Ye olde year-end flurry of activity.

Christmas again already, is it?  My, that year went by fast.  But it was an exciting one - and not just in the "may you live in interesting times" sense!

Unsurprisingly, I'm sitting in a telescope control room on Christmas night.  Not something that happens every year, but maybe half of the years.  I was in the same place the night of Christmas Eve.  However, in between, I did make it up to the top of the mountain to do a bit of work during the afternoon and get snowed on!  Yes, not only was there snow already on the ground (has been for weeks now), but snowflakes were falling on me.  That was neat.

So it's December, and I'm scrambling.  Scrambling to work as many hours as possible toward the 1000-hour annual cap at my main job.  Scrambling to sort through all kinds of mail and deal with it.  The nice folks who send me a bunch of paper every quarter about my IRA, which I never ever read (the value has gone up nicely in the 3.5 years I've ignored it!), I told to just email the info instead.  I gave in to the Astronomy Society of the Pacific, who've optimistically sent me a nice letter every year since 2005 asking if I wanted to renew my lapsed membership... but only because they, too, seem to be going more "electronic."  See a trend here?  Yeah.  I don't like lots of paper filling up my mailbox.  Unless it's paper that has the words "PAY TO" followed by my name - then I'll make an exception.

I came across an advertising piece from the airline that they apparently sent me early this fall, encouraging me to purchase a membership in their lounge, on the basis that I'd actually save money by not having to pay for soft drinks, juice, bagels, muffins, snacks, cookies and internet access (let alone espresso, alcohol, and other things I don't buy anyway) whenever I was in an airport that had a lounge available.  It was somewhere on my floor, unopened.  I think I had ignored it... but I had figured out the math and joined up anyway.  Their calculations were using an example of someone who flew 12 times a year.  Ha. Ha.  That reminds me, I need to bug them because they've only credited me miles for sixty-three of  sixty-four flights I took this year with them or their partners.  I think I might fly less next year.

Other than that... work, work, earn money, pay off debt.  The balance on the credit card that doesn't earn me miles is approaching zero, which I'm happy about.  I hope I can pay it off completely in the next few months.

Funny mail from "HomeLoanCenter": "Your Mortgage Payment could be REDUCED to $644.00."  How do they propose to REDUCE something to $644 that's currently about $550?  Silly dead-tree financial spammers.

Oh, going through the mail is part of trying to tidy up the house.  I'm working every night until the end of the year, so I can take some with me each night and destroy it. :)  After New Year's, I'll have a little bit of a break, so I can look into doing things like washing dishes and sweeping and rearranging closets and furniture and all that stuff.  My friend Joanna from Honolulu has offered to help a bit with that when she comes over on weekends to volunteer with me on the mountain.

I found out last week that the bookstore that carries one of my photos has run out.  Bumped into the manager today and he said that yeah, we need to work on getting more ordered.  One little victory.  And I have to get around to finding the time to work on another product or two that I want to provide for them.

Oh well... back to digging through the mail.

Mele Kalikimaka & Hau'oli Makahiki Hou to all.

The Most Interesting Man in the World, on Careers

 I don't drink (at all, ever) but I found this short commercial (part of a series) both funny and wise. The character is "The Most Interesting Man in the World." In the longer commercial which launched the campaign, he was described as follows:

The police often question him just because they find him interesting.
His beard alone has experienced more than a lesser man's entire body.
His blood smells like cologne.
He is... the most interesting man in the world.

What distinguished the Rollins family, according to Daniel Webster

 I've been poking around a bit genealogically today, and in looking up members of the Rollins family (some of my ancestors), found that the Google Books project has scanned, and made available as a freely downloadable PDF, John Rodman Rollins' 1874 book, Records of Families of the name Rawlins or Rollins, in the United States, courtesy of Oxford University, England.

In the introduction to his book, Rollins excerpts an article by Charles Lanman in the September, 1856 Harper's Monthly, entitled Social Hours of Daniel Webster, in which Webster - a noted New Hampshire attorney, congressman, and U.S. Secretary of State - recounts an experience with some members of the Rollins family.  I don't know whether anyone in my particular branch of the family has read this already, but in case they haven't, here it is.

Is your trip necessary?

I had a couple airline vouchers sitting around, one of which was scheduled to expire in late December if I didn't use it.  And I had a little bit of free time in early December.  So I checked to see whether the vouchers were usable, and set up a bit of a trip to visit my parents, with side jaunts to see my sister and nephew, go to the Air & Space Museum in Washington D.C. with a bunch of other frequent flyers, and various and sundry other things. I set off Wednesday morning from Hilo, getting a good view of the Hamakua Coast waterfalls from my window seat on the way over to Honolulu.

Arriving in Honolulu, I was reminded of what I already knew - Aloha was running 3 hours late due to rough weather, while Hawaiian (who I flew) were perfectly on schedule.  That's why we say "Friends don't let friends fly Aloha."

Thankfully, since Hawaiian was perfectly on schedule, I had a nice relaxing stop in the lounges at Honolulu, then slept all the way to Los Angeles on Delta, had a nice relaxing stop in the lounge there, got upgraded to first class, got on the plane, which didn't take off because something broke, got off, got on another plane with slightly fewer seats (still managing to be in first class), which did take off, and so on.

North of the Mason-Dixon line, things were pretty snowy.  My stop to change planes in Minneapolis was snowy, and the plane east from there had to get de-iced before takeoff.  Flying east, I had a good view of Racine, Wisconsin just as we started out over Lake Michigan, and later, as we were beginning our descent, I got to see Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania.

After a couple nights' rest in New Jersey, Saturday came, and it was time to head down to Washington with my parents to see my sister and nephew, the other frequent flyers and the museum full of airplanes. At 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, we learned that it was National Elevator Escalator Safety Awareness Week, then took the stairs down to our Amtrak train to Washington D.C.  

We got to see lots of scenery from the train, including the Susquehanna River.

Once we arrived in Washington, we found my sister Sue and her son Mitchell, and all had lunch in the food court at Union Station.  Everyone decided to take the Metro over to the Smithsonian (changing at Chinatown) but I felt like walking, so I went briskly down Louisiana Avenue to the Mall.

While waiting for everyone else to show up, I took more photos.  Above is the Washington Monument, and below is the Capitol, where we banish our worst criminals in a practice we call "capitol punishment."

Once we were all at the Air & Space Museum, we hung around for a bit until all my fellow frequent flyers arrived, then got a private guided tour of some of the highlights.

Of course, I spotted this poster from the WWII era.  Needless travel, indeed!

I guess flying from Hawaii to the east coast and back partly just to use up some vouchers from the airlines and hang out with some other frequent flyers in a museum full of airplanes might qualify as an "unnecessary" trip... There's nothing quite like a museum that tries to make you feel guilty for coming to see it.

Just in: Everything I Do Causes Cancer

 In the immortal words of the late, great Warren Zevon, "Life'll kill ya."

But this time, it's personal.  As has just been widely reported in the media, the World Health Organization's cancer research organization is about to add working night shifts to its list of probable carcinogens.  Why?  Because working at night switches the body's exposure to light and darkness, disrupting the natural circadian rhythms, and interfering with natural production of the hormone Melatonin, which can suppress development of tumors.

Of course, I work nights a lot. 

This wouldn't be such a concern, except that the place I work nights restricts my hours because letting me work more hours would lead to them being required (by state law) to offer me a health insurance plan.

So... work that probably causes cancer, combined with an employer determined to not offer health insurance.  Great, huh?

Interestingly, the same thing can happen with Melatonin (though perhaps to a lesser extent) when people travel long distances across several time zones.  The body again gets confused about what time it is, and so on, and so forth.

Of course, I travel long distances a lot, when I'm not working nights. 

So I guess I'll have to find some way of earning a living in one place, by the light of day...

Yokohama

 

At the beginning of November, I went to Yokohama, Japan for a week to attend a conference.  Since I like Northwest Airlines and had never flown between Japan and anywhere in the US except Honolulu, I opted to fly to the mainland and go from there.

I caught up with my friend and fellow conference-goer, Twig, at the Detroit airport just as our 747-400 bound for Japan was boarding.  I knew we would be on the same flight, but I didn't know that he'd wound up right across the aisle and one row back!  It made it easy to chat now and then during the very long flight!

Our flight path from Detroit to Tokyo-Narita took us over Alaska, which was interesting to see.  I've still never been on the ground there, and I suppose I really have to work on that sometime.  We got into Narita on-time, though... and then had to wait for our friend Peter, whose flight from Vancouver was running a little late.

We all took the JR Line Narita Express train down to Yokohama.  This train knows a lot more about where it is, where it's going, and when it's going to get there than a lot of trains I've encountered around the world.  Unfortunately, other than a short subway ride in Yokohama, this was the only train I got to ride during my visit to Japan - no bullet train for me!  Maybe if I get back over there sometime and have more time on my hands.

This is one of the bridges across the harbor in Yokohama.  It reminds me a little of the Century Bridge in Haikou, Hainan Dao, China, but the design is different; I'm pretty sure Century Bridge has a singel suspension tower.  Anyway, it's a lot more modern than the old Philly and New York suspension bridges I grew up around.

Here are some buildings seen in Minato Mirai 21, the redeveloped harbor/waterfront area of Yokohama.  In the foreground left of center is the Navios Yokohama hotel, which is where I stayed.  At the far right is World Porters, an upscale sort of mall.  And in the background is the Landmark Tower Yokohama - the tallest building in Japan!

Cosmo Clock 21 was the biggest ferris wheel in the world when it was built almost 20 years ago.  It's still the biggest clock.  There's a giant digital clock in the middle, and at night, the ends of the arms that hold the ferris wheel cars light up, 1 per second, to provide more accurate time-telling.  It's in the CosmoWorld amusement park, and there's a roller coaster that runs around its feet.

This is the Minato Mirai pier, where one can catch various ferries or harbor cruise boats.  It's located right by Pacifico Yokohama, the big conference and expo center where I spent most of the week.  In the background is one of the harbor bridges.

The city lights of Yokohama are pretty at night, especially given all the little waterways around and through the Minato Mirai 21 area.  Here, I found some old-fashioned boats (used to give boat rides for tourists during the day, I think) moored near the Bankokubashi Bridge, with the Landmark Tower Yokohama and part of Queen's Square in the background.

One morning, some photographers were shooting advertising pictures of a little car outside the hotel.  It's a Mazda "Verisa," but I don't think I've ever seen one like it in the states.  Maybe it's a model that's only sold in Japan, or something.

On the last day of the conference, my friend Mika came all the way from Tokyo to say hi!  She's very nice but a bit camera-shy, so I won't put a picture of her in this.  But I will include a picture of the gift she brought me - a Japanese wind chime!  It is hanging on the front porch of the house in Hawaii now, and when there's a good breeze, I can hear it chiming.  Arigatou gozimasu, Mika-san!

Overall, I had an okay time in Yokohama.  I didn't have any friends in town ahead of time, and I don't speak enough Nihongo to really make any new ones during my visit, so I pretty much just hung out with the folks I went to the conference with, and walked around taking pictures in my free time.  If I go to Japan again, I want to try somewhere more rural, to see what that's like.  Maybe I can go visit my cousins in Okinawa sometime!

I know almost nothing about almost nothing.

This is my epiphany for the day.

I might put it on a t-shirt or something.

It'll help cut down on the questions from people who don't understand it. 

Words can be fun.