Day 659 : Gotemba Premium Outlets

Today, I had a day off, and took my wife and daughter to Gotemba Premium Outlets. :)



I expected that cars would be running smoothly, but actually it took about 1.5 hours getting out of Tokyo central area. :(
But anyway, my wife looked happy and my daughter was sleeping in the car during the drive to the outlets. :)



The above are snapshot of my daughter in the shopping center.
Although it's a occasional rainy day, my daughter looked like enjoying her first quest in the outlet mall. :) The only problem was her mother. I mean that she sometimes lost herself there at various brand shops, and then I was struggling with my daughter asking for her mother. :o



BTW, usually I have less interests on shopping at an outlet mall, but today I wanted to buy some casual shirts and pants. The above are what I bought there today. :)

I don't want to know how much I and my wife spent today in total there. :o

Manmaru Smile

"Manmaru Smile" (まんまるスマイル) is a song performed in a popular long-lasting Japanese TV program for infants, "Okaa-san to Issho" (おかあさんといっしょ) by NHK. The title roughly means "With Mommy."
The program is composed of dances, stories, skits and mainly songs.

Recently, we bought a DVD of "Okaa-san to Issho" for our daughter.
She was pleased watching the DVD as we expected, but her parents were also fascinated by some songs of that.

As for my case, I love the above song, "Manmaru Smile" composed by a popular Japanese composer Keizo Nakanishi. As you can understand immediately, the song is arranged in Irish traditional style, and not a small number of Japanese parents seem to love the tune.

Day 656 : Peko-Chan

Peko-Chan is like Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken for a Japanese popular confectionery store chain, Fujiya Co.

Today, we went to Fuchu city to buy toys or so for our daughter, and the above is a snapshot at a mass sales store of electric appliances. In the building, there is a shop of Fujiya, and we had special pancakes named "Peko-Chan's Cheek." :)
Peko-Chan is popular since I was a small child, and my daughter also seems to like her. :)

Day 654 : Big Foot?

Haha, this evening I took my daughter for a walk, and the above is a snapshot just after we got back home. Recently, she loves her mom's sandals and tries to walk wearing them.
When she does so, it looks like sandals are walking not my daughter. :o

Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks

Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks
Mark Buchanan
ISBN 4-7942-1385-9 (Japanese Translation)


I read Barabasi's book on the same subject about 3 years ago. Barabasi is one of the founders of Networking theory, and thus he emphasized his own works a bit. But, Mark Buchanan is a popular science writer, and so this book gives us good perspective ofScience of Networks.

It's worth reading, I think.

The Big Journey -- Izumo Tour (3)

The Day 3 of my daughter's Izumo Tour.

Actually, on this day, we didn't go out anywhere because we didn't have enough time for the departure time of the flight back to Tokyo. Also, we wanted to spend time with my daughter's great grand parents. :)



But, within an hour arriving at the house, she couldn't help but falling asleep. :o
Anyway, we had a happy time with 4 generations of people.
One more important thing we did was visiting the grave of the house. But, like the above, my daughter was sleeping, and I and my wife visited there about 4 years interval since the last time when we had our wedding ceremony in Izumo.



On our homeward journeys in the airplane, our daughter didn't sleep.
Actually, she seemed to feel strange about her ears during the flight, but it's not so serious.
She looked like being in a good mood whole the flight. :)



The above left is Mt. Fuji which we saw from the airplane. The above right also catches Mt. Fuji, but the scene of stratus and light is beautiful, isn't it?
I'm wondering if my daughter felt something looking at the scene and remembers that...

The Big Journey -- Izumo Tour (2)

The Day 2 of my daughter's Izumo Tour. :)



The above is the Takenoya-Inn (竹野屋) were we stayed and we had our wedding party. :)


First of all, we went to Izumo Taisha Shrine (出雲大社) in the morning. The right above photo is Kaguraden where we had our wedding ceremony. You can see how huge the famous sacred straw rope is compared to my daughter and wife below that. :o

After walking around Izumo Taisha, we visited my daughter's great grand parents' house again.
Yesterday, great granpa looked like feeling bad and we were not sure he was conscious or not, but today he looked very good and recognized his first great granddaughter.
I took pictures of 4 generations! :)



The left above is Hinomisaki Lighthouse (日御碕灯台) which is about 20 minutes drive from the Izumo Taisha Shrine. Hinomisaki is famous for sheer cliff as you can see in the right above photo.
My daughter looked like feeling something and shouted with joy looking at the scene. :)

The Big Journey -- Izumo Tour (1)

Finally, my daughter made a trip to Izumo city where her great grand parents live and her parents had the wedding ceremony.

We were worrying if she could equalize ears. But, she fell asleep before takeoff and there was no problem on the outward flight. Actually, she kept sleeping whole the flight. :)

In the right above picture, my daughter stands in front of the gate of her great grand parents' house, and her mother and grand mother is looking at her. About 5 minutes later, finally she met her great grand mother. :)
Of course, she was shy of a strange. :o

The Art of Capacity Planning

The Art of Capacity Planning (キャパシティ プランニング)
John Allspaw
ISBN 978-4-87311-399-9 (Japanese translation)

This book is worth reading.
Author of the book works for Flicker, and he explains without stint very much practical techniques for capacity planning which he is performing at Flicker.

BTW, now I'm feeling that in order to have really essential insights on scale-out computing one has to have experiences working on large scale systems like Flicker, and I'm wondering what I can achieve at the R&D project I'm working on at work...

One Thousand and One Nights (5/13)

Le Liver Des Mille Nuits Et Une Nuit (5/13)
Translated to French by J.C. Mardrus
ISBN 4-00-327805-4 (Japanese translation)

The 5th book of "One Thousand and One Nights."
From the night 237 to the night 331.

This book contains "Sindbad the Sailor," and I was looking forward to reading the book because it is popular as a juvenile story in also Japan.
But, after finishing the stories on 7 journeys of Sindbad, I felt a bit surprised because the original story contains a lot of cruel descriptions. For example, Sindbad survived feeding on human flesh in one of his seven journeys.

Now, I'm wondering if Arabian people really tell that kind of stories to their children as folk tales...

Global Inter-Cloud Technology Forum

As I wrote recently, I will be working on a new R&D project embarked by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan about three years.

Today, a new standardization forum named "Global Inter-Could Technology Forum" was announced, and I will be there. Actually, there are several similar forums around the world, and even in Japan, there are at least two. Thus, the situation is a bit chaos, but anyway I'm looking forward to seeing various people in the standardization activities because in a sense I was confined within an internal organization at work fully these three years.

One Thousand and One Nights (4/13)

Le Liver Des Mille Nuits Et Une Nuit (4/13)
Translated to French by J.C. Mardrus
ISBN 4-00-327805-4 (Japanese translation)

The 4th book of "One Thousand and One Nights."
From the night 130 to the night 236.

One thing I felt reading books of the One Thousand and One Nights is that Islamic people seem to love verses very much. Assuming daily life of common people described there reflects real daily life of them, even a merchant chants verses when they feel emotion quite naturally.
I felt a bit surprised at first, but maybe it's because Islamic people are quite familiar with chanting verses because of their religious custom, chanting the Koran...

Here, it's just my theory and I'm not sure...

Day 635 : Rock'n Roll!

Recently, my daughter has learnt to climb a chair.
It's a great progress, but very much dangerous. :(

Look at the face of her in the above picture. She is proud of her achievement and looks like shouting "Rock'n Roll!" :o

IE7 Slow Blank Page Issue

Since I upgraded IE from IE6 to IE7, I've been wondering why this browser is so slow when I open new blank pages. Usually, it takes about 5 to 10 seconds or so. It was really painful. :(

But, I found the solution finally today here. :)

First of all, "Tools" > "Manage Addins" > "Enable or disable Addins", and choose "Click on Addons Currently Loaded in IE."
On Japanese version Windows, the sequence is "ツール(O)" > "アドオンの管理(A)" > "アドオンを有効または無効にする(E)", and choose "現在 Internet Explorer で読み込まれているアドオン."

The above page says to disable "SSVHELPER CLASS", but in case of me, there were more add-ons and extensions affecting the behavior.

I disabled the following add-ons, and

• CPwmIEBrowserHelper Object
• Java(tm) Plug-in 2 SSV Helper
• JQSIEStartDetectorImpl Class
• ThinkVantage Password Manager
• Windows Live Toolbar
• Windows Live Toolbar Helper
• Windows Messenger

I kept the following add-ons.

• Adobe PDF Reader Link Helper
• RealPlayer Download and Record Plugin
• Shockwave Flash Object

Now, my IE7 open blank pages very quickly without any troubles. :)

Pluto 8

Pluto 8
Naoki Urasawa
ISBN 978-4091825247

Urasawa completed his work on remaking Tezuka's "The World's Strongest Robot" finally.
I'm not disclosing the story line here, but I'd like to mention that readers could have the same impression with the last book of Nausicaa by Hayao Miyazaki after reading the climax.
Here, my point is that what people would do when they are placed under the desperate situation.
Precisely speaking, there is an essential difference between the cases of Nausicaa and Pluto story lines, but still both the works are sharing the same insights on human nature, I think.
Anyway, it's worth reading. :)

Good News

I'm feeling that this year we hear a lot of sad news such that Michel Jackson left this life recently.


But, today, I received a very much happy news. :)

A former colleague of mine, Maru-chan, got married, and it's honour of me being invited to his wedding ceremony in this October.
Maru-chan is working for one of the biggest IT vendor's laboratory, and there is no doubt that he is one of the most excellent engineers in Japan. To tell the truth, once I thought I should recruit him to the company now I'm working for. :o

It's a bit future story, but I'm looking forward to seeing him and his wife from now.

Anyway, Congraturations, Maru-chan! :)

Day 630 : Stubborn Child?

The above is a snapshot my wife took in this afternoon when she got back home with my daughter.

Recently, my daughter loves hanging around outside our condo, and sometimes she does not move from where she likes whatever we said to her.

Yes, my daughter is a really stubborn child in the case like this.

I'm not sure whom she resembles in this point of view. :o

One Thousand and One Nights (3/13)

Le Liver Des Mille Nuits Et Une Nuit (3/13)
Translated to French by J.C. Mardrus
ISBN 4-00-327803-8 (Japanese translation)

The 3rd book of "One Thousand and One Nights."
From the night 44 to the night 129.

This book contains the longest story among the One Thousand and One Nights.
The story is about 3 generation people of Christian and Islamic worlds. I felt strange because the culture of the Christian people there look like Islamic based one, but anyway I enjoyed the long long story with a strange and in a sense tough old woman who plays a key role throughout the whole story line. Anyway, you can enjoy different aspect of he One Thousand and One Nights from the previous 2 books.

Day 629 : Stretching Out

As I wrote recently, my daughter has great interests in everything on the table.
The above is a snapshot which caught a rare chance when she showed her smiley face from under the table this evening. :)

BTW, it's really amazing that now she can reach high like the above. I'm wondering her desire to reach things on the table might be accelerating her growth. :o

Day 629 : A-ha!

This is a snapshot at the ground floor of ItoYokado after lunch time.
At least in Japan, there are cosmetic shops on the ground floor of a department store, and actually she is looking at commercial video in front of one of cosmetic shops there.
I'm wondering if she has already been interested in cosmetics before 2 years old... :o