Glasses

On Saturday near Shinjuku station I heard a song, turned around and saw this sign: メガネストアー (megane store).

Which reminded me of something funny.

You can listen to the song here.

Rainy days

Sunday was a rainy, windy day in Tokyo, and unusually cool (17C / 63F), so spent most of the day watching golf on the big Pioneer plasma TV in my room. It was nice just hanging out after running around most of Saturday.

The hotel is beautiful and amazing, the best one I’ve stayed in Tokyo, or perhaps anywhere.

Road trip

Leaving for Tokyo today, for some business meetings (and good food, of course).

Staying at the Peninsula Hotel, which just opened September 1.
Back in town a week from this Saturday.

Detroit at the brink

Some eye-opening stats on General Motors:

• More than $12 billion in losses in the past two years.
• 73,000 workers today vs. 200,000 10 years ago, a reduction of nearly two-thirds.
• A $50 billion retiree health care benefit liability.

Today’s New York Times Op-Ed sums up GM’s situation quite well:

The straits G.M. finds itself in are in part of its own making. Its inability to make cars that American drivers want to buy and its reliance on gas-guzzling S.U.V.’s have made it particularly vulnerable as rising gas prices have driven consumers toward more energy-efficient automobiles.

But the company and its workers are also victims of bigger forces. G.M.’s retiree benefit packages were negotiated 40 years ago when Detroit faced little competition, the future looked as good as the present and the government-provided tax breaks to pay workers with promises rather than money.

But aging and globalization made this backfire badly, leaving Detroit with an enormous burden just as a host of nimble foreign companies started setting up shop with fresh, young workers in the union-free states of the American South. The change pummeled both the car companies and the U.A.W.

This all reminds me of a story Russell told me about working at one of the Detroit automakers GM back in the day. After shutting off a water main because a burst pipe was flooding a factory area, a union supervisor asked him if he was a union plumber. Russell said no, so the supervisor told him to turn the (expletive deleted) main back on, so the union plumber could fix it.

So as they say, now the chickens have come home to roost.

Day trip 2

Since our last visit to Santa Ynez was a quick trip up and back just for dinner, we took a more leisurely trip this past Saturday.

We started at Firestone Vineyard, but didn’t stay long, as it seemed too commercialized (and crowded).

So we headed over to the Santa Rita Hills area, where the “cooling climate of the Pacific Ocean makes this area ideal for growing and producing cool climate grapes. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are the flagship wines for most of these wineries.”

+ 7 months

Young Dale Inouye is doing OK, now 7 months past his bone marrow transplant on February 18. An ongoing lesson on the virtues of grace, gratitude and patience — and valuable perspective for our own lives.

Dale is now 7 months post transplant. He continues to do well. His labs are stable and is currently in the process of weaning his anti-rejection medicine.

Now that (brother) Derek is in middle school , Dale has to go to his class every day to pick up and turn in his assignments. Although he cannot stay , he enjoys seeing his friends and teacher for a few minutes every day. He works hard to keep up.

One of Dale’s favorite things to do during his break is to go next door and bring our neighbor’s dog Biscuit over to play with Eski. They love to chase each other around and Dale watches over them while shooting baskets in the yard.

Dale continues to play basketball with his team. He has practice once a week and games on the weekend. He is allowed to play as long as no one on the team is sick.

We are grateful for all that Dale is able to do as we wait patiently with grateful hearts for the things he wants to do but can’t. Thank you all for your continued support and prayers.

From Dale Inouye’s blog.

Cutting through the red tape

Finally got my new passport today — almost 8 weeks after applying for a renewal. And that was expedited service.

Just in time, as I may be flying to Tokyo late next week.

Improvising on the edge of catastrophe

New York Times columnist David Brooks gives Defense Secretary Robert Gates excellent marks. A well written piece:

Robert Gates has been a godsend. After a bombastic defense secretary, we now have a candid one. After ego, we have self-effacement. After domination, we have a man who welcomes discussion.

Gates was decisive during the Walter Reed hospital fiasco. He is honest and trustworthy on Iraq. And on Monday, at the World Forum on the Future of Democracy at the Colonial Williamsburg here, Gates delivered a speech that could define the center ground of American foreign policy.

Read the rest of the column.

Speed demon

I’m late posting this, but here’s a very cool picture of James speeding down the street at Grandma & Grandpa Masukawa’s place last month.

By the way, the lawn across the street is astroturf — no competition for the Lawn Doctor.

Click on photo to enlarge.

Open access at midnight

Starting midnight tonight, all content on nytimes.com will be free — they will stop charging for access to parts of its web site like Times Select. A good move to drive ad revenue growth from the increased site traffic.

In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain. There will be charges for some material from the period 1923 to 1986, and some will be free.

“The business model for advertising revenue, versus subscriber revenue, is so much more attractive,” he said. “The hybrid model has some potential, but in the long run, the advertising side will dominate.”

From The New York Times.

Lakewood Costco?

According to the Los Angeles Times yesterday:

In a first for Costco in Southern California, it plans to become an anchor for a shopping mall, moving into a spot once occupied by Macy’s in Lakewood Center.

The new Costco store will probably open late next year, the retailer and the mall said in a statement Monday.

The two-story building that formerly housed Macy’s will be razed this year, assuming the city approves the development plan, to make way for the single-level Costco.

Quote of the week

“Ricky, you’re becoming quite human. I guess we have you to thank for that, Mademoiselle.”

– Captain Renault (Claude Rains), from “Casablanca”

Unique use of cactus

I see this commercial every now and then — it cracks me up every time:

Favorite Japanese

Last night we went to Torafuku, my favorite Japanese restaurant in Los Angeles.

Embrace change

This is interesting and insightful — and written in 2000 by Dave Winer.

Again, in my humble opinion, no one has to lose, but no one gets to keep doing the same job they were doing before the transition to the Web. If you define success in terms of continuing to do the same old thing, you will lose. This is the message that causes so much dissonance at Davos and at Seybold. The people who had a good thing going before the Internet are angry. If they draw a line in the sand, as Sumner Redstone of Viacom did so insistently, sorry it’s off to glue factory. But if you’re willing to risk it all on your intelligence, experience *and* your enthusiasm for the Internet, you will win. But you have to be willing to change.

From Scripting News.

Great trip

The Seattle trip was great. And the Mariners came from behind to win 8-7, scoring 5 runs in the bottom of the 8th inning.

By the way, ran into Ashlyn at LAX on Thursday. She was on the same flight to Seattle, to watch Delmon Young, starting outfielder for the Tamba Bay Devil Rays, a friend of hers since grade school. He got Ashlyn four seats behind home plate for the entire series.

Hope to spend a bit more time in Seattle on the next trip.

Heading north

Off to Seattle today for a business trip, which will also include a Mariners baseball game. I heard we’ll be in a suite, which will very cool. Go Ichiro!

Back on Friday.

Quote of the week

“Your faith needs to be greater than your fear.”

– Unknown

The real question

Bob Schieffer of CBS News’ Face the Nation asks the real question for General David Petraeus, who will give his progress report on Iraq tomorrow.

Lost & found

On the way to the Dodgers/ Cubs game yesterday, Sue spotted Hot Dog Island near the “L” train station in Skokie.

It was a new location, as Hot Dog Island lost their lease. We had just driven by their old location a few minutes before, and assumed they had closed.

Anyway, we all had a Char Dog with some fries and onion rings before hopping on the “L”.

Taking on a challenge

Jim Press, Toyota’s top U.S. executive, will join Chrysler on September 17.

The hiring of Mr. Press — the president of Toyota North America, who has four decades of experience in the auto business — was hailed as “a major coup” by no less than Ron Gettelfinger, president of the United Automobile Workers union.

Dodgers win!

We all just left the Dodgers/Cubs game at Wrigley Field. Andre Ethier hit a 3-run homer in the top of the 9th. Dodgers win 7 to 4!

Trying to save an industry

Sunday’s New York Times Magazine had an interesting piece on music guru Rick Rubin, hired by Sony to co-head Columbia Records.

Beginning in 1984, when he started Def Jam Recordings, until his more recent occupation as a career-transforming, chart-topping, Grammy Award-winning producer for dozens of artists, as diverse as the Dixie Chicks, Slayer, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Neil Diamond, Rubin, who is 44, has never gone to an office of any kind.

One of his conditions for taking the job at Sony, which owns Columbia, was that he wouldn’t be required to have a desk or a phone in any of the corporate outposts. That wasn’t a problem: Columbia didn’t want Rubin to punch a clock. It wanted him to save the company. And just maybe the record business.

Forecast: rain

Typhoon Fitow to hit Tokyo:

Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) — Typhoon Fitow weakened as it churned across the Pacific Ocean heading for Tokyo and is forecast to regain strength before approaching the Japanese capital with winds of 147 kilometers per hour (92 miles an hour).

Fitow is the name of a flower found on the island of Yap in Micronesia.

From Bloomberg.

Mobile blogging

Test post from my Blackberry Curve.

Small fry

After researching shirasu (しらす) I learned it’s a small fish local to Shizuoka prefecture.

This blog on Shizuoka explained everything.

I thought I had eaten shirasu sushi before (at Tsukiji), but turns out it was really shirauo (しらうお).

The picture is shirasu-don.

We may need to add Shizuoka to our Japan trip plans next year.

Quote of the week

“Looks like you won’t need to buy any for a while!”

– Overheard on my Saturday morning walk: a neighbor lady to two young boys, cleaning up their “TP’d” house

Day trip

Labor Day getaway traffic was not bad at all, so yesterday we made it up to Brothers Restaurant at Mattei’s Tavern in the Santa Ynez Valley. We left Burbank at 3:15pm, were seated around 6:00, and finished dessert and coffee a bit after 9:00pm.