response 400 of 560:

Nov 19 23:10 UTC 2003

Got a bunch of firewood either cut or split, enough to fill my sheltered
storage.  

response 402 of 560:

Nov 21 19:52 UTC 2003

Tonight really turned out to be lovely evening.  

Rushed home early from work today to do last minute packing.  Tomorrow
we fly to Annapolis for a week of hanging with family and partaking
of turkey).  Part of the hurry was a late scheduled dinner with one of
my kodo-fan friends.  

Kodo have been on tour performing the product of their collaboration
with Tomasaburo Bando and are winding things down with a year-end series
of performances at a theatre in Sangenjaya.  My friend organized an
after-show beer and izakaya munchy cool down with three members of Kodo
tonight.  The plan was to meet for a few hours then head home.

5 hours and far too much beer later, suddenly realized it was 2am and
we still hadn't (haven't!) packed.  Off off, we go.

Well I'm finished packing and it's just about time to wake Yumi and
crash myself for an hour or two before heading to Narita but who needs
sleep anyways.

A lovely evening indeed.

response 404 of 560:

Nov 21 20:03 UTC 2003

Airplanes are for sleeping. :)

response 406 of 560:

Nov 21 21:48 UTC 2003

  We've had several days of cold, crisp, sunny weather with clear
  skies.  The mountains above town and on the nearby islands are
  covered with a light amount of snow -- just enough to show off
  the shapes of the trees on their forested sides and the air is
  so crisp and dry that you can see much further than under normal
  conditions..  To top it off, the clear skies last night made it
  possible to see the aurora -- not a spectacular display, perhaps,
  but curtains of faint greenish light across much of the sky.

  Definitely a beautiful week in SE Alaska.  Forecast for Saturday
  is 100% chance of rain, however, so I suppose I can kiss the
  scenic snow-shrouded slopes goodbye for a while.  Nice while it
  lasted, anyway..

  And oh, yeah, did I mention that when I went out to pick up
  lunch this afternoon I could see a pod of orcas surfacing and
  spouting across the Tongass Narrows from where I work?

response 408 of 560:

Nov 22 02:33 UTC 2003

IHB I found that I already had the Jeff Beck album I wanted (it was
with some stuff I put in the trunk of the car rather than leave it
sitting exposed, and I forgot about it for a few days due to work
pressures), and the replacement for my RMA'ed modem just arrived
and I am madly pulling down piles of stuff that I missed in the
interim.

response 410 of 560:

Nov 22 17:07 UTC 2003

IHB England won the Rugby World Cup today, marking the first time since the
Cup began in '87 that it has been won by a Northern Hemisphere side, and the
first time since 1966 that England have won a world championship in a major
sport (the last having been the FIFA football (soccer) World Cup).

England won 20-17 against Australia, the hosting country and the defending
world champions, after beating France in the semi-final. Australia surprised
everyone bv beating the All-Blacks (New Zealand) in the semi-final.

Australia played really well; fortunately for us, we played better.

response 412 of 560:

Nov 22 20:35 UTC 2003

I think they're traditionally all Maoris, the original Polynesian inhabitants
of NZ; plus their tops are, well, all black.

I'm 99% sure they are all Maoris, because they are allowed to do this thing
called the "haka" before the game, which is sort of a Maori war-dance.

response 414 of 560:

Nov 22 21:28 UTC 2003

Maybe the Maoris are just better or more interested than the Pakeha (the
whites). Or maybe there are whites in the team and they also do it; the haka
is a national institution in New Zealand, but the Pakeha far outnumber the
Maoris - until about 1996 when NZ adopted a partly proportional system of
voting for their Parliament, the Maoris were entitled to 2 seats out of just
under 100, reflecting the proportion of Maoris to Pakeha. (They could register
to vote for one of the two Maori seats, or one of the rest, but not both;
Pakeha were excluded from the two Maori seats altogether).

There's a bit of controversy involved, as the rugby world governing body
recently ruled that the NZers could perform the haka, as it's an ethnic
custom, but that Australia doesn't have the right to sing "Waltzing Matilda"
before international matches begin; God Save the Queen is played in the
presencer of the Queen and the Governor-General (the Queen's representative
and effectively the Head of State), but at other times "Advance Australia
Fair" is played, which is regarded as rather turgid by the laid-back Ozzies.

response 416 of 560:

Nov 22 21:44 UTC 2003

it's tacky *cracker music*

response 418 of 560:

Nov 23 06:55 UTC 2003

Re#409: Eric, I last saw Daniel in August at Earth Celebration where
he did a showing of some of the pottery he's been crafting in Hawai`i.

He's recently been organizing some sort of crafts program under the
general umbrella of the Kodo foundation.  

Normally I only run into him at EC each year but I owe him a beer and may
attempt to repay the debt when we pass through Honolulu next February :-)
If we cross paths, I'll pass on your howdy.

response 420 of 560:

Nov 23 20:24 UTC 2003

        I had to replace a taillight on the car today.  IAHB
the weather is much better today than it will be tommorrow.

response 422 of 560:

Nov 24 04:11 UTC 2003

IHB I have the deserts for turkey day done... too many pies... people better
eat them or they will be shoved down their throats!

IAHB there are only 3 weeks left until now school for a month.

response 424 of 560:

Nov 24 15:08 UTC 2003

FYI, not everyone on the All-Blacks is Maori - their captain was, and to my
knowledge, that's how the Haka started.  Quite frankly, if it meant the Caps
would win, I would encourage them to cha-cha on the ice.