And now, the meaning of life

 I woke up, with my monk-tastic buzz cut, at about 9:30. I'd gotten in a good session with the Voldyne and the shakuhachi before bedtime. Those little 4-note figures on page 23 used to defeat me, but now I am showing some real interest. Ro, Tsu, Re, Chi, Ri. From trumpet I know that in some things, brute force is required. How do we learn the alphabet? Sheer repetition. 

I turned on YouTube right away to listen to the service at the temple. It's always excellent. One part of it was a run-down done by the Buddhist Churches of America for a Japanese audience, to show what we've got here in the States. It's been observed that Zen Buddhism is more alive in the US than in Japan, for instance. But this is Shin Buddhism, and I guess the feeling is that in Japan they may not know how alive it is here. 

It was very interesting to watch. Apparently there are programs to become ordained, but I doubt I could do that, as I don't know Japanese. I can't conceive of being a minister and not being able to read Shinran Shonen's writings in the original. It'd be like being a Catholic priest and not knowing Latin. 

I headed out for downtown at about 2. The first stop was to drop off trash (I like to dispose of household trash far from here) and then check the little free libraries where I found a really neat book on the "Age of warring states" in Japan. It culminated in Ieyasu becoming shogun, and he was a great friend to Jodo Shinshu Buddhism so it ended well. I also dropped off my $30 for March at the temple.

I rode over to Dakao, not sure what I'd get, but I got a pork on rice with vegetables and fish sauce lunch thing for $5. Perfect. I figured I'd go over to the Japanese Friendship Garden and hang out with the koi fish. 

I got over there and it's open, and the koi fish were all in the one, Northmost, pond, but it was not to be a quiet time communing with the fish. First, if  it was a good idea to, on a lovely Sunday afternoon, go to the Japanese Friendship Garden and hang out with the fish, it was not an original one. There were lots of people there. And the pond the fish are in is really cloudy with algae. There was a blue heron standing on a rock in the pond, so that was really cool. I ate my lunch while different groups walked by. 

 I wonder if it could be a good place to play the shakuhachi? It would certainly add to the "mood". I could take my folding red cloth box for tips because people *will* toss me money. If a ranger questions me I can calmly explain that people insist on tossing money and what I make there will get donated to the fund for the park (which I would do). 

I've learned in the past that it's not about the sheer number of people, but the place and mood of the people. It's why I've done so much better at Whole Foods, with much less of a crowd, than at The Old Spaghetti Factory, with more people. And really lousy with the herd passing under the bridge after a Sharks game. I now  know that I might do "meh" on the main strip in Waikiki, better if a Japanese store like Don Quixote if they let me, and might do really well up at the top of the Diamond Head trail that's super popular.

After eating I walked around the rest of the park and then rode back to downtown, along 7th street which I'd not been on that far south. Or had I? Because I seemed to pass through "Little Portugal" where I'd taken a bunch of measurement standards to sell to a guy, years ago. 

I went by the Amazon place for bubble mailers and picked up 8 of them, not too bad. Then I went to Nijiya for sake and the usual groceries and things. I picked up a package of gobo because I kept seeing people buying it, it's hard to miss because instead of cutting it down to size it comes in these long packages that stick out because it's the whole root. I like gobo, so I thought, why not cook it myself? Maybe there's some taboo about cutting it up, or maybe it's just a good way to sell gobo. You see that long package sticking out of someone's bag and think, "They're buying gobo. I wonder if I should get some too?" 

It was a beautiful day, with warm sun and a cool wind. It's hard to believe it's still February. I've had to wear a hat this winter maybe a couple of times, not had to wear gloves once, and not had to be obsessed with warm clothing this winter like I had to in the past. 

I found some chiropractor videos on YouTube that gave me some ideas on my shoulder blade pain, some of which seem to be working. So I'm going to try some of the stretches and things minus the shoulder brace. 

So on to the meaning of life. Obviously on the biological level, it's all about having tons of children and passing on those genes. And in Buddhism we are taught it's fortunate to be born into human life, because as humans we have the intelligence to understand the teachings of the Buddha. So although I have not done so, having children is good because it brings more beings into human life. So the biological part is sound. Eating, drinking, shitting, pissing, having kids. It's all good. So now we're up to the level of the adorable Triops, a creature I am delighted to learn is present even in Hawaii. 

The difference is, humans can think. Humans can understand what a prime number is. When I think about possible other levels of existence or a reality that is "kalpas" long, a kalpa, I believe, being the age of one Universe, I think about prime numbers. Even if we are gone, prime numbers still exist. Nature knows about prime numbers and uses them. So a Buddha who exists through many kalpas, maybe he is on the level of prime numbers. So the benefit of being human is being able to, if in an infantile way, understand things like this. 

So what is the meaning, or purpose, of our lives? It can't be to make money, because even those who make a lot of it don't seem to be any happier. It can't even be good deeds, because you could have someone who does good deeds all day, perhaps out of fear of the Christian hell, but who resents having to do them and is not happy. I used to really believe that one's meaning can be to invent something new. But ultimately it doesn't matter whether Edison or someone else (and a few others were close) invented the light bulb. No one remembers who invented gunpowder or chipped the first Folsom spear point and even I can't name right now who discovered a living coelacanth, a living fossil, off the coast of Africa although it was a big deal at the time. 

Perhaps the career of Edwin Armstrong is an example of how even science doesn't provide the ultimate meaning of life. He invented just about everything in radio. But he was extremely resentful and spent millions - in 1910's  - 1920's dollars - in patent wars and died early, broke, because of this. And we all know the story of Nikola Tesla. So being a Great Scientist or Great Inventor is not it, in of itself. And I really believed in this, up until pretty recently. 

So what is the damned meaning of life then? I believe it is becoming enlightened. Just like the Buddha advises. Ridding oneself of resentments, and anger, and jealousy, and such things. Giving to those in need not out of some fear, or pride, but because it's what you do. Making yourself a good person. Not someone who appears to be a good person but an actual good person. There's a life's work, all cut out. 

Here's an example. When I tried moving back to Hawaii in 2003, I bought this big blue Volvo station wagon. The registration took MONTHS to process. Since then I thought it was because I have a very "haole" name. And I held onto that resentment all this time. But on r/hawaii on Reddit, someone was talking about such things and someone pointed out that the Hawaii DMV has a quota for how many registrations get processed per day and dealers have lowest priority. It wasn't anything personal, it was just that I'd bought the thing from a dealer. 

I'd already decided to not worry about it because when I go back I won't have a car, but there was still that resentment. I'm glad I read r/hawaii because I find out about things like this. If I'd known to look for "things that slow down car registrations in Hawaii" I might have found out sooner. So if something bugs me, I need to wise up and do the research instead of letting resentments fester. 

So the goal of life is The Great Housecleaning. Clean out the anger and resentment, the pettiness and regret. Make your person a perfect Kyomachiya, a perfect Kyoto Japanese house, with clean tatami mats, beautiful and functional. Then good deeds will occur naturally.

Legos and procrastination

 I listed a stack of large instruments I have here in the office and have to find places for in the warehouse. The funny thing is, these radio system testers Ken probably thought were worth a lot are only worth $100-$150. And the other two are going for $2000 and $700. 

I got out the Voldyne and the shakuhachi but just felt too tired to do anything and just watched videos, drank sake and went to bed around 3. 

I woke up around 2 and lay in bed for a while, thinking about tasks. I remember as a first-grader having such fun with Legos. They were pure fun. I could lose myself in playing with them 

But what if there was a requirement that the student must produce, say, 5 Lego creations that they'll be graded on? So now there's what I'll call "weight" attached. If you don't complete this task, you'll get a low grade for it so now it's more of a job. 

Now, there might be plenty of Legos and you might have plenty of imagination so for you the "weight" is far below, far away. And it's fun coming up with new ideas. So it's still largely fun for you. I felt this way at least at times with regard to art, at which I was considered a talent.

But say there's a limited supply of Legos and you're not all that good at making things with them. Now you hate Lego class. You feel about it the way a lot of kids feel about math or English. It's a job and one you dislike. I felt this way about math. 

It's natural to avoid things you don't like. Due to this and also because I don't think I had a good model in the adults around me (both parents were procrastinators and as we fell in caste we went from being surrounded by middle-class people to being surrounded by ex-hippie losers, druggies, weirdos, etc.)

I've been particularly bad about paperwork. I think I'd not have developed this problem if we'd stayed middle-class, with its culture of letter-writing and not only turning in homework but doing so on time. Instead, among the underclass, paperwork always means trouble. Something bad is going to happen. They're gonna take us off of Food Stamps or they insist we get Social Security numbers. In this environment, procrastination might be a useful adaptation. Procrastinate, and they'll still kick you off Food Stamps, but your kids will eat for another months. Procrastinate, and the landlord has to hold off another month in raising the rent or evicting you. 

The Hawaiians around us had a fear, really a dread, of paperwork. Paperwork meant something was going to get taken away. And I guess I internalized that, living as we did like the poor Hawaiians although of course even poorer. 

Getting back to whether something's play or a job, I think, comes down to the balance between weight and reward. I mentioned that hunter-gatherers do a lot of things that are considered fun in Western culture like, well, hunting and gathering. And they do things communally where they can, and talk and sing songs to make it more fun. In good times the weight is decreased and the reward is increased, at least in relation. 

But what if you're hunting a deer and the folks back in camp haven't had meat in weeks? Now there are consequences if you don't produce. Now it's more like a job. Still, the reward (either getting a deer or at least the gratitude of your people if they know you tried your best) outweighs the consequences of not going out hunting: your people will not eat meat for sure that day, and you'll be called lazy. So you go out ... 

The key to getting good at something is to have internal goals. An internal goal might be learning to do a "360' on a skateboard, something I worked really hard at. I got where I could do a 180, and sometimes 3/4 of the way around. But I never got a dependable 360 like the hot shots did. I also worked on the "tic tac" and was the neighborhood champion at that. (Actually the tic tac is pretty good exercise, maybe should get a board...). These were internal goals. Learning to surf was actually pretty hard work but I loved it. Again, internal goals. 

But a kid up the street from where was lived in Pupukea, Fielding Benson, was pushed hard to be a surfer. In rebellion, he became an ace skateboarder. His father, "Colonel" Benson, had a daughter, Becky Benson, who was a champion surfer but being female, would never be a superstar or make the kind of money a male champion could. Colonel Benson saw in Fielding the ideal material to mold a star surfer from young age. I'd never heard of someone not liking to surf, but Fielding talked about it like some kids talk about math. 

I was expected to become an artist. I think I should have been either pushed harder, like how Robert Crumb was put through "art boot camp "for years by his older brother. Or pushed less, so I could have fun and my internal goals would take care of quality. 

And I wasn't even intended to become an artist by anyone but my mother. Sure I doodled all the time because every time I turned around it was, "Here's some paper, here's some pens!" and my parents being frustrated artists, there were always art materials around. But if someone had to describe me when I was little, I was a musical kid. I even got, around age 9 or 10, a big hardcover book by Leonard Bernstein about music for kids. Whichever relative gave it to me had no idea we were not allowed to touch the piano. Art didn't "make noise". 

Maybe my parents thought an artist was "higher class" than a musician? That may have been a big part of it. Little did they know how much of a crapshoot the economy would become. 

The thing is that by my teens art was becoming a job because it was often by selling a painting or drawing that we ate some days. So there were expectations, and it just became a job. I suspect that if I'd been successful the rest of the family would have wanted to live off of me and of course I'd feel obligated to support them because in Hawaii culture that's what you do. What a nightmare. Did I realize all this when I was, say, 15? Or did I just suspect something was awry? I remember constantly hammering myself, "How come I'm not in my room drawing for 3 hours a day?"  I had art instruction books with schedules calling for hours and hours a day. I'd look at the schedule laid out in "The Natural Way To Draw" and shudder. I can't be any good if I can't do that! 

There were times when I was drawing the details of a crab claw or a realistic breaking wave and it was really fun. But there was not enough fun to repay me for the hours I'd have to apparently drudge away at it, the low pay, and the reality that was constantly told me that "artists only make money after they're dead". 

Music was even further away (if I'd gone anywhere with that nasty old trumpet I was given in Band, mom would have put a stop to it as "noise") but I kept it going strong in my head. It was always there for me. Jim Morrison sang "The music is your only friend" and I really felt that way. Again internal vs. external goals. I could work a job and that would take care of living, just barely, and take the consequences out of learning music because the job would provide the money needed for living. I actually chose electronics because I loved synthesizers. 

I didn't go that far in electronics because I wasn't deeply interested in it. Ideally, while working as a bench tech, I'd have set up a bench in my apartment and learned to do SMT work and PCB rework and kept up on the latest techniques, but I was too interested in zooming around on motorcycles to sit around at home and smell flux after I'd done that for 8-10 hours at work. Of course if I'd done that I'd never have had the interesting sports "career" I did in the early/mid 90s, and if I'd done everything right I'd not have the perspective I do now. 

So the way to get around procrastination is to remind myself that it's something I learned during a traumatic part of my life but that it's a a drawback now. And to remind myself of what fun might be in an activity, like in doing laundry there's the nice feeling of clearing some dirty clothes out of the hamper, the smell of the soap, and the bit of exercise from working the plunger. Then the nice laundry smell upstairs as I hang the clothes up and hear the pitter-pat of the water dropping on the catch basin. And I turn the fan on it so I hear the quiet hum of the fan as I sleep downstairs. 

One thing I'd been putting off was getting a hair cut, so I got curious if I could do a decent hair cut without using the barber's cape but by spreading out some plastic to catch the hair and bending forward so the hair won't fall on me. It works fine. It's just a matter of being very thorough but that's something I know how to do. When I was a kid I needed glasses and I couldn't see the dirt on the floor so when I swept I'd compensate by just being very thorough. Same thing. And I worked out an angle to see the back of my neck better in the bathroom mirror when shaving that area after the hair cut. 

This is good because the easier I can make it, the more likely I'll keep up with my hair cuts. A buzz cut is really supposed to be re-done every 3 weeks on the outside.

It started with my hands

 Last night  I got a stack of large pieces of equipment cleaned up and ready to list, but didn't feel like working past midnight so I set them aside for the next day. 

I got in a Voldyne session and practiced good old page 23 in the shakuhachi book. Those little 4-note figures once really defeated me. But between the Voldyne and my determination to play the figures in one breath with a nice little "tail" on the last note, I'm starting to learn how to pump some air. 

As has been said, "Old guys with one lung are masters of this instrument" but I also read something about "Beginners need to play as loud as they can in the beginning" in other words, learning to pump some serious air and then with some years put in, they learn to be efficient too. 

It's making me wonder if I should get into jogging again because that had me very air-efficient when I last did it back in the early 90s. My lungs felt huge. 

In trumpet, you actually don't want to take in too much air and puff yourself up, it's more about pressure and efficiency. Well, this is a different kind of efficiency. And I think a far healthier one. 

In any case I am happy with the progress I'm making. I assume that I have 20 or 30 more years left, and since the shakuhachi teachers I admire all have 30-40-50 years in, I know I'm entering a long-term game. It will be nice being back in Hawaii where there are shakuhachi sessions 2X a week at the Buddhist Study Center near the University of Hawaii.

So last night I played through each 4-note figure 3-5 times, doing a pretty good job of keeping my middle fingers down also. I have a bit of the beginner "death grip" but that will relax in time once good habits are settled in. 

I went to bed around 4, woke up around 8 or so to whiz and took a small cup of sake, and went back to sleep until about 11:30. There was still sake left over when I got up so ... that's progress. 

With all this staying in, my cooking game has gotten better by leaps and bounds. There's no way I could afford the $1000/month for a T1 line or whatever it takes to post on YouTube from a technological backwater like this but I'd fantasize about doing YouTube videos of myself cooking or preparing food, like tons of others like Outdoor Chef Life or Kimagure Cook. 

So I'd look at my hands while preparing my food, and it finally struck me that my hands do not look like a white person's hands. Or even Kimagure's, who is unusually tall and lanky for a Japanese. No, my hands resemble those of Hiroyiki Terada, the "Diary Of A Sushi Chef" guy. It made me think about how brown my mom really was, and made me finally accept that I really am white/west Asian, and that accounts for that Karen picking on me a while ago and lots of other little incidents over the years. 

When I was a young adult in Hawaii, I really tried to be "mainland". That's probably why I wasn't happy there. I think this happens with non-white immigrants to the mainland US of all origins. They want to be "American" and live this Dick And Jane life that really only applied from about 1950-1970 and you had to be a pure white male. 

I am so glad I have the perspective now to appreciate Hawaii! The main thing right now, in this next shutdown year, is to work diligently on the shakuhachi so when we can get together again, I can show Rinban Sakamoto that I've been putting some real work in. He, himself, actually takes lessons from Masayuki Koga up in Oakland, a thing I can't afford to do. But maybe if I can show I've put in some serious work, he'll give me some pointers if he notices anything lacking in my playing, and also there was a shakuhachi group at one time and maybe I could help getting it together again, mailing out newsletters and so on. 

I packed more packages bringing the total up to 23, loaded up the bike, and headed out a little after 5. I also brought along my shakihachi book, reasoning that there will be less people at FedEx on a Friday evening than on a Saturday, and I really wanted to get the book spiral-bound. 

I went to the post office first and did my drop offs, then FedEx, where there wasn't really a line, just a couple of people waiting as they made people wait to not go over their capacity limit. After handing off my packages I got out the book and said I want to get it spiral-bound. I had to go inside for that, and get that started and also grabbed some paper. I had to go outside to wait so I talked with the skinny red-haired kid out front, about Fry's closing and whatnot. It's a friendly bunch at FedEx. When the job was done I was called back in and paid, wow having a book spiral-bound costs about $7. Worth it if you're spending a lot of time with the book though. They said they had another customer who got all their quilting books done. 

I didn't find much packing stuff coming back, found a couple of bell peppers, a squash, and a head of Romaine lettuce at the veggie dumpster along with 3 bunches of bananas. It all went into the bike trailer and meanwhile I was thinking, I really want to get something to eat from some restaurant around here, but it's Friday night so they'll all be busy... I slowly rode up the parking lot to Grill-'Em to check the menu. They have a kind of neat setup. There's a little table with an umbrella in each lined parking space in front. There's a menu in a heavy duty plastic holder hanging off of the umbrella pole. I was in the process of talking myself out of spending $11 on wings when the waitress came out, and I said I was interested in the "dry rubbed" wings and she said they're popular. So I got those. 

While I was waiting, a bunch of guys of the type we call "chuds" were talking a couple of spaces over. My ears pricked up when I noticed they were talking about music. When one mentioned a band called "Die-O" I put in, "It was Ronnie James Dio" and the music talk was off and running. We ran down all the classic bands and which ones started here in the Bay Area and the different generations of music from folk to WWII - era protest stuff, the Beats, the hippies, etc. We had a good old time, talking about music. We talked about growing up with it, and he, being 10 years younger than I, had parents who were actual ex-hippies and I said mine were Silents but I got to listen to tons of hippy music or anything I wanted when the family split up due to being poor. How there were all these "head shops" full of underground comics and crazy music was playing everywhere back there in Hawaii in the 70s. 

The waitress came out with my wings and charged me $9-something for them so maybe she gave me some kind of a discount. I said thanks and the guy and I said it was nice talking with each other and I said, "Any talk about music is always good" and he said "Stay safe" a couple of times and I took off. 

I left the bananas on top of this one dumpster on the corner of Queen's Lane where anyone might see them and if they need them, take them. And came in here and tried the wings. If not "the" best wings I've ever had they're very close to it. A serving of wings is like a whole meal and there were carrot and celery slices too. I wrote a good review on Google too. In the Before Times my impression of that place was not too good. I thought the prices were high, but never tried the food. It just seemed like Chud Central and it probably was and still is.

But for some killer wings and a deep discussion of Deep Purple's groundbreaking album, Machine Head, that has the amazing track Highway Star? I'm up for it. 

Weird Mood.

 After eating that big dinner last night I futzed around watching stuff on YouTube and was in a weird mood. I really needed to get 15 things I had cued up listed on Ebay so I finally got around to that and it was almost 4 when I was done. I exercised on the Voldyne and that was it. 

I managed to get a few hours of sleep, about 5-8AM, got up and drank the last bit of sake, and went back to bed to sleep until 10 maybe and tried to sleep until noon but got up at 11:30. 

I made an appointment for 2:15 at the bank, had some natto and vitamins and nuts and tea, got cleaned up, and headed out at about 1:50. The ride downtown was uneventful, in fact it was really nice and calm and the sky was bright blue, with a cool wind. It was pretty nice! The gal at the bank was happy to see me, as usual, maybe I'm one of their more sociable customers. 

Next I went over to the Amazon place for bubble mailers and the gal there had just bagged up all the trash but did hand me one loose one. And I picked up the camellia oil I'd ordered. It's used to keep Japanese knives from rusting but it's also used on shakuhachis, on the outside at least. The inside generally had lacquer called urushi and I may want to experiment with putting a bit more lacquer on the inside of my shakuhachi to make it smoother some time. 

Next I went over to Nijiya for sake and groceries and a small bento and a little bit of sashimi and a small can of beer because I like to have a nice meal like this to reward myself for making it through another week. The ride home was calm and quiet too, in fact generally when I come back here around 3-4 in the afternoon it's busy so I don't know what's going on. Maybe some holiday I don't know about? The regular food truck lady wasn't out in front of the complex either. The only holiday I can find is Purim which is Jewish but who knows, maybe the Christians have decided to follow it and are staying home to get schnockered. 

Delivery day

 A delivery is supposed to be coming in today. So after the phone call from Ken I got in some time on the Voldyne and the shakuhachi. Page 23 in the book, that used to daunt me, is now something I can play through fairly well, playing each little phrase a few times. I'm getting better about keeping my middle fingers down too, as that's very important. 

I have to be prepared to make my living with the thing in 4 years if not sooner. 

I've applied for my drivers license renewal but that will not give me a "Real ID". That means after October 2021 I won't be able to fly, and presumably travel by boat either, on the ID I'll have. To get a "Real ID" I'll need to make an appointment and go to the DMV in person, and get an eye test. That mad me thinking I might have to get new glasses prescribed but then I remembered I have some "spares" obtained from thrift stores that I can pass the test with. 

But if I feel some need to escape here, I need to make the decision before October. 

I tried out the back/shoulder brace and it seems to help a bit. I even wore it overnight and slept through the night without being awakened by pain. I went through the whole bottle of sake but the sleep was probably worth it. 

The delivery came around noon. I called Ken and amazingly, got him. He said he'll be over around 3 to pick the stuff up. He showed up a bit after three, and showed me the set of shelves he'd bought to install in the storage unit so it would not be "a layer of rubble on the floor". I told him I don't know if he saw the office trailer I had down in Gilroy, but it was the same thing. I had to buy shelves to get the stuff up off of the floor because otherwise there was no room to walk. 

At least while waiting on Ken I got a lot of packing done, and had a horrible case of the shits for some reason. So my shoulder hurts, my my left leg hurts, my right kneecap hurts, and I've got the shits. 

The shoulder brace thing is helping with the pain a bit, a double dose of Pepto-Bismol took care of the shits, and Ken came back after having set up the shelves in the storage unit. We got to work on the 4 large boxes of stuff. The oscilloscopes, plugins, etc were all wrapped individually in bubble wrap and there was tons of bubble wrap besides. I suggested just putting the bubble wrap wrapped things and putting them in the truck, I'll keep the excess bubble wrap, and get rid of the flimsy boxes somewhere. That made for no heavy lifting and one trip for Ken. 

Ken invited me to come over and look at the storage, but I declined saying it'd be a distraction. But as soon as he left, I looked at the time and it was 5:00. At 5:10 I was heading out with the packages all loaded on the bike. 

I went and did my deliveries and all went well. I stopped by the survival supplies place and they'd thrown out a couple boxes of pain pills that are like a combination of aspirin and Tylenol with some caffeine also. And I stopped by the storage, thinking Ken might still be there for some reason but he was gone. But now I know how to find it and that I have the entry code right and remembered just fine how to work the locks at that place. 

So now I had all my shipping done and even my driver's license renewal mailed, and I rode home relaxed. But my stomach was sure waking up. I really wanted something to eat and I really didn't want to cook. I thought of the different food places around, and remembered the Vietnamese place in that little cluster of restaurants next to this big hotel and the casino. 

When I'd come in, I'd passed a couple of security guards looking along the side of the road for some part that fell off of their retired and repainted cop car. I talked with them for a bit and told them about my trick, when looking for a part in the dark, of holding the flashlight down low so the light hits things at a low angle and makes things really stand out. When I went back out they were still there. "Hope you find it!" I called out as I rode past. 

The Vietnamese place and a curry place next door had outdoor tables with people sitting around and eating and talking, no masks. Of course I was wearing mine and another guy getting take-out wore one too. I got the take-out version of a bowl I used to get there long ago that has "vermicelli" noodles with pork and shrimp and lots of veggies. Prices are going up, but I tipped well too. In about 10 minutes I had a mysterious take-away bag to dangle off of my handlebar, and I headed for home. 

It was basically the same bowl, but in one of those clear plastic take-away clamshell things. And I'd swear the portions are a tiny bit larger than before. I was really hungry so I really chowed down.

Am I in for chronic pain?

 I've injured that area before, once carrying an aquarium partially full of water up the hill leading from where I lived up into Kaimuki, once doing some crazy lifting I forget exactly what, once by being in a car accident, and now from cranking so hard on those wrenches removing those 30 level sensors, all because we get about $25 for them. 

Ken came by and brought all those boxes and I had to put them somewhere so I put them in a place in the warehouse where I could forget about them overnight. 

I'd finished my dinner, packed that one large thing I had left with about 10 minutes to spare before it was "overdue" and then decided I'd do no work after midnight so I settled down, did 20 breaths on the Voldyne and some shakuhachi practice, and watched dumb stuff on YouTube. 

I'd been drinking very dilute sake during the day. Like one inch in the bottom of my mug and the rest water and ice. Putting up with a little discomfort and looking forward to seeing plenty of sake left over in the morning. I went to sleep at 4AM and woke up at 8AM in pain, got up and treated myself to more straight sake and a couple of aspirin, waited a bit, drank the last bit, and went to bed until 12, waking up, of course, in pain. 

I got the packages loaded around 2 and took them up to FedEx, riding the bike with it shifted 1 gear lower. Slow, slow. My favorite lunch truck was out there on Brokaw and I got chicken wings and a can of V-8, and sat and ate at the fountain in front of Fry's. I didn't like the look of the top of the can of V-8 so I saved it for home. The package unloading went OK, each one weighed 35 lbs. 

After FedEx I turned on Oakland Road and rode, trailer, safety vest and all, over to Jackson and down Jackson to Nijiya for more sake, eggs, broccoli, and a beer. The guy in front whose name I still don't know but who's a white guy who knows Japanese, asked me as I went out if I knew anything about the shooting. There'd been a shooting in a "basement brothel" under one of the old buildings in Jtown, which all have these large basements. I told him I didn't know any more than he did, and was surprised the place was under Shabu Shack rather than 7 Bamboo, frankly. (When I got home I put a query out on r/sanjose and it was removed immediately. Then I mentioned it on r/aznidentity and we'll see.) 

"Well, hasn't tech served us well," I observed. "You're a 'door concierge and I'm a bike messenger - wait, nope, not even up to bike messenger" and he seemed to find that humorous. Who actually knows maybe he's retired and just bored. 

I rode over to the park and found a nice tree to lean against and drink my beer. A guy on a yellow bike went by. Presently he went by again and meanwhile the beer just made me want to burp a lot and I wasn't any more comfortable. He went by a 3rd time and said something like "Nice day, gentleman" and I said, "Nice bike" and he rode off across Hedding. This wasn't working out as planned at all. I left half the beer by the electric bike recharge stand and got back on the road. And who do I pass on 10th across from the pot shop but the guy on the yellow bike, who'd just interacted with a gal on a bike. If you sell drugs, you have to be recognizable (yellow bike) and you have to circulate... 

I got back here, put things away, did a load of laundry, and filled out my drivers license renewal papers and wrote out a check for $39 ($37 for the license and $2 to promote organ donation) and got that all packaged up, then started finding things I had to pack before midnight. I got most of those found, cooked and ate dinner around 9:30-10, and managed to find the last few things in time and have it all packed by around 11:30. I was going to do some listing but Ken called and told me a delivery is coming tomorrow so I need to be able to get up early if they come by at 9 again. "So I'd better get to bed early!" I sold Ken. So no listing tonight. 

Along with all this was some re-arranging of how I store large boxes in the loft, putting almost all of the boxes Ken had brought up there and putting them away, and organizing a pile of papers I had, to find the DMV stuff. And I wonder why my shoulder hurts! 

What a weekend

 I did list some things last night, with the result of about $700 in sales right away. 

If I drink too much I tend to sleep-walk in that I get up and do things while not being awake. It's not good. I have aches and pains in all sorts of weird areas from my bouncing off of things. And while sake is, I think, nicer than beer and easier to taper off of, I should not really be drinking much at all. So I drank less yesterday and slept pretty well overnight. 

I did do some exercises, 20 breaths, on the Voldyne and *some* shakuhachi practice. I'm really happy with this cheapie I got on Amazon for $225 or so. Consistent practice is the important thing. I went to bed at 4AM. 

So I kind of got up around 1, had some coffee, aspirin, raw almonds, vitamin C, etc. I left here around 3 to throw away trash in the Indian dumpster then I went over to Fry's, which I'd not been in for a year. 

There were very few people in there, which is good. I got a little tape dispenser about half the size of the regular kind, that comes with three little rolls of tape. They also had tons of different types of hand sanitizers and rubbing alcohols and of course, masks (although I didn't see gloves which I should get). A gallon of rubbing alcohol was $18+tax and I didn't have that much cash on me but I might go over later and get some. 

Then it was up to H Mart where of course I got more sake so I can do the Dilute, Delay, and put up with some Discomfort game. And some "salmon trim" that's the cut I like to use, and a little paring knife I can use to scrape stickers off of things.

On the way back I looked for food trucks but it was too late in the day - 4PM. And I got back here and had a good case of the shits. I think it's due to that fish I tried, which has an odd texture and is very oily. So I'm going to avoid it.  When I was really drinking a lot of hard liquor, my insides were often in turmoil so that's another possibility but that fish was nothing special so I won't miss it. 

Toot, toot.

 I did lots of nothing yesterday. Maybe I needed a day when I didn't go out and didn't work either. In the evening I did 20 breaths on the Voldyne and then played through page #23 in the shakuhachi book. 

I played through each little 4-note phrase several times, and when through the whole page so it was about an hour. I can play each in one breath if I'm conscientious about it. I also worked on keeping my middle fingers down on the shakuhachi because those have to be "anchored" and it's important to fix that habit early because in doing advanced techniques you can't have fingers flying. 

I'm really happy about this because page 23 really daunted me before. I'd lose track of where I was, and put red/blue ball point pen lines between the vertical lines of music. Last night I made a little folded paper thing I hook on the top of the page to keep my place. And I could do like 2 notes per breath at best but now I can do 4, extending the last one if I do it right. 

I've got a guy on r/shakuhachi offering to sell me his Bell shakuhachi, made by Jon Kypros. But I told him that I'm so happy with my bamboo one that for a bit less money I'd just buy a 2nd bamboo one. I'm on the list for a Bell and will be able to buy one new in about 6 months and maybe I'll do that then. 

But the most crucial period is the first year or so, when most of the learning and development happens. My bamboo cheapie is just fine for this. And since it's a cheapie, if I feel like messing with it, it's fine. I might want to smooth the bore and put an extra layer or two of lacquer in there some time. And there's a cut on the edge of one of the tone holes that a lot of makers do, to make one technique easier. 

The main thing is to practice every day.

Living Danishly

 Up at 1 in the afternoon. Actually awake at 1, up at 3. I felt so tired last night I didn't practice shakuhachi at all, did 30 deep breaths on the Voldyne, and watched a bunch of stuff about Buddhism. 

Awake now and there's a neat thing on the radio about a British lady whose husband got a plum job in Denmark so she got a crash course in being a Dane. Society in Denmark is very different from life in the Anglosphere, and she gradually got much happier than she was in Britain. People have health care and education taken care of, sick leave, bragging on oneself is discouraged, etc. It's a lot like Japanese society or the "local" society I grew up in in Hawaii. 

She mentions how she changed, not locking her car or house obsessively like one must in the Anglosphere; she's not worried some stranger might rob her to put food on their table etc. 

Compare and contract my moving from Hawaii to the mainland. Suddenly there was this far, of robbers, of "Mexicans", of earthquakes, yadda yadda. There was a homeless guy who'd live in my apartment complex with his mother, I think, who'd died and he had nowhere to go. He was considered dangerous but he was just hanging around what had been his home for years. Fear, fear, fear. Plus everything cost at least 2X what it did in Hawaii so now there was added the fear of losing my job, which paid about 2X minimum wage so while I barely made it on my pay, if I lost my job any job I got to replace it would pay me enough to be homeless and lose that job, too. In Hawaii I was saving up money. 

I was not happy in Hawaii because I didn't have the perspective I have now. I needed to come to the mainland to get that perspective. A lot of Buddhist "house cleaning" needed to be done and still needs to be done. 

I remember when I was very young, we went to the house of a family we were friends with, and one of the kids, about my age so around 5, showed me a little notebook where they'd drawn a little circle in pencil for each day. The idea of being conscientious enough to draw that little circle each day greatly impressed me and I felt an intense envy. I wanted that little notebook very badly. Of course the kid wouldn't give it to me, and no amount of fussing changed that.

Later I would feel envious of other kids for various things and there were things I would want very much, and caused myself a lot of suffering because of this. For instance, the Sears catalog had a bicycle called a "Screamer". I was really big on bicycles that looked like motorcycles, and the Screamer went the furthest toward this, its frame even being similar to a classic Norton "featherbed" frame. However many hints I dropped I never got that particular death trap as my mom's policy was Schwinn or nothing. 

There were all sorts of things I wanted badly. Certain seashells for my collection, many different idiotic toys, and so on. One notable episode was when Cheerios had an offer on the box, for these rainbow colored things you'd put on your bike spokes.  We ate a lot of Cheerios and finally the box tops were sent, and an eon later they came (the 6-8 weeks shipping time was a real thing in Hawaii) and in the end one set wasn't enough to cover all the spokes like on the bikes being ridden by the deliriously happy kids on the back of the box. And they were really ho-hum. 

I got this way about HP calculators when I was in college which was a useless distraction. And later, when I was working as a tech and going around by motorcycle, I was this way about motorcycles. Wanting things overly badly isn't fun or nice, it just makes for unhappiness. 

I was even this way regarding a classical guitar course I started at Orange Coast College. The teacher sold actual classical guitars, imported from Spain, that were very nice. They were not too expensive either. Right from the beginning I learned that classical guitar is designed to make things as easy for the player as possible, both in the guitar itself and in the way you learn to play. You don't need big hands or long fingers to play classical either. But instead of just buying one of the friendly little guitars and sitting with the crowd of students and working on my apoyando etc., no, I had to decide I was going to take one-on-one lessons from the teacher at his little private school, and get a mint-green Stratocaster instead of that humble little guitar. And so, I never learned guitar because I didn't just put my head down and work through the course with the kind of guitar the course needs, and gone through potentially 6 semesters of guitar teaching because you can take each semester twice and the teacher in fact encouraged it. 

And this was back in the late 80s, inexpensive, good, college accredited guitar courses like that don't exist any more. Any kind of music education is $50/hour minimum now. The only thing I can think of that comes close in these days is, at the Buddhist study center next to the University of Hawaii at Manoa, there seem to be shakuhachi sessions/classes held 2X a week. I'm not sure if they even charge anything; they do require the student to have a shakuhachi of their own and that's it. 

But getting back on-subject, I was a little kid and didn't know any better, and since American parenting involves teach the kid as little as possible and entirely avoiding morals or ethics, I've had to figure this all out much later on my own. I have no doubt the kids going to Buddhist school at the temple are being taught about these things from first grade on.

 

That poops out a copter

NASA has just had a very successful landing on Mars. There as a sort of thing that entered the Martian atmosphere going about 13 gazillion miles an hour, that then popped it parachute and became a "sky crane" that gently lowered the new wheeled thingie that's going to roll around and explore stuff. It's kind of catarpillar-shaped with an upward curve at one end. This thing will poop out a little helicopter that will fly around and explore stuff. Pretty neat. 

Covid numbers seem to be coming down. It will be a departure from the 1918 model if we don't have a massive number of deaths this year with over a million dead, but I'll be very happy if that model turns out not to fit. The vaccinations seem to be helping especially in places like nursing homes. 

Having an actual adult in the White House sure makes a difference. He's not Sanders or Dean but he's a huge improvement over what we had before. 

I was up around noon and had a bank appointment for 4. I packed the things that had to go out today and then took off for downtown at 3:30. The bank appointment went fine and they're always happy to see me. I told him how it was a combination of warm and cool outside, with the sunlight warm and the wind cool. Lots of dramatic clouds. 

After the bank visit I went to Dai Thanh and looked to see if they have large strainers and they do. But I need to make some measurements. I want to make a thing I can put wet laundry in, that even if I've wrung it still ends up sopping at the bottom, and have that excess water drain off. I settled for buying a bag of raw peanuts. 

Next was the Amazon hub for my posture-corrector brace thing that I don't need now but I might want to try wearing anyway. And bubble mailers. 

Next I locked the bike up by Nijiya and went into Kogura's and bought a pair of chop sticks I'd planned to buy, for $2 and mentioned to the lady that I don't like the ones with grooves in them because food can get stuck in there. She said she liked that kind because she can "grip" things better. I started to say it's a matter of traditions (I never saw ones with grooves when I was a kid) but then another customer came in who needed attention. 

I walked over to The Arsenal and got a brush pen. It was the same guy there I talked to before and I said I wanted to learn to transcribe music in the Kinko notation that's used in shakuhachi playing and we had fun talking about that when an oddball old guy came in, asked to use some hand sanitizer and used it, rushed out, rushed back in, then his oddball old wife came in. They were dashing all over looking at stuff so I made my exit. 

Then to Nijiya for shopping and they charged me $12 for the sake again but I caught 'em and the guy (this is the guy who learned Japanese by taking it in college, skipping all his classes, and watching tons of anime instead) said, "I just scanned it" and I said, "I'll show you" and we went over where the sake was, and sure enough, $8.99. It was all very friendly; he's a nice guy. 

I got back here at about 20 after 5 which gave me time to pack 4 more small things, then I rode up to the post office and FedEx and did my drop-offs. And picked up packing stuff on the way back, the usual. I have 3 large things in the queue and I want to get at least 2 of them to FedEx tomorrow.

The Sum Of (all of) Us

 Up nice and early. Brilliant interview on NPR right now with the author of this book:

 https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/564989/the-sum-of-us-by-heather-mcghee/

I've figured out by now that the US is racist, but this book shows how huge a footprint racism has in the US and how much it has made life much worse for all of us. At least we have an adult in the White House now and hopefully this blockbuster book gets wide readership.

I woke up at something like 6AM, peed, and went back to bed to try to sleep some more. Crazy dreams. 59 degrees in here when I got out of bed at 10. 

Something interesting happened yesterday. I did 15 deep breaths on the Voldyne, then played the shakuhachi a bit, working on memorizing the "notes" which are actually finger positions, and taught myself Amazing Grace. But noticed something with some surprise: my shoulder hadn't ached since doing the breathing exercises on the Voldyne. 

So after dinner and staging some packages that have to go out like, yesterday, I did another 15 deep breaths on the Voldyne before bed.

I want to start transcribing simple tunes like that into the Japanese "Kinko" notation which is pretty neat. For the purpose of shakuhachi playing, I think it's easier/better than Western notation. I'd wanted to start transcribing things for trumpet but never go around to it. But transcribing for shakuhachi doesn't require manuscript paper or anything special like that.

I sent an email to my youngest sister saying happy new year, happy Chinese new year, and isn't it great the election craziness is over with and we have a new President? She just shot back a Trump-worshiping article from The Epoch Times so she's really gone off the deep end. I'd been trying to open some kind of communication with her, but she seems to treat it as a test of one-upmanship. So I'll send her a picture of a pretty meadow with some cows here, and she'll send me one of cows in Hawaii like those are better somehow. 

She's a Christian, so that's already proof she's not very smart. It's a religion for bullies and idiots. It only makes sense that she'd worship a con man, other than the main Christian con man, that is. So, being in contact with her may not work out. 

I packed stuff (20 packages) and cooked a couple of eggs before heading out. The drop-offs went fine and I came back with some useful packing stuff too. I came back and dropped off the bike trailer and went right back out to H Mart where I did some shopping and got some nice fried fish and a beer. That was very yummy when I got back. 

I spent too much time messing around on Reddit I guess, and finally did my 2nd set of exercises on the Voldyne and got in something like 45 minutes on the shakuhachi. I'm pleasantly surprised that the characters for different finger positions are sticking in my mind and I played the whole page of exercises that had daunted me before. When I was done with that, I cooked up some pork and broccoli and listed 15 items I had cued up on Ebay and most turned out to be worth more than I thought. 

I think I'm going to feel a lot better if I make sure I get shakuhachi practice every day even if it means putting Ebay stuff until later in the evening when I'm dumber. I feel like the work around here is closing in on me and while Ken may be nuts over this stuff  I'm sure not.  And there's always the factor of, what happens if something happens to Ken? Assuming the virus is gone in another year or two and Ken stays healthy, I might find that the shakuhachi, while not as loud as a trumpet, has such a wonderful, haunting sound that it may pull in the bucks the way my trumpet playing started to once I stopped sounding so much like a student and at least like an intermediate player. 

In the same way, before the virus, I thought I might be almost ready to rent a small office I can sleep in and just play trumpet and make out fine, I might be ready in a year or two to make a go of it with the shakuhachi. I think the Voldyne is going to help a ton.

Ding Dong The Rush Is Gone

 I don't normally gloat over the deaths of people but it was debatable whether far-right hack Rush Limbaugh was a "people". And now the fat fucker's gone. "He was the True North of conservatism" said a spokesman for the party of sedition and insurrection. 

I was so wiped out from yesterday that in the evening I didn't do any practice or any breathing exercises on the Voldyne. I got to bed fairly early for me, and woke up around 9 maybe, used the loo, and back to bed until past 12. 

My Craig's List ad for the huge packing crates didn't result in their going away, but I heard a guy moving them around and peeked out and told him how they work and that they're free, so he and a buddy dragged them a door or two down to their shop. 

 After having coffee, tea, natto, some arare, almonds, etc and messing around on line for too long I decided to make up for yesterday's since and got out the Voldyne and kept track and did 15 deep breaths on it.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Wake up!

 Ken  told me to be prepared for another delivery today, and it came, at 10 after 9 in the morning. The guy pounded on the door, I signed a paper, and he unloaded what the manifest said is a round 2000 lbs of electrnoic stuff in huge boxes, on pallets. 

Since the stuff was huge and strapped down, it would take a real effort for anyone to "nick" any of it so I went back to bed with the door open and after laying there for a while, managed to get in probably 2 more hours of sleep, until noon. 

At 12:30 I headed out on the bike in search of a lunch truck, and got two chicken skewers and a diet Pepsi for $7. And got back here and ate. 

I called Ken at 2, which is when he said he generally wakes up these days, and he said he's be right over. 2 hours later I got worried and called him. "Oh, I slept some more".

Knock knock wake up!

 I was in the middle of a weird and kind of fun dream. I was living in an apartment complex and a cop, black as his uniform, knocked on my door and said he was looking for someone shooting a BB gun around the area and could I help him find them? I said Sure and got out some safety glasses with a sort of scuff on them, and the cop and I walked down to this grassy area where some people with an RV or something had ... some air guns. And high end ones too. Pardinis, Feinwerkbau's etc. So we were all talking about neat air guns when the real knock happened. 

It was a delivery driver with a big truck. I signed for the two things, and told the guy "Well, it's not raining now, so just unload them in front here and I'll wrestle them inside. I cut the strapped-down one free and took the smaller, lighter one out of its box and the guy helpfully took the pallet and strap and cardboard away. It's funny, he was even a black guy, although not super black like the friendly cop in my dream. 

I got the big heavy thing unpacked and boxed up the padding in the box it came in, took all identifying labels off, and put that box out front. I'll do something with it, like stick it out in the trash enclosure for now, once it's dark. 

Of course the delivery guy probably knew I was sleeping in here but I'm sure he's seen weirder things. 

The thought that it doesn't matter if *I* am inventing great things or accomplishing great things as long as *someone* is, seems to be quite freeing. My oldest sister isn't writing the Great American Novel that I know of, and the youngest isn't in show business, and they seem to be quite happy with that. The sister just younger than myself isn't striving to be The Greatest Carved Candle Maker that I know of, and my older brother's had no greater aspirations than to just live a quiet life. 

And when you try hard for something it's often just not possible. My becoming an Olympian was not at all out of the question performance-wise. But not having the money to pay bribes and not being willing to to play dirty tricks on my team-mates canceled that. And seeing some of the people who did become Olympians showed me that it's no mark of character. 

And Dr. Allison, of the Blue Cross Animal Hospital ... the last time I saw him he was like he'd shrunk. He had to wear gloves all the time due to developing an allergy to some chemical there in the animal hospital, and I felt like putting my hands on my hips, swaggering and saying to him, "Well, how's all that hard work worked out for you?"  Animals are at least smart enough to avoid hard work when they can. 

I did some exercising on the Voldyne last night but didn't play the shakuhachi even though the Tru-Oil I put on it had dried. 

Jumping out of bed and wrestling a heavy box probably didn't help, but my back on the side I injured is killing me. I actually rode downtown and went to CVS thinking that since they have all kinds of braces for knees and such, and there are so many people working from home and on their computers a lot, they'd have at least one type of those back brace things for improving one's posture. Because I think my back's not getting better because of my bad posture. But nope! I got chased by a running zombie on my way to CVS and nope nothing. 

I did get a nice copy of Hawaii by James Mitchener from one of the little free libraries though. And picked up sake, eggs, an unagi bento and a beer at Nijiya. And it was nice outside - grey and windy but refreshing. 

I was just finishing my eel bento when Ken called. He was at the storage unit and would be over "shortly". I poured the rest of the beer in my cup that has a screw-on lid, and put it in the fridge, finished the last of the bento and chewed some gum, and pretty soon here was Ken. 

Ken had a few boxes and was mainly over to "neaten up". He re-organized and cleared a lot of areas in the warehouse and I also did some Tetris type stuff of my own, finding places for the stack of large instruments I'd recently listed. Then while Ken puttered, I did a load of laundry. All in all it was a rather nice, productive, visit. I told Ken about my back/shoulder problems and my trying to get one of those braces too, so he'd know why I've been trying to avoid some of the heavy lifting that needs doing around here.

Grey Day Shopping Trip

 Up around noon which makes sense as I was up until 4AM. It already looks really grey out there. 

I did at least 10 puffs on the Voldyne last night, getting it up past 1750 a time or two. That thing is really neat! I am so glad Sean Renzo Head on YouTube recommended it to me. I found one video with a trombone player recommending it, and the guy was using a 5000cc one, and could take it past the top. Trombone players, man. A few years ago there was something in St. James Park with some instruments and a small band on a stage and a young guy, a trombonist, letting people try the instruments and spraying disinfectant on them between users. He was going into young child education or something and seemed to have the right personality, very nice. I couldn't get a peep out of his trombone. I guess it just takes a lot of air. I did pick up the trumpet and did some licks and heads turned. I'd given up trumpet for the umpteenth time then and that turned me around. I hope that guy is doing OK and will have a great career in young child education. 

I got out of here around 3. Rode up to Dai Thanh but they were closed for Tet. Came back around to the Amazon hub and picked up 15 bubble mailers. There are times I wonder if I should just have Ken buy some, but the Amazon ones are thicker/tougher than the ones we can buy, and come with enough extra material that I trim them down and use the trimmed off part for padding. 

Next stop was Nijiya where I locked up the bike, and went over to Kogura's thinking they might have silk handkerchiefs. They don't. They advised I go to Nikkei Traditions but they don't have them either. I want to make a pull-through swab for the shakuhachi but I might just use a piece of chamois I have here. 

Then I went into Nijiya and did my shopping. The blonde guy was cashier and I said, "So, they acquitted him" but he didn't want to talk. Along with my odds and ends and sake I got a nice sashimi on rice thing, and a beer. 

All day it was dark, as dark in the afternoon as it would be a 6 in the evening. Even though there was a breeze, things had that feeling like the air was actually a very, very clear liquid. I've always liked days like that, even back in Hawaii. 

I got back and had my sushi and beer, and got into watching a new Adam Curtis documentary that turned out to be a 3-parter and each part over an hour. Pretty interesting. 

If, as Buddha says, we've all been through countless lives and been in every relationship to each other, then it doesn't seem so bad that my youngest sister didn't go into show business or my oldest didn't get to write the Great American Novel, or I didn't become an artist or a scientist of some note. Because it's all one big dance, where if someone is out there inventing great things that's part of me also, and if I am only playing a bit part in things it's still important. 

This is I attempt to reconcile that fact that I've done all these really low-level jobs to survive and it seems like someone who's smart ought to live for a greater purpose than cleaning dog kennels. Someone has to clean those kennels, I guess. 

Also, I was only cleaning dog kennels because I wanted a job that would let me fit things around my college classes, because I wanted to study electronics which would provide a good living - all those lies. If I'd just fucked around and did whatever I wanted, things would probably have turned out much better. 

My advice is to do whatever you're interested in and assume you'll get paid shit. Because it's better than doing what everyone advises to study with the illusion that you'll get paid well, and then find out it pays shit. And avoid "fast-moving" fields. Find something to do that's changing as little as possible. 

The "all is vanity" stance may be a useful one. In 100 years is anyone going to give a shit that Edison invented the light bulb? He was running neck and neck with a few other guys, any of whom could be credited for it. And as it is, we're using fluorescent lights, a Tesla invention, and LED lights, which I think are American/Japanese (apparently Americans didn't think you could go higher than green in LEDs and a Japanese scientist shows you can go up to blue and even UV). 

Edison just invented because he loved the shit out of inventing things. Ken, who I work for, messes around designing medical devices because he's messed around with physics and chemistry and electronics since he was in grade school. It's just what he does. I told him once he's like a kid who was given a saxophone, played it for something like 12 hours a day and got so good that he's in demand.

Voldyne

 Last night I tried out the Voldyne and it's pretty amazing. I'm used to exercises all about breathing out, this exercises one's ability to breathe in. And because it gives an indication of rate of flow and total volume, it keeps your technique on point and gives you something to strive for. 

I also got a good practice session in on the shakuhachi. I did a lot of blowing a note in the lowest octave then going up an octave and if I had enough air, back down. And tried working out a few songs. 

I was up around noon today. The wind was really whistling outside so I didn't feel like going out or rather I did, except for the wind. 

Monday's both a holiday, Presidents' Day as we called it in Hawaii, and Washington's Birthday here in California apparently. Different states call it different things. We have a May Day in Hawaii but it's not a thing here on the mainland. It's also what we called Chinese New Year back in Hawaii and probably still is, but here it's lunar new year. Anyway Monday's also a rain day so I'll go out tomorrow.

I noticed in playing the shakuhachi last night that it does indeed get quite a bit of condensation inside. And the outside, which thought was varnished, is just highly polished with only some clear varnish over the bindings. So today I got out the old Tru-Oil which is a sort of linseed oil made for finishing gun stocks and in my opinion very good stuff, and rubbed on a light coat. Since it has to dry fully, I set it up on end on one of these machine shop gadgets we have, that have a weird magnetic base you can turn the magnet "on" and "off". It's got a chrome plated rod that I just put the shakuhachi on, and there it will sit over night. 

A guy's gotten back with me, on r/shakuhachi on Reddit, he mentioned having a "Bell" shakuhachi he'd sell me, for about $230. First I was gung ho, then he didn't answer back for a day and to him, I didn't answer for a day. I told him today that this bamboo one I have now has me pretty happy so I'm going to wait a bit but I'll be on r/shakuhachi so he'll know where to find me. I also mentioned I'd found, on a site called Reverb, a Morty Levinson advanced student shakuhachi for $300 so there are nice flutes out there. 

I've been thinking, while out riding my bike, that what kind of a world is it where I am allowed to live for the purpose of cleaning the kennels at the Blue Cross Animal Hospital, or polishing all that brass at the Bowfin Museum, or even building all those prototypes and making all those clever test jigs, all forgotten now, for that POS terminal company? 

I'm fairly smart, and it seemed insulting to me that someone smart like me should exist for the purpose of hosing down dog kennels. But then I kind of turned the question on its head. Maybe the real situation is that no matter how smart we think we are, our lives are pretty inconsequential.

The case

 Up around 10, packed one more thing to make a round 20 items to mail/FedEx. 

The trial's still on. The Dump's side is actually making what sounds like a solid case. What it's sounding like is, the Dump's speech was not any more violent than a whole lot of things Democrats have been saying. The difference is that we don't have Democrats gunning down political enemies, assaulting capitols, etc. 

So what appears to be solidifying is that the difference is that the Republicans have followers who are teaming up, coordinating, and committing crimes but without direct orders from the Dump. This is called stochastic terrorism I believe. 

The best parallel I can think of is Charles Manson, who never committed any illegal act, but talked his followers into doing them. But he went into the slammer for good. 

But I think what is going to happen is the Dump's side will convincingly say that the Dump was merely talking, and that the real problem is groups like the Proud Boys and the 3%'ers and so on, and coordinated shadowy groups and they'll be hunted down on insurrection and conspiracy chargers. The Dump will waddle off to live his twilight years yelling at clouds. 

This parallels what I've observed about Hitler. Hitler himself was fairly harmless; it was all the capable people who fell into line behind him. Hitler wasn't even a rapist, seemed to pay his bills OK, fought bravely in WWII where he was a messenger, a dangerous job. And if human beings were as nice as we think we are, he'd have been a commercial artist given to political rants at the beer hall after work, and there's never have been WWII at least not in Europe. Probably just the Pacific War which would have ended much more quickly, thus no time to develop the Bomb. Sorry Grandfather, no Bomb work for you! 

The white nationalists are a real concern, though. They've proven that they'll happily kill anyone, certainly anyone of color but also whites who oppose them. They truly have been stacking up bodies like cordwood. In the prosecution side of the trial there was made mention of a high level of  coordination in the insurrection, of colored tape used by groups to identify each other and so on. Of highly coordinated plans. 

I think the end result will be to steer attention away from the Dump, and toward the danger of these white terrorist groups. Which is how it should be. 

I had some real trouble getting motivated. The plan was to take the 20 packages I had packed to the post office and FedEx first, then come back, clean up, and go to the bank. Instead I ended up listening to the trial and eventually cleaned up and left here at 2. My bank appt. was for 2:30 and I was still there several minutes early and that's with a couple of stops to get rid of trash and sake bottles and to drop off some survival rations at one of the little free libraries. 

I went to the bank and it was the usual tableau out front. A fat black lady and a homeless Hispanic guy sitting on the bus bench. A bus zoomed by, probably because it doesn't stop at that stop, and the fat black lady got up and waddled off. The Hispanic guy then lay down for a much-needed nap on the bench. 

The people at the bank were super nice as always. But, I need to renew my driver's license. I'd let it expire and they keep track of such things on their computer so we had a laugh about it and I said I'll get on it. 

Next stop was the Amazon hub where I picked up the 2nd "Chickenhawk" book so I can read about how the guy's life went after he returned from Vietnam. And the first Masayuki Koga shakuhachi book. And this weird breathing-exercise thing that's over $20 on woodwind brasswind but about $7 on Amazon. And more bubble mailers of course. 

Then I puttered over to Nijiya and locked the bike. I needed a new soup bowl, because the one I have is developing a crack in the bottom. So I went over to Kogura's and looked at their rather expensive, made in Japan bowls. A cool one with a dragon was over my budget, but I saw one with a fishnet pattern I could afford and I love the pattern - I was a fishing fool as a kid. So I got that and had a nice little chat - about how my old bowl's cracked and that's all I need; miso soup all over the place. 

Then I decided to walk up to the other corner and around, and went into The Arsenal. They've expanded, and I complimented the guy in there on how fast the cleaned the graffiti off of this big stone that's out front, some kind of "friendship" stone sent over from Japan. Nice guy and we had fun talking about stuff. They have a *lot* of art stuff there. I told the guy about the shakuhachi and said that I need to learn to make them from PVC so I can afford to just hand one to anyone who's interested. 

Finally I went into Nijiya and got my shopping done. There was a skinny white guy who looked scruffy and had a tie, apparently worn so long that the part around his neck was like a string. He wanted to buy beer. I tried to tell him about TAK Market but then he went in. The guy at the door and I talked about TAK, and then it was my turn. I thought I saw the skinny guy looking over the sushi and started to tell him about TAK Market and he turned around and it wasn't the guy. Woops! That's the 2nd time now I've mistaken one white guy for another white guy. 

By now I was pretty hungry and of course my shopping included a small bento, some extra fish, and a beer. I debated whether to eat and then go to the post office afterward, or have a handful of sunflower seeds and do the post office first, then eat. 

I fought a cold wind back to here and Lo and behold, the lunch truck was still out front although it was 4. I rode up and called out, "Am I glad to see you!" I picked out a deep fried burrito thing and she wanted $1.50 and I gave her the $2 I had on hand. She gave me "change" in the form of another, baked not deep fried, little burrito. 

I got back in here and got out the hot sauce and ate. I left for the post office run at 5. It really felt like it's going to rain, which it's predicted to tomorrow.

Conviction As Prevention

 Ken came by and wrote out my pay check and dropped off a few boxes and we talked about science-y stuff for a while, and then he was done. We didn't bring up politics. 

I'd listed a nice stack of large test instruments so I didn't really have to do anything more but wind down and go to bed. 

I was awake around 10 but didn't get out of bed until noon. My arm hurts and muscles in it keep twitching. I hope this gets better because it's not like I can see a doctor. 

I turned on the radio around 10 and it's just more horror. The insurrectionists were talking about, knowing the politicians were in the tunnels 3 floors down, "Doing like I did in the Corps, going down through floors straight down until we get 'em". One Trump-mob illuminary got an hour-long call with Trump who agreed that his statement, "The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat" is great and wonderful. This is why I'm armed up. 

Not only is the trial revealing a lot of things like this that make the situation even more horrifying, but on this day the case is being made that if Trump isn't convicted, there will be another, larger attack. It's been a build-up from Charlottesville (the day after which I bought my rifle) to the Wisconsin state capitol to the National capitol. Again as Hitler said, the only way for Germany to have prevented the Nazis coming into power would have been to crush them with extreme force when they were still a small organization. And I'll stand by my stance that in the insurrection, the Capitol police, Secret Service, and anyone else able, should have treated it as a turkey shoot for chuds and should have ended up with mounds of dead Trumpists. 

So the good guys are making a very solid case. Now they're talking about how we look in the eyes of the world which is a huge point. 

I am old now and my ganked-up arm makes me feel older. Except for my marksmanship skills and ability to teach same I would not make much of a fighter. I've had no plans to kill fascists unless the fascists come to me. My plan has always been to withdraw from this shitshow and try to have some fairly pleasant last years. I'd planned to convert to Judaism and go to Israel, but that requires professing to believe in far too many silly things, and my memories are not in Israel. They are back in Hawaii. 

Bauhaus

 Up at  8:30 or 9 or so. Early for me. Ken had called me at 7 last night, "Hey I'm coming over, see you in 10" he had to pick up a high voltage power supply he was going to sell to the company he works for. He came over and dropped off some boxes and then picked out a HV supply from the many we have around here and put it on the desk here and tested it, and I found tools and a DMM and handed them to him, and he determined that it would work once he cleaned it up and undid a modification someone at one of the national labs had done to it. 

I had to pack some things before they went "overdue" and one was a big motor on a stand that took some special packing. 

So I went to bed not long after midnight, maybe 1, maybe 2 ... 

I woke up early enough that if I jumped right to it, I could do the 9AM ride to the post office I'd been hoping to accomplish, but I did some thinking and realized if tomorrow's a rain day, I should pack this other big thing too, some car diagnostic gadget in one of those big protective cases so I could pretty much drop it into any box that would fit. So I packed that baby up, and it'll be a "Bauhaus" load. What I mean by this is, the smaller big box will go into the bed of the bike trailer and the bigger one on top, where it will hang over the trailer rails, looking like a Bauhaus building. 

The trial is going on, on the radio. This is pure Nazi stuff. Hitler had the "stabbed in the back" big lie, and the 'Dump has the lie that the election was stolen, I mean, along with the Democrats being space aliens who eat babies and so on. 

I cooked up some eggs and ate, and loaded up my "Bauhaus" load, and rode for the post office around 11. It was really nice out, very sunny but the wind was cool. All the things I took were FedEx packages so I only had to go as far as FedEx. I dropped them off, picked up some bubble wrap on the way back, and was back here at a quarter after 12. 

I started out again, this time for downtown. I had two packages that go to the post office and since tomorrow's a rain day I didn't want to delay sending them until Friday so I took them to the old post office downtown. The next place to go was Wal-Mart, I decided. I wanted to get cellophane tape and a few other things. So I rode down there and locked the bike by Big-5, and went in. No tape. They had witch hazel and surprisingly, pint bottles of rubbing alcohol. But the checkout was very confused and the lines like 30 shoppers long. "OK!" I said and put my stuff in a random place and walked out. Sheesh! 

The next stop was the Amazon hub, where I picked up bubble mailers and the shakuhachi I'd bought on Amazon, which was in a long box. I opened the long box to find the shakuhachi comes in a long wooden box, covered with fabric with two latches. On the top it says JIM Johnson Music. I was able to carry it in one of the bike bags but it stuck out a lot so I had to stand on a curb to get on or off the bike. Well, I'll go to Nijiya and buy stuff and try to figure out how to carry it and all the stuff. 

So I went over to Nijiya and got sake and a beer and a bento and a few odds and ends. The stuff I got took two bags, and as I was apportioning stuff to various compartments etc on the bike, I had an idea. I put a shopping back over each end of the box so they met in the middle, and tied the handles to each other on each side. That created a handle and I could carry the shakuhachi in its box just fine. 

I got back here and I'd left the radio on so I returned to the sound of the trial. I had my bento and beer while listening maybe not to something like the Nuremburg Trials but the trial about and attempted coup that, if it had succeeded, would have led to events that necessitate something like the Nuremburg Trials. 

Done eating, I had a long software update to do, so I decided to open up the shakuhachi box and see what I've gotten myself into. I've been hearing nothing but horror about Ebay and Amazon flutes, and had seen pictures of an absolutely awful Etsy one. So I was thinking I'd take a look and it would be Meh at best and maybe just plain bad, and I'd put it back in the box and return it. I was thinking the best shot for me would be to order (another) Shakuhachi Yuu from Mejiro in Japan which would come with one of the shakuhachi books I want, which would run what this one cost. 

So I was not expecting much for $200-odd. But wow. The box is nice, even the latches are nice, the shakuhachi, in the box which is lined, is in its own little sleeve of flannel like pyjamas, and has a neat little leather cap for the mouthpiece. And a little letter certifying that it's been tested and tuned and all that, with a little dodgy English but a hanko stamp and a scribbled signature from "Jim Johnson" himself, apparently. 

The shakuhachi itself is ... beautiful. It's thick, the root-end is lovely, the bamboo looks well-cured, the red lacquer inside is almost perfect (looks like a few rough places near the bell) and it has very nicely done wire(?0 bindings all along. The finger holes and utaguchi very well crafted. I'm impressed! I had a blow and wow, it's easier to blow than a PVC shakuhachi and certainly seems nicer than a Yuu. I don't think I've played shakuhachi for a couple of years and I could do the whole first octave right off. Keep in mind this is an instrument many can't make a sound on for weeks when they start. And when I last played one, a couple years ago, I only did the most basic exercises and blew lots of Ro but that was it. So I thought it would be almost the same trouble as I'd had starting out but not with this one. So I feel like I've really lucked out.

So I think this is going to work out fine for me. My impression is, it will be a fine instrument for at least my first year if not two.

Woke up to horror

 Woke up at 9, got up around 10. I turned on the radio and it's the 2nd impeachment trial of the ex-criminal-in-chief. The past 4 years have been horrible, and this is just the steaming, stinking, pile of shit on top of the cake. 

To my knowledge, we've never actually imprisoned an impeached president, but I wonder if they'll impeach this guy. Because not only is he a traitor on several counts, but it might happen because he's crass and trashy. He's destroyed the Republican Party for which I will never vote again, and I've sat at a toney bar with a couple of older yuppie types complaining bitterly that he's "Not presidential". 

It seems they're making a good point, but then as always I'm listening to NPR. In the Rightosphere, they're probably making cogent arguments like "Arrgh blarghle deep state arrgh blacks PPPPP! Muh Freedumbs" etc. 

I woke up with a deep feeling of sadness, thinking about a drawing of fighter jets I dashed off when I was in high school and we were living in Hau'ula. Why did I draw a formation of fighter jets? Because it was fairly easy to draw and I wanted to want to draw. From my teens on I was always kicking myself for not wanting to draw and paint for hours every day which everyone knows is how you become a good artist. 

Before we lost almost everything I grew up in a house full of expensive artists' materials. High-end art books, sable brushes, wonderful soft pencils imported from England with the title "Draughting" stamped into their varnished sides. Both parents were frustrated artists. And I was to be an artist. Later when I was a teen any and all art materials were funneled to me. Bought for me. Given me by local artists. I wanted so much to want to be an artist because I was supposed to be one and I'd carry my family on my shoulders. 

This is what my mother apparently thought, too. Which is why she kept buying me art materials and an air brush (considered the ne plus ultra art tool in 1970s Hawaii) and why, as I discovered to my horror, at some art show she got me into, she was going around to people like some kind of "stage mother" bragging like hell about me. 

When I discovered Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov and decided to get into "Science-y" stuff it was a relief. It was interesting, and I decided going into electronics like all the old guys said to do, would be a good career. The truth is there are hardly any jobs in it and it's horribly underpaid. 

But really I also chose electronics because like my dad who introduced me to it, I loved electronic music. Isao Tomita, Jean-Michele Jarre, all those guys. I thought if I got into electronics it would bring me closer to doing music. 

Which is never did because between school, working/survival, then more working/survival to pay off the loans from the (useless) school, I was a combination of too tired, or too wanting to go out and race around on my motorcycle or something, to sit down and mess around with circuits at home. 

In fact I was closer to making a real career in electronics before I left Hawaii. In my little room I had a power supply, oscilloscopes, soldering iron, you name it. No one minded. I was getting little projects from a guy at the University Of Hawaii. Leaving Hawaii was a real step down, but I had no idea at the time. 

I think I may be best at some narrow skill that I can try to do very well. That's certainly how it worked with a sport I did. Shell-collecting was like that, and in fact the reason I'm reasonably good at the electronics surplus game is, it's a lot like shell collecting. When I worked as a repair tech, I got really good, better than anyone else, at repairing the limited number of models of things I repaired. Somehow it never occurred to me to set up a work area at home and teach myself to work with surface-mount stuff even though it was obvious that would become the new standard. 

Trumpet was working out well and I was finally getting a "mature" sound and dammit, I was making some good money on it too. It's just too damn much stress on my body and indeed, Eric Miyashiro talked about lips cracking and putting Superglue on, and all these things. Satchmo used to get his lips "reconstructed" every few years by a surgeon. Ouch! 

I miss trumpet though, the spitty, stressful old thing. I miss practicing Taps and feeling that everyone who's ever played Taps was there with me in spirit. I miss playing Clarke exercises and feeling that good old, golden-hearted Herbert L. Clarke was right there with me, wishing me the best. Whatever music I played, I felt that the spirit of the people who played that music were with me; their hand on my shoulder. 

I think trumpet has been good training for me. I've learned how to form a good habit, by forcing myself to do it for a week or so then it's habit. I've learned that there's nothing more powerful than regular practice. I've learned that I can set a goal, to play to high C and above, and work toward it, and get there. I've learned to busk, and to put up with "characters", and finally learned to play with some soul, that brought in good tips from people who had no idea what I was playing but they liked the way I played it. 

But trumpets are also finicky, inherently dirty because of all the crud that builds up in there, loud, and probably the most "Lookit me!" instrument there is. Every trumpet I looked at in Hawaii always stunk like hell because of the humidity. 

And there are a lot of things you can't play on a trumpet. As expressive as a trumpet can be, when Rinban Sakamoto first handed me a PVC shakuhachi he'd made and I blew my first note, a solid Ro, the low Ro and then the higher one, I was amazed at how expressive an instrument it is. Absolutely blown away. 

The people I'm following on YouTube have been playing shakuhachi for 30-50 years. Yep that's right, 50 years for some of them. I might have another 30 years left. Can I master the shakuhachi? Probably not. But I was never going to master the trumpet either. I can at least put in what time I have left doing my best. Ganbatte!

It turns out that nasturtium curry, especially in the large quantity I made and ate it, was not a good idea, and I had the shits 2X so I had to wait for things to settle down. I left here at almost 3, with my load of packages. The drop-offs went fine, and I was riding back along Brokaw when, at the storage place, I saw a large pickup truck stopped with its hazard blinkers on, to wait for a large truck coming out of the place. I waited, and when traffic allowed, I went around, looking at the driver to maybe wave or something, and it was Ken. 

I pulled up onto the sidewalk with the bike and walked over to Ken. "What'cha doin'?" I asked, and he said he got a big load of stuff and was renting a storage there to dump it into. And he's coming by here tomorrow night, so now I can plan. "OK! See you then!" I said and rode off. 

I picked up some packing bubble wrap and stuff, and was making plans to ride downtown to pick up bubble mailers from the Amazon place, and maybe even go to Wal-Mart for cellophane tape but then it started raining and it was large-ish drops. It looked like more might be on the way, too. So I came right back here and stopped at the lunch truck out front and got a plate with 3 large chicken legs, squash, and quinoa for $5. Hell, if I'd gone downtown I'd have spent $6 on a bento and another $3 on a beer. I came back here and ate. 

While out riding today, I thought about all the time I spend on YouTube, Reddit, a few blogs, and this. Bad enough I write this, but it could be taken to be some kind of "journaling" and might be good for writing skills, as if there's any demand for those any more. But all those other things amount to a half-time job. No wonder I'm always out of time for things. 

I think the only things that I can justify paying attention to are the few blogs because they're quick; in fact besides this one probably just Morris Berman's. Reddit is good for seeing if there's anything happening downtown like fires, demonstrations, police activity etc. Spending hours on it is not justifiable though. YouTube is great as far as I've seen great movies, and there's a ton of shakuhachi stuff on there. 

In fact, I've just ordered this breathing exercise thing on the recommendation of one of the shakuhachi guys on YouTube. It's funny, that same gadget is over $20 on woodwind/brasswind and about $7 on Amazon. There are a lot of very nice, kind, helpful people on there. 

But mostly I've been using all this internet activity as a sort of escape, the very escape the shakuhachi was invented to give. The very escape a violinist gets out of their hours of practice. 

But what about singing, Alex? You were going to be a singer... I'm singing a lot more than I was, and I find it lovely that in a traditional shakuhachi lesson, the student always sings the piece first. But as much as I love Sinatra and (I think) can even sound a bit like him, it's an egotistical sort of singing that  does not jibe with how I want to retire back home. And like trumpet, it's really hard to put in hours and hours a day to get good because singing is really hard on the body esp. the vocal cords and if those go you're sunk. 

I could be outside a coffee shop in one of those walking malls like the Fort Street Mall and singing the Sinatra song about all the coffee in Brazil, which is really light-hearted and fun but still, someone's bound to get offended. Why not sing about Kona coffee? My dad hated Sinatra, etc. What makes you think you're so hot? Etc. Sing Don Ho stuff and someone's bound to get irritated because maybe I don't look "local" enough meaning I don't look Pacific Islander enough. 

Plus everyone thinks they can sing. And almost everyone can strum a uke. It may well be a coals-to-Newcastle sort of thing. And while Hawaii is thick with shakuhachi players as US states go, there still aren't that many. And most are not going to be out there busking. Poor people don't pick up this instrument. It was always the instrument of the dispossessed middle or upper-middle class. And that's far in the past. So I doubt I'll find any of the local shakuhachi aces out there as competition. 

I think the nice thing about a trumpet is you can say things without words, with something that sounds a bit like a voice. When I was finally starting to sound good, I was getting praise as well as tips, and as I'd finish up just before Whole Foods closed so I could nip and and get some groceries, I'd get to ask if they knew what song I was playing and they generally didn't. They just liked how I played it. 

So maybe this is the way to go. Not have to learn a zillion lyrics or sing with a music stand and stuff written out. 

Anyway, as of now, I've ordered this breathing thing, am on the list for a "Bell" shakuhachi made by Jon Kypros, am getting a bamboo shakuhachi in a couple of days that may be ... made of bamboo, or made of bambo and a decent flute, and have asked over at shakuhachiyuu.com if they have any of the "enhanced" yuu's which have been worked over by Monty Levinson, a noted maker. They're also $500, but might be worth it. I'll spend the money. If those are out, I might order the deal from Mejiro over in Japan for a Yuu and one of the shakuhachi books that are really hard to get here. Even after paying for the DHL shipping they use, it works out a bit cheaper than buying a Yuu alone in-country. 

The thing is, I'm getting tired of screwing around. There are any of a number of things that can put me right out into the street like something happening to Ken. I need some kind of skill that I enjoy doing that can't be taken away from me.

It's truly mystifying!

 Last night I was listening to a discussion on NPR, which started out with how covid will end up increasing deaths of all types because people aren't going to the hospital until it's dire. Not only for covid but for everything like heart attacks and appendicitis. Then they talked about cancers, and narrowed in on pancreatic cancer, which has a 90% death rate in the USA. The tumor in the pancreas can be removed as long as it's not over a certain size, 1 cm I think. And in the US screening is very rare so people don't even know they've got it until they're at the end stage. 

Meanwhile, they went on, in Japan screenings are done and the survival rate is about 90% because so many of the tumors are found when they're small. A mystery, a real mystery here... 

Dinner last night had been shrimp curry with nasturtium leaves, which came out really well. I used the curry roux that comes in a block, which is problematical because it's hard to get it melted before the melted part has started to set up, resulting in an uneven mix. So I'd gotten a cheap vegetable shredder at 99 Ranch and shredded the stuff, and it worked out great. 

I woke up around 9, and probably got out of bed in the 10-11 timeframe. I did the usual diddling around, looking at too much shakuhachi stuff online, finding Ebay items I need to ship, etc. After a bit of that I cooked probably the best-tasting batch of scrambled eggs I've ever had. I put in some shishito peppers that were starting to ripen, and a mix I've been using lately of shoyu, mirin, and some instant dashi grains. 

I stayed in and mainly watched too much junk on YouTube, but managed to get 18 things packed and listed 10 on Ebay and cooked up some dinner. 

I thought of a theory today that businesses tend to, like rivers, gradually become as inefficient as they can be and still exist. Dig out a river straight, and over time it will form loops and oxbows and things, essentially slowing it down as much as it can and still move the X amount of water it has to. 

I think small mom'n'pop businesses tend to do this also. They'll happily get by using what become eventually decades out of date methods and materials, as long as the business does well enough to feed whatever people depend on it. Say the founding family has a few sons who want to stay in the business, then the business will grudgingly expand, maybe set up in a couple of nearby towns. But that's it. 

Now enter the modern way of business where profit is all, and profit must increase. Now you don't get relatively happy people puttering around with paper index cards, because you've got people going around squeezing everyone to modernize and make more throughput. It's like having the Corps of Engineers periodically dredge that river straight again and about as good for the mental health of the business' employees as the dredging is for the wildlife along the river.

Chickenhawk

 I took the day off yesterday to do some reading. I read "The Death Of Ivan Ilych" which was fairly good; I think I'll need to re-read it a few times to see if there are any subtleties I missed. I think it's just about how a middle-class guy, dying, sees his life and the lives of his friends and family as being fake and everyone having these layers of fakeness. The only two "genuine" characters in the novel are a Russian peasant servant who helps him not out of a desire for higher pay or anything, but because in the Russian peasant world, if a person is ill, you help them. You help them without judgement and without stint, and that includes with the more unpleasant things. The other genuine character is Ivan's "schoolboy" son, who, in Ivan's last days when most are staying away from him, picks up Ivan's hand and put it to his face and kisses it. 

I wonder if J. D. Salinger read this book? I have to assume he did, as it's one of those must-reads for educated people and in fact I got it because Morris Berman said or some idiotic TV pundit or another that those kind of people have never read it. That stung, as I'd not read it either and ordered it right away. 

I then started in on "The Conquest Of Bread" by Kropotkin and got in a few chapters. Amazing how a book written over 100 years ago can be dead-on about things happening now. Kropotkin even describes the behavior of the insurrectionists at the Capitol and that's pretty impressive for only 3 chapters in. 

But I decided I'd had enough deep truths for one day, and got out my copy of "Chickenhawk" by Robert Mason, about flying helicopters in Vietnam. I'd read it back in the late 80s, as a paperback I'd bought for a dollar or two from the Anchor Book Store in Costa Mesa. And I'd only bought it because my best friend at the time was an older guy who'd flown helicopters in Vietnam. I remembered it as being very interesting. 

So except for one short period online to check up on Ebay, I just read yesterday and last night. Chickenhawk is a hell of a book, and I did some looking around and have ordered the sequel. Some say they liked it better than the first. 

Today I woke up around 9, lay in bed until about 9:30 and listened to the first service at the temple and then the 2nd. Apparently this weekend they normally hold a Scout Service and the temple is full of Boy Scouts but of course now it's all empty. So there was some Scout stuff mixed in like who earned the Peace Award and the Dharma Award and what were the qualities of a Buddhist Scout. Rinban Sakamoto mentioned that he'd been a Scout too, but didn't mention if he made Eagle. If he made Eagle I'd be even more impressed than I already am by the guy, and he's probably too modest to say it if he did. But if I stick with the temple as I should, I'll find out. 

I went to YouTube while getting some breakfast down me, and for some reason the algorithm pointed me toward a longish interview with Eric Miyashiro, one of the world's great trumpet players. It was really interesting. He started playing at about 3, his father being a trumpeter in the Royal Hawaiian Band, and for him it was just trumpet, trumpet, trumpet. And even he ran into difficulties, in the interview he admits at one point not being able to play. For years! Trumpeter Bobby Shew helped him out and lent him his horn, and it still took him a few years to be able to play again. I learned a lot about what wrecks trumpet players just from that interview. And thus, I learned that I can find a path to come back to trumpet, if I like. 

But I don't, really. To stick with it takes really, really, loving the trumpet and I don't love it that much and I don't think it's a good fit for back in Hawaii. Trumpet is very haole, "Look at me! Look at me!" while the local values, as I've stated, are very different. 

I've actually thought about getting a sax a few times recently. But saxes are very complicated with all those keys and with saxes come sax problems. And anything I play into my retirement years has to be something I can play in that sea air in Waikiki ... 

I thought about my old Shakuhachi Yuu, which is a cast plastic shakuhachi that's pretty good for beginners and just about indestructible. But I'd sold it, to a guy in Israel, who never got it anyway. I told him to check with his country's Customs. 

I considered getting another one, or the "enhanced" Yuu that's gone over by a noted shakuhachi maker here in the Bay Area and reportedly better but also about $500.  I ended up going on Amazon and found a rather decent bamboo one, made by a maker in Taiwan who's got good reviews. And it was about $225 shipped which is what a plastic Yuu would. 

In the past I made reference to my "shakuhachi-strengthened voice"  because playing a shakuhachi really trains the breath. In all cases I want to train my breath and voice, and even do a lot of deep-breathing when I wake up. 

So I've got this thing coming in and I can try it and if I decide it's a hunque of junque I can always return it. I can consider it a "voice trainer" and if I get good enough to busk on it, it's 1000X better than being seen with some piece of plastic. 

I made a quick trash disposal/bubble mailer/grocery run, leaving at 4 and getting back at 5:30.  It was nice and quiet out there because even the bums have found some way to watch a football game that's on today.