One on One Bike Shop

Just before the Christmas shutdown at work, 3 co-workers and I visited this bike shop in downtown Minneapolis for lunch. We went to see the photos of Caroline Yang who is a local shooter that has been to the Tour de France for the last few years. Her work is really terrific. There is something about her colors that explode off the page. I hope to talk to her someday and see what she is doing in post because she must have a color recipe.

As if the photo shop wasn't enough, I was told before hand that I must see the basement of these place. You see, this location has had a few different shops but they have all had some kind of bicycle interest. As such they have collected a huge mass of bikes. There must be thousands of them just stacked on top of each other up to the ceiling. As you can see from a few of the photos I have.

My absolute favorite bike in the pile was an old kids bike with the banana seat and the monkey hanger handlebars. There were a million of them in the 70s. Well this particular one had a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer theme! I couldn't get a good photo of it because it was buried but you can see the embroidered seat. It also had a big metal plate with the logo between the top and down tube. It must had been some kind of company promotion. But to kids? What's up with that? If it wasn't $300 I would have bought it.

Pheasant Hunting

PheasantHunt_08
Originally uploaded by robbiehalvorson.

OK, so I'm catching up on some old news.

Just after Thanksgiving I was invited along on a pheasant hunt in LeSueur, MN. It was Linda's brother in-law, nephews, Linda's Dad Billy, and a bunch of others. I was really looking forward to it because it was my first ever hunting trip. I never was interested in hunt however I did think that pheasant hunting might be fun because it's usually a nice time of year and the hunts walk around most of the day. Unlike goose and duck hunters who have to hunker down in the wetlands or deer hunters that sit motionless in trees.
I did carry a shotgun for a time and took aim at a bird. But I never fired. I was try for the perfect shot instead of just blasting way. I realized that I was having just as much fine shooting my camera so I switched back to the camera for the rest of the day. I have all the photos on my Flickr account. Pheasant photos

Japanese Language Proficiency Test

For about a year I have been taking a class in Japanese once a week at work. That plus the 10+ years of dabbling in study lead to me deciding that I should take the JLPT this year.
The test is give once a year at various locations around the world. All on the same day mind you. As luck would have it, they give the test in Chicago not far from where Linda is pursuing her MBA. So it was really easy to drive down to Chicago and stay with her. While she was studying I was cramming for the test. The one snag in the plan was a snow storm in Chicago that forced us to leave quickly Thursday evening instead of the planned Friday departure.

There are actually 4 tests given depending on the takers skill level. I took the easiest one; 4. The test was 3 hours long and had three sections, vocabulary, listening, and grammar and was 100% in Japanese - no English. I knew going in that the listening would be very difficult and would be my worst section. So I really had to do well in the other 2 to compensate. My prediction came true, out of 16 question in the listening portion I completely understood 3 and partially understand half of the rest of them. But that was not unexpected so it didn't throw me off. I thought I did near perfectly on the vocabulary which also includes reading the kanji characters. At the beginner level we are expected to know about 100. I easily pass that part. The grammar part was more difficult but I only guessed on a few.

The results won't be in till March which is totally ridiculous. We answered on those computer score cards with the 'fill in the dot with 2H pencil' format. They should have been able to scan them at the door instead of waiting 3 months. Weird! A passing grade (which all anyone is looking for) is 60%. I feel I have about a 50/50 change of just barely passing due to the listening part. I did the math. If I get 85% or greater in BOTH the other sections I will pass.

So the fair question to as is; why? Why take the test. No, there's no true need at work, though I have worked with Guidant's marketing department in Tokyo. It IS considered an official test so there is some value on a resume. That is if I apply to a Japanese company that even knows with the JLPT is. No, mostly I just want to see where I'm at with the language and to motivate my study. If I don't pass I won't be totally disappointed - or surprised for that matter. I always assumed it was a long shot to pass.

Either way, I'll post the results in March.