Toronto, this shows how you suck.

Not only is the removal of the Jarvis bike lanes a colossal waste of
money (the lanes are brand new) – but guess where the money is coming
from?  I’ve been able to confirm with the City that the money to REMOVE
the lanes is being pulled directly out of the limited budget the City
has to INSTALL bike lanes!  So not only are cyclists losing a major bike
 lane, serving 1000+ cyclists during rush hour, … but we’re seeing our
own capital budget reduced at the same time.

There's nothing for me to add.

Gaijin get the...

I can't spell out the entire story, because I need plausible deniability, but here's a synopsis:
- Gaijin teachers at the 'international school' I am newly employed at were under the impression that their jobs were long-term
- many have been in that school for several years
- however, due to a particular legal situation in Japan, half of them may be terminated in a couple of years, as there will be no legal way to extend their contracts or visas
- meanwhile, some have got mortgages and otherwise started lives in Japan

Yeah, just like every other one of us you may say, except that the foreign staff was led to believe they were permanent.  Are you surprised the Japanese administration did not spell out the job-insecurity when they were staffing their school with experienced teachers?  If they were not withholding that information, they were incompetent and did not know the law.  I can believe either: I can believe Japanese administration is capable of both.

Never mind that Gaijin have come to teach since 'the Bubble', and never mind that half who come marry Japanese nationals, and maybe half of those stay.  Never mind that the school was approved in 'the Bubble' when money was thrown at anything with 'international' in the title.  Never mind that 'the law' in Japan is a point of departure, not cast in stone, the flexibility of which to suit amakudari and other fellow-travellers.  No, the fault lies with any foreigner naive enough not to cover their own ass better*, because what most Japanese, and all of the bureaucracy, want you to do after teaching for a few years is:

'Gaijin, go home.'

*I do not agree they are at fault.  Most come from countries with the 'rule of law', and would not yet have read 'The Enigma of Japanese Power'.  Read it if you have not yet.

And immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he regained his sight, and he got up and was baptized.

"I've heard of yellow-fever..."

 "but you have the plague!"

From the mouth of a teacher on the unmarried side of the table yelled at our married side of the table, tired of us showing each other pictures of our hybrids on our phones.

Incidentally, I discovered the ratio of hybrid to J-wife on my phone is 30:1, and she's holding him in the one.  Sure she has fewer of me.

The Darkness

Yes, it's that time of year in Tokyo again: the darkness.  I am a teacher back at work, the weather in Tokyo is showing signs of turning to summer temperatures (like a place with reasonable summer temperatures), and I get reminded that Japan still doesn't do daylight savings.  Granted it was a stormy afternoon, but waiting on the platform at 17:00 I thought, 'It's awfully dark...'  Sure, because sunset is before 18:00 now: rise, 5:27; set, 17:43.  Must be because I am from Toronto, of which I am not fond, except that WE DO NOT WASTE ALL OUR SUNLIGHT BEFORE WE WAKE (rise, 7:02; set, 19:20). 

But who'd want another hour of sunlight after work to take your kids to the park?  No, it's much more fun in Tokyo to pray for sunset so your boss might deign to let you go, although neither you nor he did shit today but sit on your ass praying for another asset bubble.  This is only going to get worse by the daylight savings switch in early November, when Toronto will grab back an hour in the evening, but Tokyo won't, because it doesn't do daylight savings (showing once again a crack in its modernity).

Toronto is on the same latitude as Sapporo in Japan's north; and Tokyo is on the same latitude as LA and Washington: but I have never had so little sunlight I could use in the winter as in Tokyo.  I am going to have to start cycling to and from work to get some sunlight, or someone's going to get knifed.

A shower! Just a fucking shower!

Why is it so much to ask for bicycle commuting to get a shower?  It makes me think it's about social-conditioning: you shall own a car, you shall get fat, or you shall exercise in only the ways that suck your time and money.  This is not a post on making do without a shower after cycling to work, because it is all a bodge.  No, this is a rant.

It's a rant that I am putting it on both my active blogs, because it is about sport, and the fact that people are fucking stupid.  More so, school principals and sento and gym owners

In three elementary schools in Toronto's suburbs, and three 'international'* elementary schools in Tokyo and its suburbs, I have had exactly ONE where getting cleaned up was not an ordeal.  Another where it was reasonable: no shower in any building, but an unused bathroom with a big sink.  Bit of math for you: six schools minus one with a shower I could use, and one without a shower, leaves how many with showers I could not use?  Two-thirds!  Please tell me why a school is built with a shower for staff - no, two-thirds are - but the principals have ordained showers be used for storage, or put off limits because the principal does not see the need.  And please tell me who made a fucking principal god?  He, or so often she, is just another sycophantic civil-servant looking for a better pay-grade, or the private-industry version of same, not someone any better than the teachers.  More often worse.  Do they get off making decisions that do them little benefit, but inconvenience others greatly?  Well yes, probably.

Reminds me of what I said at a party, in front of my wife and three teachers, when someone who knew no better asked me why I was not interested in becoming a principal:

"Integrity."

The teachers laughed hard, so others asked for an explanation.

If that were the end of it...  For Tokyo I thought, 'fine, but at least I can find a sento or gym that opens early.'  Wrong.  Japanese bathe of evenings (which explains J-men's morning greasiness) so sento do not open of mornings.  Well, how about gyms?  The public ones open past nine, because J-civil-servants follow 'the rules' of a nine o'clock opening for public institutions.  I cannot blame them.  If they came two hours earlier, their boss would still make them work past sunset.  And the private gyms?  Fuck...

Private gyms only exist to rip people off as close to illegal as won't get owners jailed (any country).  First, they expect you to pay and not come.  Second, they expect you to commit to year-long contracts, and charge a one-time 'membership fee', for which I can think of no reasonable explanation - except theft.  Japan, as Japan does, takes it to another level: at Gold's Japan** you have to sign up on their credit card in order to join paying for less than a year up-front, along with the initial 'membership fee'.  I don't need more than one credit card to manage, thanks, and since the JACCS card happens to be from the same corporation as owns rights to 'Gold's' in Japan, you can gag on my unit.  I am not Japanese enough a customer to take that shafting un-lubed.

For my purposes, looks like I have to take the fucking morning cattle-car, run home some evenings, and schlepp clothes back and forth again.  For principals, looks like you have lost any chance I'll do aught for you that isn't only in my best interests, or the kids'.  For gyms, look for takings elsewhere.

Addendum, 12/10/09:  'Internet Cafe'!  500y total to enter and get my shower, and the soap and shampoo is included.  Another 100y or so for a towel.  Shows how old I am that I did not think of this.

*In other words, schools where parents pay for English education from teachers in Japan for just several years, with no job security, thus little investment in the school.  Did I mention the majority of the kids and their parents are not 'international': Japanese?
**The only private gym near where I work...

A shower! Just a fucking shower!

Why is it so much to ask for bicycle commuting to get a shower?  It makes me think it's about social-conditioning: you shall own a car, you shall get fat, or you shall exercise in only the ways that suck your time and money.  This is not a post on making do without a shower after cycling to work, because it is all a bodge.  No, this is a rant.

It's a rant that I am putting it on both my active blogs, because it is about sport, and the fact that people are fucking stupid.  More so, school principals and sento and gym owners

In three elementary schools in Toronto's suburbs, and three 'international'* elementary schools in Tokyo and its suburbs, I have had exactly ONE where getting cleaned up was not an ordeal.  Another where it was reasonable: no shower in any building, but an unused bathroom with a big sink.  Bit of math for you: six schools minus one with a shower I could use, and one without a shower, leaves how many with showers I could not use?  Two-thirds!  Please tell me why a school is built with a shower for staff - no, two-thirds are - but the principals have ordained showers be used for storage, or put off limits because the principal does not see the need.  And please tell me who made a fucking principal god?  He, or so often she, is just another sycophantic civil-servant looking for a better pay-grade, or the private-industry version of same, not someone any better than the teachers.  More often worse.  Do they get off making decisions that do them little benefit, but inconvenience others greatly?  Well yes, probably.

Reminds me of what I said at a party, in front of my wife and three teachers, when someone who knew no better asked me why I was not interested in becoming a principal:

"Integrity."

The teachers laughed hard, so others asked for an explanation.

If that were the end of it...  For Tokyo I thought, 'fine, but at least I can find a sento or gym that opens early.'  Wrong.  Japanese bathe of evenings (which explains J-men's morning greasiness) so sento do not open of mornings.  Well, how about gyms?  The public ones open past nine, because J-civil-servants follow 'the rules' of a nine o'clock opening for public institutions.  I cannot blame them.  If they came two hours earlier, their boss would still make them work past sunset.  And the private gyms?  Fuck...

Private gyms only exist to rip people off as close to illegal as won't get owners jailed (any country).  First, they expect you to pay and not come.  Second, they expect you to commit to year-long contracts, and charge a one-time 'membership fee', for which I can think of no reasonable explanation - except theft.  Japan, as Japan does, takes it to another level: at Gold's Japan** you have to sign up on their credit card in order to join paying for less than a year up-front, along with the initial 'membership fee'.  I don't need more than one credit card to manage, thanks, and since the JACCS card happens to be from the same corporation as owns rights to 'Gold's' in Japan, you can gag on my unit.  I am not Japanese enough a customer to take that shafting un-lubed.

For my purposes, looks like I have to take the fucking morning cattle-car, run home some evenings, and schlepp clothes back and forth again.  For principals, looks like you have lost any chance I'll do aught for you that isn't only in my best interests, or the kids'.  For gyms, look for takings elsewhere.

*In other words, schools where parents pay for English education from teachers in Japan for just several years, with no job security, thus little investment in the school.  Did I mention the majority of the kids and their parents are not 'international': Japanese?

**The only private gym near where I work...

Do you ride a bike, or are you a 'cyclist'?

It's an old debate that people tackle the wrong way: comes down to whether you wrench or not.

That's an old picture of my road-bike repair kit, which has since been changed and improved.  I have something similar on three bikes at any time, and more durable tools at the house.

How much wrenching you have to do to be a 'cyclist' is a matter of debate, but riding lots of kilometres and not doing your own wrenching on your dentist-bike impresses me with a lack of curiosity and responsibility (hear that elder brother?).  I am no pro, but have done some work: I have not replaced a headset, but have replaced two bottom brackets; I have not trued a wheel (without needing someone to fix it...), but have changed cogs, chainrings and cassettes; I have not built a wheel, but have repacked any number of hubs.  'A man's gotta know his limitations.'

I want to take another course than the eleven-hour Toronto School Board adult course I took, and will yet.  Until then I can do 90% of my own work, and know enough about what I can't do to know who to pay to do it well.  Certain pride in both what I can do, and know about what I can't.

Earwax and Japanese doctors

No, I'm not going to put up any wax pictures with this one.  I think we know what the stuff looks like.  Or do you?  Did you know you have only one of two types?  Cool.

Neither am I going to go into how the Japanese dig in their own ears with one of these, or the ears of their children, lovers, or paying clients.  I won't let my J-wife at mine, because I was taught that nothing goes inside your ear lest you damage it.

The problem with that advice, to put nothing in your ear to clean it, is that it is great advice, until it is useless: impacted ears.

I had six myringotomoies as a kid (tubes in the ear-drum to let out fluid not getting out via a blocked passage to the throat).  It's a crude treatment done less now than heavy antibiotics to get at the root of the infections, but it probably kept me from deafness, even if I am down to half hearing in one ear.  And Canadian doctors are obsessive to their patients to clean just the outside of the ear, or you will impact the wax, or damage the eardrum.  From the point of view of malpractice insurance, the sensible thing to say.  However, for whatever reason my wax does not come out of its own, and convincing a doctor to syringe it, much less use a curette, is an uphill battle.  When I did Aikido I got them knocked out of my head twice on bad landings, which was embarrassing, but now my life is less violent.

In Japan, on the other hand, ask the doctor and he's happy to go in there with a mini-camera (watch on TV!) and a few types of curettes and tidy you up in a moment.  Bliss.

For abroad, from Japan, I finally found a safe method that works very well, thanks to the Internet, and not the doctors:
- fill your ear with a 1:10 baking soda/water solution at body temperature
- keep it there an hour
- plug a sink and drain the ear into it
- gently use an ear bulb with body temperature water a few times
- stare in horror at what has come out of your head
- hear better

I AM NOT A DOCTOR.  This means you are responsible for your own choices, and if you stick a candle in your ear, you are a credulous fuckwit.

Fuji Eco-Cycling

I finally did it this year after two misses.  Missed it in 2010, because my father-in-law was in a losing battle to cancer.  Missed it in 2011, because I found the website too late to register.  In 2012 I went to the trouble of registering early, and staying the night before in Kawaguchi-ko.

To be honest, I did not do all of it. Yes, I copped-out significantly.  I did the first 80 of the 120km, but more to the point, I skipped the second climbing of 900m.  I could have managed it, as the bike was working beautifully, and me passably, but I started a new job the next day, and didn't need to be shattered.  The train from Gotemba where I finished got me back an hour earlier than the one from Kawaguchi-ko, and I shortened it another three hours of cycling, and another hour of looking for an onsen.  Adds up.

Did I mention that I got not one view of Fuji due to rain and clouds?  It was an ongoing joke for cyclists and volunteers to point where Fuji might be.

7000y was a bit spendy, and same again for hotel, but it raises money for helper-dogs, and was Japanese in its efficiency and hospitality, even if Japanese efficiency can be rigid to the point of inefficiency, should initial conditions change...  But in Japan you can be assured at least one stop will have teenage girls handing out food and water, dressed like AKB48!

I started late, since there was no reason for me to race it, so have no idea what the juicers on dentist-bikes looked like at the front.  There was more carbon ridden than any other material, even if I passed many such. 
I was glad of the bike I had in ways expected and unexpected and am going to keep it, which surprised me.  Why?
- it handles perfectly downhill at 60km on wet roads, and that is something
- clip-on fenders are not such a bad idea anyway, when your bike has to go in and out of 'rinkou-bukuro'
- my low climbing triple allows me to sit and spin on long climbs, which is a nice option
It still needs the new fork with better tire clearance as wet tires pick up road grit, and with just a 2mm clearance that makes a hell of a noise, and some resistance.

The Gotemba stop was at the new 'Shizuoka Bike Station' which has amenities for cyclists commuting or other, including a shower!  Lots of road-grit from the rain, and the fact that the Japanese cyclists eschew fenders in this rainy country (wtf?).

I can recommend it, but not going by train like I did.  The Fuji-Kyuko line, which is the end of your trip to Kawaguchi-ko, is a poorly organized pain in the ass tourist-line, and schlepping a bike-bag through the lines to it the worst exertion I had.  The start is also too early to arrive by train on the day.  Most riders went by car, and there is plenty of parking.  It was more like N.America than Japan in that way...  You can avoid going the night before, but then you need to arrive before 6 to get your package.  But if you go the night before there is nothing to do in Kawaguchi-ko at all.  Silly there is no mail-out option.  It should start and finish in Gotemba.

Glad I did (most) of it, but a one-time thing.