Hisashi T Fujinaka

This is my web page. It ought to look better, it ought to have more content, but my alien masters haven't been giving me any messages lately through the Weekly World News.

You certainly don't want to read my weblog.

This picture was taken 5/13/97 when I wasn't listening to those voices in my head or reading the Weekly World News. This was when I was attempting to develop some independence from my alien masters.

The picture on the right is from 10/13/97 after I forgot to wrap my head in aluminum foil one night.

Here's a picture from 2002, on the way to dismantle a radio tower.

My ridiculous car that could pay for a lot of gummi worms.

History

I grew up in Portland, Oregon, and attended Chapman Elementary School. After living through Benson Polytechnic High School, I was institutionalized for four years at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

After graduation I designed microcontrollers for Mitsubishi Electric in Japan where I found out why the Japanese were ahead in the 80's: sheer luck and working ridiculously long hours. Working longer hours leaves less time to spend money and balances out low pay.

A microcontroller is a complex integrated circuit (IC) incorporating all the subcircuitry necessary for standalone operation. My microcontrollers were sold to VCR companies and used for the important task of making the display blink

12:00.

After five years of selfless devotion to consumer electronics, I decided to return home to Portland. Due to auspicious timing, the only job I could find was Product Marketing Logic Analyzers for Tektronix, Inc. The division I was in was slowly circling the drain, and the change to marketing didn't take. I only stayed with Tek for eight months before I went back to school to pursue a dream I had from the time I was a Boy Scout, to become a physician.

But getting into medical school, just like anything in life, requires much more luck than I have. I spent around $20,000 in five years and have sixty-three rejection letters from forty-one different schools. I decided to give it a rest, especially after receiving scant advice from the admissions officers of several schools. Usually I was told that they didn't know what was wrong with my application and that I should have been accepted. But one particular person who I asked about alternate medical careers -- including nursing and Physician's Assistants -- suggested, "Have you ever thought about becoming an X-Ray Tech?"

So I finished up the coursework for two degrees, using my premed courses and back-filling. Now I also have a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and a Bachelor of Arts in English. Now, not only can I identify the fragment of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot:

  Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
(1-3)

I can even tell you how the ether is metabolized.

After graduating from college for the third time, I looked for a job that would utilize my unique skill set. Then I just looked for a job.

I used to be a Design Engineer for Credence Systems Corporation where our group made chips for testers that test chips. I didn't have to wear a positive-pressure respirator or move 55-gallon drums of hazardous waste and I got 50 cents more an hour, so I thought I was in heaven. I was paid well but I left after being a temp for nearly three years.

This is a picture of my old manager Steve P.

Obviously, that's not really him, but the real Steve is pretty buff (an ex-crew jock) and could squish my head like a grape.

Since that time, I had a series of jobs that weren't quite in line with my "career goals." I worked for an internet medical information company that had no information (but was sold for millions), the streaming media division of a large chip manufacturer, an internet "email to treemail" junk mailing company, and a local ISP. My last job was packing fudge.

Interests

After training for and missing the Portland Marathon three times due to injuries, I actually ran the San Francisco Marathon on July 12, 1998.

I didn't let my sister beat me. I held her up by at least 45 minutes.

I run on the Portland waterfront because it is nice and flat. If you see me, wave and say hello. For some reason, the least friendly runners in Portland seem to be on the waterfront.

Hobbies

My hobbies include reading novels, running, occasionally bicycling, learning-how-to-but-not-actually fly-fishing, and a hobby geekier than computing - ham radio.