Snowboarding with Takeru

2017/1/5, Sierra-at-Tahoe, GoPro taken from behind Takeru

2017/2/11,Sugar Bowl, Rob shot GoPro from behind me

Other videos of going through trees

Ruri and Takeru visits

It's been a long time since I last updated the blog. They have grown but still we need to keep a digital photo trail continuing.

Takeru and me on Prismo beach after visiting Cal Poly

Ruri and me on bicycle trip to Sausalito

I took Takeru on High Way one between Prismo beach and Morro bay, so he understand what is like to have a big machine, and have respect to motorcycle if he really want to do it in the future.

Takeru has grown so tall!

Camping after a long time

Takeru just came back from Japan, still jet lagged but want to go camping. It's almost impossible to find a camp site open in the middle of summer, especially for Saturday since all the kids are on holiday. No matter, we just packed and went to take our chances. 

Of course, we went there late (arrived 11:30am) so the ranger said the camp was full. We decided to go hiking up the Pescadero creek. It was really beautiful.

 When we get back to the park office, still no luck, and the park ranger suggested that we drive to the next camp site called Butano state park, which we stayed before also. Luck has it, when we get there, they were full as well, but the lady said she just called Memorial park, and there were opening! That's wired, we just came from Memorial! She said someone just checked out, so we rushed back to claim our spot:-)

Finally, it will not be a great beach outing with out my rock art:-)

We'll be back!

Early music ensemble performance at Villar Montalvo

Ruri's ensemble performed at the 100 anniversary of Villa Montalvo.

Arduino!

Discovered this wonderful open source hardware platform from a colleague, now I know what we can do to modify the birthday present Takeru got (a Tamiya forklift).

First we got the Arduino Uno board and some LED, here is Takeru designing a traffic lights (cross street) with a speaker for blind pedestrian.

Finally, we bought some plexiglass and spaces, nuts/bolt and made a platform for adding future sensors etc to the forklift. First project will be to use a IR remote control to drive it (instead of the dangling wire). Then with sensors we will try to make it autonomous (somewhat).

Takeru end of semester recital

One of Bach's six little Prelude, and my favorite Haydn Sonata #23 F Major.

Thanksgiving family concert

We were invited to celebrate Thanksgiving with Ruri's teacher. Here is one where Takeru, Ruri played together with Sally (Ruri's teacher). The piece is Chaconne by Henry Purcell.

My piano

Finally, I made this video using iPad, and I was nervous knowing that I'm recording it....I'm happy that I can play songs from Enya, SENS, Yiruma, very relaxing for me.

Takeru's piano recital and Ruri's Merit Recital

Takeru playing Bach, Mendelssohn and Chopin. I think he played with a lot of sensitivity, a little fast maybe. However he likes fast songs, and consider sentimental songs boring....



Ruri's solo Nightingale is a lot of fun to listen to. I think she is having her own interpretation of these music and has grown a lot after playing a lot of ensemble music.

Music Music!

I got into the game last weekend, accompanying Ruri and her teach's duet. It was fun! I think I'll do it again.

Ruri and Takeru playing at Mother's day concert

Finally Ruri and Takeru playing at Merit Scholar mother's day concert together, even though Takeru is not yet a merit scholar on piano yet. Playing together is one of the best way for them to improve and be aware of all the important aspects of the pieces. It's also more enjoyable for the audience because it is more intimate type of music (chamber/baroque). Very well done.

Wait There, by Yiruma, with Tibet scenary

One of my better takes of playing Yiruma's Wait there.

Santa Cruz Baroque Music Festival

Ruri and their ensemble "The CSMA Early Music Minstrels" won the Grand prize for the young musicians competition, and performed at the concert. It was their first time to perform in front of paying audience, and they had a lot of applause, so much so that we thought they were preparing for an encore after the audience stop clapping and they seem to be preparing something. They took the brief pause and concentration of the audience to announce that they want to invite their teacher back on stage, and to present her a flower bouquet. That was a master stroke...more applause.

"The evening's program opened with a performance by the Early Music Minstrels, from the Community School of Music and Arts in Mountain View. This ensemble: Ruri Wen-Matsui, recorders; Kyle Liu, bassoon; Clark Wu harpsichord; and Lauren Biglow, voice and cello; won first place in the Festival's Youth Chamber Music Competition. Their own arrangement of a 13th-century song, "Cantiga de Santa Maria No.100" showed understanding of medieval musical practice as well as excellent interpretive and technical skills. Vivaldi's "Sonata in A-minor for Recorder, Bassoon, and Continuo" displayed precision and sprightly energy."

Here is the link to the Santa Cruz Sentinel article:


Here is a few photos of them practicing and performing. And the local newspaper had a nice review of their concert.

Fun with iPad

Ruri and Takeru as invited to an iPad Magic Fiddle workshop by the founder of SMule, and they made some Christmas songs together, it was really fun.



It was on San Jose Mercury

Here is an youtube clip if you want to play it more seriously. Apple are fantastic!

Ruri's surprise birthday party

Ruri's friends decided to throw a surprise birthday party for Ruri, it was really nice and I think Ruri will remember for the rest of her life. I was very unsure about having to entertain the teenage girls, but they were very normal (other than when they all have an itouch in hand:-) They even tried to learn and made Chinese jiaozhi un-supervised while I was making something else.

Takeru's first snowboard run

This thanksgiving was very busy....but Takeru should be happy, he did snowboarding, snowshoe, and diving first time in the same week! It was fun.

Takeru and me on the same lift when he skied first time (4yrs old) and snowboard (11 yrs old). I'm still wearing the same ski wear! Also, i took the photo last time, but Takeru took this one!





Here is the action:

Ruri's individual concert in Japan

Ruri performed for family and friends at the Blue Eye Cafe in Kyoto Japan. She basically played through her repertoire, a good 45 minutes of recorder music, without accompaniment. Bravo!

Part 1:



Part 2:



Part 3:

Takeru's class project

Pretty funny, and Takeru is now a slingshot expert now.

Ruri's national result

Ruri did a very good job at her first national. She made out of the heat for the long distance, and skated under 10s laps, which she didn't think she could do. Also not all heats are the same. For her 500m heats, her time as faster than the first of other heat, so it seemed not fair that she didn't got to semi where others slower did, but such is the fact of speedskating.

I'm waiting to get some video from coach, but here is one photo I stole from the website.

Surfing at Capitola

During the Labor day weekend, we went to Santa Cruz Cowell beach, but the surfing lessons were full, so we drove down to Capitola, at the end of 41, we found this beautiful surfing spot, called the hook. It was a pleasant surprise, see the picture perfect gentle wave for beginners..



I wasn't going in with Takeru after my debacle of my surfing lesson in Hawaii, but Takeru said he will be fine by himself, wow he is almost 12 I forgot...so I told him to carry the board from the shop to the beach, and after finishing, return it by himself, and he did. I guess he is strong enough to take care of himself in the water...







Luckily, there was an old surf bum there to help him out, his name is Joe, and he has a custom made board for $1200. We paid $25 for the whole day for the board and wetsuit, instead of the $80 lesson for 2hrs with many student.



We will be back.....yeh I picked up an O'Neill wetsuit from the end of season sale on 41 on our way back, so I guess I'll be surfing too:-) One of the little wave Takeru manage to get on by himself..

Long boarding

Takeru long boarding in the park, i think we need to get another board for me...

Video of Maui

Just found this little video on my phone, before it gets lost...

new time!

At today's practice we did a few flying 100, wow is what I can say. Ruri hit 10"1, and I hit 10"5, this is record for both of us. Of course Sara/Wouter both hit 9"1, it was incredible how fast they were going. Ruri is ready for the nationals. Unfortunately I may not be able to go to Lincoln at all as I have a bid proposal with deadline on the 9th, it was simply the worst possible timing. Ruri will be racing on the 7-8 th.

Last long practice before national

Today is the last long practice before the national. Ruri has improved quite a bit over the last month since she decided to go to nationals, after a grueling interval (10s sprint, 10s roll, 20/20,30/30,40/40,50/50,60/60,50/50,40/40,30/30,20/20,10/10) she clocked the fastest 500 so far with the fastest lap 10.3". We did 2 back-to-back 500, the first one I got out first, but got passed by Ruri and her teammate, the second one I got out at 3rd but hold off a few attempted passes until the end. I think I would have to be 10.6" or so.

Soccer!

We haven't been taking video of the games...here is a few photos with Takeru in the thick of the game. It seems middle field is the right position for him, and he enjoys it, and playing FIFA games helps him understanding the ideas behind transition games.

Music music!

It's the season again. This year, Ruri has focused on playing with others in ensemble: The CSMA Early Music Minstrels.

Here are their recent performance. The young people arranged some of the music themselves, and it sounded great.

Sonata in C Major by G. F. Handel (I. Larghetto and V. Allegro)



Estampie and Cantiga de Santa Maria # 100

Regional and National

Ruri is going to the nationals, so she has to get qualified at the regionals. Last weekend we were at Sacramento for the weekend of racing. Ruri took part in the novice division, regional (saturday) and standard division (sunday).

During the long race (1000m) Ruri didn't get out the starting line aggressively and had to play catch up. As she was trying to pass the third time, she got DQed for riding out....this was the first time she ever got DQed, and I actually congratulated her (yes I'm not supposed to encourage her for that:-)

For the standard division, she was 3 point behind a second year Sophomore girl (Ruri is first year Sophomore) so she had to win. We talked about the strategy of going to the front first, and lead 2-3 laps then drop to cruising speed, and draft until 2 laps to go for the kill. She did exactly that, and won the race. The short race was interesting, she was leading all the way and many times she was close to be passed but she hold her corner by stepping all the way and skating close to pylon, and won both races.

She also did well in the open (Sophomore above and Senior below) but clearly she was not able to hang with the big girls. Now one month to nationals (7/3- 10) in Lincoln Nebraska.

Some photos (Copyright Kevin Bailey).

Home meet

The floor is painted, practiced on the new floor, ready for the weekend.

Aloha!

Some photos of actions in Maui.

Takeru's first surfing lesson



We know Monarch Butterfly goes to Hawaii from Mexico for Winter, but one of them flew into my hand!

Duet: Lauren and Ruri on recorder

It is fun to see them working together musically and figuring out how to do it without so much hand holding from their teachers, they are now musician:-)

To a Wild Rose: Tenor Recorder and Piano

Last time Takeru and Ruri played together was the Jazz recorder duet. I'm looking forward to more duets from them.

Music and more music

Takeru's student recital. This is the last recital with Takeru's current teacher, who will be returning to her home country. There will be changes in life, like his middle school, he may not like the fact that he is not going to the same school his pals will be going, but it may be more fun...we'll find out.

Will upload Ruri and Takeru's duet (maybe solo and accompany:-) and Ruri's duet with a singer, and her Merit recital later.

Soccer!!!

We went up to Redding (out of all nice places in California:-) for the State tournament. This is the first time we took part in so the expectation was low. Luck has conspired to avoid Fury (actually more like justice avoided our team:-) we were not going to the next round, losing at the 4th tie-breaker. This is still pretty good for the team, only one team out of 4 teams advance, and by drawing, our bracket is the one who only send out one team.

We won two games: 3:0, 2:1, and drew one game: 2:2, the other team had 3:0, 1:0, and 2:2. According to FIFA rule, we advance, but according to this tournament rule, they do (they rank points, head to head game, goal difference, goals allowed, goals scored). Everyone was heartbroken, we prepared champagne (cider of course) for the kids but still we toast what was a fantastic tournament. It's great to watch them taking on teams with big kids, with latin american style passing team, without substitutes (two of our key players were at Hockey tournament). Best of all, the game was like a mini-world cup (at least for the parents). To top it off, four of the boys got stuck in the closet (the hotel had a defect lock that shouldn't be installed) and they were stuck there for 1 hr, and fire department had to be called in:-). It was a great experience!

Just a few photos of Takeru playing.

Slide show with personalized music

A slide show mostly of Takeru and Ruri fooling around. The music "To a wild rose" by Edward McDowell, played by Ruri on Tenor recorder, Takeru on Piano. They are practicing for their recital, and this is their first take. I'm looking forward to more.

Holloween and more fishing

Washing machine and Wii remote, not scary but fun!



More fishing at Half moon bay, we even caught a crab with new technology: a contraption that can be casted out far from shore. The trick is to put some smelling fish (I found sardine or smelt with blood) will make the crab working on the bait for a while, then you just snap it, catching its leg with one of the wires. It's quite ingenious! We got this red crab (they are not controlled like the dungeon crab).





Oh, while looking for new place to fish, we run into this guy catching a 15lb rock fish, quite incredible. I'm not sure how to even cook that fish! Probably should throw it back.