These peaks were climbed over 14 yrs. ago, so it's a big surprise this
aging brain could recall even half these details.
Given their
proximity to the Tokyo metroplex, weather permitting, these awesome
peaks can be easily scaled in a weekend. I hope you enjoy my
pics,
maps, & trail description.
Mt. Kai-koma-ga-take (甲斐駒ヶ岳) and its subpeak,
Marishiten
(摩利支天) (photo courtesy: Wikipedia)
Sept.
26, 2011 - 7th inning balloon release - Marines vs. Lions, Marine
Field, Chiba, Japan
Cue marks:
0:00 Blue Lions' balloons - start of top of the 7th inning
1:12 White Marines' balloons - start of bottom of the 7th inning
2:37 Lions' relief pitcher driven to infield in Volvo convertible car
Game
played Sat. Sept. 24, 2011. Interestingly (and disappointingly), the
game finished after 9 innings w/ a 5-5 tie, because of the Japanese pro
baseball rule this season (due to the big 3/11 earthquake/tsunami) that
no extra innings can begin more than 210 minutes
after the first pitch. :-( Also, except in the playoffs, because of the
fear that fans might miss their last train, Japanese pro baseball games
that go 12 innings and are still tied, are halted & recorded as
ties. As of Sept. 26, less than 3 weeks before the end of the 2011
season, there have been around 90 tie games in Japanese pro baseball
this year.
Sept. 24,
2011 - Mt. Senjo-ga-take
(仙丈ヶ岳) and Mt. Kai-koma-ga-dake (甲斐駒ヶ岳), Japan's 18th & 24th
highest peaks,
Southern Japan Alps
Pics taken Aug. 12-13, 1997. View entire album here.
Sept. 23, 2011
- These 30 moving cinemagraphs are remarkable !
Sept.
17, 2011 - Sunrise in Tokyo, Sat. Sept. 17, 2011, 5:14 am
Sept.
13, 2011 -
Pics/videos of the Wedding of the Millennium
Ainsworth House & Gardens
Portland, Oregon
Sept. 2-3, 2011
(Click right arrow above to advance pics sequentially, or view
entire album at a glance here. Note: The 1st 32 pics in
this
set are courtesy of the official wedding
photographer, Bryan
Hoybook Photography of
Portland, OR.)
All 3 videos are in a playlist
and will play continuously, non-stop.
Or click on the playlist icon
above to select the other 2 videos.
(Play the entire playlist in new window here.)
Cue marks for the Post-Wedding (3rd) video:
00:00 Post-wedding mingling in front of Ainsworth House
00:27 Scott's speech @ reception
03:35 Heather's speech @ reception
08:01 Bride & groom cut cake
09:20 Bride & groom dance w/ each other
12:06 Bride & groom dance w/ parents
15:32 Free dance
19:41 Bride tosses bouquet
21:56 Free dance
23:48 Bride & Claire dance to "Devil Went Down to
Georgia"
27:15 "Cuban Shuffle" dance
29:27 Wedding party departs by limo, while being cheered w/
sparklers
Sept.
13, 2011 - Video of my Oregon
Sightseeing Tour
(Video taken Sept. 1-8,
2011. View in separate window here.)
Cue marks:
00:00 High Rocks City Park, Gladstone, Oregon
00:58 Glockenspiel Restaurant & Bar, Mt. Angel, Oregon
10:07 Multnomah Falls, Oregon
11:36 Sunrise from East Rim Drive, Crater Lake National Park,
Oregon
14:33 Pika on Mt. Scott Trail, Crater Lake National Park,
Oregon
15:09 Toketee Falls, Oregon
16:33 North Umpqua River, Oregon
16:56 Spinreel Campground, Oregon Dunes National Recreation
Area
17:07 Flashing yellow left turn arrow traffic signal, U.S.
Hwy. 101,
Florence, Oregon
Sept.
12, 2011
- My pics of the Beautiful State of Oregon, Crown Jewel of America's
Pacific
Northwest
Pics taken Sept. 1-8, 2011. View entire album at
a glance here.
Sept.
11,
2011 - 9/11, Ten Years Later
[Oops, the video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Gve3GAxpqY) is
no longer available.]
This documentary was made in 2006 in Tokyo by film producer Joey
Manalang for a charity concert in commemoration of the 5th anniversary
of
9/11. A famous American movie star is interviewed @ the 2:05 &
9:27 min. marks.
Mt.
Fuji,
Japan's tallest peak, at sunrise
5:31 am, Aug. 14, 2011
Aug.
15, 2011
- Mt. Notori-dake (農鳥岳), one of the Shiranesanzan (白根三山)
Mt. Notori-dake (農鳥岳), along with Mt. Kita-dake (北岳) & Mt.
Ai-no-dake (間ノ岳), comprise Japan's Shiranesanzan (白根三山, "3 white
summits"). We don't have anything even close to this in my home state
of Texas, and is just one reason I love beautiful Japan.
In Japan the 3rd Monday in July is a national holiday called "Umi no
Hi," or Marine Day (also called Day of the Sea). This game between the
Pacific League teams Chiba Lotte Marines & the Softbank Hawks
was played on Sun. July 17, 2011 on Marine Day Weekend. It was an
all-round good time on a
gorgeous but HOT day. Enjoy a first-hand glance at Japanese pro
baseball !!
Highlights (in min.):
2:34 - pre-game food stalls
7:00 - opening pitch
8:46 - beer girl
10:56 - kid's play area
12:52 - 7th inning balloon release
QVC Marine Field is located in Chiba's Makuhari area, right next to
Tokyo Bay.
July 19,
2011 - Government Waste
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the
government
from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care
of
them."
--Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), principal author of the
Declaration of Independence (1776), 3rd President of the United States
(1801–1809), and one of America's most influential Founding Fathers--
July
15, 2011 -
The White House Resolute Desk
The 131-year-old Resolute Desk, which adorns the White House Oval
Office, was built of wood salvaged from the British arctic exploration
ship HMS Resolute
and was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in
1880.
It is considered a national historic treasure and an icon of the U.S.
presidency.
The Resolute Desk, in the
White House Oval Office
In 1852 the British ship HMS Resolute was sent to the Arctic Ocean on
2-3 year mission along with four other ships to search for missing
explorer Sir John Franklin and his party who had disappeared in the
Arctic while trying to discover the Northwest Passage.
Unfortunately,
the ship became ice bound and after two winters stuck in the thick ice,
the Resolute had to be abandoned and its crew returned to England
aboard another ship.
For over a year the HMS Resolute drifted in pack ice as a ghost ship.
In September 1855 the ship was discovered 1200 miles from where her
crew left her by Capt. James Buddington of the US whaling ship George
Henry. When the thaw set in, his crew managed to free the entrapped
Resolute and sailed the salvaged prize back to Capt. Buddington's home
port of New London, Connecticut, where, after the British Government
waived all claim to her, the American Government bought her from the
fortunate whalers for $40,000, a huge sum of money in those days.
As a token of goodwill & friendship, the Resolute was repaired
& refitted in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and in 1856 was presented
to Queen Victoria and the British people on behalf of the people of the
United States in the hope that it would promote peaceful relations.
The Resolute served in the Royal Navy for 22 more years until
she was decommissioned in 1878. When the ship was finally broken up the
following year, Queen Victoria asked for 4 desks to be fashioned from
the strong oak wood of the Resolute by William Evenden at the Royal
Naval Dockyard in Chatham, England. She presented one of the desks as a
gift to U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880.
In the 131 years
since then, apart from short spells in a traveling exhibition and on
display in the Smithsonian Institution, the Resolute Desk has been in
daily use in the White House by every president since Hayes either in
the Oval Office or a private study in the Executive Mansion with the
exception of Presidents Johnson, Nixon, and Ford.
The desk was made
famous in part by a photograph of Pres. John F. Kennedy at work while
his
son, John Jr., peeked out the front through the kneehole panel. The
Resolute Desk has sealed a lasting friendship between Great Britain and
the United States.
JFK, John Jr., & the Resolute Desk
July
5, 2011 - Creation Calls --
are you listening?
Absolutely stunning footage from the BBC Planet Earth Series, set to
Brian Doerksen's song, "Creation Calls," and celebrating the wonder and
majesty of God's creations. It's like taking a trip around the world in
just a few minutes. I believe I'll watch this the first thing every
morning to start off the day...
Mt. Fuji's
official 2-month climbing season opened July 1st. Reminds me of the old
Japanese proverb: "If you come to Japan and don't climb Mt. Fuji,
you're a fool; but if you climb it more than once, you're an even
BIGGER fool."
Cracks me
up....every time.
If you know anyone interested in climbing Mt. Fuji, they might be
interested in my Climbing
Mt. Fuji - Frequently Asked Questions page. And pics from my
Aug. 3-4, 1991 climb of Mt. Fuji are hosted @ Flickr here.
Mt. Fuji's "unkai (雲海)" (sea of clouds)
July 2,
2011 -
Glacier National Park, Montana
Got an email last night from a good bud living in LA, who said he
& his girlfriend are headed for Glacier National Park, Montana
today. Reminded me of the magnificent summer I spent working there, so
I dug up this pic from the archives. Glacier NP, together with
the adjoining Waterton Lakes NP on the Canadian side of the border,
form the
Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, the first-ever park in the
world
spanning an international border.
Red Eagle Lake,
Glacier National Park
Without question, Glacier National Park is one of the most strikingly
beautiful places I've ever seen on God's
green earth. More pics taken Aug. '09 by my daughter & her
husband are here.
July
1, 2011 - It's going to be a
LONG, hot summer in Tokyo
Temperatures busted the 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit)
mark on Wed. June 29, 2011 at a number of recording stations in Gunma
Prefecture, as the Tokyo Electric Power Co. struggles to keep up with
electricity demand. New subway station monitors show real-time hourly
electricity demand as a percentage of the available
supply that TEPCO is capable of providing. The monitor below shows that
in the 11-12 am hour today on July 1,
TEPCO customers were using 41.4 gigawatts, or 81% of the
maximum 51-gigawatt capacity TEPCO was capable of supplying. (TEPCO's real-time demand/supply
graph)
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Given their
proximity to the Tokyo metroplex, weather permitting, these awesome
peaks can be easily scaled in a weekend. I hope you enjoy 
above to select the other 2 videos.
