Peeps:Fred

Overview

Fred is my brother, and my only blood-sibling. He's 4.25 years younger than me, though that makes very little difference now. Back in the day, it made all the difference in the world.

When we were little, he would copy me a lot and I would hate it. Hit him regularly. stop copying me!!

We would play all variety of games, often involving hide and seek. The best place in our high school house was to open the air conditioner return vent, reclose it and climb up into the vertical part so a quick glance inside would prove fruitless.

Our dream is to play inside a huge warehouse store, like a giant lumber store. The game would probably take a long time, but it sure would be fun.

Fred is smart. I posit he's way smarter than me intellectually. Still in school (getting his PhD now), he's been studying basically all his life, mostly left brain stuff: mathematics, engineering, computer science, and some medical science to round out his skillz.

But, I get to take significant credit for teaching him to count (according to our parents), and how to do proofs in geometry (to keep him from bugging me and my then girlfriend).

Fred's fashion awareness is well-higher than mine. "I only buy leather shoes and a belt at the same time, and only if the leather in each matches exactly."

Though he's got lotsa unix, programming, shell scripting, and internet skillz, Fred intentionally doesn't have any online presences. Not sure why exactly, but part of the reason is the effort required in maintaining them.

Games

hide and seek

When we were little, we used to play hide and seek a lot. The best place in our house in Spring was inside the couch bed, while it was closed. It was a bit hard to get in there, but I think we managed it a couple of times.

He hid once in the garage, in the dryer. Once I found him, I was like, "get back in! I won't turn it on," and he got back in, and I turned it on and after hearing his head BONK! BONK! KONK! as the dryer spun, I ran out the garage back door.

He actually wasn't that mad. He says, "I knew you would turn it on, but I thought it would be fun, so I did it. I thought 'if I put my arm here, and leg here...' but I wasn't able to hold myself in place, and while flailing about, my elbow hit the door and the dryer stopped."

The Alphabet Game

Driving 4 hours to Dallas to see Ma, Fred and I spent the time playing our version of 'The Alphabet Game' in which one person says "Apple" and the next person says "Apple Banana," and then the next person says, "Apple Banana Crepe," etc. Except when we play, we choose long phrases.

So anyway, we were driving and I was like, "you wanna play the alphabet game?" and Fred goes, "aight."

I said, "is that your first word?"

Impressed with my amazing ability to identify the letter A as the first letter of a word, Fred accepted. "Sure, that's my first word."

We took it from there, and the entire game lasted basically all the way to Dallas.

If you see us together, ask us to recite this:

• Aight
• Botanical petrified garden inspector says
• Camp happy is the place to be
• Dogleg curves can kill a man
• Eggnog salad does a humjivin' dance
• Five fingered Freddy flipped-off a frog
• G went and got himself a tell dollar cat
• Humdigididum digididum dum doo
• I said to the girl you can't do that no mo
• Just last Tuesday I went to the beach
• Killin' time, it ain't so bad after all
• Later with a sunburn, I went to the mall
• Maniac drivin' is the best way to be
• Nearin' a clearin' I was hearin' a shearin'
• On a pink barge I built a saloon
• Probably hundred people got there by noon
• Queuein' a queue but I sunk it and scratched
• Ripped a hole in my pants so I got me a patch
• Slitherin' snakes: they use Converse to run
• Ten minutes later, Jeff walked in
• U is a sheep, but also a dude
• Verbal puns have gotten really crude
• What, what, what what what what
• Xcruciating circumstances permit a misspelling
• Yes, I always keep forgettin' your rhymes
• Zombie with an attitude says do it one more time

(repeat)

Puzzles

Fred and I like puzzles. especially of the 3D variety, especially of the open-it, take-it-apart, and unscramble-it varieties.

Granddad (grandfather on our mother's side) had lots of puzzles, and when we were little, we loved to play with them when we were at his house.

The puzzles themselves were of a great variety. The hints Granddad gave us were all the same: "keep trying."

When Granddad died, Fred inherited the puzzles, and over the years has been growing his collection.

getting each other back

P

Back in the day, perhaps when I was 8 and he was 4, we would have to take baths together. One day I stood behind him as he sat in the water, and I peed on his head.

Later, another game was to splash cold water on each other just after having finished a hot shower.

One time, just out of the shower on my way to a date, Fred splashed me with water. Wasn't so cold, so I was like, "haha it wasn't cold" or just "meh" and dried off and went on my date.

Turns out it was a cup full of his pee.

surprise!

janette, upon her second visit to Japan to see me, asked that I don't make any plans. "I just want to relax and hang out around the neighborhood." Cool with me!

Got to the airport to pick her up, and thought I saw my brother. Blinked and looked again. The guy still looked like my brother. Did a quick brain reboot and looked again. "OMG That's FRED!!!"

Best surprise ever.

I "got him back" by surprising him in Austin, but I don't think it had quite the same effect. He says he saw Colleen (my driver), and instantly knew I was there. Dang.

Santa Claus

In December 2008, Fred came to visit me again in Japan. I tried vaguely to surprise him in Shibuya, but he said he knew I'd be there, and I pretty much imagined he would know I would be there, but anyway, the best part of that two week adventure was Santa Claus' arrival. Actually there were several great things:

1. Fred came to Japan
2. I took photos to get Fred to a green payphone under which I had hidden a phone card so he could call me
3. I had just gotten laid off finished my contract so I had the entire time off from work to play with Fred!
4. Didn't have to pay extra to let Fred stay in my room
5. Went to Fuji-Q Highland (but all the coasters were closed)
6. Christmas morning arrived, and Santa had brought a tree, lights, and lotsa presents!!
   • Ami took notes of all the presents we received (I don't think I ever transcribed them)
   • Fred successfully wiped a hard drive (by shattering the glass platter; it was awesome!!)
7. went to Genny with a G's family's Christmas party. Good times
8. was able to help Fred with his PhD
9. We ate at Sweets Paradise in Shibuya

We stood on the platform in Haneda Airport station for a long time as I headed to [[places:CPC Clinic in Kagoshima|CPC Clinic in Kagoshima]] in the morning and Fred headed toward Narita for his afternoon flight back to Texas.

currently

Fred lives in Austin, and is attending UT as a PhD student, working on some sort of medical modeling, though at the moment, I don't remember if it's regarding the heart or brain (the topic has changed in the past). I *do* know that he's been working on it for a while, and I always want to support him, though it's hard to do so while overseas.

Fred is on the dooj email list, named after a combination of Dude's name, and part of me-an-Fred's last name. Although since the time of its inception (on my gmail account), I added Jesse, and Jesse's added James, though I haven't added James to my dooj list (yet).

Fred doesn't usually write a lot on the list, but he does weigh in with well-written, logical and useful analysis, the quality of which I'd love to equal. Seems that we all have our favorite aggregators; Fred's URLs are often from jwz.

plans when Fred comes to Japan December 2008

1. Do Christmas, my first in 5 years!
   • have a tree
   • have stockings
   • have wrapped presents
2. Go to Shibuya
3. Go to Fuji-Q
4. Go to Korakuen
5. Go to Yomiuriland
6. Play ultimate

flight of Fred's 2010 calendar

to be continued

Though he's okay, Fred crashed on his bike in April 2010

getting images to Brazil 10 July 2012

   so i remembered that a few of the images are in a final writeup in an
   email i sent to collaborators.  i couldn't find that email from my
   computer(!), but i could find it from my phone (a search checks all my
   accounts at the same time). so i forwarded that email back to myself
   again.
   
   to do that, i had to download the attachment to my phone, then
   re-upload it by sending the message.  then download it from webmail my
   computer. ironically, my phone is using the computer as a hotspot!
   (wired internet at the hotel is faster than wifi.) so i couldn't just
   get it via my computer once.  i had to pass it through three times.