World Baseball Classic only tells half the story. While there's no denying the talent on the field isn't quite on par with your average Major League club (though they are very, very good), we American fans are downright bores compared to the Koreans. This wasn't a baseball game we attended; compared to an MLB stadium, this was like going to a Brazilian soccer match.

For starters, nearly everyone in the 30,000 person crowd had a pair of inflatable clapping sticks (including us) and at least half of that crowd could be heard banging them together every moment of the game. I sat mesmerized in the first inning as the fans of the Doosan Bears, sitting along the third base line, clapped in unison during every at-bat. Supporters of the LG Twins, the home team that night, tried to outdo them once the pitcher had gotten the count to two strikes. Each side had their own style and each had their own unique songs for nearly every batter that came to the plate. The noise was tremendous, thundering through the stadium into the night sky, and never let up. Nine nonstop innings of singing, banging, and stomping. The only time the synchronized banging of the clapping sticks yielded was during the sixth inning stretch when a couple of fans were invited onto a miniature stage for an impromptu karaoke contest.

The choreographed use of the ubiquitous clapping sticks and singing was a far cry from the uninspired "Yankees Suck" chants that serve as the height of fan creativity at MLB games back home, but it wasn't the only difference. The game turned on a sixth inning fly ball to right-centerfield. The right fielder ran over and seemed to have the clearer play on the ball, but was waved off by the center fielder moving in. The center-fielder presumably lost the ball in the lights. It fell, untouched, eight feet in front of him. Nobody booed. The Doosan Bears took the lead on that play and never gave it back. The non-catch happened right in front of us and the other LG Twins supporters we sat amongst, yet nobody disrespected the player for his error. Everyone was disappointed, for sure, but I can only assume the fans knew he felt enough shame and there was no reason to pile on. The fans immediately went back to their singing and stomping as the pitcher struck out the next batter. We moved over to stand amongst the diehards near first base for the final two innings and were overwhelmed by the passion. It was only the third game of the season and it had all the electricity of a pennant race, multiplied (click here for video; forward to the 3:00 mark for where it really heats up).

Kristin and I fared much better in our search for breakfast the following morning, a Monday. We'd visit the same small cafe in Bukchon Village both of our remaining days in Seoul and sit for an hour or two, drinking our coffees, eating our spongy bagels with their vanilla-flavored butter, and relaxing. Traveling can get pretty exhausting if you don't sit and do nothing every now and then; I learned this lesson fast. Kristin couldn't escape mandatory reading for business school and was nose-deep into books on leadership and the economy of China whenever not scribbling away in her journal. I was reading "Dark Star Safari" by Paul Theroux and simultaneously wondering if I would ever make the leap from writing strategy guides for videogames to writing about real places, like Theroux. Would I ever possess his mastery of the language? Could I ever be as perceptive? Would I ever dare attempt a trip like his? Or should I just go on trying to master my own niche and accept my lot? Traveling can get pretty depressing if left to sit with your thoughts for too long; I doubt I'll ever learn this lesson.

We sped through nearby Gyeongbokgung Palace, a grand royal residence torched by angry Koreans in 1592 after the frightened leadership fled the city for fear of Japanese invasion. It was rebuilt some 300 years later and is impressive for its size and for the brightly-colored paintings that adorn the ends of each and every roof beam. Too bad about the chicken wire being needed to protect it from pigeons. We wandered the myriad dirt paths that linked the dozen or so buildings; we gawked at the iron dragons perched on the corners of the hip-and-gable roof; and we climbed the stairs of the primary structure and stared out over the palace grounds to the gate and noticed no less than twenty tour buses offloading their cattle. We sprinted down the stairs, out the temple gate, and escaped to Anguk Station.

Three subway lines and 9 stops later we emerged on Yeouido Island, a massive island on the south side of the Han River and home to Seoul's financial district. Nearly every worldwide banking acronym from AIG to ING has their logo on the side of a towering building here, but that's not why we came. We came for the parks, or more specifically to see the cherry blossoms and to rent a bicycle. South Korea's President Lee Myung-Bak is working hard to get Koreans cycling and is actively pushing for cities like Seoul and Busan to build more bike paths. Two such paths run along either bank of the Han River and stretch for over 40 kilometers.

A young couple approached us as we were exiting the subway station at Yeouido to tell us the park is all torn up for construction and there's nothing to see. "Sorry to tell you this, but you came here for nothing." He was the first westerner we had seen since leaving the airport. He was pale, red-haired, and had a baseball cap on and what looked like lacrosse shorts. He seemed a bit overly friendly, and a little too eager to share this major discovery. He knew something we didn't and wanted us -- westerners that we are -- to know it. The female half of the couple, a cute Korean of about 25 years, quickly cycled through the photos on her camera to show me the destruction. It was true, the riverside park was one giant mound of dirt, laced with orange plasticized fencing, and sprinkled with heavy machinery.

"What about the other parks," I asked "are they torn up too? We were really hoping to go walk around Yeouido Park and then rent a bike."

He didn't know there were other parks on the island. In fact, though he made reference to the Lonely Planet guidebook, he clearly never looked at the map it came with and focused too much on the recommended sites. The island has no less than four parks. Only the one along the river and nearest the subway was undergoing renovation. So we smiled, thanked him for the tip, and continued up the stairs. We hurried across an eighteen-lane intersection to Yeouido Park, where we whiled away a warm spring afternoon. We walked aimlessly along the paths watching children feed enormous strawberry-red carp in a pond; we sniffed at the cherry blossoms floating to the ground on a gentle breeze; and we smiled at the sight of business men in fabulously tailored suits sitting on the grass licking ice cream cones. It was lunchtime in one of Asia's most important business centers and we were among thousands of Seoul's wealthiest in a beautiful park, all out for a midday walk. Some even making use of the exercise equipment, suit jackets and all. Not to be left out, women in skirts kicked off their heels and walked along the winding Zen-like stone path designed to stimulate the pressure points on your feet and toes. Kristin and I bought a couple of giant buckets of instant ramen at a lunch shack in the park and slurped our noodles alongside the well-heeled, both of us outrageously underdressed for present company.

Knowing it was our last night in Seoul, we thumbed the guidebook in attempt to find a restaurant that we could splurge a bit on without disappointment. We settled on a place that specialized in black pig -- they smoked it outside then it was grilled table-side. Plus they had soju, and we were certainly in the mood for a drink. Unfortunately, Lonely Planet's directions to Jongno Gol couldn't have been more wrong if the guidebook author had been dyslexic. Each of the exits in Seoul's massive metro stations are numbered and face a particular orientation on a specific side of the street. Get the number of that exit wrong and all of your further directions become useless. Now, as an imperfect guidebook author, albeit of videogames (I commonly describe what I do by saying I write travel guides for fictitious places), I can sympathize with the author and understand that mistakes can and do happen. That said, we were really, really looking forward to eating at this restaurant and he certainly didn't help our cause.

I sensed something was wrong with the directions almost immediately and decided to ignore them post-haste. We wandered around on the wrong side of a busy avenue (the crosswalks were underground) for a few minutes before journeying to the other side. I had a map of unnamed streets and a dot corresponding to the location of the restaurant. Addresses don't exist in any meaningful way in Korea, especially in Seoul. In many ways, this was just like using one of the maps I include in my own guidebooks, minus my expertly-crafted instructions on where said secret item is located. We wandered down a couple of alleys until finding one that zigged and zagged in agreement with the lines on the map. Yet where the map showed just one alley to the right, we found three. I led us down the first one, a narrow path barely wide enough for three people walking abreast. We passed some bars, a couple of sketchy restaurants, and a brothel posing as a barbershop. Not an english sign to be found anywhere. We reached the end of the alley and were just about to turn around when I smelled it: smoked pork. I breathed deeply and followed the scent down an alley running perpendicular. It was dark, we were between buildings in a back alley, and it certainly didn't look like any place tourists would venture. Yet that delicious scent intensified with each step and just a few short minutes later we were sitting on a floor cushion, legs crossed, shoes off, with a bottle of soju and a waitress placing a cauldron of red-hot coals in a grill in the center of our table.

I'd like to say the night ended with a drunken taxi ride back to the hanok where we made love and capped off a wonderful day overseas wrapped in one another's arms. And I can, after all it's my story, but that wasn't the case. Well it was, but not before breaking one of my cardinal rules: Don't pay for an elevator ride. Ever. I can't tell you how many visitors I've had to talk out of taking the lift up into the Space Needle in Seattle on account of it being a giant ripoff and there being better (and free!) views of the city to be had from a nearby park. You'd think I'd take my own advice, but no.

We left the restaurant and promptly hailed a cab for Namsan Mountain in the center of Seoul where we then paid 15,000 won for two tickets on a cable car that leads to the top of the mountain where the city's iconic N'Seoul Tower is located. Again, think Space Needle. The ushers packed about 50 of us into the cable car. Nobody could move; we couldn't even turn around. At the top we realized that the powers-at-be cunningly planted a number of trees so as to block the views of the skyline. If you wanted to see the city lights at night, you had to ride the elevator. Another 15,000 won for two, thank you very much. We hemmed and hawed and ultimately decided that we were eight time zones from home, dinner was cheaper than we expected, and what difference does twelve bucks make anyway? I'm embarrassed by how easy it is to convince me to do something when I'm traveling.

The windows on the observation deck were filthy on account of the periodic April dust storms and the constant pollution but even if they weren't, a ring of horrendously-placed fluorescent lights in the ceiling made it all but impossible to see much more than a glare and your own reflection. We walked the ring and noted the signs indicating that we were over 8,000 kilometers from Seattle and nearly 12,000 kilometers from our family in New Jersey. I tried to take some photos, but it was pointless. And it's not as if Seoul has a really distinguishable skyline anyway. If anything, we were inside the one noteworthy feature in the night's sky. I suppose I could have taken a photo of the floor.

The cable car was much emptier on the way back down the mountain. Once there, we brushed past the extortionists in the black "translation services available" taxi cabs and walked back down the hill towards Myeongdong and into the city until spotting one of the silver cabs. We had one more day in Seoul on our own and used it to explore Bukchon Village's nooks and crannies and to hike up to a Shamanist Shrine on Inwangsan Mountain, where we heard an otherworldly blend of instruments and chanting emanating from the closed doors of Guksadang shrine. We sat outside quietly and listened to the Korean Shamanists for several minutes, before continuing our hike up the mountain to Seoul's fortress wall. As suspected, the views (free!) from atop Inwangsan far surpassed any we could have hoped for from N'Seoul Tower. Lesson learned. Until next time...

*This is the first of what I expect to be a three-part story. Please submit any comments or questions either here on the blog or by emailing them directly to me via the link on the top-right corner of the page. I hope to have part 2 completed within a couple of days. Kamsahamnida.

The Rivalry

2009-04-24T01:46:00.001-07:00

It's that time of year again; April. Time to break out the lawnmower, dust off the barbecue grill, put away the winter coat, and most importantly, it's time to PLAY BALL! And nothing knocks off the winter-rust like that first meeting between hated rivals.

It just occured to me that you probably think I'm writing about this weekend's series in Fenway Park. If so, then you clearly came to the wrong blog.

No, this post (and accompanying video) is about a lesser-known rivalry, one that may not have the history of the Yanks-Sox, nor its made-for-television over-commercialization, but it has the spirit, the fierce competition, and at the risk of drawing some hate mail, I'll say that it's got a stadium full of fans that were more creative, energetic, and passionate than any I've ever seen at any MLB game. Not Yanks-Sox, not Cubs-Cards, not Dodgers-Giants. And especially not the fans down at Knott's Berry Farm, aka Safeco Field.

I'm talking about Seoul's cross-town rivalry between the LG Twins and Doosan Bears. Kristin and I woke up our first morning in Seoul and, on a whim, I decided to check to see if there was a game playing at Jamsil Stadium that night. There was, and it just so happened to be the hottest ticket in town. It was only the third game of the season and the two teams that normally share that stadium were squaring off against one another. Imagine if the Cubs and White Sox both called Wrigley Field home... that's what we were heading to.

We got to the stadium in time to get one of the first-come-first-served outfield seats for 6000 won apiece ($4.80 each) and, after picking up a couple of beers ($1.80 each for cups of Hite, a beer that all-too closely resembles Natural Light, a brew that should be outlawed for those actually above the legal drinking age) and a pair of the ubiquitous inflatable thunder-sticks. We sided with the home team and took our seats in right field. The first base side of the stadium and right field was filled with fans of the LG Twins, nearly all of whom either had a flag or a pair of red thunder-sticks. The third-base side of the stadium was home to supporters of the Doosan Bears.

From the first pitch to the final out, the noise and fan involvement was unlike anything I had ever seen. The only sporting event I can compare it to was the NFC Championship game we attended the year the Seahawks went to the Super Bowl. The fans had songs for each and every player, they were as synchronized as a team of Olympic swimmers, and they never, ever, took their eyes off the field. The fans of the team at-bat would sing and stomp and bang their thunder-sticks during each and every at-bat. The fans of the team in the field would try to out-noise them once the pitcher had two strikes on the batter.

The game had several home runs, some really good defense, and a pretty costly error. The video starts out a little slow in the first inning then really picks up after the 3:00 mark.

South Korea in Photos

2009-04-23T03:20:00.001-07:00

I went through the nearly 1500 photos I took during the 11 days I was in South Korea and of those, 167 made the cut. And as is so often the case, I only really like about 10 of them, but I'm my biggest critic.

Anyway, the photos are in sequential order: four days in Seoul, three days in Jeollanam-do in the southwest corner of the country, then three days on the coast in Busan. I recommend viewing them via the slideshow with the info pane open since I spent the time adding captions to each of them, but I'm sure you can find the way that suits you best.

Here's the link to the set, I hope you enjoy.

South Korea: The Debriefing

2009-04-22T05:00:00.000-07:00

It took 25 hours, 2 taxis, a bullet-train, a bus, and two planes to get from our hostel in Busan to our house in Snoqualmie and, naturally, I have a lot of catching up to do around the house. Suitcases to empty, a lawn to mow, groceries to buy, dogs to play with and walk, etc., etc., etc.

Kristin and I had an overall amazing trip, but not for the reasons you might expect. I'll elaborate in what I expect to be a rather lengthy three-part travel story later this week or next. I took many notes during my trip and gave thought each day to what I would write when I got home. The answer didn't come to me until one night when I laid awake in the bed belonging to Hyeon Ju's parents. I'll explain later.

First I have to sort through the more than 1200 photos I took to collect the best six or so and send them to our mayor who we spent a few days with. There's going to be an article in the Snoqualmie Valley Record about our trip (we spent part of the trip as "Official Delegates" and I even got to read the english version of an agreement between Snoqualmie and Gangjin during a meeting of Ganjin's City Council) and he needs the photos right away. Speaking of photos, everyone knows the Japanese take their photography very seriously, but so do the Koreans. It seemed like every other person had a Canon 450D and at least on in every ten cameras I saw was a Canon Mark-II 5D. That's a several thousand dollar piece of equipment, excluding the lens. My favorite were the people with the little Canon and Sony compact cameras mounted to giant studio-grade tripods. Awesome.

I do want to give a major tip of the cap (and definitely not a wag of the finger, for my fellow members of the Colbert Nation) to Air Canada. I had left a small black journal and pen in the seatback pocket on the plane that I flew on from Incheon to Vancouver. I didn't realize this until 2 hours into my layover in Vancouver on the way home. I searched the small US-only concourse for an Air Canada agent to ask for help (I was already through US customs in Canada and this portion of the airport is, as far as security is concerned, US soil so I couldn't leave without going through Canadian customs). I couldn't find one. The journal had all my notes from the trip, not to mention a detailed outline that I wrote last Friday morning during a stroll outside a wild tea retreat we stayed at near a thousand year old Buddhist temple. I returned to the bar where Kristin waited and sulked in my beer. Moments later I spotted an agent sporting the Air Canada red maple leaf and ran up and explained my problem. I felt pretty stupid copping to leaving something so important (to me) on the plane, but he wrote down my info, the flight number, where I was heading, and so forth on a scrap of paper and said he'd do what he could do.

Fifteen minutes later he walked past and glanced at the scrap of paper in his hand after seeing me spot him in the crowd. It looked like he had completely forgotten already. Figures. He walked back to me five minutes later to explain that the plane was likely already gone, that nobody found it, and that sometimes "lost means lost". He said not to give up hope, but that it will likely require some phone calls when I get back to Seattle.

He showed back up at the bar ten minutes later with my journal and pen. The book was only about 3" by 5" in size and could have very easily have been overlooked or even tossed aside. It only had writing on about 15 to 20 pages. But it was important and they found it. And Air Canada earned a loyal fan.

I didn't catch the guy's name who found it for me. I tried to buy him a beer but he was on duty. I offered to buy him lunch when he took his break (I had a long layover and our flight landed 45 minutes early), but he waved it off and simply walked away.

Well, whoever he was, he really made my day. And made his company proud. Thank you, whoever you were.

Leaving Seoul, Heading South

2009-04-13T23:53:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post before heading to the airport to meet our group from Snoqualmie and continue the journey through South Korea. We had a great three+ days in Seoul, which I will certainly be writing about when I get home. From here we head to Gangjin for a couple days with our respective exchange students and their mayor, then Kristin and I will bid goodbye to the group on Saturday and spend our final days in South Korea on our own again, just how we like it.

Seoul isn't a glamorous city and isn't anyplace that you need to spend more than 3 or 4 days in. The markets are incredible, the baseball game we attended was one of the more incredible sporting events I've been to, and, well, the food isn't bad. We did a stiff hike Inwangsan Mountain today to pass by a shaministic temple and gaze out over the city. We sipped tea and ate broiled rice cakes on a flower-lined balcony in the afternoon and we were almost run over by the exact same moped twice in two hours.

Going to miss the metro service, hoping Busan's is of comparable quality.

Two Weeks Without Games & Rocks

2009-04-09T07:48:00.000-07:00

I've spent the better part of this week trying to convince Kristin to get some sleep, but to no avail. She came home from school on Saturday with a rather deer-in-the-headlights look on her. When asked what was the matter, she simply told me she had 5 papers to write before we leave for South Korea on Friday morning. In case that wasn't bad enough, one of the professors waited until Wednesday evening to tell the class what the topic was. As of Thursday morning, another professor has yet to reveal his mystery subject. So each night, around 1 in the morning, I began talking her into going to bed. Force was threatened on more than one occasion.

Yesterday I woke up at 4:15 to find the other half of the bed empty. She woke at 4 to get more work done. I can't tell whether I'm more concerned for her health and sanity or because she's starting to make me look bad.

Yeah, I know I know, "what do you mean starting?" Very funny.

As dumb-luck and Murphy's Law would have it: Puzzle Quest: Galactrix finally released yesterday on XBLA for the equivalent of $20. Why do the games I'm always most excited to get release the week I'm about to leave on a trip? It has happened far too many times. From what I can tell, it seems to be a deeply engaging puzzle-RPG hybrid just like the original game in the series, yet this one has a space-theme instead of your standard fantasy realm with knights and elves. I played the first game on the DS and was wondering if I would miss the point-and-tap controls on the XBLA version and the answer is... drumroll, please... sometimes. The shortcomings of the Xbox 360 controller's D-pad have been widely discussed (Cliff's Notes version: it's utter crap), but it wasn't until playing Galactrix that I realized the Control Stick isn't the most accurate tool either.

Maybe it's me (it probably is) but I would recommend to everyone about to play the game on the Xbox 360 that they pause a moment before pressing the A Button to confirm a move. If you're anything like me, the gem you want to swap won't always be the one you select -- even though you clearly believe you pointed right at it.

The new Gears of War 2 maps and title update have succeeded in giving the group I play with incentive to eject their COD4 discs and return to the dark side that is third-person shooting. If only for a night or two, then it was straight back to COD4. As much as I absolutely do enjoy playing Gears 2's multiplayer mode, it's the only game that I've ever experienced any sense of lag in when playing online. And that's not hyperbole, it really is the only game I notice this with. And the 8 or so guys I play with regularly all say the same thing. It's also the only game I know of whose title updates and glitch-fixes get immediately hacked and exploited upon release. I don't know if it has to do with the Unreal Engine or if people just have certain affinity for exploiting Gears 2, or what. But there have been three "title updates" now to fix myriad glitches, hacks, and exploits, yet the jerkoffs among us still find ways to cheat. Name one other game this happens in? Time's up. You couldn't, could you? Me neither.

The latest title update added a rather simplistic XP leveling system. In short, you get experience for kills and downs, lose some for deaths and for quitting and you level up. You don't actually gain anything with reaching a new level, well nothing aside from the sense of pride you feel when you show the world how large your e-penis is. Mine's currently a 16 out of 100. Despite it being said to require 7,000,000 XP to reach level 100, a few of Xbox Live's premier douchebags found a way to hack the system and level up instantly. This is a good time to let you know that it's very difficult to average more than 800 to 1000 points per match. Note that I said average there. As much as I would like to place all of the blame on the jackasses who exploit games and cheat their way to a larger Gamerscore, I can't help but wonder if any of the code for this game is bullet-proof. I've been to Epic multiple times now and I've seen how hard the devs and designers work. That's why I wonder if it's the Unreal engine -- something ain't right for one game to be so heavily glitched & exploited.

The XP needed to level up is only attainable through Public matches which tend to be the most laggy. I wonder how many levels higher than me my friends will be by the time I get back. Right now we're all somewhere between 12 and 25. Again, the number only indicates how little sunlight you see, err, how much time you spend playing Gears 2. There are Achievements at milestones for 5, 15, 25, 50, and 100. I'll never see 100 and probably won't see 50 this year. Then again, the newest map pack -- Snowblind -- is pretty awesome. They remade Fuel Depot, one of our favorites, and finally included the Courtyard map that shipped with the original PC version of the first Gears of War game. There are also two others, Underhill and Grind Yard.

As much as I'm looking forward to going to South Korea tomorrow, I'm going to really miss rock climbing. Kristin and I have been going twice a week now for nearly two months now and though my hands are completely torn up, we're both really enjoying it. Kristin got a little frustrated the other night because I had a minor breakthrough and was able to do a few trickier (albeit, beginner) routes that she couldn't. She admitted later to hoping that bouldering would be something that she would finally excel at over me, but it wasn't too happen. She's doing really good, and gets better each time, but she has a bit more of a fear factor at work against her and my longer arms and height make a lot of the routes easier. Not to mention I just have more upper body strength.

I went to Stone Gardens yesterday alone for the first time after my dentist appointment. I spent an hour or so upstairs in "the cave" and was very happy to finally a ceiling route that Kristin and I have been trying for over a month. It was all in the feet. It's only rated V1 (out of a scale of V0 to V12) because the holds were really big and not too far apart, but I wasn't even close to getting it last week and yesterday I did it on my second try. I also came within one hold from getting a V1+ too.

My brother said a lot of the V0 and V1's that he saw at Stone Gardens would have been V3's at the place he climbs in at Boulder, CO so that makes me feel a little better about struggling with what, mathematically at least, is "the easiest" route in the building. I should add that they do have a number of VB rated routes for total first-timers too. For the past month I would focus mainly on the V0 routes and try one or two V1's per night. Sunday night, I solved four V1 routes (none I had seen before) and then yesterday I almost got that V1+ and was actually able to start a V2 that I tried just before leaving. A lot of times even figuring out how to get on the wall to start a route is really hard.

Anyway, I know I'm going to miss the climbing while we're away, not least because I'm enjoying the increased muscle tone in my shoulders and arms, but also because I don't want my hands to fully heal and get soft again. I'm trying to get them nice and calloused and not climbing for 2 weeks isn't going to help that.

Posts will be few and far between while I'm in South Korea. I'm not bringing any blackberries, laptops, or netbooks. I'm sure we'll pop in at a cyber-cafe every other two or three days to check email and maybe post something short, but those who know me IRL will likely find it easier to get a hold of me through Facebook than on the blog.

Have a good couple of weeks. See you back Stateside on the 21st.

Author Blog

2009-04-07T09:53:00.000-07:00

Doing something a little different today. My editors at BradyGames have invited me to make an occasional post about recent books that I've written and my current projects. You can follow these posts here on RG or by becoming a fan of BradyGames on Facebook. Feel free to leave any questions or comments here or on Facebook, but do try to keep it civil. Thanks.

Hello everyone, I’m Doug Walsh, a strategy guide author for BradyGames. I’ve been writing for BradyGames for almost 9 years now and have had the good fortune of authoring guidebooks for many of the best games to come out in recent years.

My editors have been keeping me busy this year with writing duties for Blue Dragon Plus, MadWorld, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine – not a bad way to start the year. And let me just say that if you haven’t played MadWorld, then you’re really missing out. MadWorld truly is one of the most artistic, entertaining, and hilariously violent games I’ve ever played. And I’m not just saying that because the good folks at Sega and Platinum Games stuffed me full of sushi and shochu while visiting Platinum’s offices in Osaka.

Speaking of which, you can see photos from my trip to Japan right here.

Our book for X-Men Origins: Wolverine will be on shelves later this month and though I’m a bit biased, any fan of the X-Men or comic books in general needs to check this game out. I really enjoyed the game’s light RPG elements and unleashing my inner Berserker has never been more fun. The Uncaged Edition (PS3 and Xbox 360 versions) is definitely not a game for the kiddies – Wolverine’s claws are razor-sharp for a reason – but it’s certainly one of the best comic book games I’ve played and is sure to be a great compliment to the movie releasing in May. Just be warned that if you want to find every Mutagen and collectible, then you had better pick up our book. Some of them are very, very well-hidden.

Lastly, and speaking of games based on comic book characters, I’m currently writing the strategy guide for Batman: Arkham Asylum (is this shaping up to be a great year for me, or what?). Naturally, I can’t reveal any details just yet, but having experienced nearly everything the game has to offer, I won’t hesitate to give it my highest recommendation. The blend of exploration, stealth, and combat is done exceptionally well and the developers at Rocksteady have done a phenomenal job capturing the Batman universe. I can’t get enough of the various Batgadgets and the writing, art style, and presentation of the game is very impressive. I hadn’t even heard of the game a month ago, but now it’s one of my favorite games of the year. And I expect it will be one of yours too.

The Best Rotten Ride Ever

2009-04-05T10:36:00.000-07:00

Finally, after what seemed like weeks of steady rain, snow, and grey skies, the clouds parted and the sun shone through. As luck would have it, I posted a mountain bike ride at Moran State Park on Orcas Island for this very day. A group of 9 solid riders met in Anacortes for the early morning ferry to the San Juan Islands. Spirits were high, especially for me. We were headed to one of my favorite places to ride and many in our group hadn't ever ridden there, and nobody who had, had ever done my proposed route. Except me, that is. One of my favorite things about leading rides is getting to share my favorite places with those who have never been. The weather would be chilly (how chilly, we couldn't foresee) but the sun was out and the trails were a lot of fun.

After a mandatory coffee & bagel stop in Eastsound, we continued the drive around the horseshoe-shaped island to the trailhead I like to use near Cascade Lake. The route begins with a 1.8 mile kick-to-the-teeth. Good luck keeping your heart-rate below 180 as you grunt your way up and over the first few hills.

The group was keeping together well and I was confident we'd have a really great day. We regrouped at the start of the double-track climb up to Mt. Pickett and pedaled on. And that's when my ride ended. Despite it taking 6 hours roundtrip by car and ferry to reach this jewel of a trail system, despite it being my beloved bike's two-year birthday, and despite -- no because -- of me bringing my bike to get a tune-up in March, my derailleur hanger ripped in two at the start of the benign climb up Mt. Pickett and my day was done. The guy at the shop informed me when I picked it up that he straightened the derailleur hanger for me. I didn't know it was bent and if it was bent, the lack of ghost-shifting or chain-skippage is an indicator that the bend was minimal at best. I'm guessing the force he used to bend it back wasn't. As it simply sheared in two while pedaling a non-technical, debris-free, double-track path.

I have never in 11 years of mountain biking broke a derailleur hanger. I kept a spare with me for years when I owned my Giant, but hadn't gotten a spare for the Moots. I never heard of one breaking before.

Not wanting to stand around and listen to 8 different opinions about what I should do next, I tutored the group on the route we'd be taking (they had maps and Moran State Park is very well-signed) and I turned around and coasted back to the truck. Well, after taking off the chain and derailleur that is.

As luck would have it, one of my friends who also has a Moots mountain bike was driving by when I got out to the road -- she and her friends were going to shuttle Mt. Constitution (my group would climb it on their bikes). I asked if she had a spare Moots hanger, but no she didn't. She hadn't ever heard of one breaking either.

I decided that rather than take my broken bike and go home, I would drive to the top of Mt. Constitution, convert the bike to a single-speed, and wait for my group and do the descent with them.

The first sign that this wasn't going to be possible came when I reached a gate across the road before the summit. The road was closed for snow & ice. I thought about the route they were climbing and realized then that the uber-steep climb from Twin Lakes to the summit was on the north side of the mountain. I hadn't ever heard of snow lingering this late in the season at Moran State Park before, but it turns out the trail was buried with a few fresh inches from earlier in the week. There are portions that are unrideable in the best conditions. They would certainly be walking.

I knew converting a bike with a soft-tail and vertical dropouts to a single-speed was an iffy proposition. And I was right. It was simply impossible to keep the chain tension where it needed to be to keep the chain from falling off to a lower cog. I took out as many links from the chain as I could while still being able to actually close the loop, yet it took only a couple minutes of pedaling on the road before the chain popped off the cog. I tried to make a chain guide with zipties, but that didn't work either. My day was, indeed, done.

There are worse places to be stuck on a beautiful day with a broken bike than Orcas Island. I decided to not dwell too much on the misfortune and instead got cleaned up, drove back to Eastsound and got myself a cup of coffee and wandered the bookstore for a little while. Come 2 o'clock I drove back to the lake and napped in my car while listening to the Mariners game on the radio and feeling the chilly breeze blow through the open windows. I shook my head in amazement at the 8 year old boy swimming in the lake. The air was in the 50's and the water couldn't have even been that warm. Snow continued to melt on the hills around the lake.

The other riders returned shortly after 3:20. They descended from a direction I hadn't expected them to, and over 30 minutes later than I anticipated. They had to cut off a sizable portion of the route. The snow had slowed them down far too much. They had to walk the best portions of the trail due to snow, push uphills that could have been ridden, and simply didn't have enough time to do the backside portion of the spiral descent and certainly didn't have time to get around Mountain Lake.

In their words, I certainly didn't miss much.

And that's the last thing a ride leader ever wants to hear, especially after convincing people a 6-hour round-trip commute is worth it. And normally it is. I try to ride at Moran at least 1-2 times a year and there's no way I would if the trails weren't really fun. The trails are closed to bikes from May 15th to September 15th and I won't have time to return this spring, but I hope these 8 riders do indeed give it another chance in September when I return.

Now where did I put that phone number to the bike shop...

And Then, After We Leave Bali...

2009-03-24T14:20:00.000-07:00

I admit, my first thought upon seeing the headline "Komodo Dragons Kill Indonesian Fisherman" wasn't that I wanted to go and see these things in person. No, that thought came immediately after looking at the map of "Komodo National Park" and seeing that it's just a couple islands over from Bali, where we will definitely be spending time on our RTW trip after working our way down from Vietnam by train (and boat).

Man, I like the sounds of that: Komodo National Park. I've always been fascinated by these large predatory lizards and, well, the idea of visiting a park named after them and going on a hike with rangers to see them (preferably from a safe distance) is just surreal.

Can't wait.

Too bad about the fisherman though, that must have been awful way to go.

Details about the park and how to get there.

Guidebook Giveaway: MadWorld

2009-03-09T20:47:00.000-07:00

Alas, it's time to finally unveil the fruits of my January trip to Japan, the official strategy guide for MadWorld, the incredibly entertaining hyper-violent action game from Platinum Games. Yes, the black & white one for the Wii.

MadWorld pits you in the role of Jack, a stone-faced chainsmoker with an iron jaw and a chainsaw for a prosthesis. Without giving the surprisingly deep story away, Jack finds himself entered in a contest known as the Death Watch Games, a kill-or-be-killed battle for ten million dollars. The city is cordoned off, various weapons of mass dismemberment have been strategically placed throughout the location, and the cameras are rolling. So many ways to kill, so little time. And no kiddies, this game isn't for you. Make no mistake about it, despite the black & white graphic novel appearance, this is the most violent game I've ever played. it's also the funniest. The violence reaches absurd proportions from the start and stays there and the endless play-by-play and event introductions are laugh out loud funny. Oh, you'll cringe the first couple times you jam a street sign through some guy's head, then chop him in half inside a guillotine-like dumpster, but you'll come to laugh. Oh, yes you will.

As for the book, I'm really proud of how it came out. The strategy is solid and I know you'll have no trouble man-handling the game's nasty boss creatures if you follow the tactics I included in the guide. Maps show you where all of the power-ups, weapons, and bait-items are located for every level and an expanded Death Watch Challenge section gives you tips for each and every Bloodbath Challenge and shows you how to complete even the most difficult challenge.

Then there are the interviews. One of the reasons for the trip was to interview Atsushi Inaba and Shigenori Nishikawa, the game's Producer and Director, respectively. Many of the people at PG were from Clover Studios, makers of two of my favorite games (Viewtiful Joe and Okami) and it was a real treat to visit their studio and sit down for two hours worth of interviews with these industry luminaries. I also got to interview the famed script writer Yasumi Matsuno via email. All of these interviews are included in the guidebook in their entirety and they're not a bad read, if I do say so myself.

Reviews for the game are coming in and so far they're all very positive. One thing I haven't seen mention however is that each non-boss stage has multiple Death Watch Challenges built into it that encourage replaying the stage. Some have time limits, others challenge players to use no continues or to score a set amount of points. These additional DWC really do add to the replay value and definitely offset what many might consider a rather short play-time.

No hoop-jumping this time around. If you want a signed copy of the guidebook, be one of the first three people to email me your name and address and I'll get a copy out to you as soon as they arrive.

And if you don't own a Wii, now may be the perfect time to finally get one.

Snow Day!

2009-03-09T18:36:00.001-07:00

We received a few inches of snow this afternoon and with Kristin tied up on a 2-hour conference call with her study group, it was up to me to walk the dogs after their dinner. I always enjoy walking them in the snow and today didn't disappoint. They were a bundle of energy after spending a long weekend cooped-up at the kennel while we were in Whistler and they wanted to run.

Though most of the sidewalks were either shoveled or partially melted, Annana wanted no part of the sidewalk. She blasted her own path through the snow on the grass, despite it almost coming up to her stomach. She sought the snow so much that she even long-jumped over patches of sidewalk so as to not step foot on clear ground. Those of you who don't own a dog might be thinking I'm personifying her actions a little too much, but she was every bit the schoolkid playing games in the snow. Watching her, I was certain she was making a conscious effort to keep all four feet in the snow at all times. And the deeper, the better.

We rounded a corner two blocks away and I heard the voice of a young boy. I couldn't see him at first due to the tall hedges that formed the perimeter of their yard. Instead, all I heard was, "Ohhh, yeahhh. Awww, yeah!"

Then, just as I catch a glimpse of this little five year-old being towed around the yard in a sled by his father, he lets out an emphatic, drawn-out, "Awww, yeah! That's what I'm talking about!"

Now, where did he pick that up, I wonder?

I soon realized that I had forgotten any baggies to clean up after the dogs so I attempted to distract the dogs with a speedy gallop through the snow before one of them got the itch to take a squat. They were all for running in the snow and though I slipped and slid a bit, it's always a great joy to watch these two dogs run through the snow. They seem to always want to go a bit farther and a bit faster when there's snow on the ground. Kimo and Annana will be turning 11 and 10 years old this spring, respectively. I'm really glad to still see them moving about like they do.

Maybe I Didn't Need That Gamefly Subscription After All

2009-03-04T09:23:00.000-08:00

There are numerous juicy bits of gaming goodness coming out on XBLA in the coming weeks, not the least of which are Puzzle Quest: Galactrix, Peggle, and Pearl Jam's debut album "Ten" for Rock Band 2.

I recently renewed my subscription to Gamefly so that I could enjoy the wonders of SFIV, H.A.W.X., and F.E.A.R. 2 without having to do my best A.I.G. and ask Obama for a hand-out (yes, acronyms are definitely "in" this season). But now that I have, I realize it was unnecessary. Instead of having no time to play retail games I buy, now I just don't have time to play the ones I rent. Sure, I'm saving money by paying just $15/month to Gamefly instead of $60 for a retail copy, but with Gears of War 2 still occupying my time along with Scene-It:BOS and the aforementioned XBLA titles coming soon, I'm not sure I really need to play many retail games.

It's rather odd, actually. I actually enjoy playing many of the XBLA titles more than I do the "blockbuster" retail ones. I suppose my job has something to do with this. Something to ponder while I sit on the chairlift at Whistler this weekend. RG will be on hiatus until Monday, when I hope to regale you with my first-hand impression of the 2010 Olympic Men's Downhill run and other niceties of North America's best ski resort.

I'll try not to cause an international incident, but I can't promise anything. Have a good weekend.

Canon G10: A Review of Sorts

2009-02-27T10:06:00.001-08:00

I was going to try my hand at writing a detailed review of the G10 and attempt to analyze some comparison shots I had taken with a borrowed G9. I set up the tripod, I jotted down settings, and I arranged some bookshelf clutter to pose as my still-life subjects. The photos are still on the memory cards, likely to be deleted. This is not that comparison review. That review is not coming.

It dawned on me as I was wrapping up the test shoot that what I was doing was completely unnecessary. There are extremely detailed technical reviews of the G10 available here and here as well as on many other photography websites. But not only was it unnecessary from a reinventing-the-wheel standpoint -- and also because the person I had borrowed the G9 from already had the G10 and had simply forgotten he purchased it (I hope to one day be able to forget $400 purchases) -- but because that level of criticism and analysis isn't for me to give.

You see, I had to come to a conclusion about myself as a photographer before I was willing to shell out $400+ for a glorified "point-and-shoot" camera. That conclusion was that I am not ever going to be more than an amateur photographer. Like a lot of people, I used to romanticize the notion of being a photographer. I have some nice equipment, I've studied books, taken a class, and even tried selling my photos at a festival once. And though I do believe I have an eye for composition and possess a better-than-average understanding of the technical aspects of the craft, I can finally admit that I lack the patience and the desire to go out specifically looking to take photos. I let the photos come to me and, when they do, I can take some nice ones. But it's been years since I lugged my tripod and SLR down into a rocky creekbed for a waterfall shot; it's been just as long since I've attached the macro lens and gone to the gardens or tulip farms looking for colorful close-ups. And while it was fun to stake out my area an hour before sunset at Delicate Arch and wait for the best light, it was also a bit boring. And ultimately disappointing since the light never truly matched that of my imagination.

But ultimately, it was travel that sealed the deal. I couldn't stand filling up my limited amount of luggage space with camera gear. I hated being that guy with the big fancy camera hanging off his neck. I hated having to constantly keep an eye on my equipment and being insulated from the places I was visiting because of the camera. That said, I've gone through a bevy of cameras in the Canon Powershot series, from the chunky-but-adequate A-series cameras to the slim-but-disappointing Elph line.

Enter the G10.

Every review on the G10 points out two flaws: it produces a lot of noise at high ISO speeds and, for a compact camera, it's not terribly compact. It's also as pricey as some entry-level Digital SLRs (it actually fetches the equivalent of $600 in some stores I visited in Osaka and Kyoto). I took a chance anyway because though larger than the A630 I was using on biking trips, it was still much smaller than my Canon 20D, especially with my workhorse Tamron f2.8 28-75 lens on it. And as for the whole ISO thing, I seldom shoot above ISO 400 anyway and the camera has a hotshoe that works with my Speedlite 420EX flash. I was apprehensive, I was positive this G10 would let me down in Japan and that I would kick myself for not bringing the 20D, but I bought it, travelled with it, and came back loving it.

Before I begin salivating all over the G10, let me first say that I am not ignorant. The 20D does obviously have a better sensor and that Canon's decision to cram nearly 15 mega-pixels onto the G10's tiny sensor has moved far beyond the point of diminishing returns. The 20D also has a better auto-exposure meter, or so it would seem. And the fact that the G10 can only be stopped down to f8.0 is a bit, shall we say, absurd. Despite these nitpicks, this camera has convinced me to sell my 20D.

The G10 has a number of bells and whistles on it that the G9 doesn't have, and neither does my 20D. I truly came to love having a top-mounted dial for ISO speeds and another for exposure compensation. No more fumbling through menus, just an instantaneous spin of the wheel. I also love the metal case and ergonomics of the camera -- the A630 looks like a toy next to it and even the 20D looks cheap and plasticky in its presence -- and the ability to put it in a coat pocket was a nice surprise. Also, the dial and buttons on the back of the camera are far more user-friendly than on the G9, particularly if you have bigger fingers.

Anyone who is familiar with Canon's controls will feel at home right away with the G10. Though there are a seemingly endless array of settings and options, the camera is very intuitive to use and not the least bit cumbersome in my opinion. There are sure to be features that I don't scratch the surface of for some time, but I've already found myself using some of the whizz-bang technology I previously thought superfluous an unnecessary. A few examples: for starters, the face-detection auto-timer is fantastic. No more sprinting to get into the shot before the timer goes off. The camera counts faces and starts firing once a new one is detected. You can set it to auto-fire as many times as you want before stopping. Another great addition to the camera was the built-in image editing. Normally I wouldn't think to use these too-good-to-be-true features, but the after-the-fact red-eye removal is absolutely fantastic, as is the ability to trim, crop, and adjust the color and saturation. You can save any changes you make as a new file too, so you need not risk destroying the original.

Another feature I never expected to use was the built-in sound recorder. I used it to record notes for certain files, but also to record the full 90 minutes of interviews I had with the developers I was meeting with in Osaka. It sure beats spending a ton of money on a digital recorder! The camera also has a built-in neutral density filter and HDR capability.

Ultimately, a laundry list of features doesn't mean a whole lot if the image quality isn't up to snuff. I've come home from too many trips with far too many disappointing results. For example, nobody has seen any of the shots I had taken on our weeklong trip to Leadville last year because I was shooting the Canon SD750, a camera whose lousy image quality is only matched in crapitude by its abysmal ergonomics. Your mileage may vary.

Everything looks great on the G10's incredibly large and bright LCD, but I was still a bit nervous when it came to actually sorting through the shots and seeing how they fared. I'm happy to say I was more than pleased. I took the camera with me everywhere I went during my week in Japan and not once did I wish I had my 20D with me. The built-in image stabilization allowed me to shoot at lower shutter speeds and still keep the ISO at a noise-less 200 or relatively noise-free 400. The 28mm wide-angle was plenty wide enough for most subjects and I rarely needed to use the flash. I didn't even bring my 420EX.

I actually found myself taking better exposed shots with the G10 than I have in the past with other cameras simply because of the accessibility of the exposure compensation dial and the real-time histogram on the display in combination with the spot-metering button. It's just all so easy to use that if you have the least bit of understanding how the features work, there's really no excuse for not taking great shots. I did switch to fully manual mode a few times, but I left the G10 in shutter-priority mode for the majority of the trip and was very pleased with the results.

As an added bonus, the size of the camera and relatively old-school looks helps it to blend into the crowd. It's not an attention-getter and, as a result, I was able to sneak a number of shots in work settings without anyone noticing. These are two of my favorites from the whole trip, shots I probably couldn't have gotten with a bulky SLR.

I had taken a total of 1100 photos during the week I was in Japan and of those, I put 107 on my Flick'r site. Naturally, being a critical wannabe photographer, I only truly like 6 or 7 of them. But I like them all enough to say with confidence that the G10 is so much more than a "compact" camera and that I hope Canon never stops doing what they're doing with the G-series. I have a number of trips lined up for this year and the G10 will be with me on every one of them. Yes, it'd be nice if the aperture could be set to smaller than f8.0 and I have no idea why the camera even has such a tiny, pointless viewfinder with no interior indicators -- they should do away with it altogether. Yet, aside from those two complaints, I am thrilled with the purchase and would highly recommend it to anyone in the market for a high-end compact camera. It's not for the people who shoot on the green setting or who don't know what shutter-priority means. And if you're unfamiliar with Canon cameras, particularly their SLRs then you should expect a steep learning curve, but it's an effort worth making.

Click here to view the Japan photos, all shot with the Canon G10 in jpeg mode at 15M, Superfine. I didn't shoot in RAW since Photoshop and ACDSee hadn't yet supported RAW for the G10. As of this writing, they now do.

On the other hand, if anyone is in the market for a lightly used Canon 20D with lenses and bag, please contact me with an offer.

About Capcom's Special Announcement...

2009-02-24T13:10:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, Capcom posted a special video announcement on Xbox Live that contained the Director and Producer for Lost Planet 2 showing off footage of their new game. This is a great way to unveil a game that hasn't been confirmed previously, and it's also a great way for the Japanese developers to bridge the gap to Western audiences in attempt to reach them on a more personal level. Nobody had heard a whisper previously about Lost Planet 2 (although one can always assume sequels are in the works these days, particularly when it comes to Capcom) and I suspect many other developers will follow suit in the future.

Showing trailers of games over Xbox Live is not new. Downloadable trailers have been around for years at this point. What was new, however, was the decision to show video of a man speaking to the audience and to have him introduce the "big secret"... as a streaming video.

I'm afraid Capcom may have actually did themselves some disservice in this respect: the gameplay footage was so heavily compressed for the streaming process that it looked awful. Large chunky pixels and artifacts were prevalent throughout the footage and I only hope that the millions of viewers the announcement potentially reached all understand it was due to the video compression. After all, Lost Planet was a very good looking game and this utilizes an enhanced graphics engine, so it should look as good if not better.

As for the gameplay itself, the sequel takes place ten years after the events in the first game. The frozen wastes of E.D.N. III have begun to thaw and a massive jungle has sprouted up. I understand climate change can happen quickly in a science-fiction setting, but this was a bit absurd. There is no way an environment can go from Greenland to the Amazon in just ten years. Then again, I never did think much of the "science" in science-fiction made any sense. The gameplay looked solid. Enormous species of Acrid, co-op campaign gameplay and some pretty impressive-looking setpieces. Not to mention players can now utilize a deployable retractable shield that was obviously influenced by the Boomshield in Gears of War 2.

I wrote the guidebook for the first Lost Planet and would love to do the follow-up. Either way, I know I'll be playing this when it releases, hopefully in 2009.

Guidebook Giveaway: Blue Dragon Plus

2009-02-23T16:19:00.000-08:00

I spotted copies of my guidebook to Blue Dragon Plus (Nintendo DS) in the store over the weekend and that could only mean one thing: my box of author's copies should be arriving any day now. That, and it means it's time for the first Guidebook Giveaway of 2009!

Blue Dragon Plus is a combination tactics-style RPG and real-time strategy game that makes excellent use of the Nintendo DS's capabilities. You needn't know anything about the previous Blue Dragon game in order to enjoy this one (I didn't, and I wrote the guidebook), though it certainly couldn't hurt. There is a bit of a learning curve to understanding how the game functions between the Route Map and the Battle Screens, an aspect of the game I tried to cover extensively in the book.

I'm giving away three signed copies of the book to the first three people who email me about it. Please include your name, address, and the lead character Shu's famous catchphrase. The first three to send me the correct catchphrase will receive the books as soon as my copies arrive.

Sausage Fingers

2009-02-22T23:09:00.000-08:00

I've learned a slew of new terms over the past ten days. Words like bump, match, stemming, smear, and dyno have somehow worked their way into my vocabulary, even if only while describing what I'm seeing rather than doing.

Another term that's new to me is sausage fingers: I apparently have them. I also now have an annual membership to Stone Gardens, a rock-climbing gym in Seattle. I expected neither.

Kristin's friend Kari had been trying to talk us into going climbing with her for the better part of two years and although Kristin had gone once and I was sure I'd enjoy it, I held back. I didn't want to risk getting hooked on yet another sport, and I was also spending too much time training for endurance racing. That was then and this is now. We finally agreed to go last Friday with Kari and a large group of her friends and we were hooked at once. We went back the following Wednesday and then again this weekend. There aren't many things that can get me to drive into the city three times in eight days, but apparently this is one of them.

When Kari first told us of all the time she spent bouldering (climbing without ropes at lower heights) I admittedly didn't think it would be much fun, or that difficult. My ignorance knew no bounds and when I saw that Stone Gardens had bouldering routes rated from V-0 to V-12, I assumed that I'd probably be able to quickly move up to at least V-4 or V-5. It didn't occur to me that I was back in grade-school and couldn't just skip from kindergarten to middle-school.

Though our new gaggle of climbing friends occasionally massage our egos by saying what "a really hard V-0 that is", or feigning some momentary difficulty with a tricky V-1, the truth is that this this bouldering thing is far more difficult than I ever could have imagined. All of the thousands of miles I've run and biked over the years matter very little. The beach volleyball, the pick-up games of basketball, and the occasional flag-football games matter even less. Surfing. That might have helped, had my surfing not lessened to a once-every-two-years trip to Costa Rica or Hawaii.

Rock climbing, as I'm quickly learning, is about finger strength, core strength, and flexibility. Mountain bikers who want to believe their sport-of-choice helps foster these traits are kidding themselves. If anything, wrapping my tender fingers around the handlebars on Thursday night -- a day after my second trip to the climbing gym -- only made it tougher. This is a good thing, though. I've always weight-training and plyometrics work and I absolutely loathe working out indoors. This is strength-training at play. Sure, it's indoors, and if all goes well the weight I'll be lifting will actually go down (both due to smarter technique and lower body weight), but I can already feel my upper body taking the first steps towards increased conditioning.

The extreme difficulty of bouldering wasn't the only thing I didn't expect; the brain-twister puzzle-solving element caught me completely by surprise as well. And this is what will ultimately keep me coming back. Each of the routes are color-coded and you're only allowed to put your hands and feet on holds that are taped a certain color. For some reason I thought this would be all very straightforward and we would just climb straight up the wall. Ha! So many of the routes -- yes, even the lowly V-1 routes -- have a wonderful puzzle element to them that begs contemplation and study. Those routes that simply challenge your strength and flexibility and fear-of-heights are fun, but so many more challenge your mind and I can only look forward to progressing to more difficult puzzles. But even if that should take a while, the gym changes all of the routes every month or so, thus giving everyone a whole new set of routes to solve at whatever level they're stuck at.

And I do mean stuck. I don't foresee Kristin and I progressing past V-0 and V-1 for quite some time. For now, we're both limited by our meager finger and core strength (though her core strength probably far exceeds mine these days). I suppose we each have additional matters we have to work out as well, not least of which is the fear of falling. Or, more specifically, falling awkwardly. The highest handhold on the bouldering walls is probably 20 feet up and though that's not very high at all -- and the combination of the crash mats and cushiony floors all but guarantees you'll land safely -- making a strong, hard move (i.e. a "dyno" move) to the uppermost holds is still scary to us. I suppose it's like surfing and mountain biking though in that I just need to go ahead and have that one scary wipeout happen just to prove to myself that I'll bounce back up. Though it is a bit weird to feel somewhat "safer" riding my bike along the edge of a cliff, as in this photo, than I do lunging for a hold just 18 feet off the ground.

But unlike mountain biking, it's something that Kristin and I can do together and not have to worry about pace or difficulty. It's something that doesn't require a lot of expensive equipment, just shoes and a chalk bag, and perhaps best of all, it's another reason to go out for beers with friends more often.

And one can never have too many excuses to do that.

Do My Ears Deceive Me?

2009-02-20T07:56:00.001-08:00

I was out going grocery shopping yesterday and picking up the box set of "Jericho" DVDs for my mom to watch while she's out on disability and went into the REI in Issaquah to see what their selection of rock climbing shoes was like. It's one of their smaller locations, but I lucked out snagging shoes for both Kristin and I that were normally $125 on sale for $40 (Five-Ten Gambits).

There was a small line at the register, just one or two people. It's soon my turn to pay and as the woman is scanning the boxes, a guy approaches the clerk to my right and inquires about a job.

"I saw on your website that people looking for employment should contact the stores nearest them, so are you hiring?" The guy was a hard looking guy. Pretty monotone voice, perhaps with a touch of the South in him. A bit grayed and in his late forties if I had to guess.

"Well, sir, you can take home an application and fill it out. We're not hiring at the moment, but we usually bring on a few extra people in April when the weather starts getting nice."

"Any chance you can just fire someone now?"

Again, monotone. Deadpan. No smirk. My eyes got big and met the equally bulging pair of the woman ringing up my big score on the shoes. I could tell we were thinking the same thing: is this guy joking?

"Well," the clerk began, then chuckled a bit to break the awkwardness, "I suppose you could fill out some complaint cards, that might help."

"Alright. I see. I might do that, I really need a job."

I couldn't take it anymore, I had to say something. It was all too surreal. So I turned to the guy and said, "Don't forget to write on that application that you're a real team player. You know, in case the getting someone fired route doesn't pan out."

--------

I did the grocery shopping at Safeway and was treating myself to a Jamba Juice on the way out. I ordered a 16oz Mega-Mango all-fruit smoothie and, since they always ask if you want the free boost (vitamin powder), I went ahead and requested the "Energy Boost" ahead of time. I don't really expect to feel extra energy, but some extra vitamins and nutrients never hurt.

"Okay, that's one Mega-Mango with a shot of manatee." The clerk was a teenage boy with a thick Asian accent. Very polite, hard-working (he was running the shop by himself with little trouble) but he was a bit hard to understand.

"Did you say a shot of manatee?" I was completely confused and straining to not start laughing.

"Yes, sir. Manatee boost."

"You mean the fish-animal thing from Florida?"

At this point he was probably beginning to think the same about me that I was thinking about him: this guy's bat-shit crazy. He simply smiled and nodded.

"Did you just ask if I wanted a shot of endangered species in my smoothie?" By now I was laughing. I couldn't help it.

"What, sir?" He smiled at me. It was the smile you give a kid as you watch him shove pencils up his nose and eat paste. "You ordered sixteen ounce Mega-Mango with ehmennaty boost, right?"

My ears picked up something different that last time. I looked at the list of available boosts and realized he must have been saying immunity not manatee.

"Ohhh... no, the energy boost, or the immunity, or the fish-mammal thing. I don't care anymore, I really just want the mangoes."

The one freaking time I actually ask for a vitamin boosts... never again.

2009: Certain to Exhaust Me

2009-02-19T09:41:00.000-08:00

Kristin and I were discussing the next few months on the way home from the climbing gym last night (more about that in a separate post) and came to the realization that this year is going to be a bit difficult. That was sarcasm. The sheer volume of trips, events, and known-struggles on the calendar for 2009 is astonishing. Rather than wait till December to post a top ten things of 2009, I'm going to go ahead and plop that list down right now in February... I may not get the chance again.

January
Well, let's see... I wrote two books in January, travelled to Japan for a week, hosted a student from South Korea, and found out my mom had something going seriously wrong with her left breast. There's a lot of good there, professionally and personally, but also a major cause for concern. We just didn't know how serious yet.

February
I finished the second book in the early days of the month and I'm about to start my third. Our exchange student went home, and my mom went in for a rather urgent mastectomy. We know the cancer had spread to the lymph nodes, but we don't yet know to what extent. We're very scared, but I can already tell my role as oldest son will be to "be the rock." My mother and sister will need it. Kristin works round the clock on schoolwork and work stuff.

March
We booked a three-night ski trip to Whistler for early March with friends and my brother and his girlfriend are flying out to come with us. The trip was booked before we knew about my mom, and I'm not sure I want to go anymore. The lack of snow could be a perfect excuse to cancel the trip. I'm going to buy a one-way ticket back east to spend time with my mom as soon as I finish this book I'm about to start.

April
It's barely even on my radar right now, but we're tentatively going to South Korea in mid April for 10 days. This is heavily dependent on how far along my mother's cancer is, though in reality unless her condition is far more dire than anyone dares imagine at this point, I don't see us skipping the trip. After all, if we can't be with her in NJ all the time, what difference does it make if we're in WA or Korea?

May
May has a lot of good and bad, all dependent on my mom. Kristin will be crunching like crazy to finish her Capstone project (think thesis study) for business school. There's a slight chance (fingers crossed, sort-of) that I go back to Japan for a few days, though I'm not sure how likely that is. I'll likely be returning to visit my mom again in May. Also, there's a group of us planning to ride the 100+ mile Maah-Daah-Hey Trail in North Dakota over Memorial Day Weekend. Kristin has another biz school retreat and I'll no doubt be getting busy on one of my major titles of the year.

June
Kristin graduates from Seattle University's Executive MBA program in the middle of the month. Her parents and grandmother will be flying in, as will my sister who will be coming in for the graduation, but to also go on a pilgrimage to Forks... she's a bit Twilight-crazy. I love when family comes to visit us out here and hope my sister can make it, but her trip is obviously tentative. The Test of Metal is the weekend after Kristin's graduation, which I'll be doing with a bunch of friends. We'll be flying back east again at the end of June for a fun combo-anniversary & birthday party Kristin's parents are having at their beach house in NJ. Oh, and then there's E3... though even if I get invited this year, I'll probably decline.

July
Another possible trip back east to visit family and to join my friends on the annual baseball trip. I've missed the past two years due to TransRockies and the Leadville 100 and don't want to lose my "veteran" status so will likely make every effort to join them this year for a trip down I-95 to the mid-Atlantic ballparks.

August
Nothing for me, mercifully, but I expect Kristin to need to fly east for bridesmaid stuff. Her sister is getting married in October.

September
Ha! I can rarely take a day off from mid-August through the end of October so my butt will be firmly planted in my desk chair. Unless I'm needed in NJ.

October
Kristin's sister is getting married in Long Island. I'm sure Kristin will be going back for several days. I'll probably have to limit my time to a fly-by appearance, staying at most for a night or two, depending on workload. October is the absolute worst of all the crunch periods -- I haven't even gotten a chance to celebrate my birthday in the 9 years I've been doing this.

Well, fortunately, I don't have anything in mind for November (other than sleep and Seahawks games) and December (more of the same). There's a lot of potential in the coming year. Some great trips, great memories, and memorable events and milestones. It's just hard to get excited about any of it right now, as our minds are on my mom. Today she begins scheduling the various imaging tests that will tell the doctors how far the cancer has spread (if at all) then she'll have to begin chemotherapy and radiology treatments.

Waiting for the answers might be the hardest part.

Demo Daze

2009-02-17T22:33:00.000-08:00

I spent a good chunk of today wading through the demos that had piled up recently on my Xbox. I don't typically make a habit of playing a lot of the demos that come out -- usually I let them sit for months before shrugging my shoulders and deleting them to make room for other demos I won't play -- but today was different. I played, deleted, downloaded, and played some more.

Yes, I'm still nursing that initial 20-gig hard drive along.

So, without further ado, here's some thoughts on five of the higher profile demos to be unveiled recently on Xbox Live.

Resident Evil 5
There's little I can say that hasn't been said countless times on other sites, but I'll try anyway. In short, this is the sequel to what I consider one of the best games I've ever played. Despite hating (see also: detesting, loathing, and despising) the first three games in the series, RE4 really captured my attention and didn't let go. RE5 looks to be more of the same, although set in a different locale, with improved graphics, and a new co-op mode that seems to allow for more intense fire-fights that still retain some semblance of winnability. I didn't check out any of the online co-op with the demo. Instead, I played through the two scenes included in the demo, smiled, and deleted it. There's really no reason to ruin the surprise for later. If you liked RE4, you'll want to pick this one up. It's a day-one purchase for me. Release date: 3/13/09.

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X
Now here is a surprise. Despite still having an unopened copy of Ace Combat 6 on my shelf and generally avoiding any of the games with Tom Clancy's name in the title on account of not liking my games too simmy, but this flight-combat game really impressed me. For the most part, it's typical near-future Tom Clancy military drama but unlike the other games, this one is set in the skies across real-world locales (the demo takes place above Rio de Janeiro) and is loaded with exquisitely detailed aircraft. Naturally, the story appears to be complex and the dialogue has that Clancy authenticity that all his games share. Best of all, the game was easy to pick up and play, looks and sounds absolutely fantastic, and I positively love the challenge and XP system that is built into the game. Not sure if I'm going to rush out and buy this, but it's definitely making me consider renewing my Gamefly membership. Release date: 3/03/09.

Halo Wars
As a one-time huge fan of the Age of Empires series, I have a deep respect for the work Ensemble Studios (R.I.P.) has done with the RTS genre, and judging by this demo, their final game is another excellent addition to their portfolio. That said, I have no interest in picking this up. Never mind my complete lack of interest in the Halo mythos, I simply don't have the time and the desire necessary to really get into titles like this anymore. To be honest, I stopped playing halfway through the advanced tutorial and deleted it. The game looks great, the interface has been masterfully built around the console controller (not a small feat), and I have no doubt that all of the RTS staples are there. But I just don't care. It's not you, Halo Wars, it's me. Well, actually it is you. It's your story, your unit names, your sci-fi powers, and abilities, and your too-serious Covenant references. I just don't care. It's really too bad Ensemble couldn't just make a console version of their wonderful decade-old Rise of Rome expansion for AoE. That I would have loved. Release date: 3/03/09.

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin
I was about five minutes into this demo before remembering that I not only played the original F.E.A.R. but actually liked it quite a bit. I wondered how I could have forgotten playing a game of this popularity, then remembered it was probably because I had put the annoyance known as PC gaming firmly behind me. And this demo only helps lock that memory away for good. Imagine, a hi-res FPS that looks and sounds fantastic, controls exceptionally well, is filled with cutting-edge effects and gameplay elements... and you don't have to spend a week tweaking your system to get it to run. The thought puts a smile on my face. While it's hard to get too much of a feel for the game from the demo alone, other than to say it's a semi-futuristic first-person shooter with excellent bullet-time usage, plenty of blood, and a lot of fright, it seems clear that the sequel has the fantastic enemy A.I. of the original and added to it better weaponry, some very cool mecha sections, and even more creepy horror elements. But really, the best thing to say about F.E.A.R 2 is that it makes you realize just how brain-dead the enemy intelligence is in all of those other shooters we like to play. I'm going to pick this up and hopefully be able to convince some of my friends to put down COD4 and L4D to play this. Release date: Now available.

Afro Samurai
Now here was the surprise of the day. I wasn't sure why I downloaded this game. I certainly didn't expect any more than for it to be yet another cheesey videogame adaptation of a movie adapted from a comic book. Or something. Wow, was I wrong. Let it be known that, of the five demos I played today, this was the only one I didn't delete after playing. The style, the gameplay, the presentation, it's all fantastic. And it doesn't help to have Samuel L. Jackson over your shoulder narrating the story in some sort of wild real-time flashback storytelling mechanism. The game pits you as Afro, the title character, and you hack and slash your way through enemy-filled areas in search of, well I don't know what yet. The action shifts between real-time, high-speed combat, to an in-focus bullet-time, and then to a lengthier in-focus mode when Afro is really outnumbered. Jackson's script and voice-acting work is mother f&#%ing superb, as you'd hope, and the graphic-novel style graphics and excellent music compliment the action and story perfectly. The game actually looks quite a bit like Sly Cooper, which is a good thing in my book. I really enjoyed the lack of a HUD and the use of the "meters" being built into Afro's pendant and only came away with a minor gripe about the camera and a concern that it could become a bit repetitive. Sadly, the video review below bears this out. Release date: Now available.

Saying Goodbye

2009-02-16T21:47:00.001-08:00

If I was to receive one of those Facebook memes that ask when the last time I cried was, I'd have to say that I indeed got a bit teary-eyed last Thursday night. At a Starbucks, of all places.

It was there where the twelve host families and our South Korean exchange students had gathered to bid one another goodbye, and as the ten minute farewell turned into a 40 minute so-long-forever, there was hardly a dry eye in the store. Hyeon Ju never got emotional. She's not that type of kid. She was the one going around telling the other kids everything was going to be okay, and that they shouldn't get upset. She hugged us goodbye and we took a final farewell photo, then she was gone. Darting back and forth from one forlorn kid to the next. She was the mother hen to a half-dozen heart-broken teenage girls. And, to be honest, her lack of emotion or tears actually made us feel a little sad. Why is she not crying like the other kids? We wondered briefly if she ultimately didn't really like us or if it's just not her nature to get emotional. Looking back on the 5 weeks she spent with us reveals a bit of the latter. She always seemed far more businesslike than the other kids. She would laugh and smile and man did she love playing Rock Band 2 every night with me, but she never expressed any sense of homesickness. Even at the parties we would attend, when all of the girls were in one room doing little teenage-girl gossipy things, she was in the other room, drumming some steady beats on Rock Band. She never acknowledged missing her family, her brothers, her dog. Never mentioned her father. She is a sweet girl who we really enjoyed sharing our home with, but she had her defenses up and, even if only on a subconscious level, probably knew that it was best to not get too attached.

Kristin and I wondered if because we didn't have kids made it easier for her to keep a distance between us. The families that had teenage kids were certainly much more emotional at the goodbye; their students were almost inconsolable and many all but refused to go. The teenage daughters of the families were clearly upset at losing a friend. It was very, very somber. Nobody likes saying goodbye, and the sadness in the room was suffocating.

On the other hand, Hyeon Ju was smiling. She was happy for the experience, happy to meet friends, and was very much looking forward to seeing Disney Land and the Grand Canyon, where they were headed before flying home to South Korea. She seemed to see these 5 weeks not as a display of a life she'll never get to lead, but as a simple experiment in travel. She made some good friends -- numerous Mt. Si High School students signed a tee-shirt she was given and included email addresses and very nice messages -- and took tons of photos, but rather than dwell on not ever playing Rock Band again or going home to parents who don't play games or to a place where the choices are fewer and the schoolwork never-ending, she seemed to enjoy it for what it was.

I mention the differences between her life in Gangjin and the life she saw here only because it was something Kristin and I tried hard to not flaunt while she was here. Some of it was unavoidable -- like my willingness to play Xbox with her or Kristin's desire to take her to the zoo and movies and just the sheer volume of choices of food in our pantry and at our grocers -- but we didn't want to go overboard regarding how great we have it here. And we really do have it great, her wide-eyed astonishment at things we consider trivial proved this. This isn't to say that she's going home to some horrible land and will be left wanting for what we showed her, but more that we all know how different things are there. For example, even though she attended school here every day and did plenty of Korean homework at night, this was a vacation. Back home they are in school from 8am till 10pm five days a week and every other Saturday. They have it harder there, as simple as that. Back home she has two brothers and parents who love her, but I get the impression she lives in a house without much laughter and with little play. It's just a difference in our societies and perhaps even just our two homes.

Some of the students were keenly aware of this and cried and sobbed and pleaded with their host families to let them stay. A few of the students took turns standing on a chair in the Starbucks and made passionate, heart-felt speeches about the great time they had here, the love they had for their host families, and their desire to return again. One boy swore he would return to Snoqualmie to visit as soon as he could and anyone who could see the look in his eyes and hear the quiver in his voice knew that this was not an empty promise.

My eyes swell with tears even now as I type this just remembering the emotion of the goodbyes on display all around the room. Five weeks, as it turns out, is a magical amount of time. The first two to three weeks allowed the students to get over the culture shock, the homesickness, and for them and their families to get to know one another. The final two weeks forged friendships, bonds, and a closeness you wouldn't anticipate during those first couple weeks. Hyeon Ju really seemed to enjoy herself those final two weeks. She'd watch television with us in the evening, she'd help clean up from dinner, she'd play Rock Band with me every night. Instead of retreating to her room after dinner every night like she did the first couple weeks, she actually stayed downstairs until well past eleven each night. She became a member of the family. Five weeks was just enough time to really start to feel attached. And then she had to go. They all did.

Kristin and I will be headed to Gangjin in April and, as it turns out, I'll be speaking to Hyeon Ju's class about America and what it's like to be an American. I hope to meet her family when we get there and to tell her parents what a wonderful daughter they have and to reinforce our invitation to her that anytime she ever wants to return to the United States she has a place to stay.

The house has gotten a bit quieter since she left. I no longer turn on the television and find it set to Cartoon Network. I can use the bathroom nearest my office again. It no longer smells like exotic shampoos and perfume. The dogs miss her. We have an abundance of left-over Korean food in the pantry, food she brought with her in case she hated American cuisine, but never ate. We just finished the last of the ice cream she picked out and tomorrow I'll eat the last of the chili we made together last weekend.

I hope she remembers us.

The Great Wave

2009-02-09T11:23:00.000-08:00

Though I walked by countless souvenir shops lining the streets of Kyoto near the temples, I resisted the call of the wooden shoes and candies filled with red-bean paste; I gave nary a sideways glance at the parasols and fans; and though the sake sets and chopsticks were quite attractive, their pull could not pry the precious yen from the depths of my pockets. Damn you, faltering exchange rate! But global economic catastrophes aside, I was on a mission. A mission for woodblock.

For as long as I can remember, I've always been drawn to woodblock paintings or, more correctly, woodblock printings. I was able to recognize the style at an early age, then truly felt its pull upon reading "Everett Ruess: Vagabond for Beauty", about a boy who had disappeared from his aristocratic life in California to explore the canyon country of the American southwest. He paid for his travels by making and selling woodblock prints of the landscapes he traversed (as an aside, anyone who enjoys the story/movie "Into the Wild" should really read this book). There was something about being able to paint an image by carving it from wood that instantly captured my imagination. The images he created were simple yet detailed and, above all, they were powerful. Hard lines, black ink, white paper. You can see and purchase reproductions of Ruess's work right here.

The woodblock artform originated in China but much of its current popularity can be attributed to the Japanese who really came to perfect the techniques used during the seventeenth century. Though there are plenty of westerners practicing woodblock prints, I wanted to bring one home from Japan. I even had one particular print in mind, "The Great Wave off Kanagawa". It's arguably the most famous print from this art style in the world and one that I've always admired. It was created by an artist named Katsushika Hokusai in the early seventeenth century.

Tim and I entered a gallery in one of the shopping arcades near Kyoto's Nishiki Market. It was filled with hundreds of the most incredible woodblock work I had ever seen. I could have spent hours -- and millions of yen -- in the gallery if I was so fortunate as to have an abundance of either. Though I didn't, I was intent on getting something. I decided on a pair of prints of cranes that were pre-framed and simple, yet elegant.

I wasn't completely satisfied with the choice and on my way to pay for them, wandered down another aisle and started picking through the stacks of matted prints on the floor, beneath one of the display shelves. And there I found it... "The Great Wave off Kanagawa".

The reproduction print was made in 1921 during the Taisho period. The paper has browned a bit, but other than a faint crease that can only be seen in certain lighting conditions, the print is in exceptional condition. The sandwich-style matting has a nice description on the back that explains Hokusai's works and how this was but one image from his "Thirty Six Views" book that showcased three dozen images of Mt. Fuji. Though its 12,000 yen price-tag was a bit more than I budgeted for, it was exactly what I had hoped to find. My inability to speak the language left me with no choice of haggling the price down, so I paid up. No sooner than leaving the store did I begin to worry about getting it home without damage. The security folks at the airport wouldn't let me carry it through the metal detectors so I had to lay it on the belt and send it through. It was sandwiched between two thin sheets of cardboard and made it through okay. At least at Kansai International, not so much in San Francisco where it got caught and started to bow. I caught it just in time before the conveyor belt completely folded it over. It survived without damage. Barely.

I'm going to take it to get framed tomorrow, a process that will no doubt take a week or two and cost as much as the print itself. I'll post a photo once I get it on the wall. I also have more to say about woodblock printing, but that's for another post at another time.

Goin' the Distance at the DMZ

2009-02-06T22:34:00.001-08:00

In all likelihood, Kristin and I will be visiting South Korea in April, as the guests of Mayor Hwang-Ju of Gangjin. We started looking at the Korean travel site tonight with Hyeon Ju about the places she recommends we go (though her mayor would like us to stay 3-4 days in Gangjin, she says that we'll be bored after 1 day... LOL!).

She gave us a few suggestions and I've stumbled on some others -- there doesn't seem to be a shortage of places to trip through in South Korea. Though we're drawn more to rural Korea and are considering doing some backpacking on Jedudo Island and visiting the tea plantations and temple sites that remain, there is one place that I very much want to see first-hand: The Demilitarized Zone. I blame this desire to see the DMZ on having suffered through far too many Alan Alda monologues during my childhood years, as my parents became increasingly addicted to M*A*S*H.

I came across this bewildering paragraph on the Official Korean Tourism website and I'm afraid this may only be the tip of the commercialism iceberg we need to brace for (my emphasis).

This DMZ tour includes a visit to Odusan Unification Observatory, where visitors can experience the sadness of the division, a Korean art and culture tour to Heyri Art Valley, and the thrill of driving go-karts at Kartland, located at the Unification Hill parking lot.

Earlier today I was going to post a short, snarky mini-rant about the NBA's pathetic money-grubbing decision to play "GEICO" at the NBA All-Star Game instead of the playground classic, "HORSE". Though as embarrassing a decision that may be, I can't help but think putting a go-kart track at the site commemorating the peace agreement to end the Korean War is something so absurdly inappropriate that not even a sleezeball like David Stern would dare consider it.

Though I wouldn't be surprised if he's at this very moment trying to find a sponsor willing to work some slogans into the national anthem.

Random FEZ Notes

2009-02-03T11:25:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe our 5 weeks with Hyeon Ju will be coming to an end in just 9 days. It really flew by, partly because I spent a week on the other side of the world, but also because she's really been a joy to host. Her confidence with English, our house, our dogs, and food grows with each passing day. Here's a few of the more notable moments from the past week or two, and proof that, once comfortable, all teenagers are the same.

- The high school students were taking final exams last Wednesday so, rather than sit and be bored all day, the Korean exchange students went to Olympia for a tour of the state capital and got to sit on a legislature meeting. They then returned to the high school by 2:30 for a party the Key Club (Student Council) was throwing for them. I was told to pick HJ up at 3:30, but this was faulty information. Nevertheless, I arrived at 3:30, found my way to the party and... was promptly ignored. She smiled, said hi, then went back to talking to her Korean friends. Finally one of them looked at me and said, "She'll call you when the party is over." HJ gave me a look like, "Gosh, dad, leave me and my friends alone, you're embarrassing me!"

- We took HJ to the Chinese New Year feast we attend each year in Seattle's International District (yes, Seattle is too PC to simply call it "Chinatown" like everywhere else in the world) and, before leaving, I asked Kristin to have HJ change out of the windbreaker she was wearing all day. It wasn't cause to wear a dress or for me to wear a jacket & tie, but we thought it'd be nice if she at least put on the nice sweater she had with her. She told Kristin no. So Kristin tells me this and was prepared to let her do what she wanted. I was having none of that, so I went and talked to her. She seemed agitated, but she put the sweater on. Clearly, "don't make me tell your dad" is universal the world over.

- Kristin invited a couple of HJ's girlfriends over for our Super Bowl Party on Sunday, expecting their own respective host families to want them with them on the weekend. Oh, were we mistaken. All three showed up over an hour before kickoff and wouldn't leave until the game was over. They didn't watch the game. Not a second of it. Instead, they spent the first hour or so in the kitchen woofing down more food than you'd ever think four 80-pound girls could possibly consume. One of our friends brought over a couple dozen red velvet cupcakes and they weren't on the table for more than five minutes before HJ and her friends were going back for seconds. They sampled everything. Including one of each flavor of the Thomas Kemper sodas I had in the non-alcoholic cooler. Ginger Ale may as well have been the devil's piss judging by their reaction to it, but they promptly ran upstairs to Kristin's laptop and started emailing HJ's older brother back in South Korea about how great the soda was. She came downstairs and asked me if she could bring a bottle of "American Soda" home for her brother, "he really wants it".

- The girls spent the entire first half of the Super Bowl upstairs in HJ's room talking and doodling and surfing online Korean comic books and cartoons with Kristin's laptop. Kristin is afraid she'll never get her laptop to work in English again but, hey, at least the girl knew to leave my setup alone. They came back down at the start of the third quarter, as if summoned by a dinner bell, and promptly put a serious dent into the various salads and sausage & peppers that were available. I have no idea where they put this food.

- HJ was a bit too anxious to help us clean up after the party. Perhaps she had something on her mind? Perhaps she was trying to score points before asking a favor of me? Could it be? Why yes, that was exactly what she was doing. We were just about done cleaning up when she asked me if I can drive her and a friend to the outlet stores on Tuesday after school. I right away thought of my workload and having no time to spend at the outlet stores, so I asked what stores she wanted to go to. "No stores, just you drop us off and we call when we're done." I would have been annoyed at being reduced to a taxi service, if not for the fact that this worked out much better for me.

- Kristin took her to the aquarium on Saturday and (again) to the outlet stores where HJ bought Gap shirts for her siblings. The shirts are plain tee-shirts with a giant Gap logo on them. I imagine for a small town five hours south of Seoul, having some western branding splashed across your chest will indeed be a big time status booster for a teenager, but I couldn't imagine why anyone would ever wear these shirts -- who are these stores selling them to? Are they surviving on exchange students from the Far East to get by? Then I remembered how willingly the teenagers here seem to embrace being billboards as well. Gap may be a bit long in the tooth at this point, but the thought is still there. Probably why HJ passed on the much-nicer workout pants we offered to get her (for gym class) in favor of the ones with the big ol' Adidas logo.

That's all for now, more to come next week. I'm sure this Saturday's Rock Band party with all the students and host families will provide plenty of material...

Maybe Now They'll Stop Adding a "U" to Everything

2009-01-30T15:56:00.000-08:00

England kills the apostrophe.

On the streets of Birmingham, the queen's English is now the queens English.

England's second-largest city has decided to drop apostrophes from all its street signs, saying they're confusing and old-fashioned.

But some purists are downright possessive about the punctuation mark.

It seems that Birmingham officials have been taking a hammer to grammar for years, quietly dropping apostrophes from street signs since the 1950s. Through the decades, residents have frequently launched spirited campaigns to restore the missing punctuation to signs denoting such places as "St. Pauls Square" or "Acocks Green."

This week, the council made it official, saying it was banning the punctuation mark from signs in a bid to end the dispute once and for all.

I don't know what is more absurd: the city government actually discussing this in meetings or the idea of people becoming "confused" by the singular-possessive.

I can't wait to go to Birmingham now just to ask the tour guides exactly how many Saint Pauls there were and whether or not they were related. It[']ll be a jolly good time.

Cheerio.

The Rightness of Japan

2009-01-28T17:48:00.000-08:00

The Lonely Planet guidebook to Japan has the following to say about Osaka:

"This isn't to say Osaka is an attractive city; almost bombed flat in WWII, it appears an endless expanse of concrete boxes punctuated by pachinko parlours and elevated highways."

And contains a similar description for the temple-rich capital city of Kyoto,

"First impressions can be something of an anticlimax. Stepping out of Kyoto Station for the first time and gazing around at all the neon and concrete that awaits you, you are likely to feel that all you've heard and read about Kyoto is just so much tourist-literature hype."

Few are the travelers who have never been to a land they couldn’t envision moving to at once. Usually, it’s easy; a sun-drenched beach where tall drinks float on the hands of waiters in a never-ending procession straight to your veranda; or perhaps a town of cobble-lined paths snaking their way past the very galleries and cafes the famed artisans of history books once prowled; or maybe a mountain village with but a single dirt road, several papaya plantations, and a nice villa from which to soak in the surrounding rainforest. Who couldn’t get used to that? It’s an idyllic setting… on the surface. Seldom do we get a chance to peel back the glossy layers of our destination and reveal the warts. Rarer still do we see the heart. Life as it really is can be easy to miss for the dreamy traveler.

It is in this regard that makes Japan so different from everywhere that I’ve been. Osaka in January, with its endless sprawl of concrete cubes, pervasive gray skies, and bouquets of cherry blossoms existing only on postcards and signage, is a place that reveals its most vital of organs to the visitor without delay. It’s what I had come to call its “rightness”. And it’s more attractive than any travel brochure photo I’ve ever seen.

As I made my way by train from Kansai airport to my hotel in Osaka’s business-focused Kita district, north of the rivers that bisect it, I felt myself slipping deeper and deeper into a cloak of invisibility. I was primed for this most different of cultures, but at a blue-eyed and shoeless 6-feet in height, I expected to stick out a bit. And I’m sure I did – complete days went by in Osaka without me seeing another westerner -- only the Japanese are too polite to ever let you notice. Eye contact, a friendly konichiwa, a pair of pursed lips ever-so-slightly turned up into a smile: these are the things I sought to capture on the streets of Osaka, and later Kyoto, but they proved as elusive as a geisha in Gion.

The bustling train stations, streets, and maze-like underground shopping malls may be filled with millions of people, but you wouldn’t notice it by the sound. Mihan, a pretty early twenties college student who works part-time at the guesthouse I stayed at while in Kyoto, commented to me one night that the people of Osaka are boisterous and loud compared to those in Tokyo. In this land of ultimate courtesy and politeness, I had to bite down hard to not laugh aloud and risk offending her. The truth was, as I had seen and heard it, was that nearly everyone, regardless their age, sex, or status, walked with a sense of purpose and self-induced isolationism. Earbuds were as ubiquitous as the bottles of Kirin-branded green tea I grew to enjoy. Many were texting. Endlessly texting and when not texting, they were watching television and scanning the web on their high-tech phones. Save for a few instances of what I would suspect was school-age giddiness and travel-induced excitement shared by friends, nobody spoke. That is to say I heard very little voices beyond the constant chorus of arigato go zai mas emanating from every kiosk, shop, noodle stand, and, to be certain, every staffed position in the city. The Japanese are quite indeed very thankful to those they do business with.

The silence was even more pronounced on the network of subways and buses that I eventually came to rely upon heavily for my daily site-seeing activities. Talking on a cell-phone was a much frowned-upon no-no, as was conversation above a whisper of any kind it seemed. The signs that are there to warn against the former behavior seem to only exist for the benefit of the visitor, those of us who are used to our senses being assaulted by others … and returning the favor in kind. It’s not a rule sent down by an oppressive regime, but rather one born from a very deeply-ingrained sense of public courtesy. Not about to speak for tens of millions of people, but my semi-informed opinion is this is a land whose people place far more emphasis on the collective than they do on themselves. They sacrifice or find workarounds for situations in which their personal desires – say, calling a boyfriend while on the subway – might interfere with the contemplation and serenity of others. For as much as I love my high tech toys, I would trade them all in a second if only there was a way to export this silence and courtesy to the west.

The rightness I came to fall in love with goes far beyond the Japanese’ reluctance to gab on a cellphone while out in public. Truth be told, if someone was to explain to me, prior to my visit, all of the behavioral idiosyncrasies that make up this society, I would have surmised that Japan was indeed one very stuck-up place to live. There is little doubt in me that I would have made a remark about there being a huge need to yank a few million sticks out of a few million you-know-whats. But being there, if only for a week, and seeing the people conduct themselves first hand, has given rise in me a deep sense of societal jealousy.

The examples are endless, so I’ll name but a few.

Shoes. Everyone, whether they’ve been overseas or not, knows to take one’s shoes off upon entering a house and, in many cases, a restaurant in Japan. The streets and sidewalks, though they may appear spotless for western standards, still harbor the grit and grime of the outdoors. The Japanese, unlike, say, an American household practicing “Japan-style” living, take it further though and ensure a pair of slippers just inside the entrance to the bathroom. A detail easily overlooked elsewhere. In restaurants, patrons will find an array of slippers near the hall leading to the restrooms that they may choose from. Sadly, I’ve yet to find any within two or three sizes of the elevens I need, but tiny slippers beats the alternative. Inadequate slippers aside, this was but another notch in the belt of the Japanese way of thinking through all the details. Not unlike the rack of umbrella bags many restaurants have ready for guests who stroll in on a rainy night.

Being that the primary purpose of this trip was to meet with a software developer whose games I will be writing the strategy guides for this year, I made sure to school myself on the intricacies of exchanging meshi and following the proper protocol during the meeting regarding sitting, standing, and the hows and whys of addressing people correctly. Although this level of formality is certainly foreign to me, I soon came to see that its roots extend into other forms of communication, and are not merely for business appearances. Take, for example, a group of friends going their separate ways after a night on the town. They bow and thank one another for the good time. The key being to bow. One of the many things I came to learn this week was that bowing doesn’t have the implied sense of servitude that we may see it as. It’s about respect and loyalty, certainly not about obedience. And while I knew that was the case for business meetings and official greetings from one service employee to a customer, I never would have expected to see a group of twenty-something women, buzzed from too much sochu or sake perhaps, bowing their goodbyes at the end of a hot night out in Kasharawa. The younger generation may be rebelling in their dress, but tradition and dedication to their upbringing is alive and strong.

Tim, my editor and travelling companion for much of this trip, brought with him instructions to go to a McDonalds restaurant while we were in Japan. I admit, I balked at the initial suggestion. I visit the golden arches rather infrequently at home in Washington and seldom without an immediate after-taste of self-loathing and a burp of shame. Yet, I obliged, and was most pleasantly surprised. Nevermind the impeccable décor, soft piano jazz music, and friendly, polite service, but both my Egg McMuffin and Sausage McMuffin w/Egg looked exactly like the photo. This has never happened to me before. Never have I been to any fast-food restaurant in the USA, regardless the chain, where the sandwich wasn’t smooshed into an unrecognizable mess or, at the least, assembled so sloppily that it bore no resemblance to the photo on the menu board. Not the case in Japan. It would seem that, and again I have multiple examples that bear this out, that people simply care a lot more about their jobs there, regardless how menial we might perceive those tasks to be here in western society. There is no other way to put it, than to say my Egg McMuffin was assembled with care.

I thought this Mickey D’s example may have been an isolated incident until we went to Mister Donut (as an aside, let me assure you that these western-style chain restaurants were only visited early in the day or very late at night… we went native for lunch and dinner every day). Here we sat, eating donuts and drinking coffee in a crowded upstairs sitting area, when a boy, no more than 17 years old, came to give us a refill of our coffee. He was polite. Gracious. And, ultimately, thanked us for allowing him to serve us. It was nice, I thought, and something he felt obligated to do for foreigners. But that wasn’t so because moments after refilling our cups, he walked over to a table of young teenage girls who were busy reading their manga, and he treated them with the same courteousness and respect he did us. I can only surmise that he didn’t view us as tourists or foreigners or his elders any more than he viewed them as his countrymen or his juniors. Instead, he viewed us all, no doubt everyone he would pour coffee for, as simply his company’s customers. And serving his employer’s customers was , at that moment, the most important thing in his world. At least on the outside.

This level of service and dedication to one’s employer was on display everywhere we looked. As was an overall sense of courtesy and politeness that, frankly, I came to cherish. For although I considered myself nearly invisible on the street, it never took more than a tap on the shoulder and a polite sumimasen to get all of the assistance I could ask for. Never was I met with a short-tempered frustration about my inability to speak Japanese. Never was I ignored. And never was I made to feel like my request was a burden or that I was putting someone out. Heck, the one time I know I screwed up – I was in Gion on a Friday night and staring at the skirts across the street and walked straight into someone – it was the guy I nearly knocked on the ground who apologized to me.

In hindsight, he might have been staring across the street too… you should have seen those girls.

Probably on the way to their shift at a hostess bar.

Wow.

A digression, although a pleasant one. Shall we continue?

As the days went by and I began to really get the feel for this land of the rising sun, I noticed a change in the way Tim and I spoke about Japan. It was no longer with a mystified admiration, but it was with an affection and, speaking for myself, a sense of sadness that we knew our time in this culture would soon come to an end. Gone would be the soothing beeps and chimes of the train station and garbage trucks, forgotten would be the high-tech public toilets and spotless restrooms, and out of lives forever would be the money trays and the reluctance to hand money directly from one person to another. Gone would be the cute.

For as much as I wanted to get home to Kristin and had to get home for work, I didn’t want to leave. I spent my second to last day in Kyoto on a long walk through the city’s northwestern corner. I took the bus to Kinkakuji Temple, then proceeded to walk several miles along tree-lined streets, past fantastic single-family homes belonging to city’s wealthiest of citizens, and eventually down a busy boulevard back towards town. My walk would take hours and as it grew colder, and I hungrier, I stopped in at a jazz bar. I was the only person in the place and took a seat at the bar and ordered a coffee. The bartender knew no English and I had all but exhausted my knowledge of Japanese in the act of ordering my drink. Nevertheless, I felt at home. I sat and thumbed through my phrasebook in silence and the bartender sat off to the side reading his paper. It was mid-afternoon and I felt a chill coming on.

I coughed twice and sneezed once. Details I normally don’t track, but what happened next forced this recollection.
The phone rang. The bartender talked briefly before hanging up then set to boiling a pot of water. I continued to read my book.

Two minutes pass, the kettle whistles, then he sets an elegant tea cup and saucer down in front of me.

“Hot ginger,” he says, then fakes a sneeze. “You feel better, okay?”

…

Is someone giving me a cup of free tea because I sneezed a big deal? No, nor am I saying it wouldn’t happen here in the USA or in any other country for that matter. Especially if you’re the only one in the cafe. But when you combine all of these little things, they amount to one very big thing: the rightness.

I love where I live. I love travelling around the United States and seeing the sites and the parks and cities. I’m not quite sure even if I could up and move to anywhere in the world that I would necessarily want to do so. But that all being said, Japan isn’t only making better cars and better televisions and gadgets of various sorts. They’re making a better society. Or, at the very least, one that’s a whole lot more livable.

When it comes to society and the American Dream and, let’s face it, the overall superiority complex many Americans have towards other cultures, I can’t help but think that ignorance may indeed be bliss. We indeed have it pretty good on the surface, but where it really counts, when it comes to unveiling our warts and our heart in comparison... knowledge and experience only bring the sorrow of what might have been. Or what, if our parents are to be believed, used to be.

Sigh.

I began writing this essay on the train to the airport, right after the woman charged with cleaning my train car exited the train with her cart of supplies and bowed to us and thanked us for waiting.

Japan Photos Posted

2009-01-26T01:15:00.000-08:00

You can see my photos from Japan right here.

I recommend viewing them as a slideshow with the info box on and the speed set to slow. Enjoy!

For Relaxing Times

2009-01-23T01:43:00.001-08:00

I hope this post doesn't get lost in translation...

Enjoy my foolishness.

I Didn't Know an Octopus had Balls

2009-01-20T12:49:00.000-08:00

Dotombori Arcade... many more photos to come next week.

Our feast Monday night kept us out later than our still jet-laggy bodies were ready for but we couldn't have been any happier. Our hosts ordered a most excellent assortment of sashimi, fanciful chicken skewers, a carrot salad made from rather large, sweet carrots from Kyoto, and also a red snapper. When asked if we were interested in trying anything specific, after it was clear we were not done eating, I couldn't resist: I ordered the horse sashimi.

Yes, that is correct: raw horse. The presentation was superb, and the meat very tasty. I began with a piece of very dark red meat, that I was told likely came from the thighs. I followed this with a piece of lighter meat (closer to the body), then finished with what i at first thought was a type of cheese, but it was actually the mane. It wasn't the hair, but rather the fleshy part of the mane along the horse's neck. That one took a little getting used to and offered a more challenging texture to overcome.

For drinks, we began the night on beer then our host ordered three varieties of sake brewed in her hometown area in northern Japan. The sake was poured, overflowing actually, into a large square glass placed inside a circular bamboo cup. In America, we try to avoid cramming square pegs into round holes, but here in Japan I realize that doing so simply means you're about to drink some damn fine sake. The glasses were passed around the table for sharing and tasting -- we're all friends here, right? -- then we each settled on our favorite variety. With a beer and an overflowing glass of sake in me, it was time to move on to the shochu, Japanese whiskey. Shochu is a clear alcohol, fermented from a variety of starches like buckwheat, sweet potato, and more. The sweet potato version is the strongest which makes sense since those little spuds are used to make ethanol. The large spheroid of ice in the glass gave the shochu a nice, chilled temperature but was not needed to douse any "fire-water" affect, as it was very easy to drink. Dangerously so, perhaps.

The excitement of Monday night carried over to Tuesday morning when, after a breakfast of cold bacon, scrambled eggs, and miso soup, Tim and I walked through northern Osaka to the Yodobashi Camera store, an 8 floor feast for your electronical senses. With entire massive floors devoted specifically to cell-phones, cameras, audio/visual equipment, and of course, a floor just for toys and videogames, it was clear we could spend hours there. And so we did.

Did you know that there are over 400 styles of ear bud speakers for your iPod in Japan? Oh yes. Some costing hundreds of dollars for the purest of sounds. Others adorned with Swarovski crystals, and still others made from exotic hardwoods.

The camera floor had what seemed to be the contents of every camera shop in New York City all rolled into one giant store. I was relieved to see my new Canon G10 costing well over $100 more in Japan than the price I paid through B+H Photo. For those who like to torture themselves with camera-envy, the store also had a Canon Mark III on the floor, retailing for the US equivalent of approximately $8000. Lenses sold separately.

The videogame aisle, on the one hand, wasn't quite as extensive as, say, a Best Buy or Toys R Us. At least not in terms of games, but what they lacked in shock-value for games was more than made up for by their assortment of strategy guides. The sheer number of books and the space devoted to them in the store was shocking. An entire wall lined with hundreds of books from all genres, systems, and some even going back several years.

Later that day, after another very successful interview session and demonstration at [XX--censored--XX] Tim and I said farewell to our hosts who would be riding the shinkansen back to Tokyo. I took a quick 90 minute sojourn up to my room to get some work done before we met back up for a night on the town; I wanted to see the neon.

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, our hotel was in the Kita district of Osaka, the business part of town, but tonight we were headed south to Dotombori Street, Osaka's bustling epicenter.

We walked and talked our way several blocks southeast of our hotel to a subway station then took a deep breath and sacked up for the challenge of buying our own subway tickets. Our initial attempts were ones of confusion. We stood slack-jawed and perplexed, staring at the confounded machines trying to make sense of what seemed to be a very straightforward process. We simply had no idea how to go about buying a ticket. I had done the research ahead of time, I knew where we wanted to go and on which train, but the vending machine ticket seller blocked our path. Eureka! We figured it out. Finally.

Two stops later, we emerged from the underground hustle and bustle of the subway station at Shinshaibashi to find a world of high-end department stores sprawled out around. Oh, look, a Louis Vuitton store. There's one for Dior. Oh, a three-story Chanel store.

This next statement can't be overstated: the Japanese are incredibly stylish, fashion-conscience people. And, with respect to the women, they look damn good.

I've never seem something so sexy as a twenty-something Japanese woman in a short plaid skirt, black stockings, and thigh-high boots straddling a relic of a bicycle at an intersection. A poofy winter white coat with fur trim completed the ensemble.

We guys call this material.

Nevertheless, as impressive as the high-end shopping opportunities on display were, Tim and I are of simpler taste and lighter means, so off we went into the nearby arcade. Not a videogame arcade, but rather a narrow primarily pedestrian-only street lined with hundreds of shops, cafes, pachinko parlors, hostess bars, and massage parlors. It was a feast for the senses and a place where even the locals seems ready to stop and take a photo. I took dozens. Some are comical, others showcasing the crowds and signs, others the neon glitz, and others of Tim playing Taiko Drum Master in an arcade.

Being a badge-carrying member of the Eats All Streetfood Association, I did not hesitate to order up a half-dozen tako-yaki at the first vendor I encountered. Tako-yaki is the specialty of the Osaka area and, quite literally, is a fried ball of octopus. It's drizzled in a teriyaki sauce, then drizzled again with a white mystery sauce, then given a heavy showering of grated ginger flakes.

It wasn't that the tako-yaki was bad. And It wasn't that I was afraid my limited shellfish allergy might extend to octopus. No, the problem with the six tako-yaki in my hand was that they were too damn hot. Not spicy hot, mind you. Hot, hot. Hot food is fine. I like hot food. I seek out hot food. This was ridiculous. My first bite instantly blistered the roof of my mouth and I dropped it back into the carton. I was able to, over ten minutes, consume my first tako-yaki and while not necessarily soemthing I will miss back in the States, it wasn't bad. I pierced the other tako-yaki in attempt to cool them off, but despite this effort, my second oco-ball was so excruciatingly hot that I had no choice but to spit the entire thing back into the dish.

At least I wasn't in a society with particularly clean, formal, people all around me.

Oops.

A cauldron of bubbling batter and semi-solid octopus gushed from the tear I had put into the ball before spitting it back into the dish and, I believe it was at this time when Tim's willingness to try it began to evaporate, not unlike the endless supply of steam emanating from the ruptured morsel in my hand. Twenty minutes after buying the tako-yaki, unable to eat more than two of them due to the scorching temperature and unwilling to continue holding the plate of food, I finally dumped it into a garbage can.

I wasn't the least bit surprised to see a near-identical carton of tako-yaki, half-eaten, inside that same bin.

Home and Away: Mountains and Towers

2009-01-19T00:16:00.000-08:00

Went down to the convenience store at the base of the hotel this morning for a cup of coffee. No hot coffee, but plenty of refrigerated drinks. I passed on the Starbucks to have this instead. How could something so foreign make me feel so at home all at once?

One of the places I've wanted to check out in Osaka before leaving for Kyoto on Wednesday is the Umeda Sky Tower. It just so happens that my meeting today was in the 9th floor of said building. My contact and translator treated me to a great lunch then found we had nearly an hour to kill before the meeting so we were going to take the elevator to the top of the tower to see the "Floating Garden" on the bridge that connects the two towers. Unfortunately, the upper levels are closed until Wednesday for renovation. I'd say that this is not a problem and that I'll just return on Wednesday before hopping the train to Kyoto, but it's supposed to be cloudy and drizzly all week and today was bright and sunny.

Here's a shot from ground-level of the Umeda Sky Tower. My meeting was in the left-hand tower.

As for today's meetings, they went very well. I got to watch a demo of [XX--censored--XX>] and meet the Producer for one of my all-time favorite games. Then it was off to the conference room for one-on-one interviews with the Producer of my current project, [XX--censored--XX], followed by the Director for that same game. It was a little weird playing journalist since I don't normally concern myself with much of the fan-service questions the journos ask, but it went well and I was able to get some very good info for the strategy guide, including photos.

We were able to arrange for me to return tomorrow afternoon for a group meeting with the division leads on the game with the hopes of having them show me their secret tips and tricks on a build of the game.

Now I just have to hope Tim gets here soon, as we're waiting on him before going to dinner. Hope he's feeling adventurous...

Japan: Bring Your Own Slippers

2009-01-18T03:34:00.000-08:00

What a stressful, confusing, and absolutely marvelous day.

It started with a phone call from my editor Tim. He was in Chicago, and just learned that there was a mechanical delay and that he would not be making the connecting flight to Osaka out of San Francisco. On the positive side, this left me with an entire row in economy plus to stretch out and sleep for the 11 hour flight. The downside to this was that I would be flying solo in the meetings on Monday.

I will let you know how that goes later today. Or tomorrow. Or was that yesterday? I don't know anymore. I woke up Saturday morning at 4:30 for a flight and now it's Sunday night.

No, I can't tell you who won the AFC & NFC Championship games... I crossed the date line on a 747, not a DeLorean.

My flight landed at Kansai International Airport outside of Osaka around 4pm local time and after a photo, fingerprints, and bag-search I was officially in. I made my way through the airport to the train station and, surprisingly enough, managed to purchase a ticket, board the right train, and make it 75-minutes through the suburbs to downtown Osaka all on my own. From there it was just a short 5 minute cab ride to the hotel.

In attempt to keep with the local customs, I took my shoes off upon entering my room and, to very little surprise, found the complimentary slippers barely extending past my arch. They're so cute. Good thing I brought my own... ahh, the benefits of doing a little research ahead of time.

The hotel is in the northern business portion of Osaka known as the Kita district. It doesn't have the bustling nightlife of the south side of the river (where I hope to head with Tim on Tuesday) but it does have a very lengthy underground shopping mall that links the many subways, train stations, and hotels together.

I took a business card from the front-desk and a map I couldn't read and headed out in search of dinner. A short walk down a rather welcoming alleyway lead me to the entrance to the underground mall. There was something spectacularly risky about going underground and potentially popping back out somewhere far from my hotel that I found attractive so I went for it.

Much of the shops and restaurants in this glorified mile-long subway terminal were closed. It's a Sunday night, after all. I eventually came to a McDonalds and put my head down and kept walking. I was in search of -- there's one! -- a red lantern, the tell-tale sign of an izakaya.

I knew I wanted to eat at an izakaya and I thought I was prepared to do so, but these places (counter-style pubs) are very much the domain of the locals and, so I've read, will go out of their way to discourage gaijin like me from entering (usually because they know it will be hard to communicate). I ducked under the plastic curtain and took a seat at the counter.

And immediately had a brain fart. I forgot how to even order a beer. I forgot I had a phrase book in my pocket. I spaced out, competely.

Fortunately for me, at the far end of the 6-person counter, sat a stylish young couple who spoke english. Turns out they live in Osaka, but the husband has a friend who, get this, lives in Tacoma, WA. He helped order for me, got me an Asahi Super Dry -- my favorite Japanes beer -- and then I took it from there.

The izakaya consisted of a counter with six stools and behind it was barely enough room for two people to stand. The main food here was fried skewers of everything you could ask for. Just like American bar-food, only smaller portions. My english-speaking friend helped me order up some beef, pork, onion, and asparagus.

I was trying to be agreeable.

A plate of cabbage was put before me, along with my mug of beer, a hot towel, and an empty stoneware cup. The way the place works is that each skewer was, I don't know, maybe 80 or 100 yen, and you dip the skewer into the communal bowls of sauce -- just once I was instructed in case I was going to pull a Castanza -- eat the food, and put the empty stick into the cup. The barmaid then counts the sticks when you're done. I noticed the couple had sticks of several sizes, so I imagine there is more to this, but my two beers and six skewers came out to just 1100 yen, which under normal financial conditions would be $11.

By this point of my stay, I was getting familliar with the phrase book and attempting fractured cave-man speak efforts at conversation with the woman behind the counter. I really had no choice, as she had so little room to move she was forced to stand directly in front of me. I asked for the bill and know enough numbers (although japanese numbers change depending on what it is you're counting... go figure) that I could understand the tally and pay.

And for the second time in the two hours I had been in Japan, my tip (chip-pu) was refused. I know tipping around the world isn't as common as it is in the US, but habits are hard to break. I was able to reason why the cab driver refused my small-change tip, but a bartender handing me back the 200 yen? I rampaged through the phrasebook and found the words for "tip" and "custom" and was able to convey that I offered her the tip out of habit and that I was sorry if I offended her. She laughed and told me it was okay (at least I think she did) and that was that.

I made my way back through the underground mall to the right staircase and, here I am, sitting in some sort of robe that would have fit me a lot better when I was 15, and watching incomprehendable Japanese television.

This is going to be one hell of a week. As long as I can get through these interviews tomorrow.

Man, I wish Tim was here.

Let the Corruption Commence!

2009-01-12T20:56:00.000-08:00

The inevitable took place at approximately 7:30pm yesterday evening: We introduced Hyeon Ju to Rock Band 2. And let me just say this Korean fish out of water took to the plastic instruments far better than that same metaphorical fish would take to a bicycle.

She rocked.

She flubbed her way through the first few notes (guitar on Easy) so we turned on No Fail Mode, only to see her never fall below the upper half of the performance meter again. Had I have turned off NFM we certainly would have broken a few high scores on my profile.

She doesn't know any of the songs (although she recognized "Oh, Pretty Woman" from a movie... gee, I wonder which one) but she really enjoyed it. After about 8 songs or so, however, she opted to sit and watch... I had the sense she was studying my technique.

She doesn't have any videogames at own, nor really ever played them she said, and I didn't get the feeling that she enjoyed it that much. That was until I went to pick her up this afternoon and all the other kids were raving about how lucky she was to have host parents who played Rock Band 2 with her.

A couple of us host families are going to rent out the room in the association offices with the giant projection screen and hook up the Xbox 360 for a Rock Band Party with all of the kids. I don't like to move my equipment around, but since I probably have another $200 worth of downloadable content for it, it makes sense to use mine.

When I asked her at dinner tonight if she wanted to play, she said she wanted to play tomorrow instead. But later on she came downstairs for water and saw me playing -- blowing off steam -- and right away went for the drums. I was just about to go back to work, but how could I resist her request to learn the drums? Kristin, busy writing a paper for biz school, decided to play too.

This time I totally forgot to turn on NFM and was worried we'd have to restart right away, especially since the drums are a lot harder than the guitar (thanks to the kick-pedal) but hell no, we didn't need to restart. She had never seen this setup before, it was her first song ever on drums (Weezer's "Say it Ain't So"), and when I looked down halfway through the song, she was rocking a 3x multiplier. She even figured out how to trigger Overdrive during her second song without me even breathing a word about it.

My only guess is that her expertise playing the ocarina (no, not ...of Time) carries over to Rock Band 2.

So I'm proud to say that, ladies and gentleman, THE METROGNOMES may have finally found their drummer.

My guess is she'll be playing guitar and drums on Medium mode by the time she heads back to South Korea in February.

The Stranger in our Midst

2009-01-09T12:32:00.000-08:00

This is going to probably be a bit harder than we thought.

We picked up Hyeon Ju last night at 5:30 and it was clear within minutes that her command of spoken English is just north of minimal. In theory, Kristin and I were expecting to have a somewhat difficult time conversing with her, but weren't too concerned since we've both spent weeks in other countries where English wasn't common. We knew we'd have to speak slowly and use very basic words, and this definitely seems to help, but simple things such as expressing our wish for her to "make herself feel at home" was challenging. We'll get through it though, I'm sure, as she has a pocket electronic dictionary and I have a Korean phrasebook. I will say that she knows a lot more english than I ever knew of Spanish. Speaking of spanish, I was very proud of myself for not defaulting to, "hola" upon meeting her as I so often do when speaking to someone who I know is not a native English speaker. Yes, I even found myself telling the Hugarian waitresses in Budapest, "gracias" when they brought the food.

I'm an idiot, but I have good intentions.

But back to Hyeun Ju (whose name I will probably misspell a thousand times in this post)

She's reading a bilingual version of a recent Obama biography -- each page is both in Korean and English. That's a good start to getting on my good side.

Last night was a little stressful, no doubt moreso for her than us. Kristin about freaked her out upon our initial meeting when she went to give her a big, American-style, welcome hug. Um, yeah, I forgot to tell her not to do that. The girl was totally confused as to why this total stranger was throwing her arms around her. She braced herself and hugged back, but was definitely a bit weirded out by it.

Hyeon Ju immediately took a liking to our dogs, who followed her around nonstop in return. I think they're going to be excellent ambassadors and help entertain her. I already know Annana in particular is going to miss her when she leaves.

After sitting in a bus for 6 hours, then a plane for 10, I was expecting her to want to get right to bed, and for a while we thought she did. She didn't want dinner and made that clear, but did eventually come downstairs sit and have some water while we ate. She's a very nice young girl and showed us photos of her family on her camera. I offered to print them for her to hang up in her bedroom, but the camera she has doesn't have a memory card. Internal memory, perhaps? I didn't force the issue last night, but I'm hoping she has some sort of USB cord or something -- the plug input on the side of the camera wasn't anything that I've seen before.

After dinner I showed her a map of the world and showed her where we were, where Kristin and I grew up, and she quickly seized on the size of the USA and wondered why we would live so far from family. The idea of flying back and forth once or twice a year is completely, well, foreign, to her.

It turns out her town of Gangjin is located at the southern tip of the Korean peninsula. Every city is known for something, and hers is pottery. She brought us a fabulous vase that I discovered by chance, thanks to Google Image Search, is from the Goryeo Celadon kiln. The kiln is a major draw for their town and they have a very large version of the exact same vase her parents had given us. The version she brought us -- a very fragile carry-on, no doubt -- is about 16" tall.

In a move that was either totally due to exhaustion or an example of her being wise beyond her years, she went to bed at 9pm and slept until 10:00 this morning and seems just about free of any jet-lag. So far. She was supposed to have gone to school at 8am this morning, but the schools are closed due to the flooding so she got to sleep in. She's out touring with the other students and the South Korean delegation today, then we meet her back at the Salish Lodge tonight for dinner. The mayor of Gangjin has hired a Korean catering company from Seattle to prepare an authentic Korean dinner tonight. I can't wait.

Speaking of food, we're going to take her to Uwajimaya next week to pick up any snacks or specific foods she's used to from home and see if she would be up for cooking dinner for us. I asked her last night what she usually eats for breakfast and she said, "meat wrap".

She had a bowl of Rice Krispies this morning and seemed to enjoy them, but I'm thinking of making her some breakfast burritos next week.

There's not a whole lot to say so far, since she's only been here for 20 hours or so, but she's very interested in everything around her. She seized upon the medal I have from the Leadville 100 that hangs on my lamp in my office and that quickly lead to me showing her photos from the mountain bike trips I've done and her, in exchange, showing me the photos of her bicycle on her camera.

When I was showing her the map of the world I have and pointing to places we've been, I asked her where she wants to travel to. Her answer? Everywhere.

This is going to work out just fine.

Finally, this morning, in perhaps a sign that these next 5 weeks are going to undoubtedly force us to look at our own way of living a little different, she was completely awestruck at the garage door opener. I expected her surprise at us having two cars, but I didn't foresee the wonder on her face when I hit the garage door button.

That was pretty cool.

And pretty eye-opening for me too.

Avalanche and Floods: Rainpocalypse 2009!

2009-01-07T21:06:00.000-08:00

From Yahoo:

Warmer temperatures and heavy rains were melting snow dumped on the mountains during a weekend storm, with 10 inches of snow melting in a 12-hour period at Snoqualmie Pass, about 50 miles east of Seattle, Haner said.

In Snoqualmie, a town 25 miles east of Seattle, kayakers paddled in the street as city officials urged residents in the flood plain of the Snoqualmie River to leave before they became trapped.

Volunteers gathered at a city park to stuff sandbags for residents to protect their homes. June Garvin said she lived high on a ridge outside the danger area but wanted to help. "The river came up so fast that for some people, sorry to say, sandbags aren't going to do a darn thing," Garvin said. "The water's going to get in if it wants to."

Chris Caviezel, who has lived at Snoqualmie Pass for about seven years, said conditions were the worst he has seen. "We're getting avalanches and we're being flooded," Caviezel said.

As of early Wednesday evening, Marblemount saw nearly 6 inches of rain and almost 7 inches of rain fell at Snoqualmie Pass in the past 24 hours. The weather service predicted another 4 to 8 inches of rain would fall on the coast and Cascades through Wednesday night and 1 to 3 inches elsewhere in the region.

Judging by photos taken today of Snoqualmie Falls, it seems like an identical reoccurrence of what I saw in 2006 when I took this photo:

I was going to head down the road and take a photo of the falls tomorrow (it's only 2 miles away) but I think I might wait until Friday and take Hyeon Ju who arrives tomorrow afternoon. She, the other students, and the South Korean delegation are supposed to tour the area on Friday, but there's a sizable swath of the downtown area underwater today and school has been cancelled for tomorrow (possibly Friday too, we're told) so she might be stuck hanging out with me on Friday.

Hope she likes to play Rock Band.

Travel Plans: Confirmed!

2009-01-05T21:54:00.000-08:00

I'm really glad the Korean girl is showing up on Thursday, else I'd have a hard time containing my excitement about the trip to Japan on the 17th. Turns out my editor and I were able to coordinate flight plans so as to be on the same flight from San Francisco to Japan (I think we're going to have to thumb-wrestle for the window seat), and we'll be staying at this pretty swank-looking place in Osaka for 3 nights. We'll be meeting with the guys behind two of the games I'll be authoring guidebooks for this year. I don't geek out about the people I meet in this industry and am rarely, if ever, star-struck by celebrity but I do look forward to meeting the creative mind behind this masterpiece. I won't ask for any autographs, but I do hope for a photo.

Two full days at their studio in Osaka should be enough time to get some solid developer insight into the book I'm currently working on, and to also get a head-start on their big release coming later this year. Nevertheless, I have some homework to do between now and then to make sure the business portion of the trip is money well spent.

Not about to fly halfway around the world for two days of meetings, I've decided to head to Kyoto for a couple days of site-seeing. Better still, I won't be traveling alone since my editor decided to stick around for the rest of the week as well. So we'll be a couple of fish out of water together, wandering the cold, hopefully not-too-rain-soaked temples and UNESCO sites in Kyoto. We'll be staying at a little Japanese guesthouse for a couple nights then splitting up, as he heads home and I venture to Nara, home to the largest wooden temple in Japan, for one final night before coming home on Saturday. I was hoping to spend an extra couple days in Japan and just hang out and try to catch the local vibe a bit more, but that was back when the trip was originally scheduled for December. I don't want to have to leave Kristin alone with the foreign exchange student for too long since it's going to be a bit hard to juggle with work and school. Not to mention, I'll need to get home and finish work on these books I'm writing.

Now I just need to get that G10.

The Bike: The Year that Was and Wasn't

2009-01-04T17:35:00.001-08:00

So much for improving on my totals from 2007. I finally got around to entering the data stored in my Garmin for the final four months of the year and I'm sad to say that I didn't even crack 200,000 feet of ascent for the whole year (198k and change). Worse still, I rode well over a thousand fewer miles in 2008 than I did in 2007.

But if you were reading my race reports this year, then you already know that.

The year started out great. The ETS (Endurance Training Series) I led was a bigger hit than I anticipated and by the end of April, I was in great shape and so were quite a few of my riding buddies. Granted, I didn't do Coach Troy's 3-hour trainer sessions like I did in 2007, but I was racking up a lot of cold, wet, miles. Right until I came down with pneumonia the week I was going to solo the 24-hour race in Spokane. Trying to race through the sickness did more harm than good and the effects lasted throughout the Test of Metal and forced me to ultimately skip the Cascade Creampuff 100.

I got the rubber side down sort-of-speak in time to do the GearJammer race up in Squamish, BC and that went really well. But then the workload from hell took over. Considering I had gone many years as a guidebook author without ever really doing any books for serious RPG games, 2008 caught me by surprise in that I ended up authoring or co-authoring no less than four books for RPGs. Writing the book for Tales of Vesperia, an 85-hour epic from Namco-Badai, occupied the majority of my summer and made training for the Leadville 100 quite a challenge. Well, actually it made it near-impossible. I snuck in a few 3-hour rides on the single-speed here and there, but ultimately I rolled up to the starting line woefully unprepared. It's a wonder I only missed the belt-buckle cutoff by three minutes. There probably weren't too many mountain bikers at the race whose obligations to their primary sponsor actually hindered their ability to train for the race, but that was the case for me. That said, I'm sure the folks at BradyGames cared a lot more about my ability to finish books on time than to race a hundred miles through Colorado.

Many of you read my Leadville race report (it was the most-read entry on my blog last year, and I say thank you) and know that I plan to dial it back a bit in 2009. That is true. I've been giving it quite a bit of thought these past two months and although I anxiously await the Test of Metal and GearJammer, those will be the only races I do this year. No 24-hour races, no hundies, and no stage racing. Other than a late-fall ride at Skookum Flats, I didn't hit a single one of my favorite WA rides last year. No Dungeness/Gold Creek; no Palisades, no Esmeralda Basin, and no Angel's Staircase. And I didn't get back to St. Helens either. Just typing that was very depressing.

So, in addition to not seeking sponsorship for 2009, I'm putting the emphasis back on the fun. I might still do the occasional Thrilla in Woodinvilla for the camaraderie and for to help prep for the Test, but my weekends will be in the backcountry, focusing on high-mountain scenery and less on pure mileage.

The other thing I'm looking forward to doing more of this year is riding with the people I used to ride with -- the folks who all of that "training" the past couple years has kept me away from. Campouts, alpine swimming holes, lengthy hike-a-bikes, and brew-pubs. These are the things I want to focus my 2009 on.

Come with me as I seek to put the mountain back in mountain biking.

5 Days till Hyeung Ju

2009-01-03T16:03:00.000-08:00

The holidays are over, the Seahawks aren't in the playoffs, and we were running out of time: we simply had to ready the "guestroom" for our female FEZ. I use the snarky quotes because, until today, the room was little more than a storage room. Sure, it had a bed in it, but good luck getting past the luggage, snowboards, sleeping bags, and discarded electronics equipment to reach it.

Psst... if you're in the market for a pair of JBL bookshelf speakers or an Onkyo 6-disc DVD player, drop me a line and I'll hook you up.

So, after spending a couple hours de-decorating the house from Christmas, we planned our assault on the guestroom. We cleaned, we organized, and then we plotted our course for Target to get a cheap dresser. They had exactly what we were looking for, only it was in another store. Unfazed by this sudden extension, we prowled the aisles looking for everything a 14 year-old girl might need.

Having never been a 14 year-old girl, I was essentially useless for this leg of the journey. Nevertheless, we found a mirror, bath mats, a toothbrush holder, a hamper, and, most importantly, her own loofa, shampoo, and shower gel.

Unfortunately, Kristin ventured deeper into the personal products section at Target than I was willing to go. I was off getting an extra box of K-Cups to hold us over until UPS finally gets here, but I ultimately found Kristin in the aisle. You know which one. The one we guys strive to spend a lifetime avoiding. The one with those things in them.

Only Kristin didn't just have a single box of them in her hands. No, she had an armload of them. Every size, style, shape, and absorption you could think of.

"Kristin," I said "we do not need to offer the girl a buffet of feminine product."

She persisted.

"Listen, I know five weeks is technically longer than 28 days and that she will undoubtedly need a box of these at some point, but don't you think presenting her with the Baskin Robbins equivalent in tampons and pads might, you know, be a little weird?"

"I just worry that she'll be shy and it will be awkward if she has to ask."

I nearly laughed, "That's funny because I can't think of anything more awkward than presenting her with the half a dozen boxes in your arms."

I won.

We ultimately did get to the other Target and in yet another attempt to avoid awkwardness, Kristin snuck a way to buy a very -- dare I say -- decorative plunger for the guest bathroom while I was picking up the dresser. I let her have this one.

It wasn't an unproductive trip. I did dash into Barnes & Noble to snag a couple Paul Theroux books with the gift card I received from Lindsay this year (Thanks Lin!) and we did stop for lunch, but I must confess something I said to Kristin.

"We just spent three hours running errands for a kid that ain't even ours -- there's no way we're ever having children, this is hard work!"

Jericho

2009-01-02T10:22:00.001-08:00

Kristin and I have a new bane to our existence: Jericho.

To put it mildly, we stumbled upon this show on Netflix the other day and now cannot stop watching it. To meet the Internet's quota for mandatory hyperbole I'd say that it's one of the best television series I've ever seen and I cannot stop thinking about it. Yes, I even dream about it now.

Where was I when this show was on CBS two years ago? I have no idea, but I know the agony of waiting 7 days for the next episode would have been excruciating. As it is now, we are in tremendous discomfort as we strain to muster the discipline we must exhibit to not sit and watch all 22 episodes (44 minutes long w/out commercials) of the first season at once. Having them at our proverbial fingertips via the ability to stream them one-after-the-other is as tempting as an apple in Eden.

For those who, like me, never seen nor heard of this show, allow me to explain. The show's title, Jericho, is the name of a tiny town in western Kansas and, well, one day 23 atomic bombs go off in major cities around the United States. It's the ultimate FUBAR situation. The town is cut off from the world, has no idea of what is going on, how long it will last, or who/what/why they were attacked. All they know at first is that there is a mushroom cloud rising in the direction of Denver. Little by little, they manage to gain some information about the extent of the attack, but as the days turn to weeks the town begins to run out of necessities and the small town starts to turn a little less friendly.

What makes this show so compelling is that the writing is actually very, very good. As is the acting. There are probably as many subplots and secret lives on display as there are in Lost (so I'm told, I don't watch it) and other than one or two characters who are supposed to be unlikable, the crew of characters are all people you want to learn more about. I guess the best thing I can say about this series is that it feels like a really good book. You want to just keep flipping pages or, in this case, you want to keep watching, episode after episode.

Update: I just learned that the show was originally terminated after one season, but fan support brought the series back for a second season in 2007. I believe there are 22 episodes in the first season and about 14 or so in the second season. Check out the pilot -- I guarantee it will hook you.

The Test

2009-01-01T18:34:00.000-08:00

Sitting by the computer, tapping the F5 key over and over waiting for registration for the 2009 Test of Metal to open and wouldn't you know the batteries on my wireless mouse die.

I quickly ran over to Kristin's desk, pushed her chair (with her in it) out of the way and log on with her computer.

No can do. SQL error... the site is flooded.

I'm in. Where's the registration form? Where is it? The countdown is at 0:00:00 but there's no link!

The phone rings. It's Bob. He can't find the link either. We hang up.

The phone rings again and, again, it's Bob. He found the link, buried in the "Race Details" section of the TOM's website. We anxiously hang up and get typing. I'm registering for two so I feel a bit of added pressure to get this right, since I'd hate to be the reason my riding-buddy Doug C. couldn't race.

I hit submit and I get a white screen. No confirmation. Nothing. I wait, wait, wait, then hit F5. Nothing.

I hastily go back to the entry page and enter all of our info and my credit card number a second time, knowing I might be getting charged a second $150 for nothing. I don't care. I push on and, again, the white screen.

The phone rings. Bob. He's staring at a white screen too. We vocally shrug our shoulders in unison and hang up.

I wait, wait, wait, then hit F5. A flash of info appears on the screen -- it's a confirmation page and a chance to hit submit one more time for good measure.

We're in.

Within minutes the emails are flying around and I know of at least 5 of us who got in, and a sixth who I'm told was registering also. We'll have quite a crew heading up to Squamish next June.

And this time I'm breaking four hours!

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy

2008-12-31T10:26:00.000-08:00

Went with friends to see BBVD last night at the new Snoqualmie Casino that opened up down the road and man can those guys put on a good show. Hard to believe the band will be turning 16 years old already this February, but, judging by the three new songs they played from the album they recorded in November, they don't seem to be slowing down much. As an aside, to my Garden State readers, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy will be playing at Trump Plaza in Atlantic City on January 10th.

The Snoqualmie Casino's ballroom is a nice enough place, but the lack of a dancefloor made the venue a little odd for a swing band. Seats were lined up 21 rows deep and although we had decent seats (row 19 -- there are no bad seats in this place), the four of us chose to stand in the back so we weren't packed in like sardines. Not to mention this gave us more room to dance (i.e. sway back and forth in traditional white-folk fashion). Other than the lack of a dancefloor, the room was good. Nice and cozy, great acoustics, and a pretty large stage with plenty of lights. Drinks were cheap too.

As for the music, BBVD is obviously struggling with the success of the holiday album they released three years ago because they were practically begging to not have to play any holiday songs. It's primarily all they play from November through Christmas, so they were anxious to play some other stuff. Nevertheless, they did play "Mr. Heatmiser", "Is Zat You Santa Clause" (which was actually far less annoying live than on the holiday album), and a BBVD version of "Frosty the Snowman".

Much to Kristin's delight, they also played "I Wanna Be Like You" which is a super-catchy take on the song from The Jungle Book and I was happy to hear "You & Me & the Bottle Makes Three Tonight" which is one of my favorites of theirs. They also played "Minnie the Moocher" and -- I didn't catch the name -- the first song they ever wrote as a band. And they recorded a new album right before going on tour and played three songs from that. One was a bit slow, the others were more up-tempo.

What really stands out about this band, aside from the singing, is the extraordinary horn section. The five guys on sax, trumpet, and trombone took turns rotating to the front of the stage for a nonstop series of phenomenal solos, at one point straying into what can only be described as dueling horns. Not to be outdone, the pianist, drummer, bassist, and, of course, Scotty on vocals/guitar all had their shining moments too.

They're a really fun band to see and certainly attract a wide range of showgoers. I spotted people in the crowd ranging from the barely-legal age of early twenties to more than a few couples of retirement age.

Check them out at www.bbvd.com or look to Ticketmaster for show times.

Challenge Savant and why Rock Band 2 is my GOTY

2008-12-30T15:10:00.000-08:00

I just unlocked the "Challenge Savant" Achievement for Rock Band 2, an Achievement I honestly never thought I would come close to popping. This particular Achievement, the loftiest of those relating to the game's Challenge Mode requires completing 25 separate Challenges on Expert difficulty. This might not sound that hard to the truly talented GH/RB veterans, but just two months ago I was barely able to play the easiest songs on Hard mode. Seriously, even the pedestrian "Eye of the Tiger" gave me fits on Hard mode. Expert mode seemed something reserved for true musicians and thirteen year olds with six fingers. It was something I only dared glance at via Youtube.

And it was hearing that oh-so-lovely Achievement Unlocked chime this afternoon that made me realize -- and I was struggling to come up with a choice, trust me -- what my Game of the Year pick would be: Rock Band 2.

The game's greatness has been sung on this site and countless others, but allow allow me to elaborate nonetheless. And if I sound like a broken record (antiquated pun intended), well you have my apologies.

See, here's the deal with RB2. I skipped the first one on account of the drum noise, the price, and the fact that Guitar Hero 3 had completely killed my joy for music games. I played it a ton, but seldom did I turn the game off wanting more. Instead, I typically turned it off uttering a spew of profanity and coming all-too close to throwing the guitar through the television. I can't tell you how many times Kristin had asked me why I continued to play the game if it always makes me so mad. And no, I never did have an answer for her. Short-term memory loss, perhaps?

So my first reason for GOTYing RB2 is that I never turn it off frustrated. Never. I turn it off because I either have to go out, get work done, or -- and this is the most common reason -- because my arm is going to fall off if I play another song. I've played the game for countless hours (hundreds, I'm sure) since the day it released in October and the fact that I have yet to even touch the drums (one 4-song set is all I've done) gives me goosebumps. This is the game that keeps on giving. Glancing at the Achievements list, I still need to complete an "Impossible" Challenge on guitar and vocals and, assuming I ever learn the drums, them too. But then there are still so many Achievements left to go after in Drum Trainer mode, not to mention the "Steel Bladder" Achievement which I'm still trying to convince my friend Allan to tackle with me (84 songs, no pausing, no failing). So the game has staying power.

Another reason I love this game is because of the DLC. At $170, RB2 isn't cheap, but Kristin and I have probably spent at least another hundred dollars on top of that in downloadable music. No other game gets me to do this. When the DLC for GH3 came out, I balked at the price and inflexibility of the song packs being sold. With RB2 I find myself anxiously looking forward to each Tuesday to snag another song or two or ten. Combine the never-ending supply of fresh music with the ability to import 95% of the music from the original Rock Band for $5 and you have a game that we can grow with for the life of the Xbox 360.

Lastly, and this is the most important reason, the game helps you get better. Sure, most games have different difficulty settings and have a curve that ramps up gently then a bit steeper, but they always plateau. Not so with RB2. The game is the porridge to my Goldilocks. No matter how skilled I am or aren't with an instrument there is always a song or a difficulty setting that is too hard, too easy, or just right. And that's so important. With most games, you basically get to a point where everything is either too easy or too hard. With hundreds of songs, four instruments, four difficulty settings, a guitar practice mode, and the drum trainer mode, there is always something too hard and, more importantly, a way to improve. Kristin likes to just play for the sake of having fun and says she doesn't really care about getting better, but I know from watching her that she was stoked to finally be able to play on Medium mode... just as I was to be able to play on Expert. And even though some may not agree, I like to be challenged by my games but I also like for there to be an obvious path to improvement. RB2 has it in spades.

It quite literally just may be the perfect game, and it's definitely the Game of 2008.

Would You Please Get Your Snow Off My Front Porch

2008-12-21T21:49:00.001-08:00

Had a spontaneous blizzard party last night with friends of ours who live in the neighborhood and didn't want to brace for the power outage alone, so they came up the hill to our place for drinks, pizza, and presumably, some board games-by-candlelight.

The snow started falling around 4pm and the winds started to pick up shortly thereafter, hitting the expected gusts of 50 to 70-mph after 7pm. The house went dark around 9pm. The power came back on for ten minutes an hour later then went back out for good. We expected it to be out for several days and were stocked up on everything we'd need to get through the long days ahead: three boxes of Zatarain's Dirty Rice mix, a couple pounds of ground beef, and a bottle of 16-year old scotch.

We tipped back our beers, spiked our hot cocoa, lit plenty of candles, and played Cranium until midnight. Just to make it seem like we were taking the situation seriously, we wound up the crank-able emergency radio and tuned in to the emergency weather stations. Yep, high winds and lots of snow. Got it.

With the temperature in the house starting to drop, our friends decided to try and go home to where their own stash of warm clothing and battery-operated DVD players awaited them. Only problem was the near-hurricane force gusts had buried their Jetta in drifts of snow. Always looking for a reason to go and play in the snow, I quickly volunteered to drive them home in the Element.

If you have the opportunity to go driving around at night in a blizzard, I highly recommend it.

The wind was howling, the snow was coming down with such force you couldn't even see the house across the street, and there was nobody on the road. The snow at the end of the driveway was pretty deep, but the main streets were blown free of snow. All except for the road at the base of our friends' driveway. Good times were had, alone on the road in a blizzard at midnight, spinning donuts and powersliding in the snow. Yes, with the top-heavy Element! Although I must say, my snow tires might be a little too good, as it was a bit harder to slide than in Kristin's Civic (yeah, nothing like powersliding on the snow in a hybrid to make the kids point and stare!).

The power company was hard at work all night long, in the cold, during the blizzard, and somehow got the power back on by 5am. Major kudos to the guys from Puget Sound Energy -- those guys rock!

Anyway, I woke up this morning to find 8 inches of snow on our covered front porch and drifts of snow up to three feet high on our front steps. Across the street, the neighbors have barely a trace of snow on their grass or in their driveway. The cars don't have snow on them. The rooftops are snow-free. It's all in our front walkway. All of it.

Note the lack of snow across the street.

I broke my main shovel digging out the front walkway this morning, then proceeded to break the emergency telescoping shovel I keep in my truck. Nothing like breaking two shovels in twenty minutes shoveling snow that nobody else seems to have.

Now I have to shovel out the garage, and no we didn't leave the door open. The wind was so steady and the snow so light and fluffy, that it blew in from the tiny gap on the side of the garage door. That was a first.

Fetch in the Snow

2008-12-18T12:41:00.001-08:00

Reason #238 why dogs are not the top of the food chain.

I was in the yard, playing in the snow with my dogs and decided to throw a snowball at the tiki at the end of the yard. The dogs immediately thought I had a ball and wanted to play fetch, so they gave chase. So, naturally, I made another snowball lobbed it up into the air and watched as Kimo, our male, opened wide for the catch.

He snapped the snowball out of the air and the surprise of getting a mouth of ice-cold snow was instantaneous. And judging by the look on his face, I just know he was thinking, "What have I ever done to deserve that?" He wasn't happy.

Unable to stand missing out on anything, our female started barking and hopping so I threw her a snowball too.

And this is how jealous our male dog is. Moments after spitting out a snowball and giving me a rather nasty look of disdain, he leapt into the air and intercepted the snowball I threw to Annana.

Then he proceeded to spit it out, bark, and give me another dirty look.

It doesn't matter how much he doesn't like something, he'll eat/take/hoard anything so long as it means Annana can't get it.

If only he knew how much more he stands to get by sharing with the ladies...

More on Newspapers

2008-12-16T14:19:00.000-08:00

Detroit Free Press cancels home delivery.

"We're fighting for our survival," said David Hunke, publisher of the Free Press and CEO of the Detroit Media Partnership, a joint operating agreement between the two papers. "We think its time to take a geometric leap forward in what we've known as newspapers."

Beginning sometime in the first three months of 2009, the two newspapers will provide home delivery on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays only, Hunke said during a news conference in Detroit, Michigan. Papers will be on newsstands every day, and the papers' online offerings will be expanded, he said.

"The dynamics of delivering information to audiences has changed forever due to technology," Hunke said in a statement on the plan.

Costs for paper, ink and fuel to deliver papers were forcing the papers into cuts in newsroom talent that would damage their abilities to report the news, Hunke said. Paying for delivery vehicles to cover 300,000 miles nightly, he said, did not make economic sense at a time when 63 percent of readers have broadband Internet access.

Full story at CNN right here.

Wow. A major (sort-of) US city without a daily newspaper. Who would have thought the day would come?

On the bright side, at least GM and Ford can finally stop all of the "bad press".

Test of Metal Race Course to Become Official Park?

2008-12-16T10:53:00.000-08:00

Oh, Squamish, how I love thee...

Test of Metal, Inc. president, Cliff Miller announced this week plans to work to have the Test of Metal race course in Squamish declared the TOM Sports Park.

“We've had a small committee working on this idea for several months,” Miller said, “it is time to get some public support for our proposal.”Miller, who credited long time Test Pilot Richard MacKellar with developing the concept, hopes the creation of the sports park will protect the race course and ensure its long-term viability in Squamish.

“People who mountain bike in Squamish know that our trail system is under constant pressure. This will help to protect for years a piece of the resource that we've developed here,” Miller said.

The 67 kilometre Test of Metal route runs on both private and public property which poses unique obstacles to the plan.

“We've sat down with landowners and explained our concept, and their feedback has been very positive,” said MacKellar.

He said that in the short term, the goal is to have some sections of the trail on public lands in the District of Squamish declared parks and work with private landowners to try secure an uninterrupted route for the race.

Full story here.

And while I'm in the middle of my first mountain-bike related post in quite some time, let me alert everyone that registration for the Test of Metal goes live at 6pm on January 1st. It will fill up in an hour or two, so be at your keyboard with credit card in hand! The race is 6/20/09 and, if the weather is anything like it was last year, it should be another unforgettable event. If you've never done it, sign up. It's unlike any other mountain bike race I've ever seen.

And if you haven't seen it, here's my report from the 2008 race.