Motorcycle photo diary

Our First Motorcycle Trip

"Faster, faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death..."
Hunter S. Thompson

Well, we didn't go thaa-at fast, but a week of riding under a crystal-blue Indian Summer sky through southern Manitoba, North and South Dakota and Wyoming was nothing short of a spiritual experience.

Aside from the obvious destination highlights of the the trip, including the iconic Mt. Rushmore, the bohemoth and eerie Devil's Tower (above), and the legendary gunslinging town of Deadwood, supposed site of "Wild Bill" Hickok's last days, the highlight of the trip for me was simply being on a 1450cc Soft-tail Springer Harley Davidson, riding alongside Holly and her dad, and her brother, Lincoln, ripping up the highway on three bikes with nothing but open road and blue sky above us.

In total, we covered just over 3,000 km, approximately the distance from Toronto to Porcupine Plain. With it being so late in the riding season, we virtually had the highway all to ourselves, often riding for over an hour without seeing another car. And with such perfect weather and pristine road conditions we couldn't resist testing some engine muscle. On a few straight stretches, Lincoln clocked over 170 kilometres an hour, and my bike peaked at 165 kilometres an hour. I am not usually an adreneline junkie, but when you are going that fast on a bike on such a postcard perfect landscape, your heart almost explodes with happiness. I've had perma-grin ever since, my cheeks actually hurt from grinning so hard - I feel like the Joker from Batman!

There were a few isolated moments of bad weather, and we would have to leather-up in our chaps, gauntlet gloves, and goggles to protect us from the biting cold, but even those moments were blissful, with the smell of leather, gasoline, and cow manure in pastured green fields filling our nostrils. Holly's dad, who loves riding in the states, goes helmetless as soon as he crosses the border so he can capture every subtle sensory nuance, but Holly, Linc and I kept our helmets on.

Holly really loved it too, although probably in a much more passive way since she was a passenger on her dad's bike. She really liked feeling so carefree, being on the open road with all the fresh air, no schedule, no itinerary except choosing which roadside pub / diner to stop at to eat, drink and play pool. Plus, Holly was our onboard photographer, and as you might notice in our photo diary of the trip (see link entitled, motorcycle photo diaries), she took some beauties. I think photography runs in the Agnew blood.

The entire trip went by without any major accident or incident. Well....except for maybe one, tiny, measly, horrific little disaster! To my chagrin, on the first day of our trip, in fact, in the first 15 seconds of us pulling away from the house in Brandon, making my very, very first left-handed turn, having never riden a big bike, nevermind an actual $22,000 Harley Davidson bike, I lost control of it, hit the curb, jumped off, and watched in absolute horror as the bike bounced off the curb and skidded onto it's side, front tire still spinning like a wounded chrome beast, the scene stopping city traffic and drew a crowd of spectators. In that moment, I thought I dropped a sh*tbomb on our entire bike trip. I thought that in my first 15 seconds of riding, I ended my motorcycle career. I thought I would be banished from ever riding a motorcycle again.

To my infinite relief, however, Holly's dad lifted up the bike and straightened out the foot boards which I thought were irreversably bent and would cost me a year's salary to fix but in actuality are built to bend automatically whenever a bike tips to prevent damage. He dusted off the seat and said, "it's fine, get on." In that brief moment, I had the urge to kiss Holly's dad, realizing I had not destroyed a $22,000 bike and had not ruined our entire trip. As it turns out, the bike wasn't at all damaged since the case guards, which all Harleys have, prevented any damage to the body of the bike. The only thing damaged was my pride. However, after this brutal initiation to riding, that was the only incident of the trip.

Make sure you check out the Motorcycle photo diaries link on the Hashimoto Herald home page! Write comments to Hashman4@hotmail.com or on the Hashimoto Herald site.

Yoshi's juvenile architecture

(posted by Mieko)

weather

(posted by Mieko)
www.weather.com

Happy Day!

(posted by Mag with the help of Ken)

Happy Birthday Christian, Chloe and Canada!

test from Edmonton

(posted by Mieko)
test from Edmonton

World Cup Update!

Japan castrates Croatian offense
By Chris Hashimoto

Germany - Although Japanese soccer fans were disappointed their club could not capitalize on some beautiful scoring opportunies, the club did well in shutting down the Croatian strikers, ending the game in a 0-0 draw. Japan is in tough in their next game against Brazil.
Seen here is the managing publisher of the Hashimoto Herald enjoying the Sunday morning game.

The time is ripe for a big idea.......

(posted by Ken)
First, I apologize for the length of this posting. But it is important, so I hope you all read it....

There was a reason why I was so all fired up and eager, I just realized, to teach you guys how to blog. It's amazing how close Chris and I came to registering at the same time, I had been to the site and began to do it, but got distracted. My impetus, however, was not so much the Hashimoto Herald as it was to write a book. I recently have been on a fierce writing binge, a retroactive journal of sorts. It's actually about my trip to Mexico because a classmate had been bugging me for 2 years to write it all down so he could make a movie outof it. Now, I don't think that will actually happen, but for all my own reasons, I'd been wanting to write this and other stories down, so I really appreciate that he bugged me so hard. Anyways, I wrote about 20 pages (in small handwriting,which means about 50 pages of word document), and I'm not even halfway through the story. While I was writing, I was having so much fun that I began to jot down random thoughts,and it dawned on me that we really need to document our strange family history , NOW more than ever, because we are starting to forget little but important pieces of the big picture. Now more than ever because web technology is perfect for our story.

This is why:
Any time I try to tell any story to anyone, I am constantly having to stop and explain more history, or Japanese culture, or why it's so funny when dad says one of his dad-isms, or what the vet-o is, or why we would bid fiercely for Maggie's bellybutton lint. It gets so distracting, especially stricken with attention deficit disorder, that I tend to forget what I was talking about. What one needs, is an infinitely large book, with bookmarks that allow you to jump to the glossary to find out what a torikaysh is, or what we actually meant by "re-shen to me!", and then resume the main story as time allows. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HTML IS FOR.

I went on a bit of a tangent explaining how to make a link, on the blogger site. I ended up apologizing because it seemed too much. Far too confusing considering you don't know how to post a picture yet. But I realized later that it is absolutely crucial to my take on the idea.

Consider this neat feature :(and this is purely just a random example) In the middle of a paragraph which is telling the story about the time we almost burned down the barn at Mom's farm, I would have to stop to explain why we call it Mom's farm, why Chris was in a cardboard box, what a zabuton was, etc, etc. But if you made these mysterious words and phrases live LINKS that you could click on to get an explanation or a background story, you could continue without interrupting the flow of the story. Of course, the juicy part is, the links would contain their own links. Click on the zabuton link, it takes you to the page that explains what it is. That links to the story of how we used to ride the zabuton down the stairs. This links to other dangerous games, like the "jumping off the playhouse roof" club. Then this links to who exactly "Ham Larson" was, or the history of the playhouse, or the amazing day we played on a wooden box in the Hanson's yard, and this links to who the Hansons were. etc, etc. Pretty soon, you can't remember where you were, and you have to kind of start over, but you don't mind because you had so much fun.

AND THIS IS THE HOOK!!!

I have tried writing our story many times in the past, but always had to quit because it just wasn't flying. The main problem is that there is a big danger of writing a long boring story about the Blanzers. EVERY GOOD STORY NEEDS ADVERSITY, A PROTAGONIST, AN UNDERDOG, A TRIUMPH OR A TRAGEDY. The other big danger is the temptation to embellish in order to provide some of these very crucial elements. And to do that would be a crime because so many things are already so hard to believe, like Dad showing up in a Domino's pizza outfit. If there are any lies or exaggeration you have tainted the whole story. And our story, on it's own, isn't really a story. It is simply a very interesting and very complicated, interconnected, highly nuanced chain that has no beginning and no end. It just can't be captured in a standard paperbook. IT HAS TO BE DIGITAL MEDIA. Like Seinfeld, the story is that there is NO STORY. It is a web.

This, by the way, is a genre that is just coming into it's own. There is even a name for it, a "blook". And they have awards for it. Usually it is just a standard blog site, a journal or collection of thoughts, that gets passed on by word of mouth and chain email, and it gets popular without one cent of publicity expense, no agents, no publishing costs. The chain link idea is purely my own invention, my theory and reasoning for why the Hashimoto story has to be a website is pulled right out of my head...I don't know of any precedent for it. Which is also why I think it is so exciting. I truly don't care if there is any fame or money to be had. My biggest reason for doing it would be because it's fun, and because it's important that we remember this stuff. And to pass it on to our kids. I know that Mag, you have always been passionate and effective about telling Christian and Chloe about pieces of the past, but I'm sure it is onlythe tip of the iceberg. We need to collaborate.

I am so excited, I was going to do it myself, I have already begun. However, it would be much more self sustaining in it's momentum and complexity if you guys could help. Not only to help me remember, but to provide your opinion, or your side of the same story.That in itself can be another hook...the same story told by different points of view. Truly the possibilities are endless, because the story is endless. Name one book that is different every time you read it. No such thing. But this one would be.

Think about it. And as I repeated so many times already....just do it. Participate even in the smallest way, and the contributionto the overall momentum is invaluable. This blogger site could be the natural source of raw material for this blook, but I already realize this cannot be it. The blog is essentially one long page. The blook requires that separate incidents be on different pages,in order to link them together. But I can take care of that part. I just want you all to contribute to the blog, get some buzz going. I should mention here that even if you are completely unable to do the blog thing, please write stuff down and email it to me, I would be glad to post it for you.

Oh, there is one other reason why digital media is so appropriate. All of the most interesting stories lead back to dad, or are heavily linked to him. And whether we like it or not, whether we intend to be mean and cutting or not, most of it paints him in a negative light. I could not bear the thought of a massive book of unflattering stories about him becoming famous. I had often said that such a book could not be released while he is still alive and able to read. And that would be a shame, he is probably going to outlive half of us, so essentially we could not ever write or release it. If the story existed only in cyberspace, however, we could show him only what we chose to show him. Even if someone told him about some part of the story we wanted to protect him from, it would not have been like we were deliberately hiding it from him. If he really wanted to, nobody is stopping him from getting a computer or a library account.
See how much I'm writing? I'm out of freakin' control here. I should'a been a writer.......

OK....GET WRITING!!!!!!!
Kenbo

Gettin' fancy.......

(posted by Ken)
Most of these features are basic, you have probably seen them in other programs. Especially the text ones, you can just poke around...you can't do too much damage.
The function (to the extreme right with a long arrow pointing at it from the right )"editing html", is where the REALLY FANCY functions are hiding. You can add noises (yes, even bells and whistles), moving text, avatars, everything you've ever seen on other sites. But for now, stay away. I will teach you in due time.

Take a peek by clicking if you want, but don't change anything. Go back to compose if you get scared. What you see, unless it's a blank page, is called HTML. It is HyperText Markup Language. Like any language, some people understand it, some don't. These:<> are called tags. Look on any webpage, and click on the dropdown menu "view", then "source". You will see the same strange language. For example, by sandwiching any word with and you have just turned that middle word into bold type.

[interesting observation: I know that this preceding sentence did not make sense. This is because I tried to use tags preceding and following the word "and" to show you how to turn it into bold type (there are 2 ways to do this, one is to use the button with a letter b for an icon, and the other way is to type in the html language with these things"<"+">"), but the computer thinks that it's an actual command. So I know it sounds dumb and mysterious, but don't use these:"<"+">"]

That's how they used to make websites, but now they spoonfeed us with sites like this. Once you become computer geeks, you can learn to easily rip off cool functions by stealing the code by just copying and pasting.

One of these cool functions is a link, which I will teach you now, since it is provided by a handy button already, you don't have to know html.
This is a link. You know it is because it is green and underlined, and when you move your mouse over it, the cursor turns into a hand. It is clickable, so go on, try clicking it. To get back, just hit the back button. Sorry, it may not work so good for those of you with dialup. It takes you to a funny video about smart animals. (Incidentally, Emily, it is the one that I told Joey that I would send.) Don't worry, the website is clean in it's default form because there are parental controls, but I do not recommend you leave the kids unattended to watch other videos, because it is addictive, and also because it is possible to disable the parental controls.

How do you do it? First you find a website that you want to link to....say hotmail, whatever you want. Then you highlight a word or a picture. While it is still highlighted you click on the link icon. You will get a dialogue box, into which you paste your address. THAT'S IT. You "publish post" (the orange button at the bottom), when you are done.

Ok. I may have overwhelmed some you guys. Sorry, I am really getting off on this. I could have been a good teacher, no? Maybe stick to pictures and text for now. I was just trying to de-mystify some of the magic.

The graphics and pictures I pre-made in Photoshop. There doesn't seem to be a "crayon" or drawing or colouring option on this site.

Oh, I should mention: some functions, like the spellcheck works as a pop up window. If you have a pop up destroyer, it needs to be disabled first. I know...mumbo jumbo, right Emily? I guess the simplest of rules applies...if it doesn't work, don't stress about it.


But I can't emphasize enough....YOU JUST HAVE TO TRY IT.
GOOD LUCK!!!!

posting a picture

Ok. So that maybe wasn't hard enough? You want to add a picture, you say?
I hope you all took heed of my earlier letter telling you to do some homework. I will repeat it, because it is important.
-Learn what is a "web friendly" image size.
-Learn to compress an image if it is too big.
-Put them all in a folder, with subfolders and understandable, recognizable titles, preferably.

Back to the lesson: Click the icon of a photograph (see previous page, which is below, not above this one). You will then get page 5, shown above .Hit the browse button. browse. hit the blue "upload image" button.THAT'S IT.All right. I COMMAND that you ALL TRY THIS.

Note: once you have posted an image, it is "as is" at that moment in time. That means you can alter, move, or delete that image, and it doesn't affect the website. However, the corollary to this is that if you change your image, like getting rid of red-eye or cropping it, you can't expect the website to automatically update the image....you would have to re-upload the image.
I want to also squeeze another vocabulary lesson in here. You notice I keep saying "upload"...that is because you're "giving" an image to cyberspace. Downloading is taking. Both are good. Unless it's illegal porn.