http://deadfrank.com The Personal Blog of Christopher Kaminski Sun, 20 Dec 2009 18:06:43 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Last weekend, I was hanging out downtown San Francisco waiting for my friend.  We were about to partake in one of the finest burgers that our fair city has to offer.  As I watched the world go by, I saw a late model Ford Police Interceptor approaching me.  The side ... http://deadfrank.com/2009/12/126/ I took down the last few posts.  The removed items were "old school" blog posts, which is to say they essentially contained links to interesting things I found around the web.  That type of content is useful and interesting and worthy of merit, just not for deadfrank.  I would rather ... http://deadfrank.com/2009/12/deleted/ My father suffered a catastrophic hard drive failure a few weeks ago.  He lost many files, including some old pictures from many years ago that he had scanned into the computer.  Thankfully he sent me a copy of those on CD shortly after he scanned them in.  I found that ... http://deadfrank.com/2009/10/take-more-pictures/ I think that a life worth living is a life worth recording.  I think it's worthwhile to revisit the notion of keeping this blog up to date.  The time has come to put my keyboard where my mouth is.  Ew.  On second thought, maybe not. Plus, you can thank my mother. ... http://deadfrank.com/2009/09/one-step-at-a-time/ I wrote a little bit about the trains when I first arrived in Japan.  Now that I've returned to San Francisco and had some time to compare the two, I decided to elaborate on about my experiences. Getting around Tokyo via train is an incredible, enlightening experience for Americans.  Our public ... http://deadfrank.com/2009/07/public-transportation/ I spent my first two nights in Tokyo at the Tokyo Prince Hotel. I picked it entirely based off a magical formula based upon factors such as price, location and opinions from random people who take the time to post things on the internet. Turns out I picked well.  While this ... http://deadfrank.com/2009/07/the-tokyo-prince-hotel/ There is nothing that subsitutes for first hand experience.  You cannot learn how to fly a plane just from reading a book.  This is why you need to log hours before they give you a pilots license.  You're going to have a tough time learning how to paint a picture ... http://deadfrank.com/2009/06/sense-of-scale/ That word.  I do not think it means what you think it means. Update: This truck appeared to be a delivery truck.   It was parked in front of a local beer distribution warehouse in Tokyo (near the Hamamatsucho Station). Update: Neil points out that maybe it does mean what they think ... http://deadfrank.com/2009/06/engrish-reefer-container/ According to my highly scientific methods of calculation, there appears to be seven umbrellas for every person in Tokyo. Let's start with the rain itself.  During the rainy season, also known as tsuyu (梅雨), it probably will rain every day.  My limited experience with tsuyu tells me that it won't rain ... http://deadfrank.com/2009/06/fun-japan-fact-umbrellas/ Trash cans are exceptionally rare in Japan.  Recycling is taken very seriously and you can find a recycle bin next to every vending machine.  If you have a wrapper from the pastry you bought at the bread shop... well, just stick it in your pocket until you get home. The reason ... http://deadfrank.com/2009/06/fun-japan-fact-trash-cans/