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Interests |
 Hiking
- Really into hiking since my place is one mile from Mission
Trails Regional Park in two different directions. This is
one of the largest urban parks in the country and
encompasses 5,800 acres. In the background you can see
Cowles Mountain which actually is the highest point within
the San Diego city limits. The hike is about 3 miles round
trip and is a level 5 trail, which is considered to be
difficult based on a 1 to 5 rating scale. From the top is a
panoramic view of San Diego which stretches all the way from
the ocean to the mountains at the edge of San Diego County. |
 Mountain bike riding
- This is a picture of the back of Mission Trails Regional
Park. This section of the park has miles and miles of trails
through meadows and over small hills. Mostly grassy with
some small bushes much of which turns brown during the
Summer months. |
 Camping
- We usually go camping a couple times every year in the
Cleveland National Forest. This is our favorite campground
because the camping spaces are really spread apart and, if
you go during the week, you can pretty much get the place to
yourself. This campground is up at around 5,600 feet in
elevation. Not exactly Mount Fuji but pretty high for San
Diego County. Tons of wildlife up here including birds like
blue jays, woodpeckers, crows, and hawks. You can also find
squirrels, raccoons, field mice, coyotes, and an occasional
mountain lion, although very rare. Oh yeah, one year it had
just rained and there were thousands of small tree frogs
everywhere. They were even in the bathrooms. They were
really cute although Akiko wasn't too thrilled with them. |
 Wine
- I was really not much of a drinker over the years except
at parties and other social occasions. After Akiko and I met several years ago,
I began to appreciate wine. Akiko knows quite a bit about the different
varieties. My favorite is Cabernet Sauvignon. Last year we drove up to San
Francisco to visit friends and went up north to Napa Valley and Sonoma County,
California wine country. We visited many wineries many of which offered free
wine tasting. It was a lot of fun. |
 Traveling
-
You can find out more about this if you visit the places
section of my site.
Places |
 Learning languages
- Hmmmm, let's see. I studied the following languages.
English - Fairly proficient.
Hebrew - Studied for 3 years. Can still read a little bit
but pretty much forgot most of the vocabulary.
French - Studied for 3 years. Can read a little and still
remember some vocabulary.
Spanish - Took one semester and can understand a little.
Japanese - Completed an A.A. degree in Japanese studies.
Traveled to Japan on four separate occasions. Two of the
trips included three months each with Japanese families. Can
understand and speak the language at least enough for a
basic conversation. Really technical conversations are not
possible due to lack of vocabulary. Can read a little bit
but need to learn thousands of kanji, Chinese characters. |
 Learning about different cultures
- Probably the best way to learn about the world is to
travel to your countries of interest and hang out with the
locals. This picture was taken on a really old sleeper train
which we rode for 10 hours from Bangkok Thailand to Chiang
Mai, Thailand, a city up in the northern mountains. It was
right before New Year's and we went to Thailand for 10 days
including this trip up north for a 3-day trekking tour. This
was the party car in the middle of the train where everyone
was drinking, including the train workers. Akiko is in the
orange shirt, and Rieko is a Japanese girl we met on the
train who was en route to Africa to continue her world
travels. It was an unbelievable experience. |
 |
 Star
Trek - Pretty much limited to the Original Series and
The Next Generation. Really could not get into the other
spinoffs. A couple links for watching the old shows.
Full episodes of the original series on Fancast
Full episodes of the original series on YouTube - Season 1
Full episodes of the original series on YouTube - Season 2
Full episodes of the original series on YouTube - Season 3
|
 Total science geek - Anything related to meteorology,
geology, geography, astronomy. |
 Surfing
-
Hey, this Summer I am going surfing for the first time after
many years in SD.
http://surfing-gooroo.com/ |
Fishing - Yup, I really like fishing. Spent the last few years
trying to work out a formula to figure out when the fish
would be biting. Needless to say, still working on it.
This is a picture of the Ocean Beach pier. Anyway, thought it might be cool to put this fishing report
up this year since this is the last fishing season before
moving to Japan. |
|
Ocean Beach Fishing Report |
|
Date |
Caught |
Fish |
Conditions |
| 4/19/09 |
18 |
Sardines |
Warm-80's, calm wind |
| 4/20/09 |
12
1
1 |
Sardines
Jacksmelt
Mackerel |
Warm-80's, calm wind,
Ocean H2O-64
Light Waves |
| 5/7/09 |
0 |
|
Awful
conditions, record high surf, looked cool
but no fish |
| 5/18/09 |
1
1 |
Mackerel
Smelt |
Cloudy,
windy, and not very warm |
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