I bought a used iPad mini a fer days ago to replace an aged (meaning obsolete) car navigation system. For the price, the iPad looks good but there is always a catch if you grab cheap stuff; its Wi-Fi connection is very unstable. The thing did get connected once or twice out of hundreds of tries. I have had to spend the whole day and night ever since yesterday to figure out what’s wrong with it, but so far, it doesn’t seem to be worked out.

Having stayed up all night to struggle with the whimsical device in vain, I finally became sick and tired to solve the problem, and I stepped out of my house this morning in order to breathe fresh air. I am not an early bird, but it’s good to walk in the crisp air at the crack of dawn. As soon as opening the door, I found what yesterday’s heavy rain and strong wind have done to the cherry tree about ten yards from my house.

This movie must be interesting. I always enjoy seeing the movies at Sakaimachi Garow gallery, which is run by my old friend ever since high school days.

One thing I was worried about was the projector’s unsuitable placing. it was situated temporarily on an unstable box or stack of books on a sculpture pedestal, because the pedestal is too low for the screen. Thanks to the wide lens, the projector was placed right in the middle the first row of the audience, but it occupies an area for one or two viewers, and the cables are running all over around it, so that there is a good chance of one can get caught and tip it over– causing a disaster.

I recently helped the gallery introduce a new and more powerful projector. It comes with high definition image quality and a brighter lamp, but has to be placed farther back due to its focusing ability; therefore it needs more height in order to clear the audience’s heads. I don’t by the idea to set the expensive device on an insecure makeshift pedestal.

To solve these problems, I made a new “pedestal extender” that helps to place the projector higher and stabler. The materials are mostly from the leftover lumbers for my Hanase house.

Now that the new projector has the function of horizontal keystone correction, it may sit immediately next to a sidewall of the gallery. It takes away only a small area and the cables can be run along the wall to avoid a tangling-blunder accident. The extender has an angle-adjustable top plate to compensate the keystone correction, and it can sit up-side-down so as to lower the height.

So, finally I can fully enjoy watching the movie at Sakaimachi Garow without getting bothered by the projector in sight and worried by its instability.

  Here comes the cherry blossom season.

Yesterday, I took these photos shown down below.  The cherry trees were beautifully flowering then, but if you walk or drive down the streets of Kyoto today, you will come across cherry trees even closer to their full-blossom culmination; only one day makes a big difference, for it’s been warm enough these days.

I don’t care much about SNS any more and don’t even glance my eye at the posts, but there must be a lot of cherry blossom photos all over in the timelines in this time of the year in Japan as usual. And I, too, don’t hesitate to show off just another cherry pics here– meaning I am, after all, just another Japanese crazy about the gorgeous but fragile and transient cherry blossom.

Building a second-floor verandah is both tedious repetition of simple timber work like cutting out halved joints and thrilling tightrope-dance-like balance work on a crossbeam.

With all the joist work done, I can start planking the deck, which can be only a one-day job. Planking is also boring but doing tenons and mortises of the banisters and handrail is even worse.

I don’t stint myself of time and effort to figure out the  corner-cutting way, but at the same time, I have to think about the structural strength for safety of the railing– that’s why I can’t sleep now.

I have been working on renovation of my house in Hanase.

The floor is done, the washbaisin is installed, and the kitchen components are put together.

These days, I am concentrating on the second-floor verandah and doing a sort of aerial act. With an impact screw driver in hand, standing on top of a ladder, it’s hard on my right foot, which has been aching from the nail wound I got the other day.

Well, it’s almost done and I can move onto the next work to do: toilet installation– another hard job.