The reason for our trip to Japan was the wedding of a family friend, Ben Casbon, and his fiance, Emeth Smith. After visiting the Japanese Sword Museum it was 11:30 and the wedding was scheduled for 2pm.

Rather than heading back to the station we came from, Geoff and I decided to walk about 8 blocks south and find the station for the train we were to catch.

We headed south and following our map until I wasn’t quite sure if we needed to go left or right because some map lettering covered the map detail. So, I asked the next person who walked by, “Sangubashi?” To which they replied, “Sangubashi-eki? … station?” I nodded a vigorous Yes and using my best Spanish said “Si!” The young man then pointed down the street to the left. Sure enough, about 50 yards meters down the road.

(Don’t ask me why - but I found out that I am not the only one who’s brain drops into Spanish if the person does not speak English. Guess it is just a good habit gone bad.)

We bought a train ticket from the vending machine and headed towards the station platform. As always, within 5 minutes a train had pulled up and we were on our way to the wedding. With what should have been an uneventful train ride, Geoff and I missed our stop. But we had plenty of time so at the next stop we just got off the the train, went down and around the platform to get on the station heading back east. This time we got off at the correct station!

The station is in the heart of a very quaint Japanese neighborhood. Much different than the stuff we had seen downtown. There was a large grocery store where there was enough room for everyone to park their bicycles At first I thought it was a bike shop, there were so many bikes. There actually was a bike shop just down the road. It appears all bikes come equipped with a headlight, wheel fenders, and a front basket. Options are baby carriers and rear baskets.

Geoff and I enjoyed our walk and what is probably a more normal neighborhood than what we have seen so far. In the next block or so we should find the church.

Japanese Sword Museum <<- Previous || Next ->> The Wedding of Ben and Emeth

Based on the map we received with the wedding invitation, the walk from the train station to the church was quite straight forward and after 10 minutes we had arrived at the correct landmark to make a left turn to find the church.

We looked down one street and didn’t see the church so went up to the next block and sure enough there it was, tucked into a narrow street (these are not alleys in Japan).

The church they were using for the wedding was very nice though it must have cost a fortune to build from what I have heard about Japanese land costs. Instead of having a basement, the fellowship hall, bathrooms, and offices were on the main floor and the sanctuary was on the second floor.

We had arrived early enough that we had over an hour in which to meet and talk to people. Most of the Americans were here as either English teachers or translators.

It was not long and we were being seated. The service was started with a prayer in Japanese and for the most part remained in Japanese.

The wedding itself was beautiful! There were a number of non traditional moments that made it even more special. Instead of flower girls about 20 young children each carried down a small bouquet that they handed the bride (and I believe many of the young girls took a bouquet home after the wedding).

Rueter’s News reports that GEICO’s friendly little gecko is going to need to hire a lawyer:

Three former policyholders of auto insurer GEICO Corp. filed a federal lawsuit on Monday accusing the company of discriminating against blacks by using education and employment status as factors in setting auto insurance rates.

It said that because black policyholders are “significantly less likely” than whites to hold jobs requiring advanced education, GEICO knew that using occupation and education levels to set insurance rates would result in blacks being charged more than whites with similar driving records.

The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, accuses GEICO of intentional discrimination against blacks, and concealing its practices from policyholders and insurance regulators.

All insurance companies are allowed to ‘discriminate’ on certain characteristics - usually age, sex, driving record, type of vehicle. The reason for this is because people of different ages, i.e. the very young and the very old, cause more accidents per capita than the average driver. Men cause more accidents than women (only because they drive twice as much is my theory), and people that drive sports cars are more likely to cause an accident than a soccer mom in a mini van.

Had fun watching the kids bowl yesterday evening. I took quite a few pictures which turned out pretty well considering I did not want to use my flash.

This one, though, is my favorite.

Geoff and I were lucky enough to be in Japan at just the right time to see the many cherry blossom trees bloom. It is a very pretty tree when in bloom.

Although all the dropping petals seemed to annoy the merchants trying to keep them out of their stalls, they were beautiful for those of us who traipsed around, in, and among them.

Tokyo Tower <<- Previous || Next ->> Traffic on the Right, Wrong, Left Side of the Road

Geocaching has been called an outdoor sport for nerds. The one required tool you need to geocache is a GPS, but to manipulate the data about the caches that are available you need something like GSAK, the Geocaching Swiss Army Knife.

As with a swiss army knife, though, there can be so many blades, tools, and devices that it can overwhelm the first time user. There are many features to GSAK that I have not had a chance to play with yet, even though they would make my online caching routines easier.

I saw this Quick GSAK tutorial by a non-power user. It gives a good quick-start to anyone who wants to know where to start.

While checking out information about WiFi networks I came across this program from Microsoft that allows your WiFi card to connect to multiple networks at the same time.

VirtualWiFi is a virtualization architecture for wireless LAN (WLAN) cards. It abstracts a single WLAN card to appear as multiple virtual WLAN cards to the user. The user can then configure each virtual card to connect to a different wireless network. Therefore, VirtualWiFi allows a user to simultaneously connect his machine to multiple wireless networks using just one WLAN card. This new functionality introduced by VirtualWiFi enables many new applications, which were not possible earlier using a single WLAN card. For example,

• With VirtualWiFi, you can connect to a guest’s machine or play games over an ad hoc network, while surfing the web via an infrastructure network.
• You can use VirtualWiFi to connect your ad hoc network, which may contain many nodes, to the Internet using only one node.
• VirtualWiFi can help make your home infrastructure network elastic by extending its access to nodes that are out of range of your home WiFi Access Point.

I have yet to try this out but it looks real interesting. If there are multiple low power networks nearby would this allow you to stay connected as one drops out and another picks up? Would it allow an adhoc network between the computers in the house while simultaneously keeping the regular network connection going?

What uses can you find for this?

MultiWP is a WordPress Plugin that lets you install WordPress once in one directory and then have multiple blogs run off this one installation. WordPress does not support multiple blogs by default. Normally you need a separate WordPress installation for every blog.

The primary advantages to this is that when WordPress comes out with a new revision you only have to update one location. MultiWP also does not modify any WordPress files, so you can just follow the standard update procedure.

Another advantage is simplifying the management of plugins. If you put a plugin in the plugin directory, it is available to each blog. If an update comes out you do not have to copy it into multiple directories, instead it is updated for all blogs. Each blog, though, can pick and choose which plugins to activate.

MultiWP can be usefull in a number of situations. First is if you yourself are wanting to run a number of blogs yourself. MultiWP really simplifies keeping them all up to date. Second, if each member of your family wants to have their own blog, then again life is made much more simple since you will probably doing all the tech support.

The only drawback I see is that if any of the plugins are edited, then it is edited for all blogs so this is a function that would need to be available only to the administrator.

If you are wanting to run multiple blogs then download MultiWP. Detailed installation instructions are included.

TomTom has released TomTom Buddies to its lineup. Buddies allows you to track and keep in touch with your friends while you are on the road. A mash-up of instant messaging and 2-way GPS. The TomTom news release did not mention how the GPS units communicate with each other but I am guessing they are patched in by some kind of cell phone since, contrary to popular thought, GPSs are not two-way devices.

Of course your friends with Garmin or Magellan GPSs will feel left out - until they go buy a TomTom too.

Engadget put it best:

Back in the day, if you wanted to gather a group of drivers into a convoy, you kept in touch by CB radio. With TomTom’s new Buddies feature, you can finally toss that relic and stay in contact with Sodbuster, Pig Pen and Rubber Duck via GPS. Once you add a Buddy, you can track each other in realtime, share points of interest and send instant messages (though we really hope you don’t do a whole lot of IMing behind the wheel). And if you need a little privacy as you roll into Chi-town, you can hide your twenty and tell your good buddies they can catch you on the flip-flop.

Other new and updated TomTom PLUS content & services include:

• TomTom Audiobooks – Enables users to download and listen to books, magazines or newspapers.
• TomTom Safety Cameras – Now preinstalled on the entire new TomTom GO range. Users can report and stay up-to-date on the locations of Mobile Safety Cameras.
• TomTom Quick GPS Fix™ - determines your position faster than ever.
• TomTom Traffic & Road Conditions – Allows drivers to be kept up to date on any road conditions that may affect their journey such as fog or icy roads.
• TomTom Weather - Updated to keep TomTom users to be constantly kept informed on road conditions in Europe and the USA, as well as receiving 5-day weather forecasts.

I was listening to a lecture on Preaching to Believers and Unbelievers given by Dr. Tim Keller at Covenant Seminary in 2004. Keller is pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian (PCA) in Manhattan. His first point really struck me and made me think about my own behavior.

Here are my notes as I listened:

Most ‘edificational’ preaching tends to be oriented towards behavior: “This is how you should live”.

Most evangelistic preaching tends to be oriented towards belief: This is the truth; this is what Jesus did; this is what you have to believe”.

Johnathan Edwards in his book, “Religious Affections”, says that behavior is rooted in belief. So, if you are behaving in a way that you say you don’t believe, you actually are believing something different than what you say you believe.

If someone says, “I know God cares for me but I am petrified with fear”, Edwards would say, “No, you don’t really know.”

“I believe in the sovereignty and the wisdom and love of God but I am still petrified with fear.” No, you really don’t, you don’t really believe it, if you really believed it you wouldn’t be petrified with fear.

So how does this apply to preaching?

Lloyd Jones did not like people taking notes during the sermon. The object of preaching is not only to give information but to produce an impression. It is the impression at the time that mattered. While you are writing your notes you are missing something of the impact of the Spirit at the time.

Preachers must not forget this. We should tell our people to read books themselves and get information at home. The business of preaching is to make such knowledge live.

A moralistic understanding of preaching is that the preacher gives you information on how to live and you go out and change your life with it. Preaching should convert the heart. At that moment, during the sermon, you suddenly realize you don’t really believe the gospel and that is why you have been stingy or why you have not been a good husband. You are, at that moment, gripped with the generosity of Christ or with the spousal love of Christ and at that moment you are having your life changed.

HatTip to Steve @ Reformissionary for a link to this lecture

I have seen a number to terms used but just ran across the site PostRefomed.com and was interested in what they called “PostReformed”. I have seen terms such as Reformational and PaleoOrthodox, but not PostReformed. The term itself has some negative connotations but I see little to disagree with below:

1. Being PostReformed means laying aside a dogmatic application of a particular reading of the Reformed Confessions that keeps one from appreciating and fellowshipping with brethren from other traditions outside of Reformedom.
2. Being PostReformed enables one to see the Bible as God’s grand story of the ages and not to view it as a repository of propositions and factoids. It’s not a Tommy-gun that we load up with pet proof texts…to blast other Christians with. It sometimes gets mysterious and messy but the PostReformed man is comfortable with that and doesn’t feel the necessity to correct God via better formulations and propositions.

If you are looking for some free online storage then you might want to go look at box.net:

• Access important files from any computer
• Share photos, and files too big for email
• Synchronize and backup folders
• Sub-accounts and RSS feeds for groups
• Basic Plan: 1GB for free, limited features
• Premium Plan: 5GB for $4.99/mo, more features
• Pro Plan: 15GB for $9.99/mo, all the features

HatTip to the Mike Tech Show for this link

Scott Adams philosophizes about why we do what we do and proposes his own Pleasure Unit Theory.

Adams says his theory explains all the following:

1. Why poor people are fatter than rich people.
2. Why people with crappy lives do drugs that are sure to be destructive in the long run.
3. Why you are reading this blog instead of working.

Free will, he explains, does not not do a good job of predicting behavior since, for example, no one would choose to be a drug addict or a pedophile.

Pleasure Unit Theory: People organize their lives to get their minimum required units of pleasure. While individuals vary in terms of how many units of pleasure they need, everyone is striving to reach their personal minimum.

Adams gives an example that when a fashion model looks at a piece of pie, she knows it might increase her total happiness for that day by only 1%, at the price of losing all the other things that bring her pleasure (fame, fortune, hunky boyfriend). By contrast, when you look at that same piece of pie, eating it might be the only good thing that happens to you all day. You NEED the pie to get close to your minimum pleasure units.

Discuss

Just found out from the Mike Tech Show about two PC Support sites that are available online for free. Going to have to check them out but my thoughts are they would be great places to direct people who count on you for tech support as a ‘first place to go’

PC Help Forum - Forums for support and advice on PC problems.

protonic.com is a volunteer online community that provides technical support to computer users for free. If you have a computer problem with your PC, Mac, or PDA, then submit your question to them for help.

Miwaza was the stealth photographer at the wedding of Ben & Emeth Casbon in Tokyo. Dressed all in black she was everywhere; taking pictures of everyone. I just received an e-mail from her with a scan of the latest copy of Wedding Magazine.

Miwaza had quite a nice camera setup and loves taking photos. Miwaza’s flickr account has a collection of some of her photos which showcase her creativity.

If you click the image it will give you a larger .pdf version.