Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Got up at seven-fifteen in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese rice porridge for lunch, and a dish of Italian pasta for dinner.
Today's maximum temperature is 97 degrees F (36.1 degrees C).
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Got up at seven-thirty in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner.
Today's maximum temperature is 99 degrees F (37.2 degrees C).
Friday, June 3, 2011
Got up at eight o'clock in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese rice porridge for lunch, and pieces of Central Market's pizza for dinner.
Today's maximum temperature is 99 degrees F (37.2 degrees C).
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Got up at eight forty-five in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a dish of Italian pasta for dinner. Stayed at home for the entire day.
For the next few weeks, some of the sightseeing spots that my wife and I have ever visited and aren't so far from our house in Austin Texas will be briefly commented upon. NASA opens some parts of its facilities to tourists. My wife and I visited the Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas in September 2002. It's about a four-hour drive from here.
The water quality of Clear Lake, where NASA Rd 1 goes by, is so-so. There were lightly scattered showers when we visited. We participated in one of three organized trolley tours featuring a large plant for assembling some modules of the International Space Station, the control room, and the other related rooms of the Apollo Program and so on. Several historical rockets were displayed on the vast yard near a station of the trolley. One of the oldest rockets became fairly battered. The scene of a pod of tiny birds resting comfortably on antiquated rockets slightly encrusted with moss by time was calm and peaceful. Because more than ten years had passed since the end of the Cold War, no tense atmosphere in its security was felt there.
Today's maximum temperature is 98 degrees F (36.7 degrees C).
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Got up at nine o'clock in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese rice porridge for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner.
The best season for sightseeing in the Texas Hill Country is early spring when several kinds of wildflowers come into bloom. The bluebonnet, which is the state flower of Texas, begins to grow in profusion on the fields and the sides of many roads in the Texas Hill Country usually in late March. During this period of time, in most cases, Austin has a mild climate. Late in spring, the weather here becomes rather unstable, being hit by heavy thunderstorms occasionally.
There is another noticeable tourist attraction in Austin. At dusk in the summer, the free-tail bats that roost in dense clusters under the Congress Street Bridge fly off to look for food. Austin's urban bat colony should be one of the most interesting sightseeing sites in the city. After watching the world's largest urban bat colony, tourists may enjoy dinner at local restaurants in the downtown area. However, let's be clear about the fact that the daytime temperatures here are quite hot in summer. It's often above 100 degrees F (37.8 degrees C). Within walking distance from the Congress Street Bridge, there are several sightseeing spots, such as the Texas State Capitol and the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum. The Texas State Capitol building in Austin Texas is second in size only to the US Capitol building in Washington DC. Red granites were used to construct the walls of the Texas Capitol. The Goddess of Liberty statue, which was placed on the top of its doom, is always looking out over downtown Austin.
In the suburbs of Austin, there are some lakes that are formed as reservoirs by backing the rivers up with the dams. Tourists may have an outing at the state parks near the shores of the lakes. As written previously, the water quality of these lakes is so-so.
Today's maximum temperature is 101 degrees F (38.3 degrees C).
Monday, June 6, 2011
Got up at eight o'clock in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese rice porridge for lunch, and a BBQ meal for dinner.
"This is an interesting topic found in the Science Magazine website". The following is my comment on it:
This experiment in physics sounds difficult. As described in the topic above, however, the most difficult phases of the experiment have been cleared. If any flaw in the symmetry of characteristics and properties between ordinary matter and antimatter is discovered, it should be of much value in physical science.
Today's maximum temperature is 103 degrees F (39.4 degrees C). It's 105 degrees F (40.6 degrees C) in my neighborhood.
Went to see the movie under the title of "The Conspirator" at the Regal Arbor Theater this evening. Went shopping at a grocery store on the way to our home.
Either the cinematography taken through a faintly frosted filter or the image processing having a similar effect gives an old-world atmosphere in Washington DC in the middle of the nineteenth century as if audiences could appreciate the historical drama through antique window glass. A film based on historical fact is one of my favorite genres. In this film, the then US officials' acts behind closed doors on the trial of Mary Surratt, who was suspected of being involved as a conspirator in the assassination of 16th President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater in April 1865, were carried out on the basis of the retaliation and expediency. The trial represents the imbroglio between faith and national interest.
On the ground of only mere resemblances in the name and religion, this film based on the true story reminded me of the Babington Conspiracy, which was the failed plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I and to release her prisoner Mary Stuart in London in 1586. How strangely, history is twisted and repeated. A serious conspiracy theorist may think that these correspondences should be some signs of a scheme plotted by a devotee of rhetoric behind the scenes of the caricature of the trial that any of the books and films have never dealt with. However, it's easy to make a guess at the meaning of a past event but it's difficult to prove it. In most cases, the truths of old history remain hidden out of sight. Historians study old history relying only on limited sources of records. Some of the existing records are known to be unreliable. As well known, might make right. Indeed, it isn't so easy to know even the truth of an event at the present time. Therefore, it's healthy for people of today to try to accept what a standard history book describes while casting a germ of suspicion. It's easy, isn't it?
For the most part, the movie "The Conspirator" portrays Mary Surratt's case in a manner that is nearly faithful to the standard history books. A screenwriter probably inflates their imagination mostly in the part about how the feelings of the Union Army soon afterward the assassination of the president influenced the result of the trial. In the film, her involvement in the assassination remains a mystery. She may have been either a conspirator or an instigator. She may have been just an innocent.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Got up at eight o'clock in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a dish of Italian pasta for dinner.
I have regarded World Federalism as quite natural since my middle-high-school days or high-school days. I have never read any book treating it as its main theme. Indeed, nobody had taught me its idea. I knew about the existence of the idea that was advocated by two ancient philosophers for the first time when I attended a lecture on philosophy as a general education subject at university or read a textbook about it. In my forties, I still believe that a great majority of the people who are capable of acquiring brief knowledge of world history, understanding elementary geometry, and grasping the current of the times should regard world federalism as the future world system, as a natural consequence. It seems to me that there are a number of potential world federalists in the world today. Some of the people who not only satisfy the conditions above but are also somewhat knowledgeable about international situations and politics should rather easily realize how tough the achievement of its goal would be and how long it would take.
According to a dictionary, the ancient Greek philosophical schools, the Cynics and the Stoics first advocated world federalism. It's at least twenty-four hundred years old. There should exist many versions of world federalism. My version of the world federalism has been explained in my diary several times before. The key feature of mine is the win-win-win for everybody.
Today's maximum temperature is 100 degrees F (37.8 degrees C).
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Got up at eight o'clock in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner.
Today's maximum temperature is 99 degrees F (37.2 degrees C).
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Got up at eight o'clock in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese rice porridge for lunch, and a dish of Italian pasta for dinner.
My opinion on the disposition of imagination shall be told today. Whether the power of the human imagination can be accurately measured or not is unknown to me. Whether my imaginative power is abundant or not is also uncertain. However, it's probably true that I have a notably stronger tendency toward the disposition of imagination than others have. Although it sounds like the habit of daydreaming, I believe that it's different.
When a thing ignites my imagination, the exercise of imagination stays in my brain when dozing on a couch, looking after a garden, taking a bath, taking a shower, driving a car, and other relaxing occasions, though I am unconscious of it. Both the unique idea that I have never hit upon and the thing that was left unnoticed when concentrating my attention on a particular concept while sitting at my desk in a well-mannered way often come to me when my brain is occupied with the imagination while I am unconscious of it. Let's now call it a quasi-unconscious state for the sake of convenience. I'm not sure whether this name is proper or not. The way of thinking in this quasi-unconscious state may be considerably different from that in the normal state with a concentration. It's less logical but more intuitive and manifold, in common with the dream. When an idea occurs to me in the quasi-unconscious state, my way of thinking automatically switches to logical thinking in the normal state in order to examine it closely. Usually, a series of these processes has been untiringly repeated until a reasonable idea can be found. As long as my imagination happens to be oriented in a creative direction, it shouldn't be just daydreaming. In the aspect that the exercise of imagination occurs quasi-unconsciously, however, it bears resemblance to the dream. In the same way that the content of a dream isn't controllable usually, the object of consideration in the quasi-unconscious state isn't easily controllable.
What can be directly managed in this way of thinking are its inputs. When interesting technical topics or data inspire my imagination, my imagination in the quasi-unconscious state may be directed to the creative technical issues related to them. When I am immersed in a predominantly large amount of the selected data for quite a long period of time, my imagination in the quasi-unconscious state may be rather controllably enforced in a certain direction. Probably, some wild and fantastic inputs that come from other fields such as arts and entertainment sometimes emphasize the uniqueness of the output. What it comes down to is that the quality of the output from my imagination should somewhat depend upon both the quality and the quantity of the inputs. The abilities in both the choices and the interpretations of the inputs can be developed with education. Usually, these processes are hard and time-consuming.
When a meaningless puzzling behavior by others started my imagination, unfortunately, absurd questions without solutions kept going around in my head for a while. I am embarrassed to say that I had had a problem in dealing with frustration led by such an uncreative enigmatic thing until recently.
I believe that everybody has a tendency toward the imagination in the half-unconscious state, whether strong or weak. It seems that the tendencies toward both imaginativeness and logicalness are mostly dependent on one's dispositions.
Today's maximum temperature is 99 degrees F (37.2 degrees C).
Friday, June 10, 2011
Got up at eight o'clock in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and pieces of Central Market pizza for dinner.
Trying to stay healthy physically, mentally, and socially is the key to avoiding going astray. As long as people are trying to stay healthy, their tendency towards either the imaginativeness or the logicalness should be safe. The tendency of this self-correction can be educated rather easily, so that it can be made a habit, in childhood.
Stirring up the motivation to do is the other key element. Generally, people are motivated by several reasons such as desires, pride, vanity, and so on. Some of these factors meet with general public approval in a society, but others don't. Probably, the correctness and the incorrectness of the means to self-motivate depend upon social customs and religions in each society. However, when people engage in fields that seek truth for their own sake, such as natural science, economics, jurisprudence, sociology, psychology, and linguistics, they have to be objective. More strictly speaking, scientific objectiveness is a necessary condition in these fields. Although people may be motivated by the desire, for instance, the desire for truth, the desire for achievement, or more worldly desires, they have to be free from it in the midst of research. It's easy for some to attain both a state of selflessness and a change in mental orientation, but it's hard for others to do. Because of its unconsciousness, in the above-mentioned quasi-unconscious state, people can be nearly free from any desires, pride, and vanity.
If any desire, pride, and vanity have to be denied or suppressed all the time in order to pursue selflessness further, a considerable degree of stagnation should be unavoidable. Stirring up the motivation is necessary for living people who are engaging in the quests, especially at the painful stages, like the stage for both the choices and the interpretations of the inputs for scientific thinking explained yesterday.
Today's maximum temperature is 100 degrees F (37.8 degrees C).
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Got up at eight forty-five in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese rice porridge for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. Stayed at home for the entire day.
The Reunion Tower is a part of the Hyatt Regency Dallas Hotel that is located in downtown Dallas Texas. There is an observation deck and a restaurant in the globe-shaped structure on the top of the Reunion Tower. At night, the illuminations on the tower lit up. The Dallas World Aquarium, which is adorned with the touch of the Central American jungles, is one of our favorite places in Texas. Water in the aquarium should contain a copious amount of organic matter. My wife likes manatees very much. The webcam that all the time displays manatees in a water tank at the DWA can be found at the following site:
http://www.dwazoo.com/d/node/30
Today's maximum temperature is 99 degrees F (37.2 degrees C).
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Got up at eight forty-five in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a dish of Italian pasta for dinner. Looked after my yards this evening. The growth rate of lawns in our yards is very slow due to severe drought this summer.
There are several Renaissance Festivals at the regular places in Texas in the regular seasons every year. My wife and I visited the Renaissance Festival near the small city of Magnolia, Southern Texas in autumn three times. The photos below were taken there in October 2006. Not a few of the attendants dress up as their likes in the medieval style at the Texas Renaissance Festival, which is one of the nation's largest because the festival and the Halloween season fall together on the nearly same period of time. The water quality of an artificial pond inside its site is so-so.
Smoking has never grown into a habit with me in my life because it isn't healthy. Drinking alcohol became a habit with me once because moderate drinking is healthy, but dissatisfiedly it was given up because my circumstances have become rather unsafe since the early 2000s. As well known, when people drink, control over their emotions tends to get out of hand. In a situation where some blackmailers follow our vehicles, try to run their car into ours, walk out in front of our vehicles suddenly, and play tricks on us often in order to make us angry, drinking alcohol is quite unsafe. A sort of Asian people sometimes use a situation in which alcoholic drinks are being served in order to lower others. That's inelegant and nasty.
Today's maximum temperature is 100 degrees F (37.8 degrees C).
Monday, June 13, 2011
Got up at six forty-five in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese rice porridge for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner.
Judging from the recent occurrence written below, it's now certain that the influence of excess air-cooling at the office when engaging in pressing business in an excessively hot summer and/or taking several prescription medicines daily for the reduction of high blood pressure, etc. led to my persistent cough in 2003. In other words, stress due to several causes, especially a large difference and a rapid change in temperature and overwork, was the main cause for my sickness those days. As written previously, my persistent cough had gotten better gradually and had died down in 2004.
On a few nights last week, my wife and I absentmindedly forgot to turn off the air conditioner in the cooling mode. On the last night with air-cooling, a slight cough with phlegm unfortunately recurred. In the daytime on the next day, my head sometimes swam. Since that day, we have ensured that the air conditioner in the cooling mode is turned off before we fall asleep. As long as the air-cooling is turned off during our sleeping hours, however, it's confirmed for the last few days that my health condition is good. When precautions against air-cooling are surely taken, for instance by dressing up warmly or installing a heater on the seatback in an immoderately air-cooled room, my good health can be maintained.
It goes without saying that illness induced by air-cooling or medication is never infectious.
Today's maximum temperature is 101 degrees F (38.3 degrees C).
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Got up at seven forty-five in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese rice porridge for lunch, and a Japanese-Western meal for dinner. Went out shopping at grocery stores this evening.
Although the phrase liberated thinking that isn't bound to established ideas sounds hackneyed, it's an undeniable fact that liberated thinking is one of the primary necessities for a person who does research. However, it's also true that the number of potential offenders on average in a society should increase with strengthening the educational policy orienting to liberated thinking from tender years. It seems that, in science in university education and above, the routine and protective thinking that is bound to fixed ideas should be removed to a certain degree. Only at an appropriate age and above, established notions in some limited fields can be safely shattered with the education intended for this purpose. A grown-up person can cope with that, though the thinking that is once concealed in frames can't be easily relaxed. An easygoing let-alone policy during college following an education that regiments children should be ineffective and wasteful.
For the other fields such as art, which requires a higher degree of liberated thinking and sensation, it probably has to be carried out at a younger age than for science it does. A talent education in childhood may be effective in the field of art; especially to develop a talent required for a special skill.
However, it's doubtful whether a so-called early education makes sense for the development of liberated thinking or not. Early education for liberated thinking is risky especially when it's conducted for a large majority of children because as a by-product it may send many potential criminals out to the world. The risk can be minimized when it's conducted only for children with special abilities. However, it's difficult to discover a potential talent in the imagination, which is an essential element of genius, because imagination can't be measured reasonably.
In any field, a genius, who is gifted with outstanding talents and received the highest level of education while being free from established ideas, should be rare. A great genius, who has a great personality in addition to that, should be extremely rare. It seems that a genius can't be systematically grown but may be discovered on very rare occasions.
Today's maximum temperature is 99 degrees F (37.2 degrees C).
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Got up at seven o'clock in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner.
Today's maximum temperature is 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Got up at eight o'clock in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese rice porridge for lunch, and a dish of Italian pasta for dinner.
Today's maximum temperature is 103 degrees F (39.4 degrees C).
Friday, June 17, 2011
Got up at eight o'clock in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and pieces of Central Market pizza for dinner.
Today's maximum temperature is 106 degrees F (41.1 degrees C).
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Got up at eight o'clock in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese rice porridge for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner.
Today's maximum temperature is 106 degrees F (41.1 degrees C).
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Got up at nine o'clock in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch. Overhauled my lawn trimmer by replacing its old sparking plug and damaged fuel hoses and cleaning its calibrator up. Ate a dish of Italian pasta for dinner.
Today's maximum temperature is 105 degrees F (40.6 degrees C).
Monday, June 20, 2011
Got up at seven-thirty in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch. Looked after the hedges covered half the front of our house. Repaired the nozzle attached to the edge of a hose for the watering of the flowers and trees planted in our front yard. Ate a Japanese meal for dinner.
For some reason or other, the aforementioned blackmailers did something naughty around here today. Rather confusingly, they are recently dressed in red. As a classic ploy for all ages and in Asia, the ultraconservatives often domesticate the gangsters who don't mind doing dirty work. It seems that their indecent tactics might have been exported to Europe and America recently. Contrariwise, some regions of the West might have devised such a vulgar scheme since much earlier.
This is one of the most vicious schemes by the ultraconservatives, which hasn't been seriously contested in a primitive world. The modern civilization shouldn't take in nor revive such a nasty scheme.
Today's maximum temperature is 102 degrees F (38.9 degrees C).
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Got up at seven-fifteen in the morning. Ate bacon & eggs for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. Went out shopping at a grocery store this evening.
Today's maximum temperature is 101 degrees F (38.3 degrees C).
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Got up at seven-thirty in the morning. The rain that the thunderstorm front brought to the Austin area in the early morning has mitigated severe drought to some degree. Ate a bowl of Japanese rice porridge for lunch. Lubricated my 3/8" drill and hedge trimmer. Ate a Japanese meal for dinner.
Today's maximum temperature is 90 degrees F (32.2 degrees C).
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Got up at seven forty-five in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a dish of Italian pasta for dinner.
Today's maximum temperature is 95 degrees F (35 degrees C).
Friday, June 24, 2011
Got up at seven o'clock in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese rice porridge for lunch, and pieces of California Pizza Kitchen's pizza for dinner.
Today's maximum temperature is 97 degrees F (36.1 degrees C).
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Got up at nine forty-five in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. Stayed at home for the entire day.
Today's maximum temperature is 97 degrees F (36.1 degrees C).
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Got up at eight-fifteen in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese rice porridge for lunch. Went out shopping at grocery stores this evening. Ate a BBQ meal for dinner.
Today's maximum temperature is 97 degrees F (36.1 degrees C).
Monday, June 27, 2011
Got up at seven-thirty in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner.
The aforementioned blackmailers have started taking another usual measure of theirs, recently. They often carry out a sinister scheme by making some relatives of a target person take part in their dirty work.
Tonight, a close relative of mine who previously started some outrageous rumors about me telephoned me again in order to make a stand for seniors and females in the Asian ultraconservatives and blackmailer groups. This scheme is designed to safeguard their fellows by faking seniority and feminism.
Today's maximum temperature is 99 degrees F (37.2 degrees C).
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Got up at seven forty-five in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese rice porridge for lunch, and a dish of Japanese noodles for dinner.
Today's maximum temperature is 99 degrees F (37.2 degrees C).
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Got up at eight-fifteen in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese noodle soup for lunch, and a dish of Italian pasta for dinner.
Today's maximum temperature is 99 degrees F (37.2 degrees C).
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Got up at eight o'clock in the morning. Ate a bowl of Japanese rice porridge for lunch, and a Japanese meal for dinner. Went out shopping at grocery stores after dinner.
Due to very severe drought this spring and summer, the ground surface in our yards has shrunken to some extent, so that a fissure about half an inch in width between the walls of our house and the ground arose. This fissure was filled in with soil this evening.
Today's maximum temperature is 100 degrees F (37.8 degrees C).
