I love Halloween, but unfortunately we always seem to live places where few, if any, trick-or-treaters come by.

This year will likely be a bit tame. Kazu will be going out with a friend trick-or-treating, but it looks to be darn cold tonight.

Either my wife or I will remain home to see if we do, in fact, have any trick or treaters come around. This will determine our 'baseline' -- i.e. determine if I get to go batshit-crazy with decorations next year. If not, we may have to resort to throwing kid-friendly Halloween parties or something.

I had some very unsettling email from my father, who was recently diagnosed with some sort of Leukemia, or Leukemia-like cancer. Apparently, his illness is at best unclassified and relatively rare or unique.

Paraphrased from his email (which was taken from the notes he took from a consultation at the Fred Hutch Cancer center):

A Weekend of Science!
We had our "official" birthday party for my oldest son at the Imagine Science Museum. It's a very cool place for kids under the age of eight. Everyone had a good time, and Kazu got yet more presents (this was essentially his second birthday party). Some of the new toys Katsuya is sure assume ownership of, because they cater to Katsuya's interests far more than Kazu's. I particularly liked the Dinosaur dig site on the roof of the Science museum, which leads into my next bit:

Velociraptors: Tracks confirm pack behavior and the raised sickle-claw
A recent article at Newscientist.org presents some very cool evidence confirming (or at least supporting) ideas about Velociraptors (pack behavior, and running with a raised sickle-claw). As someone who loved dinosaurs as a child (and still does as an adult), I find it interesting that I don't recall reading much about Velociraptors in my childhood dinosaur books. Jurassic Park (the book and the movie) seems to have been the catalyst for launching them into the mainstream.

What is a Dinosaur? Creationists explain it all...badly.
I'm sure this behavior will eventually be confirmed by a field study or something, because the insane Creationists at Objective Ministries claim that Velociraptors: "...terrorize the goat herders of Puerto Rico and are rumored to guard the remains of the Ark on Mt. Ararat."
(Read Objective Ministries' ideas about dinosaurs!)

More hilarity courtesy of the Objective Creation Education Web site. (If Objective Creation Education isn't an oxymoron, I don't know what is.)

In this compelling and unintentionally funny story:

• Our "heroes" (i.e. the Christian expedition members) seek out a living Apatasaurus.
• They annoy every last native they come across with Christian proselytizing.
  
• The leader of the expedition -- because of his resolute faith in Jesus, of course -- beats up their guide to stop him from shooting the Apatasaurus they claim to have seen.
• The guide confesses he was conspiring to stop them from finding the Apatasaurus.
• They take a completely dark and totally unidentifiable picture -- which they post on the site and claim is photographic proof of an Apatasaurus.
  

It reads like a Christian Creationist's wet dream: Adventure in deep Africa, convert natives, and defeat the Atheist guide -- who then exposes his true, sinister, evolutionist conspiracy to silence the righteous, true ideas of Creationism!

Don't miss the photographic proof of their Apatasaurus encounter. Personally, I suspect someone just stuck a cell phone down their pants and snapped a picture.

Another gem: "Apple Computers promote Godless Darwinism and Communism." (Apparently Darwin OS-based + open source = Godless Darwinism and Communism.)

CNN is running a story called What to do if your house has ghosts.

I understand that they want to have some seasonal Halloween-oriented content -- but this story actually treats the subject of ghosts (and picking a "professional" to get rid of them) seriously.

Here's my prescription to get rid of "ghosts":

1. Stop believing in nonsense.
2. See a psychologist/psychiatrist.
3. Read a book!

I stopped by my old karate dojo last night to drop off some business cards for my instructor, and to visit for a bit.

It was very busy and I didn't get to visit nearly as much as I'd hoped. It was, however, nice to see the dojo all a bustle with lots of students -- both on the floor and off. The karate school had been on the verge of going out of business a few years ago. Now, it looks like business is booming.

It also served to remind me that I'll probably never train there again -- not regularly anyway. I no longer have the time, desire, or patience to put up with all the formalities and inefficiencies common to traditional Japanese karate training.

For now, it's pretty much all grappling/Brazliain Jiu-Jitsu all the time (well, 2-3 times per week). I'm on the grappling short bus, because I never trained in any kind of grappling or wrestling prior to beginning my BJJ training about two years ago. 

In my opinion, it's important to get out of your comfort zone and cross-train in multiple, diverse styles of martial arts.

My own experience: I trained regularly in Japanese karate for more than 20 years. During that time, I also trained in Arnis for about 6-8 years; then I trained in Iaido for about 18 months. My Iaido classes came to halt because of scheduling changes as well as my own changing priorities in the martial arts. I decided I wanted to get back to learning more "real" fighting -- for myself and so I can help usher my kids into effective, modern, martial arts. It was then -- about two years ago -- that I started taking Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

It was -- and is -- a very humbling experience. I get my butt kicked every week a dozen or more times. I get crushed, choked, arm-barred, and  submitted constantly. All those years of karate and other martial arts don't mean a darn thing when you're on your back getting the crap squished out of you.

It's also terrifically fun and a great workout. And even though I'm a lowly (4-stripe) white belt at my BJJ school -- if I could go back in time, I could *so* beat me up and choke me out.

I'll always visit 'the old dojo' -- and I'll probably periodically hit the floor to train every now and again. I might even take Kazu to the weekend kiddies classes from time to time to test the waters a bit. (Kazu (age 4) is still a bit young to begin training regularly, but he seems to be really interested in it.) As for myself, though -- there's no school like the new school. If Japanese karate holds any more future for me -- it's probably just to share some BJJ with members of my old school.

Kazu had a very bad day in preschool yesterday. He threw a fit and called his teacher names. I guess he was involved in some other shenanigans too.

I was his first "bad" day at school, but hearing about it immediately made me feel bad for him. It also made me -- and probably makes most parents, I suspect -- question themselves and how they raise their kids. 'Did we do something wrong?' we wonder.

Hopefully, it was just an isolated incident. Kazu just turned 4 years old, and no one has a perfect day every day. As long as this doesn't become a trend, I'll try not to worry about it too much. I do have some concerns that he might be at least partially ADHD. He's extremely bright and energetic, but seems to have problems controlling himself sometimes -- particularly when he's bored, tired, or he doesn't feel well. He's very independent and enrgetic, so as soon as he's bored, he's more than happy to just take off on his on. He is a constant source of consternation to his swimming teachers, although the better swimming teachers generally do much better with him.

On the other hand, he seems to have a reasonable attention span as long as he's actively engaged. I've watched him assemble and play with his gear toys for extended periods with laser-like focus.

Regardless, his behavior issues -- though hardly terrible -- still nag at the back of my mind. I'm a bit depressed today. I suspect it has to do with my own lack of sleep, my wife's poor health, and Kazu's Bad Day. Financial and job-related concerns (as my contract here ends in 2 months) are also on my mind a lot lately.

Even the work I got today (a good thing, because work has been sparse) hasn't done much to take my mind off things. Maybe I'll feel a little more chipper after my lunchtime jiu-jitsu class.

In the interest of general health and improved athletic performance, I made some adjustments to my regular diet.

Actually, I don't diet. I just try to eat healthy. Much of what is considered 'healthy', however -- particularly what is popularized as 'healthy' by mainstream media -- is generally wrong, and/or unproven.

So I've been digging around on the Internet and getting more info on things like 'Paleo' eating (interesting but too extreme), 'Zone' dieting (seems a good balance), as well as much of the science/info/ideas that run counter to the whole government-backed dietary guidelines. A good example of this can be found in this blog.

So, in contrast to the 'low fat' diet, I chose to do away with sugar and carbohydrate intake as much as was comfortable for me. (I try to be fairly moderate.) My new dietary guidelines resulted in this:

• More fat and protein in general, primarily through eggs, meat and mixed nuts.
  
• More veggies and fruit.
• Virtually no rice, potatoes, or bread.
  
• Minimal to no refined sugar. No sports drinks, fruit juice, etc.
• Occasional (no-sugar) protein shakes or protein bars as snacks.
  

I still eat a high-fiber (with low or no sugar) bowl of cereal sprinkled with mixed nuts as my breakfast -- often with a cup of coffee or a sugar-free energy drink (zipfizz). The rest of the day I eat primarily fruit (apples), meat, nuts, etc. Generally, I avoid (or minimize)  carbohydrates/sugars -- particularly after breakfast. I also cap my eating at 7pm as well.

Here are some effects I've noticed:

• I generally feel fuller, and less prone to chow down on everything that crosses my path. This is particularly notable in that my previous, more carb-oriented 'low fat' diet often had me snacking almost continuously throughout the day.
  
• I don't really miss any of the foods I 'gave up' and I'm enjoying foods I'd previously avoided: steak, sausages, etc. Fat is no longer the 'enemy' so much as sugar and carbohydrates are.
  
• After about 2-3 weeks of this, I lost weight (and I wasn't trying to lose weight). Particularly interesting is this: after returning from our Hawaiian vacation (during which I did almost no exercise/working out), I decided to weigh myself out of curiosity. I found that I had dropped from an average weight of about 173 to about 168 now.
  

I'd be curious to know what my cholesterol is because I'm unsure of how my cholesterol would be affected. (On the other hand, cholesterol guidelines, much like the 'nonfat/'lowfat' material popularized in the press, are probably less iron-clad than we have been led to believe.)

A couple other notes:

• Although I'm working out again, I'm also back to my 'desk' job and being more sedentary than I was in Hawaii, so I'll be curious to see if the weight loss remains.
  
• I can't attest to any specific athletic improvements yet, although I haven't noticed any losses either.

As long as my strength and energy remain roughly the same (or improve), I'm not too worried about the weight loss. (Although the extra weight can be nice to have sometimes -- particularly when you're trying to crush the crap out of someone in Jiu-Jitsu class.)

I got tired of trying to make Ubuntu work with my wireless card, so I plugged it directly into my router, which worked fine. This also allowed me to download and upgrade a ton of components, including the OS itself (to version 7.10). This also installed the correct Nvidia drivers, so I could run my laptop at it's native LCD resolution instead of being stuck at 1024x768.

I still haven't gotten Wifi to work, but based on my Googling this appears to be a known problem since version 6.06 of Ubuntu. (I don't know why it hasn't been fixed yet). The key issue is that it won't allow you to input a 128-bit encryption key. I'd rather not compromise my network's security for the sake of my laptop, so my quest for a solution continues.

On the whole, however, I like Ubuntu's user experience/interface generally much better than the still cluttered Windows Vista. Ubuntu gets a lot of things right -- but I still wouldn't generally recommend it for non-nerds or the non-adventurous.

In other news, I got accepted into the Hellgate: London beta, and got to play it this weekend. (Yay!) A non-disclosure aggrement obviously restricts me from talking about the game -- but it's cool to be accepted into the beta and actually have some time to play the game.

My foray into the world of Ubuntu Linux on my laptop is going slowly.

I still haven't managed to find and install the correct drivers for my wireless NIC or my video card. I'm sure when I have more time to study/learn what the hell I'm doing I'll overcome these issues. The OS in general still intrigues me, but installing drivers  could certainly be easier.

This is to damn funny not to share: A bunch of wacky creationists are determined to find Pterosaurs, capture them, and bring them back to the Fellowship Creation Science Museum --  for breeding and display. They believe this will sow seeds of dissent in those that believe in the "twisted" view of Evolution.

Pterosaurs are apparently perfect for this because:

• Apatasaurs (which still roam the Congo) are too big
• Velociraptors (which protect Noah's Ark) are too mean
• Plesiosaurs (whose remains have been found by fishermen) are too hard to catch.

Read the entire, unintentionally hilarious story here.

I think we just found a plot hook for Jurassic Park IV...

Today is my oldest son's 4th birthday, so I'm determined not to let recent stresses (below) ruin the joy of the day. Kazu continues to be an amazingly smart, funny, and articulate little boy. He has boundless -- and sometimes difficult to control -- energy. He loves to know how things work, and he continues to be fascinated by gears, fans, astronomy/geology (he can describe how tectonic plates make earthquakes), opening up my computer, clocks, and (generally) building things or taking things apart. We got him some very cool gears-related toys and a 'Moon in my room', among other gifts.

Rant: It looks like our car -- a 2002 Hyundai Santa Fe -- is going to cost us around $2500 to fix after all. I find it hard to believe a car with less than 50,000 miles on it should need a new clutch and flywheel (the latter of which is the extremely expensive part). I would think -- even though these are 'wear and tear' parts -- that such work should be covered by warranty...but no.

Money is tight, and this will virtually break us. I may be unemployed in 10-12 weeks if more work doesn't cross my desk, and I've had scant freelance work to augment our income. Suffice to say I've been worried and prone to being distracted and grouchy.

Add to that the fact that I had at best a 'so-so' phone screen for a job, which didn't do much to improve my optimism over our mounting financial problems and my dubious future at my current job. It wasn't a bad interview by any means, but I don't know if it was strong enough to make a round of interviews or not. I won't know for a week or two, but I'm not terribly optimistic. (The interviewer was difficult to read -- she was pretty dry, and her questions scripted.) I haven't heard any word from the second recruiter (the MS hiring manager, I believe) that contacted me via email yet.

Regardless of it all, my son's birthday warrants a celebration, and I won't let any of this crap get in the way of it. His actual birthday 'party' isn't until later this month (the soonest we could secure a room at a local children's science museum), so tonight will be a smaller affair with just family.

Unrelated adventure into technology: My ailing Dell Inspiron laptop (with a meager 384MB of RAM and a 1.2Ghz Celeron processor) runs like a pig. Because I use it for virtually nothing besides email and internet access any more, I've decided to hose it down and install Ubuntu Linux. I don't know much about Linux, but I don't have anything to lose by installing it on my laptop. It will be fun to play with and learn a new OS for a while, and I suspect it will run much better and faster than Windows XP.

Miscellaneous news. first, the good:

• Our car, if we're lucky, may only cost us about $1000 to fix.
• I've been contacted by two separate recruiters for different jobs (at MS).
• Kazu's 4th birthday is tomorrow; his actual party is on the 28th.
• I got moved into my own office at work.
• I've posted a few of our recent vacation pictures in the "Hawaiian Vacation 2007" album.
  

Now, the bad:

• If we're not lucky, our car will cost about $2500 to fix.
  
• Second phone screen with MS was so-so at best, in my opinion. Tough to read through the scripted questions and very neutral tone of the interviewer.
• No word back from the second MS person that contacted me. Also, the second person is, I believe, someone that declined to even interview me for a contract position 2-3 months ago.
• I seriously worry about my future at my present job -- as the end of the year draws nigh, I'm just not sure there is enough work to warrant keeping me around.
  

So, we come back from Maui after spending a load on the vacation itself...plus nine full days of no pay for me... and upgrading our timeshare... only to find our Hyundai Santa Fe needs about $2000 in work.

Ouch.

If we're extremely lucky, that might be covered by warranty, but I'm not particularly hopeful. It's going to be a rough end of the year financially speaking.

On the plus side:

• The medical startup company that I've talked to has confirmed that they plan to send me an offer letter for a job -- whenever their company is actually funded, anyway.
• I'm in very preliminary rounds talking with Microsoft about a potential technical writing job that would pay around 40-50% better than my current gig, plus the gold-standard in benefits.

So maybe with a little luck finances will pick up in a month or two. (sigh)

We are back from our "relaxing" Maui vacation. Although it's good to be home, we always miss Maui and can't wait to return. This vacation wasn't as "relaxing" as usual -- the kids made sure of that. All in all, though, it was a good vacation. A few highlights:

• Both boys spent a lot of time swimming (in the ocean and in swimming pools).
• We took the boys to a vastly overpriced aquarium.
• We took the boys on a vastly overpriced train ride into Lahaina.
  
• Kazu drove his own bumper boat at a vastly overpriced mini-golf park.
• I climbed a (roughly) 20 foot rock wall twice at the vastly overpriced mini-golf park. I was successful on the 'medium' and failed on the 'hard'. Although I've no interest in actual rock climbing, I liked the challenge of the rock climbing wall. I would definitely make that a regular 'workout' if I had easy access to the equipment for it.
  
• We upgraded our timeshare from 1-bedroom to 2-bedroom. (We swore we wouldn't buy more timeshare, but there was a particular foreclosure deal that we snagged that allowed us to make a sizable upgrade* for less than half what it would have cost otherwise.)
  
• We ate out a lot at various restaurants, most of them also vastly overpriced (but many of them still very good).
• My toddler Katsuya broke my Maui Jim sunglasses. fortunately, Maui Jim HQ is right in Lahaina. I took my glasses in and they repaired them on the spot, free of charge, no questions asked -- all within about 15 minutes! Maui Jim -- Best. Sunglasses. Evar!
  

Unfortunately, we couldn't do everything we wanted to do:

• The glass bottom boat was in dry dock.
• There weren't enough people for the 'extreme' 8.5 mile kayak trip that my wife found for me (and gave me the OK to do).

Pictures will be up as soon as possible... Aloha!