The Blog of Rob

Lost and Found in Japan

2009-09-11T18:22:00.000-07:00

Today I left my notebook on the Tobu line train to Ota. I was reviewing notes on the two-hour ride, and I had stuffed the notebook into a pocket on the back of the seat in front of me. The notebook had essential information in it, including all the interviews I had conducted since arriving to Japan two weeks ago. Throughout my day of reporting in Ota, I kept having to borrow my interpreter’s notebook, and by the end of the day, I was completely depressed with the thought of having to listen to hours of tape that I had meticulously transcribed over weeks of interviews. When we got to the Ota station, my interpreter, Chiaki, took me to the Stationmaster’s office. That’s where I met Mr. Aiba. Aiba-san was in his 50s, tall, thin, graying hair, glasses, and, like most Japanese in his position, incredibly polite. He wore a blue Tobu Line uniform with a green band around his arm with ‘security’ written on it in Japanese. Aiba-san listened intently to Chiaki’s every word describing the notebook, where I left it, and how important it was to me. He asked follow-up questions: “What are the approximate dimensions of the notebook? Is your name on the notebook?” and so on. As Chiaki answered, he took notes. When he was finished, he offered us a seat, briskly walked to his desk, and picked up the phone. He called other stations, he called cleaning companies, and he consulted timetables for the Tobu train line. In between calls, he updated us: “The train you were on has made three round trips from Tokyo to Akagi today. Cleaning crews in many cities have cleaned the train several times.” Aiba-san briefly left the room while he waited to hear from cleaning crews. He found time to serve us tea. A minute later, he received a call from the cleaning crew in Akagi, a city in the mountains at the end of the line: they found my notebook. It had been tossed into a recycling bin. It was waiting for me on the platform there. “But you’ll have to hurry,” said Aiba-san, looking at his watch. “The train to Akagi leaves in less than one minute.” He escorted us, running frantically in the lead, to the platform. We barely made the train. I had a few seconds to reach into my bag to give him a box of See’s chocolates that I had brought as a gift to my interviewees. He sternly declined the gift, but I insisted, so he reluctantly accepted it. When we arrived to the tiny Akabi station, two elderly custodians with brooms in their hands were waiting for us on the platform. They bowed to me and handed me my notebook. They had neatly wrapped it in a copy of the train’s timetable. This is just one of many examples of the generosity and commitment to service that I’ve experienced in my short time in Japan. Had I lost my notebook on a train or a bus back home, would anyone care? They probably would’ve laughed me out of the station at the thought of tracking it down. Now, take this comparison to a macro level and you start to see why Japan’s future may be brighter than that of the United States. We could use a few more Aiba-sans back home.

Shibuya

2009-09-06T02:59:00.000-07:00

Click on the video below to watch one of the more interesting orchestrated movements of mass humanity the world has to offer. This is the scene on a Saturday night outside Shibuya station, one of Tokyo's busiest stations and neighborhoods on a night like this. I saw this as I was changing trains last night after an interview outside the city, so I reached into my bag, grabbed my camera and started recording. Shibuya station is about 10-15 minutes away from our apartment in Denenchofu. It's a station Lenora and I have gotten to know intimately, as we have to change trains here multiple times a day if we're seeing other parts of the city.

To Burn or Not to Burn

2009-09-06T01:32:00.000-07:00

Ever since my neighbor became the Prime Minister-elect of Japan, I’ve felt safer; not that I ever felt in danger in this seemingly safe city. There are now police officers posted on every street corner wearing bulletproof vests and standing in front of waist-high fencing. They make eye contact with each person who passes. I’m always half-afraid that they’ll stop me and demand my identification, but it never happens. They usually smile and say hello to me, letting me walk on my merry way. Yesterday as I was approaching one of them, two young girls were taking photos of another large house that’s two down from the Hatoyama residence. I tried to tell them it was the wrong house, but my lack of Japanese prevented me from doing so.

Today was combustible garbage day in my neighborhood. On Tuesdays and Fridays, residents place all their garbage that is considered ‘burnable’ out on the curb, and at promptly 8am, it is taken away and, presumably, burned. I had a lot of questions about what was considered combustible, and the sign on the light post advertising the pick-up days wasn’t very helpful. My wife and I brought our 11 month-old son here. Were diapers considered ‘burnable’? I knocked on the Webers door to ask. Terry and Sherry Weber live next door. They’ve been working as teachers in Tokyo for 27 years. They told me that up until recently, plastic products were not considered burnable items, but all of that changed this year, and now it’s apparently fine to deposit plastic items like diapers on the curt on combustible garbage day. Either way, they told me, if the sanitation officials see that I’ve tried to sneak in some non-combustibles on the incorrect day, they’d leave it on the curb with a note, scolding me for screwing it all up. I put a bag of diapers and another bag of what I thought were burnable items on the curb, nervous that I’d be the laughing stock of my new neighborhood. An hour later, the garbage truck arrived, two men got out and inspected my garbage, and they dumped all of it into the back of their truck. Whew. Now I’ve got to prepare for Thursday, which is recyclables day. I’m supposed to separate all of my recyclables into paper, cardboard, plastic, and cans, and bundle each of them with string. Wish me luck.

Mister Hatoyama's Neighborhood

2009-09-06T00:40:00.000-07:00

Lenora, Rainey, and I will be in Tokyo for the next six weeks. I've received the Abe Fellowship for Journalists, which will allow me to report a series of stories on what the United States can learn from Japan's impressive record of energy efficiency. The following post was written a week ago, a few days after we arrived and the day after the national election in Japan.

Yesterday Japan held a national election. My neighbor won it. Well, technically, his party won it, but it’s assumed that my neighbor, who heads the Democratic Party of Japan, will become Prime Minister within a couple of weeks when the party formally elects him. My neighbor is Yukio Hatoyama. He lives in a large house across the street from the apartment I’m renting here in the tony Tokyo suburb of Denenchofu. Yesterday morning an elderly police officer knocked on my door clutching a map, explaining to me in slow, metered Japanese that his men would be establishing a perimeter around our neighborhood to keep out protesters, non-credentialed journalists, and anyone else interested in engaging in general tomfoolery near the Hatoyama residence (an English-speaking neighbor helped translate). I mustered the only Japanese response I knew (“Arigato!”), not having sufficient language skills to explain that I, in fact, was a non-credentialed journalist. He smiled, bowed, and moved on to the next residence. As early results on the afternoon television news began to confirm that Hatoyama’s party was on the path to victory, my neighborhood, which was virtually silent for my first few days here, started buzzing with activity: Police officers on foot patrol, random passers-by who somehow got past the perimeter stopping in front of Hatoyama’s house to stand and stare before being ushered away, and members of the credentialed Japanese press sitting on the curb in the rain, quietly watched over by the around-the-clock security presence in front of Hatoyama’s home. My wife and I are thinking of baking our neighbor a cake as a congratulations gift. If we could just get by security...

In all seriousness, though, apart from the amazing coincidence that the apartment I rented happened to be located across the street from the inevitable new Prime Minister, my new neighbor has a lot of work ahead of him: Like the US, Japan is suffering its worst unemployment rate ever, and many Japanese are fed up with the Liberal Democratic Party, which, despite its name, is the conservative party that has ruled Japan for 50 years straight. Hatoyama has promised the Japanese more social welfare programs and fewer incentives to big Japanese business, but some experts wonder if it’s a good idea to tinker with a system that’s helped Japan become one of the world’s biggest success stories. Hatoyama has a strong California connection: He spent years getting his engineering doctorate at Stanford University, where he met his wife. He speaks English well; well enough to have written this provocative Op-Ed in the New York Times this past weekend; a vague treatise on how his party would manage relations with the US. More importantly for the purpose of my reporting here, Hatoyama has pledged to make Japan a more prominent world leader in battling climate change. He’s pledged to cut the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by 25% of 1990 levels by 2020, and has promised to land more jobs for Japanese by helping develop the clean tech industry here. He’s also focused heavily on a bigger reliance on nuclear power for Japan; a stance that is not as controversial as you may think in this country. In recent polls, the majority of Japanese respondents say they’re open to a larger reliance on nuclear power. In a country that imports all of its fossil fuels, nuclear power means more energy security and fewer greenhouse gas emissions (On the other hand, it heightens the very thorny debate of what to do with radioactive waste, a debate that, despite poll numbers, is of big concern to many Japanese). With all these issues to tackle, it’s likely that my neighbor won’t be spending too much time at home in the coming weeks. Maybe I should offer to housesit?

Navigating the Tamagawa

2009-09-06T00:34:00.000-07:00

It’s Sunday morning. Rainey woke up at 5am, and with dawn breaking, I decided to go for a run. I saw on the map that there was a riverside park along the Tamagawa south of here. The Tamagawa separates Tokyo from Kawasaki. It’s one of the largest rivers in the city. I ran past the mansions of Denenchofu to get there, and once there, ran through a long, narrow, hilly park that was shaded almost completely by thick forest. The mechanical sound of thousands of cicadas in the trees humming in unison, their tone rising and falling, set the pattern for my stride. Despite it being 5am, there were some people in the park; mostly elderly folks doing taichi or navigating the steep trails. After running the length of the park to the north, I headed south, retraced my tracks, and ran downhill to the banks of the river. The forest gave way to tall grass, and I could see the skyscrapers of Kawasaki across the river. I ran across a bridge to the Kawasaki side, and then ran back, finding an earthen trail on the riverside to run back to the park. The Tamagawa was dammed in two places, and it was very shallow—perhaps 2 feet deep downstream from the dam. Orange coy fish lazily swam against the current, making no progress at all. I ran faster, passing a guy on a bike, and another dam to where the river was deeper. Carp jumped into the air, catching insects just above the surface. When I found the park I started at, I began to run uphill back into the posh environs of Denenchofu.

Tokyo

2009-09-06T00:15:00.000-07:00

Spring

2009-04-09T14:28:00.000-07:00

It's been a nice Spring so far for Rainey: visits from all of his grandparents (Grandpa Schmitz will visit in two weeks), his first two teeth, his first taste of real food (Sweet Potatoes, Oatmeal, Bananas, and Pears), and, most importantly, he is now mobile. Rainey started crawling last week, and he's perfecting it as I write this. He's now at the stage where he pulls his entire body forward with his arms and upper torso, grunting, without bothering to use his legs. On first appearance, it looks like an extreme core-building exercise that a mixed martial arts fighter might subscribe to. But nope, it's a baby who's figuring out how to crawl. Rainey usually crawls towards the most dangerous object in the room. When he reaches it, he sticks it in his mouth. His first day of crawling, Lenora caught him chewing on a power cord with his two bottom teeth. The other day, he was making a bee line for the fireplace. I had the idea of putting him on one end of the living room and on the other, a choice: a loaded gun, a stack of razor blades, and a hand grenade. Which one is most dangerous? Rainey has the answer. A work colleague suggested that we send Rainey's resume to the International Atomic Energy Agency. They could use him to find potential nukes in North Korea. Perhaps he could find those pesky WMDs in Iraq. They could also use him in Iran. Hell, he could have a pretty lucrative high-flying career at this. I can picture Hans Blix and a bunch of weapons inspectors following Rainey as he crawls, upper arms ablaze, through the Iraqi desert, drooling, picking up the scent of a weaponized anthrax plant. He'd find it, and they'd have to pick him up before he started sucking on a warhead. That's my boy.

Rainey: 3 Months

2009-01-25T19:57:00.000-08:00

...And more photos of the little guy. Most of these were taken in the last month. As you'll see, there's a series of photos in this batch that document an important lesson I was teaching Rainey: how to cope with loss. There are some things in life you can't control. Being a Vikings fan is one of them. I was born in Minnesota, dressed up in Vikings clothes, and watched them growing up, slowly becoming a fan. I had no choice in the matter. I have decided to offer the same punishment to my own son. In a few of these photos, you see Rainey in his Vikings uniform (and me in mine) that his Grandma gave him. We are watching the Vikings die a slow, painful death in the first round of the playoffs against the Philadelphia Eagles. Rainey will repeat this ritual many times in his life, and he will feel empty and confused each time the Vikings lose a game they probably should have won. And he'll no doubt ask why he wastes three hours in frustration. And he'll never have a suitable answer. Such is the curse of the Vikings fan. At least I now have someone to wallow in pain with after such terrible games. Other photos in this batch include some from a visit we received from our friends Amy and Stefan. They were classmates at Columbia's J-School, and like us, married and had a baby boy, Liam. Liam and Rainey were born on the same day. Amazing coincidence...so we had a 10/9/8 support club outing in LA at our house. There are also some pics of Lenora's recent trip to Houston to see her family (I was in Florida for a retreat), and a visit to LA from Lenora's mother and grandmother.

A Rainey Christmas

2009-01-25T19:38:00.000-08:00

The holiday season has come and gone, and this blog severely needs an update. This will most likely be one of a few postings that I'll upload today. We had a wonderful Christmas holiday in my home state of Minnesota with Grandma and Grandpa Schmitz and with Uncles Ryan and Danny, Aunt Denise, and Auntie Ashley. Not to mention dozens of cousins, second cousins, etc. We had a ball. The weather was typically Minnesotan: highs hovering around zero and LOTS of snow. There was so much snow on Lake Owen, where my Dad lives, that the sheer weight of it forced water up through the cracks on the ice, creating a foot-deep icing of water under about three or four feet of snow. Danny got the snowmobile stuck immediately, and when a neighbor tried to pull Dad's ice house off the lake with a Bobcat with tracks on it, he got THAT stuck. It was quite a scene. We finally got the machinery off the ice and pretty much stayed off it. Danny and I did do some icefishing, though, and we caught some crappie (for non-Minnesotans, that is not a misspelling. It's a pan fish, and despite its name, it's very tasty). Rainey received a lot of great gifts from all, but the most worthy gift he received was time with his Grandparents and Uncles and Aunties. Priceless.

One Month of Rainey

2008-11-03T17:04:00.000-08:00

In six days, Rainey will officially be a month old. The above slideshow includes a couple of photos of him with his parents on All Hallows Eve. Lenora and I had no plans for celebrating the day, as we were just trying to stay afloat between feedings and little sleep, but early that morning, I decided to look for some last-minute bargains on costumes, and the Halloween super store in Santa Monica had one newborn costume left and was offering it at 75% off just to get rid of it. Shrek. I paid my eight bucks, and for his first Halloween, Rainey went as the famous green ogre. We went trick-or-treating to a couple of our friends' homes, and he then grew tired of the warm flannel outfit and proceeded to shriek at the top of his lungs. We took the hint and b-lined it home, stealing his candy from him afterwards. Thanks, Rainey!

After almost a month, Rainey's doing well: he's actually sleeping at 2-3 hour intervals at night, and he's not been overly fussy. He has his breakdowns, but we're getting accustomed to them and our patience is growing exponentially. The other day, I happily hummed a song to myself while Rainey's screams approached the sound of a cat being skinned alive. He was OK, he just needed to be held. I did so, and he calmed down. This is the pattern that now defines my life. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Rainer Tien Schmitz

2008-10-15T12:57:00.000-07:00

After 30 hours of labor, Lenora gave birth to our son Rainey last Thursday, October 9th, 2008. Though I make my living writing, it's difficult for me to accurately express through words how content I am, and how much I love this little one. Lenora was amazing throughout the birth, and continues to be. Today is really the first day that I've had to come up for air; We've simply been too busy to concentrate on anything else besides adjusting our lives to make sure Rainey is doing well and staying happy. By yesterday, I think we hit our groove, and he's been happily sleeping most of each day. Of course this probably won't last long, but we'll enjoy it while we've got it.

Rainer Tien Schmitz is the formal name of our baby. It's a traditional German name that means 'Strong Counselor'. It's pronounced RYE-ner in German, but we prefer to pronounce his name RAIN-er. 'Rainey' is pronounced RAIN-ee.

We chose the name for a variety of reasons. Lenora and I both liked the sound of it, and Lenora liked the meaning of the name. I liked 'Rainey' because of the fishing trips my Dad brought my brothers and I on throughout our childhood to Rainy Lake, on the remote boundary waters between Minnesota and Canada. I've always felt that throughout my travels around the world, Rainy Lake is still one of the most beautiful and serene places I've been to. The fact that 'Rainer' is German also appealed to me.

Tien, Rainey's middle name, is the surname of Lenora's maternal Grandfather, Tseng-Ying Tien, who died in 2006. The name is Chinese and means 'Field'. The character for it is a box with a cross inside of it. We gave Rainey this name to honor this great man. Born in 1924, Lenora's grandfather grew up in a prominent family in the city of Shanhaiguan, the site where the Great Wall meets the sea. He grew up in turbulent times in China, and when the communists took the country over, he and Lenora's grandmother fled the country by boat to Taiwan, leaving everything behind. He and Lenora's grandmother started with nothing in Taiwan, raised a family, and their tough work ethic and intelligence paid off: he got a full scholarship to study for his doctorate at Penn State University, and later became a professor at University of Michigan and an honorary professor at universities on two other continents. He made significant contributions to the automobile industry, including formulating the material for the catalytic converter. More importantly, he was an amazing father and grandfather, and just an incredibly humble man who gave so much of himself to all he knew and was influential in Lenora's life.

Not to complicate Rainey's name further, but he also has a Chinese name that his Grandfather chose for him. Lenora and her father are descendants of the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuan Zhang (朱元璋). Each son of the emperor was given 20 Chinese characters to name successive descendants, so that each generation would inherit the next character. Lenora and her sister's generation were named Bi (賁). Rainey's generation will have the Chinese character Cong (從), pronounced "Tsong". His full Chinese name is 史從磊, pronounced "Shur Tsong Lay". The first character means 'history' or 'story,' and is a transliteration of my surname in Chinese. The second character is Cong and means 'from' or 'always', and the final character, which will be his given name in Chinese and which was chosen by his grandfather, is Lei and it means 'open hearted'.

So that's the low-down on all of Rainey's names. I'll make sure to quiz you in a week.

To all of you who have emailed and sent letters, thank you...we've had an amazing amount of support from friends and family throughout the pregnancy and beyond, and Rainey's all the better for it. We are very proud parents.

Any Day Now

2008-09-26T09:11:00.000-07:00

The photo above doesn't do the belly justice. It is MUCH bigger at this stage, and Lenora's been a trooper throughout this last phase of pregnancy. Despite having something the size of a bowling ball attached to her frontside, she's been working morning shifts this week at KCRW, she's been busy writing, and just carrying on as if she weren't about to give birth. But she is. She's due October 5th, and we're both very, very excited to meet our baby and to start a family. The last month has been filled with preparations: getting the room ready, painting, getting the crib, changing table, etc, and I think we're as ready as we'll ever be. The photo above was taken at our baby shower, which we had at our place in August. Good friends and family helped organize it, and we had more than 70 friends show up. A very good day with a lot of generous gifts. More to come...

Beyond the Hummingbirds

2008-07-26T17:24:00.000-07:00

For those reading this blog, you might wonder what happened after all those hummingbird posts in May. Maybe you thought the hummingbirds, when hatched, attacked me and left me bed-ridden for months. Not so. Summer happened. I've been outside a lot this summer, and blogging wasn't really on my mind. But to catch up, Lenora is now seven and a half months pregnant, and so far, so good. A day after my last entry, the hummingbirds just up and left. No goodbyes, nothing. They were all gone. The nest is still there, though, and we're hoping another one moves in soon. It's been a really pleasant summer. We took back-to-back vacations to Minnesota to see my family, and then to San Francisco and Northern California to relax. I took the photo above on the shores of Lake Orono, beside the house I grew up in. More to come...

Baby Hummingbirds, Day 12

2008-05-07T15:52:00.000-07:00

The photo above was taken this afternoon. If you compare it to the one below, taken ten days ago, you'll see that our resident hummingbirds have grown up, indeed. Mama Hummingbird can no longer sit on the nest. Instead, she keeps patrol from precarious limbs around our patio, when she's not hunting for insects to feed them. A few days ago, a squirrel got a little too close to the nest for Mama Hummingbird's comfort, and she let the little bugger have it. She flew up to him and started poking him in the face, chirping incessantly, while the squirrel retreated over the fence, wondering what on earth he had done wrong. I helped her out by trying to hit the little rodent with my broom. She still hasn't thanked me for that. According to online resources that claim to be the authority on all things hummingbird, our little hummingbird babies have about a week left in the nest before they up and fly away, never to be seen again. We'll enjoy the time we've got left.

Hummingbird Babies, Day Two

2008-04-27T20:04:00.001-07:00

A day after I took the photo below of the hummingbird nest with a hatchling and a jelly bean-sized egg that was yet to be hatched, well, the second egg has hatched, and Mama H-bird is one busy gal. She's got twins that are HUN-gry. Again, this is a hummingbird nest in a secluded corner of our patio. When I took the photo above, Mama H-bird was on a hunting expedition for her babies, and while I snapped it, the babies were pecking at thin air, thinking I was their mother (they apparently can't see yet).

Home

2008-04-26T13:39:00.001-07:00

Walking Path on the Green
Originally uploaded by rschmitz22

After posting that last entry about mother hummingbird, I thought I'd write a little about our home. Last year, we bought a townhome in a housing development called 'the Village Green.' The Green has around 600 units, some of them condos, some of them townhomes. There are several units in each building, and the buildings are spread out with a lot of restraint over 68 acres of park land in the middle of the very urbanized city of Los Angeles. There are three main 'greens,' each huge areas of grass and trees that are the size of several football fields. Our unit overlooks the Western Green, which has the most trees of the three greens. The Village Green was built in the 1940s, and it's been declared a national historical monument because of its unique vision of a lifestyle that leaves the urban jungle and freeways of Los Angeles behind. Automobiles aren't allowed within the green, making it a very quiet place to live. At all hours, you can hear birds, leaves in the wind, and not the typical hum of traffic that you hear in many places in this huge city. We own a two-story townhome unit with two bedrooms and a large patio. We've met a lot of good friends here. The bonus of living here is that it's about ten minutes from the most popular places in LA: the beach, Santa Monica, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and downtown LA. It's located at the foot of the Baldwin Hills, in a kind of no-man's-land just east of Culver City. After growing up on a lake, surrounded by nature, the Green is a nice reminder of that life. Click on the photo above to see more photos of the Green and our new hummingbird family on our patio.

Baby Hummingbirds

2008-04-26T12:50:00.000-07:00

Lenora's not the only mother expecting at the Schmitz/Chu household. For the past two weeks, we've had a mother hummingbird who made a cute little nest on one of the trees on our patio. The nest is in a perfect spot: it's up against the house, shaded, and almost impossible to see. It's also within a spitting distance of our hummingbird feeder. Smart mommy. Mommy hummingbird has been sitting on her nest for two weeks already, and she rarely leaves it. But that stopped yesterday, when one of her two tiny eggs (which are the size of jellybeans) hatched, and she all of the sudden had company. She's been leaving a lot since then, bringing back tasty insects. On one of her hunting trips, I was able to get behind the tree and prop myself up on a stool to take the photo above. You can see one egg hasn't hatched yet, but the other has, revealing a one-day-old hummingbird. We've read that hummingbirds take about a month to start flying, so we'll have more opportunities to steal photos of them as they grow.

Baby

2008-04-05T17:56:00.001-07:00

To the two or three people who read my blog: Apologies for the lengthy sabbatical of my semi-regular blogging, but I've got a very good excuse that's been keeping me and Lenora busy for weeks now: Lenora and I are going to be parents! Lenora is approximately 14 weeks along and into the second trimester. We're very excited to start this journey and to start a family. I think our parents are relieved, too. This will be the first grandchild on both the Chu and the Schmitz side of the family, so both families are quite excited. This baby will get a lot of attention once it's born. The due date is October 5th. We can't wait. The photo above was snapped by our doctor after we had an ultrasound at 12 weeks. Lenora thought the baby looked like a Gummi Bear, so we've nick-named it 'little bear'. We don't think we want to know the sex of the baby until it's born. That's mostly from me, not from Lenora. She doesn't seem to care too much. But I'd like to be surprised. The most recent ultrasound we took was last week, at 13 weeks. It was the first time that we saw the baby move around. The baby was pounding his fists on the walls of the amniotic sac as if it were more than ready to greet the world. It was pretty fun to watch. S/he is definitely like his parents.

Agua

2008-02-06T16:13:00.000-08:00

Water. It's the reason the Western United States aren't a barren wasteland. And California is one state that goes to incredible lengths to move it to where it's needed most. Earlier this year, my colleagues at KQED and I reported a series of stories on climate change. Click here to see the whole series. I looked at how Los Angeles is preparing for a much drier future due to climate change. The story aired on NPR in early January. The second story I did took me to the Southeastern corner of the state, to the Imperial Valley. 400 farmers there receive the largest allocation of water from the Colorado River than any user along its path. The story, which also aired on NPR, examined the future of this water under a drier climate. National Geographic reported a similar, broader story in their February issue. Climate change is forcing many out West to re-think water management.
After my story on LA water aired on NPR, I received emails from folks from Atlanta and as far away as England, asking me to put them in touch with LA water officials to help them with their water management. The photo above is of the Imperial Valley, home to the most complex irrigation system on Earth. I took this photo from Farmer Ralph Strahm's 1959 Beachcraft two-seater plane, which he was gracious enough to take me up in to get a bird's eye view of the valley.

The Artist as God

2007-12-16T19:47:00.000-08:00

Above is a picture of a miniature ear that the art group Symbiotica recently made from human skin cells. This is an example of Bioart, a form of art where the medium is alive. Click here for a story I did about Bioart for the NPR program 'Day to Day'. This was a very fun story to report. I spent a day at a workshop Symbiotica organized in Los Angeles to teach aspiring artists how to grow flesh by isolating stem cells from bones obtained at your local butcher. As you might guess, there are all sorts of ethical quandries that come with this art, and I explore a few in the story. Another recent story I reported aired recently on NPR's Weekend Edition. You can hear it here. It's a story about the L.A. 8, a group of Muslims who the government tried to deport for more than twenty years. The government finally threw in the towel.

Turkey Day

2007-12-16T19:46:00.001-08:00

Family Photo 2
Originally uploaded by rschmitz22

After a more than month-long sabbatical from this blog, I've finally found a few free hours to post an update. Thanksgiving has come and gone, and Christmas is almost here. Lenora and I finished rennovating our kitchen the week of Thanksgiving, just in time to host the Schmitz clan at the Village Green. Fun was had by all, and the kitchen performed splendidly. Since that weekend, we've hosted visitors from out of town on each and every weekend....so we've been busy. I'll post soon with some recent stories I've worked on....

This Blog is Banned in China

2007-11-13T17:46:00.000-08:00

China's rules for what it allows to penetrate its 'Great Firewall' make about as much sense as the above rules. This is a photo I took of the 'English' rules for a cable ride in Jinghong, China, during my trip there last year. Be sure to read each rule. I'll be quizzing you. I digress: I've discovered through my Chinese friends that my blog is inaccessible inside the People's Republic. It appears that my previous entries about my trip to Europe and the death of my Honda Civic could foment revolution in China's streets. Actually, that's not the reason. I traded emails with my friend Tod Baker, who teaches in Tianjin, and he told me that all blogs using the 'Blogger' platform (which I've used to create this blog) are in fact banned in China. He's suggested using a different platform, which I may do soon. In the meantime, write to your Communist Party representative and demand equality for all bloggers! Our voices must be heard. I just returned from a reporting trip to the Imperial Valley in far Southeastern California, along the border with Mexico. Fascinating place. I'll write soon about the experience.

Little Honda's Death Sentence

2007-11-09T12:21:00.000-08:00

Above is a slightly out of focus (hey, I was driving) photo of a mileage milestone my little Honda passed a couple of months ago. I've owned little Honda (a blue 1994 Honda Civic) since Autumn of 2001, when she had 114,000 miles on her. Back then, I was working at Minnesota Public Radio in Rochester, MN, and I purchased her for 3500 bucks from Andrew Aargenbright, a co-worker at MPR. Little Honda has since given me little trouble, and I've pushed her to the limit, travelling across the country to LA. She now has driven on thousands of miles of LA roads. But now it's time to put Little Honda to sleep. Yesterday, my auto mechanic discovered something while changing the oil on her: he observed that the back left wheel will most likely rust off of the frame within a year. Like a seasoned doctor, he broke the news to me with a straight but sympathetic face, telling me that Little Honda had about 7 months to live. Lenora and I will be looking for a replacement, and I've told Little Honda that she will certainly not go gentle into this good night. She will rage, rage...against the dying of the light.

vroom vroom.

Fire

2007-11-08T12:14:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago, I covered what were some of the worst fires on record in California. I spent the week in San Diego, where I set up base at local NPR station KPBS and reported on the damage and the fallout. The Kytastys lost pretty much everything they owned in this fire. Their resilience was inspiring. Listen to my story about the Kytasty family, and watch the audio slideshow I created by clicking here, and then scrolling to the bottom of the page. The title of the story is 'Return to Poway.

In the City of Lights

2007-11-07T19:17:00.001-08:00

On the Seine
Originally uploaded by rschmitz22

Hello family and friends, and welcome to my blog. I thought I'd start this blog with a series of photos from our trip to London and Paris in early September. Lenora and I spent four days in London, seeing the sights and shacking up with our friends Tim and Mas, who were grateful enough to host us for our amazing stay there. We loved the city, but the weak US dollar forced us to be as frugal as possible. After London, we took a high speed train under the English Channel to Paris, where we rented an apartment in the Marais district for five days. The last time I was in Paris, I was travelling with my friend Fitty, I weighed a buck twenty, double that with my huge backpack, and we ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and we thought we were cool because we rolled our own cigarettes. I was nineteen years old. This time was different. We could afford a little more than the pb and j, and I was with the love of my life (no offense, Fitty). We had a fabulous time. Check out our pictures.