2:54 p.m. Have managed to organize the cables and plugs a bit to open the outlet for my air conditioner.

Since it was too hot to sleep and have got up earlier than usual, have cleaned the filters, set them back again, and plugged the air conditioner into the outlet to apply current before I left home. All I have to do now, is clean the remote, replace the batteries just in case and press ON. But you never know whether the machine would work properly or not, until you actually press that button.

As for my TV which suddenly went silent when I switched it to recorder, I regained the sound after some struggles late last night. I tampered with the sound settings that I have no memory of even touching it, and Wala! The sound came back. I still don't have any idea what had happened nor why or how I recovered the sound. But well, all goes well that ends well.

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7:09 p.m. Sadly, I discovered that the remote wasn't working, even after I'd cleaned it and replaced the batteries. OTL

But, buuuuttt!! Have learned that there was a power button hidden under the front pannel of the air conditioner, a button to use in case of emergencies like the situation I'm in. Had to climb up again on the ladder in a quite cramped position, though it was nothing after I'd pressed that magic button and the machine started operating! Yes! YEEEESSSSS! Hurrah, air conditioning!

I couldn't set the room temperature with this button, but was able to confirm that the air conditioner still works, as not for the remote, and that was enough to cheer me up. The remote controller was too old that even the manufacturer didn't have any stock. No worries! I can get a multi-device working remote controller tee-hee! I've been up this road before with my old TV so I'm positive this would solve my problem and get me a cool air-conditioned room, where I wouldn't have to worry about launching my computer in sweltering heat. Will have Cow order it first thing tomorrow morning.

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3:32 p.m. The thermometer-hygrometer I'd remembered to get at a 100 Yen shop which is now sitting on my desk at home, was already pointing 37 degrees while the weather forecast reported it was 35 degrees outside on the TV this morning.

As I had asked Cow to order me the remote controller for my air conditioner last night, I had a mission to drop by a convenience store to complete my payment. Sweat dripping from my elbows, I've finished my payment so hopefully, it will arrive by tomorrow.

One more sleepless night of rolling over in over 30 degrees heat.

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2:18 p.m. The remote hasn't arrived yet, but I'm sure it will be delivered today, as I've checked it was already passed on to the delivery around 5:30 yesterday.

2:46 p.m. What is the delivery guy doing??

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1:38 p.m. Finally, my remote arrived late last afternoon.

Not to mention I set the thing up after I got home, however, since this remote can control more than 10 different air conditioners from various Japanese manufacturers, it turned out to be a task to figure out the correct manufacturer code. Well, there were at least 20 different number codes to try and discover that it didn't work, but in the end I figured out the right one and now my room has air conditioning again. Hah!

Aaaaand, we're having unagi for lunch tomorrow, yay!

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4:31 p.m. Mmmm... the unagi in a while was delicious! I've been refraining from eating unagi to save its resource, though I still think I am entitled to enjoy them once in a while.

Soul Pancake has popped up an interesting question asking, "How would you change the world?" to people (assumingly, Americans,) from ages 5 to 105. Here's the link : 0-100: Change the World

Have asked the same question to Cow, to which he answered, "By making the whole human race disappear." For an instant I thought he might be mentally ill from stress, but then I realized he meant it was nearly impossible to make world peace come true, as long as we humans live in this world. As we are creatures of hunger and lust, and we always want more unlike other animals, we are the ones eating up this planet, destroying this wonderful planet called Earth. And on this day when 60,000 people have been deprived of their lives, their future, by a creation of us humans, it might be a good time to look back on what we've done up until now, and think about what we can change to change the world.

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3:14 p.m. I'd like to congratulate Natsumi Hoshi for winning a gold medal in Women's 200m butterfly final, in FINA World Championships!

Ms. Hoshi has had to go through a surgeory to remove her thyroid last year, due to Graves' disease which she had been suffering since she was 16. I've seen on TV that she was scared to swim again after she'd gone through the operation. But her coach, the now famous Mr. Hirai, had encouraged her that she's just back at the start, and that since she'd been through it once, she can get over it again. Though I can imagine that mustn't have been an easy road.

All the more happy for her, as she has now proved that she has the strength to get over such hardships of life. Surely, she and her performance will bring hope to not just her team mates, but to all the swimmers who are striving.

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1:21 p.m. Finally, will be on summer vacation from tomorrow.

Not that I have any plans for nice trips. Will probably stay home, clean the room, do washing, watch a bit of Koushien, visit the family grave and my vacation will be over before I know it.

Of course, it would be nice to spend some time on a quiet beach or in the healing coolness of a forest, but it would take a trifecta win of the Leopard Stakes with Ride On Wind combined with some longshot to make that come true.

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9:21 p.m. Must make a list of things to do to carry things out without fail.

Was going to finish up on all the washing in the first couple of days of my vacation, but the forecast is predicting rain tomorrow. That means I will have to wait till Tuesday to proceed on the washing.

Making a to-do list, I think, will help me organize my thoughts and prioritize the things I can do in the meantime.

And while I have been sleeping away the first day of my vacation, 8-year-old Pelusa seems to have won Sapporo Nikkei Open for the first time in 5 years and 3 months. Congrats Pelusa, old boy, you amuse me.

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4:02 p.m. Oh, no. Have wasted another day aaaaaaarrrrrgh!

Okay. Calm down. Can start from tomorrow. But isn't that what everybody says when they're putting things off? True, I'm going out for another meetup with friends, though today isn't over yet. Perhaps I can get some searching done in the bits of spare time? Yes. I think I can do that. To prepare for the list-making.

But then, when will I ever actually start getting things done?

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Caterpillar

9:54 p.m. Inspired by some searching about Ikebukuro and Takadanobaba area where I met my friends yesterday, I've been to Mejiro Garden.

Mejiro Garden is a small Japanese garden made by Toshima-ku, as part of its greening project. A small pond is laid out in the center, and there's a stepping stone passage that goes around it. There's also a waterfall, small but lively, and when you come up the passage from the waterfall, there's a spot where a cool breeze blows through even on a hot day like today when the beautifully huge Nishiki carps are napping quietly in the pond.

Plus, the good thing is that there's no entrance fee! This garden is opened to everyone who comes to visit from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. during July and August). Except for the 2nd and 4th Mondays (the next day, Tuesday, when the Monday falls on a public holiday).

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5:53 p.m. The sky is overcast and it looks like it's going to rain tomorrow and the day after.

Which means Tokyo is missing the chance to see the Perseids meteor shower, grrrrrrr. The sky has been clear mostly for the past week except for Monday, when we had occasional rainshowers and I was looking forward to seeing the meteor shower. But now it's likely I'm going to miss it.

On a second thought though, it might be a good chance to make use of that time to get rid of unwanted things. Let's throw them all away to make my room a bit more spacy! Throw them away!

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7:01 p.m. After all, it didn't rain around my neighborhood as the forecast had predicted.

I've been checking the sky several times and now, although slim, I see some gaps between the clouds which meaans there might be a chance to see the meteor shower tonight! Getting excited.

How about lying down on the veranda to watch the meteor shower show? Hmmm... I could split open some garbage bags and spread them on the veranda so I can lie down to watch the sky. I could also use some bath towels to make myself more comfortable on the hard surface of the veranda. With a can of beer and some good music, that sounds actually GREAT!

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11:19 p.m. I was lucky enough to witness two meteors shooting across the north-western sky last night. It's a pity I couldn't catch them on photos. Well, I couldn't do much anyway without apps to support the camera on my mobile devices.

Have been to visit the family grave during the day, as there was still the threat of downpour in the afternoon and tried cleaning the tombstone as best as I could to get the grimy black stain off. I read somewhere that steelwool works best for that purpose, but it was a hard job scrubbing the stains off that sweat dripped down by the time I finished the top stone. I called it a day and went home. I could do the rest by year-end.

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9:11 p.m. Have been to a Daiso to get some plastic baskets to stall in my closet.

I thought it might be a good idea to set two bars across a shelf inside the closet, so I could put plastic baskets on those bars diagonally, with the opening facing this way. That would make it easy to take things out from the basket and, also help make it easier to recognize what are in the baskets. I already had two tension rods, so all I needed was a couple of plastic baskets. At this point, I thought it was a marvelous idea since I could make use of the tension rods which hadn't been put to any use.

I've measured the width of my closet so I could by baskets just the size to fit in if I laid them out side by side. After I came home, I went into setting up the baskets right away and discovered I was such a fool. The tension rods weren't long enough to serve as bars. Well, of course that's the reason why I hadn't been using them in the first place, although I seemed to have forgotten that.

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9:26 p.m. Ah, my last day of vacation.

Looking back, it wasn't such a bad vacation after all. Have proceeded on my cleaning, although a little, met my friends, enjoyed a stroll in a Japanese garden, visited the family grave, enjoyed spending time idly watching koshien, had my occasional tempura and downloaded some favorite songs onto my iPod. Surely, these would give me strength and energy to work until the year-end.

Well, hopefully.

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Caterpillar

2:02 p.m. Okay, so work has started again today, and my meeting gets cancelled. Am I supposed to be happy or sad?

If I was at home, I might be able to make use of this time to do a bit more cleaning, but I'm not and am having a difficult time pulling myself together and get onto some other task.

Such things as meeting cancellations affects your motivation you see, especially when they're done without notice. I thought there was a common social agreement to inform the other party when you're changing schedules, but I guess I was wrong. Well, at least in my client's case.

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3:51 p.m. The emblem of Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics 2020 has been causing a sensation recently, that it could have been copied from a Belgian designer's past works, and there have been many voices that we should replace the logo mark altogether.

Today, Japanese actor (and LINE stamp creator) Seiichi Tanabe has tweeted an image of the Olympics emblem on his Twitter, which he designed as "a part of training to improve designing skills." It looks something like this: Seichi Tanabe's Olympic Emblem

The concept is good, and I like the design, too. Why don't we switch it to Mr. Tanabe's?

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2:40 p.m. I was thinking of writing about Koushien, with Tokaidai Sagami taking the lead against Kanto Daiichi, but Cow came up with a moving topic, so will switch to that today.

I'll just put a link to the article because I can't find the words to describe these beautiful people. Elderly Blind Man and His Armless Friend Plant Over 10,000 Trees in China

Look at the expressions on these men's faces and you will see what happiness is like.

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Caterpillar

1:25 p.m. So, the final of koushien, Tokaidai Sagami versus Sendai Ikuei. It's going to be a good game regardless of which team wins.

Sena Sato, the ace pitcher of Sendai Ikuei controls breaking ball, slider and split finger mixed with fast balls at the maximum speed of 89 miles. Tokaidai Sagami on the other hand, prides two talented pitchers, a right-throw Ryo Yoshida and a left-throw Shinnosuke Ogasawara. Yoshida controls two types of slider and a breaking ball, while Ogasawara throws slider, two-seam, breaking ball and change-up and both pitchers can throw fastballs at the maximum speed of 93 miles! Perhaps the Yomiuri Giants or Rakuten Eagles might want these pitchers in their games right away, considering their poor performances in the penant race.

According to the commentary provided by Yahoo! Sports, the game is in the bottom of the third inning, with Sendai Ikuei scoring 3 points trying to catch up on the 4-points lead Tokaidai Sagami has gained in the first three innings. Ah, third inning has finished without further gain or loss. By the way, my bet is on Tokaidai Sagami FYI.

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4:46 p.m. Congrats to Tokaidai Sagami, for winning the 100th memorial high school baseball tournament!

As a matter of fact, I was curious how this team would perform, as they were the winner of the Kanagawa area tournament. Kanagawa prefecture is known to have many private high schools famous for their strength in baseball such as Tokaidai Sagami, Touin, Yokohama. And in this high level group, the news of a public high making it to the finals of the area tournament this spring, has gathered some attention.

Sagamihara Perfectural High School was a rare case in the high school baseball tournament, and I was secretly supporting this team not just because the team coach was a batterymate of Mr. N-jima, but also because I was drawn to the team. Unfortunately, they couldn't make it through the area tournament to go to Koushien this summer, since Tokaida Sagami had won, but I think they've got what they need to get to Koushien in the near future.

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1:20 p.m. The 15th World Athletic Championships has started in Beijing National Stadium today.

16-year-old Abdul Hakim Sani Brown who goes to a high school in Tokyo, has recently broken the 200m world record that Usain Bolt had set in the World Youth Championships. And he is going to run in the 200m race (to be broadcasted on August 26th Japan time), and 4x100m relay (qualifications to be broadcasted on August 29th, finals on August 30th). Am looking forward to see how this young man might perform, but currently too sleepy to think much.

Have just realized I was digging my head into the keyboard, dozing.

Well, speaking of running, I'm also intrested in how Toho Jackal will perform in tomorrow's Sapporo Kinen. Not to mention he's the most favored, the horse should win considering the other competitors, though he might get a licking if he loses concentration. Yes, the bad news is that he'd drawn an outer barrier.

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9:13 p.m. As I'd feared, Toho Jackal turned out to be less than what meets the eye.

The lap was a bit fast, which means it must have been a follow wind for Toho Jackal if he'd stayed around the middle of the group as usual. But he charged from the start to the front perhaps, because the crew was worried about the outer barrier, that he might not be able to win from the back.

The only reason for his defeat that I could think of is because the horse had lost concentration while stalking on the outside throughout the race. A familiar scene with Goldship.

Kenya's David Rudisha in the men's 800m of the World Athletic Championships runs beautifully, by the way. He might have experienced hardships from his previous injury, though the last stretch in his semi-final was so beautiful almost to the point of graceful. Well, that's why he has the world record, I suppose.

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2:08 p.m. Entering the second week since I've returned to work after my summer vacation, which is the "watch-out" week.

Every time I get back to work, I always struggle hard to reset my lagged biological clock into work mode. The first week is tough as you all might know and I often lapse back into lazy mode, though I've got over it without incident this time.

However, the toughest time is said to come in the second week, when unexpected things pop up and you are very likely to slip out of the work mode you've tried so hard to get back into. This also seems to apply for something, an activity you have newly started, because even though you get over the first week whipping yourself up for the new challenge, unexpected things are likely to pop up now and then, and it is very likely of you to simply use them as excuses to quit your new challenge.

In order not to quit so easily, here are 2 keys to getting over the toughest week; one, make exception rules, and two, make the action into a pattern. Details coming up tomorrow!

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Caterpillar

1:41 p.m. Okay. So to stay on your new activity, the two important keys were; one, make exception rules, and two, make the action into a pattern.

Even if you got over the first week of your new challenge, it's very likely to give it up when something unexpected pops up and you have to alter your schedule. You know you have to keep doing your new challenge, but your daily schedule suddenly has to be changed, and you aren't sure if you could make time for the challenge, as you have to prior whatever that made you change your schedule. Making exception rules helps to prevent you from giving in to skipping your new challenge, which eventually might lead to giving up the whole thing.

Let's say you've decided and started to walk at least one mile a day, for example. You've got over your first week without incident, but your boss has asked you to work late tonight to finish up the project due tomorrow. You were planning to walk your mile for the day on your way home from work, but now that can't be done because you have to work late and squeeze everything in after work. Here comes the exception rule. Make exception rules such as walk for 10 minutes, or use the stairs instead of escalators and elevators, to replace your new challenge. A shortened version of your new challenge seems to work best.

Remember, that the important thing is you keep doing whatever you have started until it sticks. Tell yourself it's okay to do the short version of your new challenge, because today is an exception, and you can get back on the full version tomorrow. But wouldn't it be hard to get back to the full version next day after you'd taken the easier option? That's where the second key proves its effect.

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2:12 p.m. The second key to preventing you from giving up your new challenge in three days, is to make your new action into a pattern.

How exactly, do you make it into a pattern? Well, you decide the specific time (when), place (where) and how you do the action. For instance, if you're trying to increase voacabulary in your second language, you decide the when; in the morning, where; on the commuting train and how; use an iPhone App and memorize 30 words. If nothing goes wrong, you will take the train to work every morning and, since you've got nothing else to do while on the train, will use iPhone Apps to learn 30 new words every day, which eventually would stick to your lifestyle to become a habit.

Using these techniques, I am in the middle of trying to get over my 2nd week.

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Caterpillar

5:42 p.m. As JoOusama has been raising the volume of her radio these several nights, I haven't been sleeping very well. Having been exposed to a load of work and the everchanging situation of Cow and his family, I am running out of both my HP and MP. They're both in the red now.

I almost forgot to congratulate Misato "Mont-chit-chee" Nakamura, Kaori Matsumoto and Shohei Ohno for winning the World Judo Championships 2015.

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5:16 p.m. Unfortunately, 16-year-old Mr. Sabi Brown couldn't make it to the finals in the men's 200m, but he's only sixteen. He performed fairly well for his age and he's got a bright future ahead.

In the meantime, a new star has appeared in the 81kg category of the World Judo Championships. Takanori Nagase, currently a student at Tsukuba University has become the first Japanese to win a gold medal in the World Championships 81kg category. After Makoto Takimoto had won in the same category in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, this class hadn't been successful in the years to follow. And finally! Will definitely check my recordings tonight.

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Caterpillar

2:41 p.m. Eishin Hikari has returned to his stable from the pastures.

After winning the Epsom Cup, he has been out to rest during the summer but now he's returned to his stable, and started his training to enter the Mainichi Ohkan held on October 11th. Registering for the Mianichi Ohkan almost automatically makes me think Eishin Hikari is going to run in the fall Tennno-sho.

What, with Yutaka Take on his back, there's no way I can avoid betting on him if he makes it to Tenno-sho. And there wouldn't be a single person among the old fans who wouldn't recall that charming horse, Silence Suzuka.

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9:44 p.m. It's been drizzling on and off all day so I couldn't do any washing. The weekly forecast says we're having rain until Thursday. When? When can I wash my clothes? My underwear?

Additionally, the temperature doesn't seem to rise even though the high was supposed to be 25 degrees for the past three days with tomorrow being another. The problem is, that I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO WEAR! What, do they expect me to go out naked? But surely they wwill arrest me if I did, wouldn't they? Please, let me do my washing.

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3:50 p.m. It's really a nuisance when all you can do is to watch the laundry piling up, not being able to wash it grrrrr. Well, I can wash, but cannot dry them outside. And I don't have a drying machine. Not that I'd use it if I had one.

The idea of iron-drying the wet clothes sounds both too time-consuming and energy-consuming. Is there any other way to dry clo..!! Futon drier! I have this marvelous item called "futon drier," which I've heard someone talk before that it could dry damp clotehs. Hadn't used the machine for a while, but this might work!

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Caterpillar