Syracuse Symphony Orchestra:

Last night was the 2nd concert of the 6 concert series we bought for this season of the SSO. Because I am a student, we got a pretty extraordinary deal on these tickets (12 total tickets for $60) and going downtown for a concert once a month or so is a nice change of pace.

Anyway, last night featured Yefim Bronfman as guest soloist on piano and was the best of the several SSO concerts I have seen to date. The orchestra opened with Duke Ellington's jazz interpretation of the Nutcracker Suite, which was a very nice piece that I had not heard previously. I thought the orchestra handled the "jazziness" of it well, though they didn't swing as tightly as a "Pops Orchestra" that is more accustomed to playing jazz might. I do recommend the piece, though, as a great change of pace. It's available on a CD called "Three Suites", which I have linked to at the bottom of this post, that also includes a jazz version of Grieg's Pier Gynt Suite that must be very cool.

The 2nd piece of the night was Mozart's 22nd Piano Concerto (in E-flat, K. 482) and was the first to feature Bronfman. While this concerto does not, for me anyway, have the depth and intricacy of the 21st, 23rd, or 24th that bracket it, it is a very nice, lush piece and the 3rd movement is familiar to even casual classical listeners. I was struck by two things while listening to Bronfman's interpretation of the piece. First was how, for a larger, gruff looking man, he had such a supple style at the piano. He really only tickled the keyboard. 2nd, and this goes to my not being a piano player myself I suppose, I was struck at the number of passages that I had imagined in my mind's eye were 2-handed runs which were actually done only with the right hand. Quite amazing to watch, really.

The last piece of the night was Prokofiev's 3rd Piano Concerto (in C, Op. 26). It is on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's list of the top 100 concertos of all time (http://www.abc.net.au/classic/classic100/concerto_list.pdf), which I am working my way down, but last night was the first time I had heard it. As you would expect, it was darker and more harmonically challenging than the Mozart, and Bronfman was somewhat more animated in his playing. He has recorded all of Prokofiev's piano concertos, though, so is perhaps more "married" to this piece. As challenging as this piece clearly was, I was impressed with how our SSO handled it.

So, next month we are scheduled to see Ingrid Fliter play Beethoven's 2nd Piano Concerto and the full orchestra to the "Eroica" Symphony, which should be as true a test of their overall sound as we will get in this series.

Link to Duke Ellington's "Three Suites" at Amazon.com

Link to Robert Casadesus' Mozart 22nd Piano Concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra at Amazon.com

Link to Yefim Bronfman's Prokofiev 3rd Piano Concerto at Amazon.com

Better Late than Never, I guess...

A comment from my reader and the end of the semester have combined to get my off my duff to write something this evening. A year ago, I thought the full course load and research assistant duties in my PhD program had pushed me about as far as I could go in 15 weeks, but this year adding a teaching load to that has been even more demanding.

Anyway, with that out of the way, I am on the downhill slope in this adventure. One more required class and a dissertation. How hard can that be...?

So, a dinner. My parents came to Syracuse a while back so my Dad could be a guest speaker in my HR class (he talked about occupational safety) and while they were here he and I made Osso Bucco, or braised veal shanks. This was the kind of meal I really missed preparing in Japan because these bone in cuts of meat are difficult if not impossible to find. Anyway, this was a pretty standard recipe for the dish, and the most interesting thing I did was to modify the gremolata (which usually is made with parsley, pine nuts, lemon zest, and olive oil) by nixing the pine nuts in favor of some chopped up garbanzo beans since my mom can't eat nuts.

We made some garlic mashed potatoes to go along with the veal and downed more zinfandel than maybe we should have...But, a fun night with a spectacular meal.

Asparagus Soup, Pork Roast, and Balsamic Roasted Potatoes:

My parents returned recently from a 40th Anniversary trip to England and Scotland and brought a new Jamie Oliver cookbook (Jamie at Home: Cook your way to the Good Life), which is as yet unavailable in the U.S., for me for my birthday. I like the simple way he cooks and the way he uses classic ingredients and classic techniques to come up with interesting twists. This weekend I thought I would try out a couple of recipes from the book, and we had them for dinner last night.

First was an asparagus soup. This was super easy. Just chop up a rib of celery, some leek, and some onion, and sweat these in olive oil. When translucent, add a pound of chopped up asparagus (saving the tips for later). Into this goes about half a liter of chicken stock and it simmers for 20 minutes or so. The next step is to use an immersion blender to break up the now soft pieces of asparagus and other vegetables. The soup takes on a lovely, vibrant, green color. Season with salt and pepper to taste and add the asparagus tips 5 minutes or so before serving so that they can soften up. Following Jamie's recipe, I served this with a soft-boiled egg (as Mina and I are fans of the runny yolk) and a piece of toast.

Next up was roast pork. I used a 1 lb. roast and rolled it in chopped rosemary, ground fennel seeds, salt and pepper, before searing this into a crust. After searing on all sides, it went into a 375 degree oven until the internal temp hit 155 degrees, then rested 5 minutes (carry over cooking got the temp to 160). Slice and serve.

Finally, the potatoes. I cut a couple of white potatoes into wedges and did the same with a red onion. I also smashed up some garlic. These went into the roasting pan, were seasoned, and hit with a good amount of olive oil. I poured balsamic vinegar over the top and this went into the 375 degree oven for 30 minutes.

In the end, I served this with a 2004 Cabernet from Columbia Crest Grand Estates in Washington, which I found to be well worth the $9 I paid for it. Pinot would have been nice as well. Mina had her usual ice cold beer.

Ken Burns' "The War"

I am supposed to be studying; I have class to teach tomorrow, readings for seminar on Friday and then a short turnaround to seminar on Tuesday next week. However, I finished watching "The War", Ken Burns' documentary on WWII on PBS this evening and wanted to get some thoughts down about it.

First, I have to ask, what was the deal with the Norah Jones song? I am a fan of hers', but can't quite figure out what the point of her tune was. It was completely off the documentary track, far too jingoistic, and seemed to me to be a sappy attempt at pulling at the heartstrings of a viewership who is likely liberal and against the war in Iraq. Uncalled for, I thought.

As to the documentary itself, I was reasonable impressed with the approach Burns took. Understanding off the bat that he is, first and foremost, a filmmaker of the American experience, it didn't really surprise me that he approached WWII from a purely American point of view. It did surprise me that it took him until the last episode to deal in any way with the holocaust, and that he swept under the rug any implications of America's having ignored reports coming out of Europe for 5+ years that these attrocities were going on. "The Soviets must have been exagerating..." is all the explanation we got from Burns and his writers.

Actually, it seems the Soviets were at the root of most everything bad that we Americans did during the war. The firebombings of Dresden seem to have purely been a response to a Soviet demand that we bomb railroad depots that were sending reinforcements to the Eastern Front. Any ethical consideration of the tens of thousands of civilian lives that might have died thus the Soviets' fault. Bollocks, I say.

All that said, "The War" makes a powerful complement to the classics "World at War" and "Victory at Sea". It's not a stand alone documentary of WWII, but Burns never stated that is should be considered to be such.

Spinach Curry with Homemade Cheese (Palak Paneer), Saffron Rice, and Tandoori Chicken:


I had a hankering for my favorite Indian dish yesterday, and decided that rather than buying some pre-made curry, that I would try my hand at making it from scratch. The results were, I thought, pretty good for a first attempt. The recipe was from foodnetwork.com

To make the cheese, bring a half gallon of whole milk to a boil (this made enough cheese for two; double the milk for a larger crowd), stirring occasionally. When the milk reaches a boil, add 1 teaspoon of salt and 1/6 cup of lemon juice and remove from the heat. Stir along the outstide edges of the saucepan until curds start to form in the center. Drain the cheese through a double layer of cheese cloth in a colander. Once it has cooled some, gather up the edges of the cheesecloth and squeeze out as much moisture as possible. Wrap the cheese tightly, place in a bowl, and weight it down with another bowl full of water. Set aside at room temperature for an hour or so.

For the curry, steam down 1 pound of spinach and pulse in a food processor. Heat 1/3 cup of vegetable oil and add 2 teaspoons of coriander seeds, 4 whole cloves, 2 whole allspice berries, 1 teaspoon of whole cumin seeds, and a cinnamon stick. Fry these until the cinnamon stick starts to uncurl. Add a thinly sliced onion and saute 3 minutes or so, until golden. Add 4 grated or pressed cloves of garlic and a 2 inch piece of ginger that has been grated. Once these flavors have melded, add two peeled, chopped roma tomatoes and continue to cook. Salt to taste. Finally, add the spinach back into the mix and allow to cook down until most of the visible liquid has disappeared. Finally, add some cream.

For the saffron rice, cook rice as you usually do, just add a pinch of saffron to the water. The tandoori chicken I made occording to the recipe on the side of a jar of commercially available tandoori paste (maybe one of these days I will make my own version of this as well).

I served this with a crisp sauvignon blanc, but an ice cold beer would have gone nicely as well.

Stuffed Tomatoes:

I ran across some beautiful organic tomatoes at the market the other day and decided to make a stuffed tomato recipe I found on foodtv.com a couple of years back. This is a super easy recipe and a delightful, no meat meal. The recipe suggests these as a side, but I've always found them to be reasonably filling on their own, so served them with a side of simple spaghetti with marinara.

Anyway, you take a slice of nice crusty bread and dice it into 1/2 inch cubes. These go into a 300 degree oven for 8-10 minutes, or until they are toasted to your liking. Cut the tops off the tomatoes and use a melon baller to scoop out the insides. Strain out the seeds and put the tomato meat and juice in a bowl with the toasted bread. To this, I add some roughly chopped basil and marjoram (though rosemary, sage, or some other herb combo would be equally delicious), a clove of crushed garlic, some chopped up kalamata olives, salt and pepper, a little olive oil, parmesan cheese, and a small ball of mozzerella cheese that has been diced.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and fill the tomatoes with the mixture just described. Place the tops back on and use a toothpick to hold them in place. Bake the tomatoes for 30 minutes or so, or until they look nice and bubbly. Let them rest for a couple of minutes before serving with a side of pasta. I have made different versions of these using either chopped up shrimp, chicken, or italian sausage in place of or in addition to the olives. Last night I had an ice cold beer with dinner, but virtually any lighter wine you prefer, red or white, would be a good match as well.

Suntory Whiskey:

Like a lot of folks, I think, my tastes in terms of preferred beverage have changed over the years. Where I might have been known to drink a wine cooler or two in my youth, I vastly prefer craft beers, interesting wine, and the occasional whiskey. Also like many young drinkers, I chose to experiment with single malt whiskeys once I had a few coins to rub together. Macallan, Glenfiddich, Oban, and Cardhu were the first that I remember trying, and somewhere along the line I fell in love with the peaty, smoky tasting whiskeys from Islay (Laphroaig, Lagavulin, Ardbeg, etc.).

While living in Tokyo and working for the American Chamber of Commerce, I put together a series of networking events at which member companies acted as sponsors and gave away door prizes and the like. One of our best sponsors was Suntory, which was interested in raising the profile of its Yamazaki series of single malt whiskeys among the international business community in Japan. In putting these events together and working closely with Jun Ago of Suntory, I had my first taste of really excellent malt whiskey not made in Scotland.

Yamazaki Malt Whiskey is generally available in 10, 12, 18, and 25 year old bottlings. The 12-Year Old probably represents the best "bang for the buck", at roughly $35-40 depending on the retailer. The 18-Year Old, with its incredibly complex flavors and aromas is one of my two or three favorite whiskeys in the world, but will run you more than double the cost per bottle of the 12.

In March, 2006 my parents came for a visit to Japan and Mina and I took them to tour the Yamazaki Distillery outside of Kyoto. The plant manager arranged a special tour for us, along with a tasting of the Yamazaki 12 and 18 and the Hibiki 17 and 12 year old blends. It was interesting to see how the guys preferred the malt whiskeys while the ladies preferred the more rounded blends. The highlight of the day, though, was sharing a taste of the Yamazaki 25-Year Old (2,000 yen/$18 per taste), which was simply spectacular. Never in my life do I imagine forking over the 100,000 yen ($900) or so per bottle that Suntory retails this stuff for, but it was a spectacular taste experience.

Evidence of a Debacle:

I listen to Morning Edition on NPR every morning as I am getting ready for the day and like most people like it for its thoughtful, in depth coverage of the news and the way it, like many programs on NPR, mixes brevity with discussion of serious topics.

Over the course of last week, one of the features on ME was the audio diary of a young Iraqi dentist, and I thought this was one of the best features on the program in a long time. Through the week we heard our dentist's stories and got a real sense of what life must be like for an average person in Baghdad. The final installment, as he reports on his best friend's kidnapping and eventual murder and beheading is just incredibly powerful.

As I listened, I thought for a moment that this diary should be required listening for our leadership. It is awfully easy to make decisions about going to war without considering the impact of such decisions on average, local people. The circumstances that have been created by the Unites States' rather arrogant attempt at regime change in Iraq are truly incomprehensible. Unfortuantely, and this may just be the cynic in me coming out, my guess is that a listen to this audio diary would only serve to reinforce the particular politically based opinions about the situation in Iraq of the individual listener. Those who think that we cannot abandon Iraq until the political situation there is stabilized will only feel more strongly that is the case. Those who believe that stabilization should be the responsibility of the Iraqis themselves will only have that opinion reinforced.

For those interested, here is the link to the audio diary on NPR*
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14412383

Photo 4: 1998 - Hikone, Japan

In 1998 I took a couple of interesting trips, one of which was to a little town called Hikone (彦根) in Japan on the shores of Lake Biwa. There is a reasonably nice castle there, though it's not one that I would recommend going to unless you're in Japan for an extended period (Himeji, Matsumoto, and Nijo are the three I most recommend for those on shorter trips). The beef in Hikone, Omi-gyu, is absolutely worth going out of your way for. It is absolutely as good as the Kobe or Matsuzaka types of wa-gyu, but goes for a lot less (though these days the regional "brands" of beef are gaining in popularity in Japan, so this may have changed). I had a fantastic sukiyaki dinner there, though, for about $40 including drinks.

In any event, while I was there, I took a couple more black and white shots that I really like. The swan was one of my luckiest shots ever, as I really had no idea that the "wake" would turn out to be so clearly defined. I remember framing the shot thinking that it would be the white of the swan against the black of the water, and when I saw the way it turned out I knew it would be one photo I would always have to judge anything I took in the future against.

Later that afternoon I was walking through a plum orchard, and while it was September and thus abviously not plum blossom season, I caught sight of this gentleman walking alone. I never got very close to him, but if you think about it, he's probably just an average salaryman. When I look at the 1997 shot of the salaryman rushing through Nagoya Station and compare it to this shot of the same type of guy, I see so many of the Japanese men I know. After a busy day at work, nobody minds a nice, quiet walk in the park.

More Food - Pasta with Sardines:

Talking with Mina this week, we both thought that having some fish over the weekend seemed like a good idea. The fish selection at our markets here in Syracuse is lacking, but at the local Price Chopper there is more of a selection than anywhere else and yesterday I was able to pick up some fresh sardines.

I am a big fan of Jamie Oliver's recipes, and made pasta last night based on his recipe for pasta with sardines (from the Jamie's Italy cookbook). I chopped up an onion and most of a fennel bulb and ground up some fennel seeds in a mortar and pestle. These I put into a frying pan over relatively low heat with some red chili flakes and let them cook for about 20 minutes, getting some good caramelization. In the meantime, we gutted and filleted the sardines, and sliced the filets into bite sized pieces.

Once the vegetables had caramelized nicely, the sardines went into the pan with some white wine, some chopped tomatoes, and some good kalamata olives (Jaime suggests the tomatoes, and I added the olives to the party), and I let the sauce cook down. In the meantime, I boiled water for pasta and got that going. Just as the pasta neared al dente, it went into the pan, and then into the pasta bowl. I topped it with the fennel fronds for color, and hit it with just a little lemon juice and some good extra virgin olive oil. Upon serving, a little finishing salt completed the dish. Pretty darn good, we thought.

Photo 3: 1997, Nagoya, Japan

I took several of my favorite photos of Japan in 1997 and couldn't choose only one to post, so I thought I would tell the stories behind each of these. I was just starting to experiment with black and white photography in '96-'97 and these were some of those early efforts.

I had some good luck taking pictures of average people in average scenes with a 70-300 mm zoom lens, and these first two are a couple of those shots. I went to Nagoya Station on my day off (in those days I was teaching on a Tuesday-Saturday schedule, so this was a Monday evening), sat on the floor during rush hour, and snapped away. I caught this salaryman, headed who knows where, on a cell phone. This shot captured for me the pace of life of the average company worker in big city Japan.

The next shot is one of my absolute favorite people shots. Again, sitting on the floor at Nagoya Station, this group of high school students happened by, and I got this shot. In the late 1990's, high school girls were more and more on the leading edge of trends in fashion, technology, etc. and the coolest of the cool had begun to take on a sort of detached, disaffected attitude that I think comes across in this photo. Where the salaryman above seemed to have noticed me, and maybe wondered what I was doing and why I was taking his picture, these girls seem to be looking right through me to something far more interesting.

While the rest of Japan was dealing with the post-bubble economic malaise that has now lasted 15 years, high school students were taking advantage of a degree of economic and cultural power to cement themselves in a place of influence in Japanese society that remains today. One would like to think that this power had something to do with a sense of youthful optimism that young people in Japan maintained while their parents watched Japan's position as a world economic power erode. It would be interesting to see where these students are today and whether they have maintained their devil-may-care attitude, or whether they have softened somewhat.

Drum Corps International:

The DCI Finals are on ESPN 2 this evening at 10:00 Eastern. Even though the finals were held in the middle of August and are being shown on ESPN, I didn't see any report on which Corps won, so get to watch "virtually live".

Excellent.

I Ride with Pork:

We found some nice center cut pork chops on sale at the local supermarket and thought that maybe something of an Asian/Citrus-y approach would be interesting.

So, I seasoned the pork chops with some sansho (a Japanese pepper), some shichimi togarashi (again, a Japanese hot pepper mix), salt, and a little garlic powder. In the meantime, I whacked together a light sauce of Yuzu-ponzu (and, again, a Japanese citrus and soy mix), rice wine vinegar, and lime zest.

Finally, I caramelized some onion slices over low heat, sliced some orange, and did a 5:30 boil of a couple of eggs for garnish while I grilled up the pork chops for rougly 4 minutes per side. We had a nice salad and some cous cous with sage along side, and I popped the cork on a servicable if not overwhelming pinot noir.


All in all, another nice meal for a Saturday evening.

Photo 2: 1996 (Gifu City, Gifu Prefecture):



Now, there is a photo. Somehow, I thought that this was such an interesting picture for the 2nd in this series. There are so many details in this photo that bring back memories.


1st, the photo is of me and Tomo Imai, the magician/bartender at Milimeter, a little bar in Gifu where you used to be able to get what I thought was the best bloody mary in rural Japan: tomato juice, vodka, lemon juice, worcestershire, horeseradish, tabasco, and celery seed. Yummy, yummy, yummy. His bar was a revelation in the back alleys of Gifu, a place where Japanese and foreigners alike could get together for a good time to wile away the hours drinking, listening to jazz, and playing cards. I've been to a very few places where I felt so comfortable. Tomo went out of business in early 1999 right before I moved from Gifu to Kochi and while the last time I was in Gifu the light over Milimeter was on, I ended up not going in. If it had been someone else running a bar of the same name in the same spot, I could only have been disappointed. Of course, if Tomo is back behind the bar there, it's simply the one place in Gifu you have to go.


Now, I was only going to put one photo in this post, but all this talk of milimeter has me remembering this one great photo of my dad and I that was taken there, so I am going to post it as well. Here we are at Milimeter on January 4, 1997 on my parents' first trip to Japan. Somehow or other, I got half cut off on this shot, but it still should give you just a taste of what this great bar was like.

Now that I am back in the U.S., I have to say that the one thing I miss most about Japan is the local bar. The place you can go and just have a quiet drink, talk to the master, and listen to some music. Perhaps they exist in the U.S. and I am just in the wrong town and too busy with my studies to find them. Or, maybe, my idea of such a place is tainted by the memories of all the 10 seat bars I spent time in over in Japan. Either way, these photos bring back great memories of Milimeter, Tomo, and my friends Brad, Kathleen, Sarah, Maki, and Jodie. Maybe one of them will read this and remember what great times we had.

Mango-Chipotle BBQ Chicken:

To celebrate the beginning of football season, I decided to experiment with a new BBQ sauce and grill up some chicken. I've been experimenting with BBQ sauces using bourbon lately as I think it has a deep, smoky flavor that adds some complexity. I thought that some fruit would temper the spice of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, and so came up with this idea.

To make this sauce, I sweated about a quarter of a finely diced onion and two pressed cloves of garlic in a little olive oil. Next, I added a quarter of a large mango that I had cut into a small dice, one diced chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, 1/8 cup of bourbon, and 1/8 cup of cider vinegar and let this simmer until the mango was softened and the alcohol had time to burn off (roughly 15 minutes). Using an immersion blender, I pureed this into a thick, spicy, sweet paste. Next, I made a BBQ sauce base of catsup, worcestershire sauce, molasses, brown sugar, and cider vinegar. Once these flavors had come together, I added the mango paste in 1-2 tablespoon increments until the sauce had reached the level of sweetness/spiciness that I was after.

I had seasoned up some chicken thighs and brumsticks with garlic powder and chili powder and grilled them up, slathering on the sauce as the chicken cooked. I served this with a nice clean salad with some pistachios and feta cheese and an ice cold beer.

Back to School, Back to Football:


Year 2 of the PhD adventure started this past week and this looks to be the busiest semester yet. I have a full load of classes, including an Organizational Behavior seminar that looks as though it will be a bear, and am teaching a section of Strategic Human Resource Management that is part of our undergrad management core. While that is a Wednesday/Friday course, the students are bright, engaged, and enthusiastic. My classes seem interesting, though, and so hopefully this semester will feel a lot shorter than it is.

This year I'll complete the coursework required for my PhD and enter the summer as an ABD. You've just got to take this one milestone at a time, I think.

Meanwhile, college football season got underway this past Thursday and the Syracuse football team picked up where they left off last year by getting shallacked by Washington last night. SU has won 4 games in the last two years and I'd be surprised if they win that many this year. My first love in college football, Ohio St., should be reasonably good, though they will be replacing their QB, both starting receivers, and the starting tailback from the team that lost in last year's national championship game. 9-3 seems reasonable to me.

So, today it's Va. Tech/ECU, Notre Dame/Ga. Tech, Georgia/Ok. St., and Cal/Tennessee. Not a terrible slate of games, so let's hope for some excitement to go along with the BBQ chicken I am thinking of making for dinner.

...And, there you have it:

School starts on Monday, and we've got to go to a department bbq tomorrow, so tonight seemed the best time to have one last, special, summer dinner (well, at least until next week when we have the three-day labor day holiday to contend with). So, at the market today we spied some lamb chops on sale and snapped those up. I'd seen a Bobby Flay recipe online a couple of days ago that looked interesting, and so had an idea of what to do with them.

Now, I think Bobby Flay is a bit of a primadonna pretty boy, but, he does do fantastic things with fruits and different chilis. While I much prefer Jamie Oliver's or Alton Brown's overall cooking styles, I am consistently tempted by Flay's more accessible recipes.


This time around the sauce for the lamb called for dried cherries, cabernet sauvingon, and stems from mint plants. Forutnately, we have no shortage of mint, so this was easy. After reducing the wine and simultaneously rehydrating the cherries, I added some mint leaves and sugar, and a slurry of corn starch. I whacked the lamb chops on a griddle and then topped them with the sauce and a little feta cheese for color. I threw some cous cous together with roasted cherry tomatos and mushrooms and fresh parsley for a side and steamed some corn in water and tarragon vinegar. An accessible shiraz tied it all together (like a nice rug does for a living room...).


Anyway, Mina seemed to like it...

Koshien (甲子園) 2007 Championship Game - An Instant Classic:

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the start of Japan's National High School Baseball Tournament, which came to an end yesterday. Last year's final game saw Komadai Tomakomai and Waseda Jitsugyo play 15 innnings of 0-0 ball, followed the next day by another 8 innings of scoreless action before Waseda won 1-0 in the 9th inning.*

In this year's tournament a number of games were tied going into the 8th or 9th innings or went to extra innings, and one contest that had to be replayed due to the 15 inning rule, so all in all it was an excellent tournament.

The final pitted Saga Kita High School, of Saga Prefecture, against Koryo High School of Hiroshima Prefecture. Neither team had ever won the tournament before and both were somewhat surprising entries in the final game. Koryo took a 2-0 and then a 4-0 lead heading into the bottom of the 8th inning before their pitcher allowed Saga Kita to load the bases on two singles and a walk. Koryo's pitcher walked in a run, making the score 4-1 but keeping the bases loaded. Saga Kita's next batter stepped to the plate and blasted only the 2nd grand slam home run in the championship game's 89 year history to put S.K. up 5-4. While the top of the 9th saw Koryo attempt a move from 1st to 3rd on a sacrifice bunt, resulting in the batter and runner both being called out, Saga Kita's pitcher was able to close it out on a strikeout. Highlights of the game, inning by inning, can be seen here: <http://koshien.asahi.co.jp/highlight/data/20070822/1/20070822_1.html>

Two years in a row now we've seen incredibly interesting, competitive tournaments at Koshien. While the end of the tournament signals the end of summer, watching this game just makes me look forward to next year.

* At the National Tournament Level in Japan a game that is tied after 15 innings is halted and replayed completely the next day.

Another Recipe that Turned Out:

I got home a little early on Friday and cooked dinner. We had some leftover andouille sausage and I had been thinking all day about how to use it with some shrimp that I had seen at the store. I suppose the paella I cooked the other day (see a previous post) was still in my mind and I so made some spaghetti with a paella twist.

I steeped some saffron in white wine and sauteed some sliced garlic along with the sliced sausage. I deglazed the pan with the saffron white wine and put in some clams to steam. When the clams opened, I added 1/3 pound of shrimp and some broccoli. Finally, I added the spaghetti, which was just short of al dente, and let it finish cooking in the sautee pan, soaking up the fragrant, very colorful broth. Finally, a little pecorino romano cheese and a mix of chopped herbs (flat leaf parsley, marjoram, and green leaf shiso) went on the top and I served it up.

Simple, full flavors. I really enjoyed this dish and hope you do to.

One Problem with American Politics:

It seems like we have been hearing news about who is running, who is not running, who is raising the most/least funds, this, that, and the other thing about the 2008 Presidential Election since virtually the day after the 2004 election. Members of our House of Representatives virtually never stop campaigninng and fund raising. It has made me wonder when they have time to do their jobs... Hillary Clinton has spent the last 8 years serving as junior Senator from New York, but all that time has been running for President and even had time to write an autobiography. As has been noted, if she was writing a book, was she really concentrating on the needs of New Yorkers?

Be that as it may, this post is really about how the 24 hour news cycle and developments in transportation and communications technologies have conspired to obsolete a portion of the U.S. Constitution. Term lenghts are stipulated by Article 1, Sections 2 and 3 for Representatives and Senators, and Article 2, Section 1 for the President.

The framers considered 2 years to be a reasonable length of time for representatives to hold office, but given travel times, risks, and costs in the late 18th century, one has to imagine that the framers considered that representatives would spend at least 75-80% of their term in Washington. Do we believe that our representatives spend this high a percentage of their time working in Washington now? My own feeling is that one of the reason we have no statesmen of the stature of Clay, Calhoun, Hughes, Wilson, or Roosevelt, but only politicians, is that our leaders have no time to do their jobs and lead, but spend all of their time campaigning and fundraising.

My feeling is that we need to reconsider the term lengths we have for our legislators and President. Doubling House terms to 4 years, lengthening the President's term to 6 years, and changing Senatorial terms to 8 or 9 years seems to me like it would allow our representatives time to learn their jobs, and then concentrate on those jobs for a reasonable length of time before having to stand for election again.

Maybe, just maybe, that would allow us as citizens material other than sound bites to work with in making our decisions as to who to vote for.

More Baseball:

Congratulations to Barry Bonds on his 756th home run.

Question: Can he, A-Rod, or anyone else catch the world record holder for home runs, Oh Sadaharu (王貞治) at 868?

Incidentally, Cal Ripken, Jr. passed Lou Gehrig's consecutive games streak at 2,131 and then went on to break the world record of 2,215 consecutive games, which had been held by Kinugasa Sachio (衣笠倖雄). In a classy move, Kinugasa was at the game where his world record was broken.

Koshien (甲子園):

My favorite sporting event in the world, Japan's National High School Baseball Tournament, began this evening (Wednesday morning in Japan). I have never really been able to explain the reason I love this tournament so much. There is the combination of the single elimination format, the single, classic location, the pageantry of the bands, and the purity of the competition. Each of these reminds me of a different sporting event in the U.S. You would have to imagine March Madness, with the entire tournament played at the old Boston Garden, minus the money, marketing, and other issues surrounding college sports in the U.S., but still with the enthusiasm of the school-based crowds and marching bands, and kids playing for the pure love of the game. It is simply incredible. There is live streaming video over the internet available at <http://koshien.asahi.co.jp/live/> Just click the button in the middle of the page that says "Live". Games start around 8:30 pm eastern time.

The first time I stepped into the Koshien stadium for a game, it was simply electric. I remember it was the hottest August day you can imagine, and rice farmers from Miyagi Prefecture, who were simply amazed that I could speak Japanese and give them a decent reason for being there to watch Sendai Ikuei High School (one of my favorite teams from the days when I couldn't read Japanese because they wear an easily recognizable gray uniform), plied me and my friend full of cold beer and fried chicken. Our goal was one beer for every run Ikuei scored, but since they won 15-2, we didn't quite make it. It was good fun trying, though.

Being back in the U.S. is great, but there's almost nowhere I'd rather be on a hot August day than at Koshien with a cooler full of cold beer, some pistachios, and a fuji apple.

2046

Continuing with the movie related theme I seem to have going here (if one can have a theme going after only one post, that is)...

Coming back from Japan, one of the things about America I have rediscovered is the good, old fashioned public library. Mina and I have been going there to borrow books on CD for some of our trips of late, and also to borrow movies that we are trying to catch up on. This week, I borrowed Wong Kar-Wai's "2046", which I had actually seen 4-5 times before, but always with Japanese, rather than English, subtitles.

Wong Kar-Wai's movies are always such incredible visual pieces, and "2046" is no exception. The use of color is very interesting, with backgrounds changing from green, to yellow, to red and some character's clothes never failing to match the color of the curtains. Why? I have no idea, but when the curtains in the same hotel room change color from scene to scene, there must be a point. Perhaps it is to signify the passage of time?

Anyway, I thought that Tony Leung was good in a reprise of his role in "In the Mood for Love", and both Gong Li and Faye Wong were excellent in their respective short parts. As many reviewers have said, though, Zhang Ziyi stole every scene she was in. Now, I think Zhang Ziyi can do no wrong, but her performance in this film was incredible; we feel her love and her loss and her disdain at only being considered a piece of meat for sale. Her humanity is undeniable.

Was she as good as Faye Wong was in Chungking Express (easily my favorite Wong Kar-Wai film, and a top five Asian film)? No. But, it certainly was one of Zhang's best performances, along with her young girl in love in "The Road Home" and her resistance fighter in "The Purple Butterfly".

So, all in all I still think that "2046" was an incredible visual piece, but that it didn't quite work as a continuation of "In the Mood for Love". I never quite understood what the point of Kimura Takuya's Japanese character was, especially why he was the narrator, nor did I have anything invested in his character's relationship with Faye Wong's hotel owner's daughter. Boiling the movie down, it was the nuanced relationships between Tony Leung and Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li that were intriguing, making the relationship between Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung in "Mood" seem all the more tragic.

The Bourne Ultimatum:




Spoiler Alert: I'll try not to spoil it, but if you've not yet seen the movie, you may want to skip this post.

Mina and I went to see the Bourne Ultimatum on Friday night. I've been a fan of Robert Ludlum's books since my dad leant me "The Chancellor Manuscript", probably some time between 8th and 10th grades. The Bourne novels are the first of his books to be adapted to films in quite a number of years ("The Rhinemann Exchange", "The Osterman Weekend", and "The Holcroft Covenant" were made into feature films in the late 1970s and early 1980s, while "The Bourne Identity was a TV mini-series starring none other than Richard Chamberlain, the King of the Mini-Series).



In any event, The Bourne Ultimatum. First, I really enjoyed the way that the movie opened, with the first stanza explaining the time, at the end of The Bourne Supremay, between Bourne's meeting with Neski's daughter and his phone conversation with Pamela Landy in New York. This, I thought, was a clever use of time and aided in the pacing of the movie. Bourne's continuing search for himself takes him from France, to England, to Spain, to Morocco, and finally to the United States as an unstoppable force.



I also liked the development of Julia Stiles' charachter, Nicky Parsons. Rather than introducing a new foil for Bourne, she hints to us that there is some history between them prior to his amnesia, but it is a history that remains buried; Nicky doesn't fill in the gaps and we never know whether Bourne remembers. The characters' final two scenes together are poignant. First, as Nicky cuts and colors her hair in preparation for a life hiding from the CIA's hunters, Bourne sees her and is obviously reminded of Marie having done the same thing 3 years before. Their good-bye and Nicky boards a bus in Tangiers was, I thought, painful for both of them, if for different reasons.



So, Bourne finds himself and another group of unprincipled CIA agents is brought down. The story of a man who has lost and refound his identity and parts, if not all, of his memory has been told. Will there be a 4th installment? While further novels exist, they are Eric van Lustbader stories that continue where Ludlum left off. For me, the story ends here.



As a final aside, IMDB states that a movie version of The Chancellor Manuscript, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, has been announced for release in 2008. Fantastic. The best Ludlum book, in my opinion, I will absolutely be in line to see it on opening night.

UPDATE: Last night, I caught the 2nd half of The Bourne Identity on TV and noticed a couple of interesting points. First point: In the closing stanza as Ward Abbott goes before a Congressional oversight committee and blows off Treadstone as a training program that didn't pan out, his next talking point is on Blackbriar. This turns out to be Treadstone 2.0 that is at the focus of The Bourne Ultimatum. Point 2: What are Clive Owen's assissin's last words to Jason Bourne? "Look at this. Look at what they make you give." What are Jason Bourne's last words in The Bourne Ultimatum? "Look at us. Look at what they make you give."

Excellent continuity across the gulf of 3 movies. I have to wonder what else is in there that I have missed.

Paella:

Mina and I were in the mood for seafood this weekend, and so I decided to make some paella. In Japan, I made it from time to time, always taking full advantage of the fresh shellfish and free range chicken that was available there. Over there, I was always disappointed with the chorizo sausage available, but thankfully Syracuse has a decent selection of andoullie and chorizo available.

Anyway, paella, plenty of saffron, some chicken, some shrimp, some mohogany clams from Maine and some andoullie. Yummy. This time I used a Jaime Oliver recipe that eschewed baking for stovetop treatment along the lines of a risotto. Fantastic.

Alongside, I threw together a basil sangria from a recipe in Food & Wine's August issue and for desert we had an apple juice granita from the same magazine. Another fabulous meal. Tomorrow, Gyros a la Alton Brown!

James C. Laurence (9/17/1909-7/25/2007)

My dad called last night around 9:45 to let me know that his father, my grandfather, had passed away. While I think we'd all expected that his journey would come to an end sooner rather than later, and while I think each member of my family had tried to prepare for this in his or her own way, the finality is still stark.

Mina and I are heading back to Cleveland today to help out with whatever we can. While there isn't a great deal to actually "do", It feels to me like going home is the right thing to do. More than anything, I suppose, in these times it is best to be around family.

Photo 1: 1995 (Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture, Japan)



I arrived in Nagoya, Japan for teacher training at AEON (one of the "Big 4" English Conversation School companies in Japan) on January 7, 1995, 10 days before the Great Hanshin Earthquake (阪神大震災). It seems so long ago, but I remember that week of training pretty vividly, especially a couple of nights eating out at a little Yakitori (grilled chicken bits on sticks) dive that was under the railroad tracks at Tsurumai Station. That was really my first "wow" experience in Japan.

I moved from Nagoya up to Takaoka, along the sea of Japan coast, a week later and it turned out that the big Kobe earthquake happened the morning of my first day of work. We shook in Toyama, but as it was my first earthquake I had nothing to judge against in terms of deciding whether it was a nearby quake, a small or big one, or an aftershock of something that had happened before I arrived. It was pretty shocking to wake up the next morning and see scenes of Kobe on fire (of course, I couldn't read or understand Japanese, so watching TV the fires could have been right outside my window for all I knew...!)

In any event, this photo was taken months later at a party we had at my colleague and friend Susan's (2nd from right) apartment. My students Hiroki (1st on L), Fumi (3rd on L), and Kaoru (1st on R), and Fumi's younger sister Junko (2nd from L in Kimono) were there, as was my friend Dan, who took the picture. Junko had been to have a formal picture taken prior to her "coming of age ceremony" (成人式), which was to be held the following January, hence the Kimono.

Hiroki got married in 1997, or so, and now has two children. Fumi got married in 2005 and she and her husband have recently moved into a new house in Toyama. Susan got married in 2004, I think I heard from Dan (who got married in 2004 as well, if memory serves, and now has a son). While I have no idea what happened to Kaoru, I do know that Junko got married and moved to Tokyo and recently nearly died due to an illness.

Looking at that photo, you'd never know it about any of us, of course.

Next time, a memory of 1996, the year I turned 25.

An Interesting Summer Project

This summer I have been going through old photographs and negatives and scanning them into digital files. Anyone who has looked at old photos from their parents and grandparents eras has seen how colors fade and I figured that now that digital memory is priced so reasonably, it would be a good time to preserve as many of my pictures as I could.

Part of this that has been interesting has been putting the pictures into some semblance of order. Part of the metadata that is attached to each photo when it gets digitized is the date and time it was scanned (when you import photos from a digital camera, this data comes from the camera's internal clock, so you know when a picture was taken). Software like Photoshop reads this data as the date and time the photo was shot, and since this is obviously not true, I have been changing this date for each and every photo in my collection. Since I have scanned in something over 1,500 photos, this seems like something of a small mountain to overcome.

Anyway, what I find interesting about this is looking at a picture and trying to remember when it was taken. Most of my pictures start in 1995 when I moved to Japan, so things are broken down into '95-'96 in Toyama, '96-'99 in Gifu, '99-'01 in Kochi, '01-'03 in Syracuse, '03-'06 in Tokyo, and '06-Present in Syracuse again. Mixed in there are trips and vacations that I took to firtually every corner of Japan, Southeast Asia, Hawaii, California, Cleveland, and various other locales and trying to place month and year has been an interesting exercise. Obviously, it has also brought back a ton of memories.

Let's see if I can post a year by year account of my photos here.

The Lovely Mina and her Lovely Herbs

Mina and I spent some time on the balcony today repotting a couple of our herb plants. Actually, she repotted, I watched, and thought about which herbs to use for dinner (I ended up using tarragon and sage).

Coming from Japan, and from a reasonably traditional Japanese family, Mina hadn't had much, if any, experience with herbs before we moved in together. Actually, I think she was pretty shocked at the number of spices, herbs, sauces, and other condiments that I collected for our kitchen. In Japan a kitchen with soy sauce, sugar, mirin, miso, and the makings for a good fish stock will do for most people, so having 4 kinds of mustard in the refrigerator is pretty much unheard of (yes, I have at least 4 kinds of mustard on hand at all times - smooth dijon, chunky dijon, Cleveland Stadium, and plain old yellow).

In any event, we're up to 10+ pots of herbs, with basil, marjoram, thyme, tarragon, sage, pineapple sage, chocolate mint, peppermint, lemongrass, cilantro, shiso, red shiso, and others in the collection. It makes me a happy cook to be able to step out on the balcony and grab some fresh herbs for almost anything I am making for dinner. Yum.

Thanks, Mina, for taking such good care of the herbs (and of me, ね)!

Maine - The Rest of the Trip

Back now from MDI, Southwest Harbor, and the rest of our trip to Maine. All in all, we had a lovely time, ate some incredible seafood, and saw a really impressive part of the U.S.A.

As I posted earlier, we arrived there on Friday afternoon and enjoyed a snack of wine, cheese, fruit, and some nuts on the veranda at the B&B we stayed at (http://www.cranberryhillinn.com/) in Southwest Harbor. We had dinner at Beal's Lobster Pier (http://www.bealslobster.com/), which was a nice, down home lobster pound with picnic tables and lobster on plastic cafeteria trays. Saturday, we did some hiking in Acadia National Park and had lunch in Northeast Harbor, a picturesque, more swanky little town than Southwest. Dinner was at Thurston's Lobster Pound (www.acadiainfo.com/thurstons.htm), a place with a nicer view than Beal's (though you pay a little for it), where I had a pound of steamed clams and a crabcake sandwich to go along with Mina's lobster.

Sunday, we spent the morning doing a little hiking and then wandering through Bar Harbor looking for lunch. We chose a local bar and had some clam chowder and a crab salad sandwich. Following that, we went over to the Atlantic Brewing Co. (http://www.atlanticbrewing.com/) for a tour and tasting. Mina especially liked their Auld Ale, while I thought the Island Ginger, which is made with an amount of pulverized ginger, was particularly interesting. After the tasting, we had a sample of the beers and a little snack. For dinner we went to a third lobster pound, which was a BYOB place, so we had to make a run to IGA to get some beers after putting our order in.

After dinner we dropped by a wine bar in Southwest called Sips that my parents had recommended. A had a taster of three reds, one of which in particular stuck with me. Easton's (http://www.terrerougewines.com/eastonwines.html) 2002 Amador County Zinfandel was one of those wines that you have once in a while that changes your perspective. I long ago became a fan of zinfandel, and would guess that 1 of 3 bottles of red wine that I drink is a zin, so it is always exciting for me to find one that is really impressive. The Easton struck me immediately with a nose that I can only describe as smelling of the ocean, that first whiff of it that you get when you come in sight and roll down the windows. I don't know if my impression was based on actually being near the ocean, so I bought a bottle on Monday morning and will pop it open with my parents the next time we are in Cleveland.

Finally, on Monday, we drove down U.S. 1 along the coast, stopping in Brunswick, Bath, Freeport, Camden, and some other points along the way to do some browsing. The big enchilada, as it were, was a stop at the Kittery outlet mall for a look at the Le Creuset store. Mina grabbed up a butter dish and another little ramekin type pot, and we also picked up a burgundy colored griddle pan that looks like it could be pretty useful. We stopped in Lowell, MA on Monday night and arrived back home in Syracuse on Tuesday afternoon. It was just a nice vacation and I look forward to our next one, whenever that might be.

The First Anniversary - Maine, Day 2

Some spectacular weather, more lobster, and a nice sunburn on the back of the neck. We spent our first full day in MDI checking out some hiking spots and thinking about what to eat for lunch and dinner. The view from the top of Cadillac Mtn. was spectacular as the sky was clear and there was little humidity.

For lunch, we stopped at a little pub in Northeast Harbor for a lobster roll and some steamed mussels. Both were excellent. For dinner, it was Thurston's Lobster Pound in Bernard, where we shared a lobster, a pound of steamed clams, and a crabcake sandwich. A couple of Bar Harbor Blueberry Ales washed that down and we headed home.

On the route home the fog had rolled in and really socked in one of the little harbors along the side of the road, so we stopped to take some photos. There's a pretty good chance one of these will end up on my wall at home...

The 1st Anniversary - Maine, Day 1

Up at 4:00, 10 hours in the car, and here we are 550 miles from Syracuse in Southwest Harbor, Maine. I used to come up here to Mount Desert Island on summer vacations as a kid, but it's been 20 years since I was here last. It's nice to be in another place with strong family ties and good memories with Mina.

Anyway, we arrived and checked into the B&B and popped the cork on a bottle of Riesling we brought with us and had a snack of some nuts, fruit, and cheese on the deck outside our room. Looks nice, don't you think?

With the preliminaries out of the way, we were off for lobster at Beal's Lobster Pier. Fantastic. Better than I remembered. Lobster wrapped in parchment paper with some cole slaw. Beer.

Sated, I think we can last 18 hours till the first lobster roll for lunch...

Not the Most Traditional 4th of July Dinner, but...

The weather in Syracuse on the 4th was something less than perfect. It struggled to get to 70 degrees and was cloudy and raining pretty much all day. Somehow it felt more like a perfect late September afternoon for college football than a day for fireworks and barbecues.

I spent part of the morning looking at cookbooks for something that inspired and I decided to go with something from one of my most interesting books. It's called Murakami Recipe and is a Japanese cookbook that contains recipes based on the food prepared in Haruki Murakami's novels and short stories. If you've never read any of his books, I recommend them highly (especially The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, A Wild Sheep Chase, and Dance, Dance, Dance) and food and jazz are often woven into the narratives. In A Wild Sheep Chase our main character is stuck in a house in Hokkaido with nothing to do but cook and prepares a roast beef. I decided to make a dinner based on that recipe.

We had a boneless roast in the freezer, so I thawed it and prepared a paste of roasted garlic. I got some rosemary and lemon thyme from our herb garden and chopped those up and mixed them with sea salt and black pepper. I rubbed the garlic paste over the top of the roast and coated as much of the outside as I could with the herb mixture. Uncovered areas I seasoned with salt and pepper. The beef went into a 375 degree oven for 40-45 minutes (until the internal temperature of the roast hit 125 degrees). In the meantine I chopped up some zucchini and yellow squash and roasted it with sage, salt and pepper, and prepared some mashed potatoes with cheddar cheese.

The roast came out of the oven and we popped the cork on a nice, if reasonably priced, bottle of Carmenere, a Chilean red. The meat was tender with a nice garlic and herb crust on the top side. An easy recipe with satisfying results.

A Seafood Dinner:




The other night, Mina and I had a nice, relaxing mid-summer seafood dinner at home. We'd done our usual shopping and decided to stop by the best supermarket for fish here in Syracuse (surprisingly, it is Price Chopper, rather than either Wegmans or P&C) where they had Cherrystone Clams and Softshell Crabs on sale.



The Softshell Crabs we coated in seasoned cornmeal and flour and fried, then served with a yuzu scented mayonnaise. These were lovely. The Cherrystones were the star of the show, though, and we steamed them in white wine, some old bay seasoning, and lemon juice. Served with some homemade bread to sop up the broth, there couldn't have been a more satisfying mid-summer seafood dinner. I think it warmed us up for our upcoming anniversary trip to Maine, now only 10 days away.

One thing about living in New York, I guess, is that seafood is just a little bit more reasonably priced here than in Ohio. Coming back from Japan, though, one of the toughest things to adjust to has been the relative difficulty in finding good, reasonably priced fish of various types (of course, when I was in Japan I always had a hard time finding an interesting, reasonable supply of meats). I guess everything is relative. In any event, it was nice to have this lovely seafood dinner at home with Mina.

Did you ever just look at your Wedding Ring? Part 2

I wear this wedding ring now and approaching our 1 year anniversary I thought it would be interesting to write some memories of the Lovely Mina's and my time together.

I remember going to look at rings and seeing various rings that were all nice enough. When we got to the Niessing counter at Isetan, though, they put this ring in my hand and somehow my mind was made up. Mina says it was the only ring that I reacted to with a "whoa". I had never seen anything like it. Yellow Gold and White Gold melded together so that the top of the ring is pure yellow and the bottom is pure white, but you can never see exactly where the transition occurs. Just a gorgeous piece of jewelry. Here's a photo of them:

I look at these rings as a symbol of our marriage as the melding of two cultures. Cheesy, perhaps, but in my mind here we are standing at the intersection of Japan and the U.S., teaching each other how we think as we go along. We are fusion and our children will be even more so.

So, I look at my ring from time to time and remember where we came from, and think about where we're going. I am so thankful that Mina believes in me enough to support me through this PhD at this stage of our lives. It would have been a lot easier for us to stay in Japan, for me to parlay my ACCJ job into a $100K position at some member company, and just to coast. I would always have wondered, though, what could have been and whether I wasn't really meant to teach at a university and research what I wanted to, when I wanted to. Here, now, we have the chance to make that happen.

Thank you Mina!

Did you ever just look at your wedding ring?


I met my wife while waiting for a train.

5 years ago this August I was in Japan. I'd lived there for 6 years, but moved back to the U.S. to get an MBA and then decided to spend the middle summer studying Japanese through a Princeton University program. I had been accepted to a 2nd Masters degree program that meant I had to spend the following summer interning, so language seemed the best way to spend my time given where I wanted to go.

I spent the summer learning 900+ Japanese characters and then went to spend a couple of nights at my friend Dan and his girlfiend's place. Somehow, someway, I got in touch with a friend of mine and had dinner with her an a couple of her friends. We separated at Jinbocho station and I went downstairs to wait for the train.

There she was. I don't know what it was and I don't know why, but there was something about her. I just had to say hello. The next thing, we were chatting on the train and had made plans to have dinner the next night. That she was more than willing to watch some sports, drink some beer, and hang out till all hours sort of confirmed my suspicions.

Years later, here we are in the U.S., me in school for a PhD and her providing support that I could not have imagined. Kids may be on the way and I would like them to know all about our story.

Nintendo DS Lite Commercials





I was interested in Nicole Kidman's new Nintendo DS Lite commercial. Mostly, I was interested in the drastic change in Nintendo's marketing approach. Their original DS commercials for the U.S. market were based on science documentaries like you might see on Discover channel or PBS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1JAwIwBDNg

However, this new ad just features Nicole having fun playing the Brain Age game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA_r9FUEgAA

What is really interesting about this is that it is almost EXACTLY the same commercial that Nanako Matsushima made for the same game and was used in Japan years ago: http://touch-ds.jp/mediagallery/st25.html Nanako's and Nicole's Brain Ages are even the same (52)! I am not sure what it means that Nanako was born in 1973 and Nicole in 1967 and that their brain ages are the same.

Anyway, this represents sort of a different approach to marketing this product for Western consumers.

Wine Tasting: How much fun can you have?

The 'rents were up in the 'Cuse for the weekend with my little sister, who was back from an archaeological dig in Isthmea, Greece. We had dinner here at the apartment on Saturday night, and Mina made quite a lovely feast of Japanese food. Mina had never cooked for my sister, so I think she was a little nervous, but everything turned out great.

Sunday we woke up and went to Wegmans to stock up on provisions for lunch (olives, prosciutto, a nice loaf of bread, some New York cheddar, cherries, etc.) and headed down the road to Cayuga Lake and the wineries along the Cayuga Wine Trail (http://www.cayugawinetrail.com/). We stopped at 5 or 6 places and had a nice picnic.

After lunch it was back to Syracuse for a nice dinner at the Mission, an interesting Mexican restaurant downtown. It's a cool place built in an old church that has very decent Mole sauce (those are hard to find, as you may know).

Monday, everyone came over for breakfast and then I went off to teach. School was...so-so, but the class is more or less in the books. The kids take their final exam tomorrow night, I finish up the grading, and then it's a week off before I go back to reading 4-5 journal articles per day for the next 6 weeks.

So, that's a good weekend for you. Friday, we go watch some baseball.

Formula 1 U.S. Grand Prix

All I can say is, what a weekend. The Lovely Mina and I headed back to Cleveland for a good friend's wedding on Friday, took in an Indians game on Saturday (a loss to the Braves) and then made an over and back trip to Indianapolis for the Formula 1 U.S. Grand Prix. It was 5.5 hours each way from my parents' house to the Speedway, but absolutely worth it.

The race tickets were my present to Mina for her birthday. On our first date, 5 years ago now, we watched an F1 race, actually, and she has been known to stay up until 5 am on Sundays to catch a race from the far corners of the globe.

We got to the Speedway about 2 hours before the start of the race and watched the drivers parade around the course in vintage cars. Our seats were in the Paddock section, which is under cover, along the front straight, and with a nice view of the pits. We were probably 400 meters from the start/finish line, so had a nice view (though Indy is an old enough structure that there are all manner of obstructed view seats). It was pretty darn hot, so being under cover was a blessing, and this Oil Can of ice cold Fosters certainly made me happy.

The start of the race was as impressive as anything I have seen or heard, to tell the truth. I felt like my head was going to split open as the cars took off from their standing start. It was so disorienting, in fact, that after the first lap ended I ran off and splurged $2 on some earplugs. Maybe the single best investment I have ever made from an immediate ROI point of view! I am not sure how well the intensity of the moment comes off, but here's the short video we took of the start.

At the end of the day, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton continued his unprecedented rookie season with a 2nd win. He has yet to finish a race below his spot on the starting grid and has won from the pole in the last two races. Isn't it interesting how in sports someone always comes along to help us forget the retirement of a legend? I was set for a reasonable boring year of Fernando Alonso dominating with Michael Schumacher having hung up his racing shoes, but Hamilton's performances have given me something really impressive to cheer about this summer. Hopefully he keeps it up.

With the race in the books, we did battle with the other 100,000+ people trying to get out of Indy and all I can say is that I absolutely cannot imagine what a hellish experience traffic there would have been in the days when 400,000+ showed up for the Indy 500. My hats off to all of you who were ever in that traffic jam or who are planning on sitting in traffic after the Brickyard 400 next month.

Anyway, it was a fantastic weekend and my next goal is to go to an F1 race in some more exotic locale. Indy is full of lore, but somehow it doesn't seem to compare to, say, Monaco or even the Nurburgring. Anyway, here's one last picture of Mina with the Pagoda in the background.

Ohio: THE State University


The Lovely Mina and I trekked down to Athens, OH this weekend for my brother Dave's graduation from his M.A. program. The last time we'd been to Ohio U. was almost two years ago when Dave and his wife Akiko had just moved down there to start school, so it was nice to be back. It was particularly lucky that the class I am teaching this summer meets Monday and Wednesday so that I could get down there on Thursday for a Friday A.M. ceremony.

Athens was, as my parents (1967 grads) so often put it, different, but completely the same. It's an interesting feeling to walk into buildings that were brand new and awe inspiring when you were a senior in high school, that became a second home over the years of college, and then became more meaningful over time. A drive down streets that led to your dorm, your dad's dorm, or even an ex-girlfriend's house bring back memories that can't be valued.

So, Dave is off to work at the University of Alabama and one can only hope that it's a good place for them.

Meanwhile, tomorrow, my class is having a little get together to find out what they know and what they don't know....We'll see how that goes.

The Central New York Regional Market

Mina and I went to what passes for a famer's market here in Syracuse today and were pretty disappointed, actually. The selection of vegetables and fruits was poor and the selection of meat was even worse. If you are looking for flowers or for items you can find at a $1 store, this is the market for you, but for people looking for interesting, exciting ingredients and produce, it just doesn't stack up.

When we are back in Cleveland we often go to the West Side Market there and this was one trip that really brought home what a great asset that market is to the people who live in Northeast Ohio.

Tomorrow looks like a downer of a day weather-wise, so where I'd hoped we'd get a chance to go to a Syracuse Chiefs baseball game, we'll probably end up staying home and being lazy.