From the Heart of Tokyo 東京の中心から

Learning New Tricks

新しいこつをしている。

It's been longer than usual since my last post here.  There's been a lot going on.  For one thing, during the last few weeks, Martin has been learning to in-line skate, and I've been going with him to Kasai whenever we can coordinate our schedules.  I'm only an average skater, so I'm not a very good instructor, but that's okay.  Right now, he needs practice to build his skill and endurance.  The levee next to Kasai Rinkai Koen is such a nice place to skate, because there's a 2+ kilometer straight stretch of paved path, and a lovely view of the ocean.  It was hazy the other day, but you could make out Mount Fuji in the distance.  None of the pix that I took of Martin that day were any good, but there's a good shot of him at yesterdays' City Run on Iwa-san's site.

One of the tricks that I've been trying very hard to learn is how to embed video on my main website.  To tell the truth, I've wasted alot of time on this and was only becoming more and more frustrated at my continued failure.  It seems that there is some problem within the FrontPage software which is installed on my current computer.  Inserting a video worked on my previous computer, using this same exact software, but after using every trick I know (including uninstalling and reinstalling the software several times- agghh!!) and trying lots of new ideas, I was still not able to make it work.  (Yes... I know... I need to learn HTML)  I have a very short(less than 3MB) video of Martin snowboarding at Niseko... I'm rather impressed with how he has progressed in this sport, and wanted to put it up so his friends and family could see, considering how infrequently he gets the chance to practice, but the video has been a "no go."   

So, yesterday, I talked with one of my skater friends, and he recommended that I try YouTube.  Well I did, and here's the video. (click the center arrow twice) I can't figure out how to center it on my page, but it works, so there!

Thank you きのしたさん！As in a previous post here, the weather during our December Niseko trip was pretty crazy from terrible all day rain the first day (which we skied all day in, mind you) to lovely clear blue sky to blizzard on the last day. Challenging yes. 

Here are the pix from The NISEKO SKI TRIP and the short visit to SAPPORO.    At Sapporo, we used the same hotel where we stayed 3 years ago after Jonah broke his leg, so it was a whole different scene this time.  (Thank the Lord!) The Crab restaurant was wonderful, (crab about 16 different ways) and also the Ramen Alley shop where I had delicious Ikura. (salmon roe)

今2月のスキーの家族のグループの旅行を計画をやってみている。たぶん、２日があるので、東京の近くにある。行きたったら、教えてくださいね。次のポーストはもっと日本語を書くつもりです。

My pages at MOL

So this week I spent some quality time with my pages on the Mustangs On Line website.  MOL is the community website for ASIJ.  (American School in Japan)  My pages are under the umbrella of Japan Living and include Entertainment,     Restaurants,     Museums,     Gardens,  and     Sports. 

Most of these pages were already set up when I took them over a few months ago, but they needed quite a bit of reorganization and renewal.  For too long I've been trying to learn how to "do" Microsoft FrontPage, and with the debut of my family site www.tokyomurrays.com last June, I had a place I could learn and practice without messing up something important.  When school started in the Fall, I decided to volunteer for MOL, but I was very tentative, preferring that the school webmaster hold my hand through it all.  Then in early December, I took the plunge and totally revised the organizational structure of my assigned MOL pages, created the sports page, as well as fixing all the broken hyperlinks and losing any outmoded content.   

This week I started augmenting the restaurant page.  There's some good links to Tokyo Restaurant Listing sites, and next I'll add some personal reviews of some of our favorite restaurants.  This should be fun.

この物語は子供の学校のウェブサイトについてです。私はサイトにボランティアをします。私にはちょっと難しくて面白いですが段々よりよくなる。私のページを見てください。

Fighting with my computer

私のソーニーバイオのペソコンを好きですが、いつも問題あります。でも自分でするかたです。多分下手ですので過度をしたいです。日本語のよう、毎日コンプタについて段々習います。

I really like my Sony Vaio, but I always have problems.  However, it is certainly my own fault.　　Probably it is because I am not skilled at this, and I try to do too much.  Even so, like studying Japanese, I am gradually learning every day.

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For a long time, I have been trying to find a good way to share pictures that is both easy and quick for me to accomplish, and a good venue for the viewer.  So far, no go, and I've tried lots of different options, as you can see by the various venues on my main site.  Recently, I made a PowerPoint Presentation for Martin's work.  (in that case, it was sent via email to the various people, and they all have PPT on their computers.)  It was well received, so I thought I would try to use that method on my website.  Well, after many hours working on it, I did accomplish the goal, but I am not entirely satisfied with the results.  It needs to be downloaded, and it does take some minutes to download.  Additionally, as tested by my two computers, it is difficult to exit without leaving the site.  Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Please take a look at this and give me some feedback about how it works for you.  Last Friday, we did Gingerbread Houses in Jonah's class, and since it was also Jonah's Christmas Concert (Handbells) Martin made a special arrangement to attend.  It is rare for a Dad to participate in classroom activities, and Jonah was very pleased.

Here's one more.  What happened to my little girl?

最近 背の高いになりました。 木曜日は誕生日です。ティーンエイジャになて、まだのようですと思います。

She's become very tall recently.  On Thursday, she officially becomes a teenager, but I think she's already been acting like one for awhile.