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Level 7
This morning NISA, Japan’s nuclear regulatory agency, held a news conference to provisionally place the Fukushima nuclear incident at INES level 7: Major Accident – Major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended countermeasures. There’s only been one other level 7 incident and you all know…
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Power saving ideas
Over on Facebook, my previous post generated a lot of ideas and suggestions. Thanks to everyone who chimed in; I was so pleased. I’d like to list them here, along with some expansion and additions I’ve been thinking of, too. One of the awesome posters from the Setsuden Poster collection Replace old HVAC unitsRoman said…
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Power facts
The blackouts have been canceled for the last week thanks to businesses and individuals doing such a stellar job of conserving energy. But even with conservation continuing, extra generators coming online, and small amounts of power shifted from Western Japan to us in the east, TEPCO is expecting an 8.5 gigawatt shortfall this summer. Yesterday…
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Intermediate mood
I’m feeling sort of stuck right now. Maybe it’s just me. Probably so. All my personal plans from before the quake are on hold – things that were dreams, goals, and wishes, projects, major life changes. They all became less important than the pressing need to help relief efforts. But the relief efforts are growing…
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45 rpm?
Here I am. Happy birthday, me. There has been a rip in the fabric of space-time, because today I turned the age I think of my mother as being. I don’t know how that works but I do not really feel my age. My Day: I started by getting up early to bake a cake…
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Mutant produce
Absolutely enormous asparagus. Not from Fukushima. 398 yen per stalk. Today in the supermarket, I expected to see some empty places in the produce aisle – conspicuously absent spinach and leafy greens with apologetic signs regretting the inconvenience. But I was wrong. There was as much spinach and other greens as usual. All from Chiba…
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Enjoying and suffering
On the weekend we hoopers joined together at Yoyogi Park to hoop and collect donations for the Peace Boat’s earthquake relief efforts. They are cooking 500 hot meals a day up in Ishonomaki and we gathered some cooking supplies and cash for them. I am deeply grateful to everyone who contributed and especially to Sareh…
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Yesterday, today and tomorrow
Yesterday I took a break from the computer almost all day and went out into the world for the first time since I caught my cold. Even though I was still coughing like a six pack a day smoker, I needed to breathe real air. And there were errands to run, so out I went.…
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The dance of progress
We are now firmly in a phase of two steps forward, one step back. It’s like living a bad waltz. Let’s try not to bump into the other dancers in the ballroom. After yesterday’s scare over radioactive iodine in the Tokyo water supply, we discovered that it was already halved by this morning. The mad…
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Actions are stronger than worries
We may worry in Tokyo about aftershocks and radiation risks, but there are some people who have more than worries. They have troubles. This week I’m shifting my focus to helping the survivors of the Tohoku Kano Earthquake who are stuck in shelters with insufficient, heat, food and hope. While relief is arriving daily and…
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