Portrait of the Artist as a Young Geek

I share a townhouse with three friends. The owner rents it out to college kids; she bought it for that purpose. It's a good idea, since the place is 15 minutes from campus walking. We get a relatively spacious place and she gets a nice chunk of rent a month. The downside is the home-owners association around here, which is downright anal when it wants to be. The lady next door seems especially picky about our behavior... her favorite stunt is to bust us for having the trashcans visible on any day other than when it's time to take them out. On the back patio isn't good enough, since that area's visible from a nearby path; we've got to cover them with tarp so you can't see a single square inch of can. We're probably supposed to stash them in the garage like she does. More later on why that's a really bad idea.

Well, the complex has recently noticed the high number of spots in the lot being filled. I'll gladly admit this can be a bit of a problem. I came back from a late night run to the grocery store once and there was literally NO parking available; someone must have been having a party. I had to stash my car on the street, illegally, and hope the cops didn't come by until Dylan's girlfriend went home for the night and I could steal her space. I'm guessing someone else had the same problem that night and complained directly. But then comes the solution. You see, each townhouse is provided with a carport and a single-car garage. Therefore, the Powers That Be have declared that any resident caught parking in the general lot spaces while using their garage for storage purposes will be fined. Repeatedly.

We store DYLAN in the garage. That's where he sleeps. That's where all his stuff is. Meanwhile, my car sits in the lot. This... could get ugly.

All last night was spent packing. I'm not leaving for a couple more days, but since I couldn't get a ride to the airport and there's no way I'm getting all my stuff there without help, I've called in a transport service that can get luggage to the airport for me... provided they get it 36+ hours before I need it there. So I stuffed everything I won't need over the next couple days into my two big suitcases, which they'll be coming by to pick up this afternoon, and I'll attempt to cram the remainder into my backpack and laptop holder come Wednesday.

I still need to figure out what to do with the various items in the pantry: I offered any and all tutors the right to come and raid it over the weekend, but only Marippe took me up on that. She managed to clean out a good portion, but I've still got sugar, salt, pepper, ginger, soy sauce, vinegar, ketchup, mustard, and two kinds of cooking oil, and I'd rather not let any of it go to waste.

I plan to hit Tokyo tomorrow. The Kitais gave me some tips on what the must-see locations are and how to get to them; now it's just a question of understanding the Japanese guidebook they gave me. It's about two hours by train to Tokyo, so I'll want to leave early if I want to get as much as possible. I toyed with the idea of reserving a hotel room in Tokyo for Tuesday night -- then I could have all Tuesday morning to cruise the city as well and not spend an extra round trip going to-from Tsuru on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. But I realized I'd have to bring along my luggage for the first trip that way, which would mean that I couldn't arrive in Tokyo until a time that the hotel would let me stash it in my room (probably about 3pm or so) so that blows the entire morning, plus there's the hassle of finding a hotel, and the cost for a room would most definitely be more than the 4000 yen for the round trip... I decided not to mess with it.

This will be my last update before I return to the States, for reasons I mentioned yesterday. So, this is Free Radio Japan, signing off for the last time...

It was just my luck that I picked the apartment with the broken bathroom sink. The drain pipe leaks. I didn't have too much of a problem with this, because there's a drain in the floor (I don't know the details, but evidently a traditional Japanese bath is performed largely outside the tub somehow), so most of the water doesn't stick around to mildew. Nonetheless, it was splashing my feet more often than not, so I finally mentioned it to the program coordinator. Begin the game of pass-the-buck. Her first call is to her husband, who comes in the next day, has a look at it, declares it out of his league, and calls a local handyman to come in the next day. The handyman looks at it, fiddles with it a bit, can't get anywhere, and calls a professional plumbing agency. Who will be there the next day. The plumbers come in, physically remove the drain pipe to get a better look at it, and find the problem... only they won't have the part they need for a week or two. They apologize and say they'll be back then (at least I think that's what they said), then leave. Failing to reinstall the pipe. Mind, the faucet is such so that I can swivel it to empty over the tub instead of the sink (which is what the handyman recommended I do while waiting for the plumbers), so this isn't quite as big a deal as it sounds, but still... Sometimes I wonder if they decided to get a laugh at the American's expense.

On a side note, why isn't the LJ client installing properly on Win ME?