A friend just sent me this link:
It’s about the guys who founded google. The article does not make any
mention to the unicycle in the photo.
Jeff
Sent via the Unicyclist Community - http://Unicyclist.com
RE: google.com article
> http://www.msnbc.com/news/724800.asp?0dm=C18MT
>
> It’s about the guys who founded google. The article does not
> make any mention to the unicycle in the photo.
I know the story!
At the Damento Juggling Festival in February, I ran into juggler,
unicyclist, devil-sticker extraordinaire Seth Golub from Palo Alto. I know
Seth because he was one of the riders at the very first MUni Weekend in
1996. He was also a contributor on the unicycling newsgroup years ago, and I
see him at the conventions.
Seth was wearing a Google T-shirt. I made some comment about how Google is
my search engine of choice, and he told me he works there. I said something
about another unicyclists at one of Silicon Valley’s prominent companies.
But Seth said he wasn’t the first. They already had a “company unicycle.”
Oh, who owns/rides that? I asked.
Somebody left it there. He was consulting at Google on Japanese language
stuff.
Can anybody guess?
I don’t think Seth was even sure, but I’m almost positive it had to be none
other than Jack Halpern. Who else is a unicyclist/Japanese language expert,
who leaves unicycles lying around after international visits? I know Jack
has done consulting with Adobe Corporation as well, again working with
Japanese PostScript fonts. I think he has a source of cheap (or free)
Miyatas, because he usually brings them over here and seemingly doesn’t take
them back! He usually sells or donates them after unicycle conventions. A
nice way to spread the word and the quality of the Miyata brand.
And you never know where they might end up, I guess!
Sorry, I forgot to mention this to Jack after the Damento fest; let’s see if
he has any comment.
Who’s Jack Halpern? He is the founder of the International Unicycling
Federation, and the one guy that used to be our point of communication into
and out of the unicycling world in Asia. He speaks 13 or so languages, and
makes Japanese dictionaries (www.kanji.org).
Stay on top,
John Foss, the Uni-Cyclone
jfoss@unicycling.com
“How many America West maintenance personnel does it take to change a
bathroom light bulb in a 737?” Based on what I saw on the way home from
Phoenix recently, three!
Re: google.com article
> I’m almost positive it had to be none
> other than Jack Halpern. Who else is a unicyclist/Japanese language
expert,
> who leaves unicycles lying around after international visits?
If this is the case then I really hope that Jack hopes to visit me in the
near future.
–
Wayne van Wijk
wayne@jester.com.au
O–( >–|-o
OUCH! Just fell off my unicycle.
The wikipedia page of The CJK Dictionary Institute, Inc. (CJKI) nowadays confirms that job.
Seen the time and place, then I’m sure that I’ve just ago met the person who said he took it away (to use it) around 2005; a guy who works directly with Vint Cerf, besides Google also at ICANN.
Also the signalment -“green handle”- sounds like Myata, and so matches also with what Jack Halpern would have had, and is how I remember the (now 404) picture.
Leo.
Woe, Leo. Way to go digging up such an old post! Interesting stuff. 
wow… I had no idea who I was dealing with. asleep at the research wheel… here I thought he was just a dude who came with some japanese to unicon and introduced this crazy unicycle once… I feel slightly wiser now…