New Tech Team Volunteer

This is our new "tech team" volunteer, Hikaru, who started this March. He will be coming in to work mostly on Fridays, and will assist the tech team members in not working so hard. Hikaru also sets an example to all staff that computer are mostly fun.



As a "key" person helping other staff, he is willing to go to extreme efforts in pushing any kind of button. He says that, "if a monkey can do it, then so can I!" In addition to being a beta tester for the computers, Hikaru is also an avid reader of Dr. Seuss, enjoys nature, likes all animals, and does standup comedy.

A Micro Encounter with PC History

The other day, I had an encounter with history of the microcomputer kind. David, who had a part in designing this computer below, pulled out this electronic relic from his storage room/office (called the "inner sanctum").



What you see in the photo above is the first battery-powered portable (laptop) computer with a clamshell case and LCD display. It is called the "Athena 1" that was built in 1983 and runs under the CP/M operating system (Z80 CPU). Perhaps only meaningful to computer geeks, I had the great honor and privilege to touch the keyboard.

Egg Fu Yung

The man sitting at the next table exclaimed, "What is this world coming to?! Egg Fu Yung isn't Japanese?!" We were eating sushi at the "Wonderful" Japanese restaurant in San Gabriel while we overheard a loud (Caucasian) man trying to order his favorite dish of chicken egg fu yung.

The waitress had absolutely no idea what he was taking about as he desperately explained what he wanted to eat. He said that "it has to be Japanese" because they don't always serve it at Chinese restaurants. He called a friend on his cellular phone to confirm whether egg fu yung is really Chinese or Japanese food.

Unfortunately, he wasn't aware of another food category called "Chinese American" cuisine. This includes other American dishes like chop suey, mu shu pork, and the fortune cookie (invented in Los Angeles).

Daylight Savings

The other week, we shifted out clocks forward one hour to daylight savings time. But if the reason was to save on energy costs, I don't think it works for people who get up early in the morning. I take a early morning walk around 5am before I drop Hikaru off and go to work. It was actually getting nice to see the sunrise, but I noticed that I now have to turn on the light.

Stream of Consciousness

We haven't posted to the blog lately. Things were busy. If it's still winter, we wouldn't know it here in Los Angeles. It's been quite hot and dry this past week. This Saturday, we took a short family visit to Eaton Canyon.



Hikaru enjoyed picking up rocks and dipping his hands in the stream's cold water. Perhaps we can call this the "stream of consciousness", since this is what blog writing is mostly about. The cold water trickling over the rocks puts one in a meditative state where thoughts suddenly appear in one's mind. Today's thought was mostly about "taking it easy".

Magic Carpet

For whatever reason, Hikaru just couldn't resist lying down on this carpet at the public library.