Move to Maryland

As most of you know I have finally moved back to the US to start a job in Arnold, MD. I have been working two weeks now and been in the states for almost three.

One of the common question I get is, "Do you have or feel some culture shock?" That is a tough one for me because I figured I go back to the states once a year to see family and do other stuff and I thought I remembered what America was like and how people acted. That is mostly true but there are still surprises every once and a awhile.

The first night I was in America i stopped by a grocery store to pick up some necessities. The first thing I did was put my basket on the belt to the cashier. In Japan you put your basket on a stand and the cashier rings you up putting your purchases into another basket. The cashier in America was not impressed.

There has been other little things. I caught myself bowing from time to time when saying sorry. Not seeing all of the taxi cabs around. Also seeing all of the big SUVs. There were some in Sendai, but they were the exception not the rule. Going to my first Ikea store, which may not be American but it is somewhat mind blowing. Sometimes switching back to Japanese for some automatic phrases. Now that I have a cell phone it is a little bit odd now that anyone can call me. While in Japan I had to call everyone because the cost to call Japan was pretty high. By the way if anyone wants my cell phone number send me an email and I will send it to you.

One big change that I have needed to get use to is the size of my new apartment. I think the old apartment was the size of the master bedroom in the new apartment. Also I have a much better view from the new apartment. Here are some examples.







Now if you can compare this to the view from my old apartment in Sendai.


So i have moved up a little bit in the world. I also moved into a two bedroom apartment so I have a spare room that I don't use and a a bunch of space that I don't use. I also own a car for the first time in four years, so now I need to pay attention to gas prices again.

Thats all for now.

Fire/Earthquake Drill in Japan

cimg2779, originally uploaded by ehud4242.

Just your normal everyday earthquake drill in Japan.

My New York City Trip

At the end of October I had a conference in New York City. The conference was the 2007 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium. It was a good conference and I got to meet a bunch of people from different fields.

I did not have very much time for walking around NYC but I did get a few pictures on the day that I arrived. My initial plan had been to walk to the USS Intrepid from my hotel on 53rd and 6th. Little did I know that the Intrepid was not in the dock and would not return for over a year. After learning that the Intrepid was not in port the hard way, I walked to Rockefeller center where they already had the ice in place for people to skate .




I walked around a bit more but there is not much more worth posting. I walked around Central Park at dusk and that was really neat and eerie place to be at dusk.

The last comment from NYC was that because I for a change was the only native English in my group I was in charge of leading around my group of Japanese colleagues. They seemed to expect I would know where to go to find a good lunch. We never got sick and we never spent more than $25 on a meal, so I guess I didn't do too bad.

After the trip I went up to Argyle for a little less than a week to work on installing smoothwall and freenas on different machines. While I was there I took this picture.



I guess cats and dogs can live together.

Guess What I did Today

Graduated, originally uploaded by ehud4242.

Finished

My third broken bicycle

Well it has been way to long since I have put a post up. Not much to say just a little thing called life and a PhD have been keeping me busy.

The good news is that yes I have finished my PhD work. The only thing left is to print out a bunch of copies of the thesis and get it bound. In another month or so I will be officially finished.

The primary reason for this post today, other than to say that yes I am still alive, I to talk about my bicycle. In a previous post I mentioned that I had bought a used bicycle from a friend who was leaving Japan. The bicycle was a nice big Trek bicycle that fit me. I was happy to have it because it made it easier and more enjoyable to go out for rides. See the previous post.

Over the past week or two I could here a new "creek" in the bicycle but I was not sure where it was from. On Wednesday I was on it again and the entire bicycle felt wobbly but the "creek" was gone. Looking over the bike and frame I found this where the center tube meets the down tube and the cranks for the pedals.


To say the least that is very bad and unsafe to ride on. I am going to see if I can get the frame replaced by Trek.

The other funny part about this story is that this is the third bike that I have "killed" while in Japan. The first was my eight year old mountain bike whose frame broke a few months after arriving in Japan.


The second was standard Japan bike that I showed in the previous post. That bike I was definitely too big for and probably too heavy for. That one died due to the spokes on one of the tires breaking and it was not worth fixing after only 21 months of riding.

My last bike only lasted one year. The next bike I get will be lucky to last 6 months.

Anyways here is a couple of pictures that I took while bicycling to the sea.

A little explanation of me

I don't know if many of you go to xkcd but it is well to quote its author, "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language" (Randall Munroe). Anyways I found his last comic especially amusing. I think it will help people understand me a little bit better.




The original link

An article about my parents next buisness venture

Today the local newspaper in my hometown published an article about my parents next business venture, a cheese making business.

The Post Star Article

I was not thrilled with the fact that the Post Star could not spell our last name correctly and a couple of other points but in the end, no publicity is bad publicity (or at least I hope).

I should also say I am sorry that I have not posted much of anything lately, I have been very busy with my research and thesis. I will not make any promises for future posts but you never know if and when I will get the writing bug again.

Thats all for now

Glass ware at a DIY shop

Just an interesting picture showing a bunch of glass ware that you can by at large hardware store (like a Lowes or Home Depot). For most people you are like so what but to me as a scientist/researcher/mad scientist this is really cool.

I will try to keep posting stuff.