Strummin' in Japan

This is the end...

2012-02-11T11:35:00.001+09:00

This blog is finished as of today. Here is the new one I started a while ago about returning to what I hope will be a more simpler form of life:

Returning to Simplicity

Follow me there if you'd like, but if not, thanks for reading!

Chores

2012-01-28T07:25:00.002+09:00

This morning's first chore:

Neither Here Nor There

2012-01-28T07:09:00.000+09:00

I'm up early trying to get a head start on the long list of things to do today. I thought I would try to write down some of the things that have been whirling through my mind lately.

I've entered a very bizarre phase of living in a foreign country. Now that the day is coming to leave, I realized, I have no future here. Sure, I can come back at some point, but in the immediate future, this isn't my home anymore. It's a weird feeling when you've called a certain place home for the past five years and come to the realization that it is no longer home - yet you must stay for a while longer. I feel more like an extended-stay tourist who earns a bit of side money than a resident.

On the flip side of it, my HOME home, where I was born and raised, isn't quite my home again yet. Being 8,000+ miles away kind of has a way of doing that.

So what does one do when the home you've known for the past 5 years is no longer home, and the home you grew up in is still too far a memory/reality?

I suppose there's only one thing to do: give it all you've got and try your best not to doubt yourself.

With that mentality, I'm I have a plethora of choices to make within the next few months. The job hunting isn't going as well as I hoped it would. However, it is going about as well as I thought it would. Being half the world away seems to make it just a wee bit difficult to connect with people and convince them that I am a good investment. So what do I do if I can't get a job? Where would my time be best spent? Would it be studying like crazy to pass the CPA examination as soon as I can? Would it be spending my time split between studying and looking for a viable starting place for my career switch?

Time (and the continuation of sleepless nights) will tell, I suppose.

Spread the Word

2012-01-18T19:30:00.000+09:00

Congress, in their infinite wisdom, is about to pass a law that would ruin the internet as we know it. Many top websites are protesting against it. Here's what it's about:

Wiki Blackout

To help, you can sign this petition:

Petition

Please sign it, get the message through to those boneheads.

Also, spread the word to everyone.

More on Sourdoughs

2012-01-15T08:57:00.000+09:00

About the many benefits of sourdough bread vs. bread using commercial yeast:

And here be one that I made:

Bread baking is turning out to be a hobby that is just as rewarding as brewing (maybe even more rewarding since I can eat the bread anytime of the day without being labeled socially maladjusted!)

This bread came from this book: Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads. This particular bread is a French Miche and each loaf weighs about 3 pounds. I decided to skip the commercial yeast, take a little more time and let the natural culture do all the work. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to get into baking, or even better, jump right into whole grain breads. I haven't read Peter's other books, but I'm sure they are excellent. A quick check shows this book (as well as others) is available on Amazon throughout most (all?) of its sites worldwide.

Of Moms and Temples

2012-01-13T08:52:00.001+09:00

So my mom is now gone. We had a great trip but they never last very long. We did a lot of things and went to a lot of places. We took a trip down to Shiga to go to an outlet mall. It was nice, but the Japanese idea of "outlet" prices is very different from the American idea of "outlet" prices. After that we went to a hotel in a nearby city and relaxed for the evening. The next day we headed back up north and stopped at Eiheiji (永平寺-which literally means Temple of Eternal Peace...or something close to that）in Fukui. It was an amazingly beautiful place in the mountains. All the massive cedar trees were full of snow and it was lightly snowing when we arrived.

Yes, they're in black and white. Somehow it just seemed wrong taking color pictures in such a serene area.

After this we shot over to the Fukui Dinosaur Museum. It was pretty cool and there was a lot of interesting things in it. Also, it was only 500 yen to get in. I'd hate to see what the prefecture is hitting up taxpayers for on that one! If you were born in the year of the dragon (this year) it's free to get in. Every year, if your animal sign matches the year, it's free for that person.

This is the only picture I'll post of the museum. This is a meteorite that fell from space. Visitors were allowed to touch it. I touched it. Now I'm waiting to grow an extra eye or ear.

We left the museum and took a trip back to Kanazawa through the mountains. Despite Kanazawa City's awful road maintenance record, the mountain roads were excellently maintained. I was surprised and impressed.

The rest of the trip was pretty much an all you can eat buffet. We ate everything at every restaurant we went to. Because of that, I am now off to the gym.

Thanks for a great trip mom!

Snow?

2011-12-23T17:32:00.000+09:00

I intended on writing a blog post about this for a while but didn't get around to it. As I opened up Blogger, I can't believe it's been a month since my last post.

I'm sure you'll be relieved, but this post is about neither bread nor beer.

I've been looking forward to my first Christmas in 5 years. Every year since coming to Japan I've had to work on Christmas. WELL NOT THIS YEAR. We are going to have a nice quiet Christmas watching movies and relaxing. I wanted to cook a duck dinner, but the duck I ordered is neither here nor there right now. Knowing my luck, it'll arrive December 26th...

This Christmas should also be a white Christmas (channeling Bing). As I type this, there is a winter storm bearing down on us, promising to drop copious amounts of snow. This is the forecast, but the reality of it could be quite different. I wouldn't at all be surprised if it just turned into cold rain/sleet/snow/slush/lightning/thunder with no accumulation whatsoever. If it turns out to be a white Christmas, it will be my first in - you've guessed it - 5 years.

The only other newsworthy item I can think of is an update on on the CPA preparation process. I contacted the Vermont CPA board and see if I qualify to sit for the exam. I found out that I can sit at any time with my undergraduate degree in accounting. I was confused for a while and thought I needed to have experience working with a CPA (as in the person) and the education before I could sit. Turns out, I can get the experience after passing the exam. This was good news for me since it can help me bolster my resume with a passed CPA exam in hand.

The other good news I found out is that with my educational background (150 semester hours) I *might* be able to shave some time off my required experience time. This was really great news since that would be another positive thing to put on the resume. As it stands, I believe the required experience time for Vermont is two years of work under a CPA (again, the person).

So with this news, Ayu and I talked and we decided the best course would be to splurge on an online CPA review course. It costs well over $1,500, but I will also get 9 months of study time and a HUGE amount of study materials. The estimated amount of study time is about 400 hours to pass the exam and I believe I can do that in time to sit for all four sections of the exam next October and November.

The countdown to my mother's visit is now at 4 days. We can't wait for her to get here and are looking forward to doing a bunch of stuff with her.

A very merry Christmas to everyone!

Roggenbrot

2011-11-20T22:00:00.001+09:00

German for rye bread.

Here's the latest, out of the oven yesterday.

It's every bit as heavy as it looks. There is NO air in this bread. This loaf was about 8" by 4" and clocked in at around 5 pounds.

The flavor is amazingly complex and full. It was my first trial as I hope to dial in the baking process and have it fairly refined by Christmas time.

I've taken a liking to rye breads lately since they have an extra depth of flavor that wheat breads often lack. Sure, whole wheat is wonderful, but sometimes it's just a little too...light. With the exception of an old loaf of bread that I chopped up and put in, which contained a little bit of wheat, this bread is all rye - mashed rye flour, rye sourdough starter and rye berries. Yummy, yummy, yummy.

Tomorrow night's dinner: smoked salmon with capers, red onions and cream cheese on the above bread with a nice side salad.

That is all! As you were!

The Sound of Silence

2011-11-13T20:50:00.001+09:00

Two of my loyal readers (out of 6 people, perhaps?) have complained that I have been eerily silent on this blog.

There's a good reason for that, too. I really don't have much to say. I'll give it a try though.

The year is slowly winding down here and I've been in the mood for two winter comfort foods: rich, whole grain breads and beer. As I type this, I'm working on two loaves of bread for the coming week: a sourdough rye, with 68% coarse rye flour and 32% whole wheat. The other bread is a bread made from grains left over from beer brewing (today's grains are from a stout made about a month ago) and rye and wheat. If they come out half way decent, I'll post some pics of them.

As for the beer, the stash is building and we're almost done the brews needed for the winter season. After the last brew, I hope to start clearing some space in the apartment by passing along the brew gear to a buddy. We've got a couple of potentially stellar beers in the pipeline for Christmas and I'm keeping my fingers cross that they come out alright. I'm also setting my sights on brewing in Vermont and will probably be placing some orders for gear over the next couple of months. It won't be cheap to get started, but while I have the money I want to make sure I get a decent set-up that's ready to rock and roll upon arrival.

Changing topics: My mother arrives in Japan on the 27th of next month. We're looking forward to her visit, although we aren't sure exactly what we're going to do. Last year we went to Tokyo and it was fun, but it felt like it took a large chunk out of the visit and made it go by faster than it normally does. We're thinking this year might be a good year to just hang around this area, cook and eat insane amounts of food and drink more than our fair share of alcoholic beverages (I'm actually thinking to execute a traditional English-style wassail this year).

As for next month, I'm very much looking forward to Christmas. This will be my first Christmas in 5 years that I haven't had to work. Although there is no place like home for the holidays, I can tolerate one more Christmas in Japan before returning to the States in April.

I guess that's all for now. I figure that should be enough to silence the critics for a bit ;)

Once

2011-10-13T21:13:00.002+09:00

The other day Ayu and I were at the movie rental store and she picked out a few movies. I didn't pay any attention to what she got and just let her surprise me.

One of the movies she picked out was this:

It's about two people struggling through life. One's an immigrant living in Ireland and the other works for his father at a vacuum repair shop. It's a very simple movie with great music. I won't say much more than that, so take a look at the trailer and listen to some of the songs. If you like it, go to the store and look for the movie "Once".

The Cuteness Will Kill You

2011-10-09T21:27:00.001+09:00

Saturday Update

2011-10-08T23:11:00.006+09:00

1 Saturday, 2 freshly baked loaves of bread, 1 batch of applesauce and 8 pints of beer makes for a good life.

This is pretty good...

2011-10-08T07:42:00.002+09:00

I don't want to take a turn for the political in this blog, but I came across this and it's pretty gosh-darned good:

"A second danger to President ○○○’s valiant and heroic experiments seems to arise from the disposition to hunt down rich men as if they were noxious beasts. It is a very attractive sport, and once it gets started quite a lot of people everywhere are found ready to join in the chase. Moreover, the quarry is at once swift and crafty, and therefore elusive. The pursuit is long and exciting, and everyone’s blood is infected with its ardour. The question arises whether the general well-being of the masses of the community will be advanced by an excessive indulgence in this amusement. The millionaire or multi-millionaire is a highly economic animal. He sucks up with sponge-like efficiency money from all quarters. In this process, far from depriving ordinary people of their earnings, he launches enterprise and carries it through, raises values, and he expands that credit without which on a vast scale no fuller economic life can be opened to the millions. To hunt wealth is not to capture commonwealth."

If you're curious who wrote it, just put parts of it into Google or Yahoo.

And with that note, it's Saturday, I've already finished my planned jog before 8:00am and all that's left for the rest of the day is to bake a Potato Rosemary bread and drink absurd amounts of beer.

Cheers!

Getting Ready

2011-09-18T23:34:00.002+09:00

For a while I was in a pickle. I've been planning on studying for my CPA license for when we return to America, so I wanted to buy some books for it. I found a good series, but a new edition comes out in December of this year. Since the CPA exam changes from year to year depending on what crazy politicians decide is good for financial regulations or if there are any new practices in the profession, it's important to have the most up-to-date information.

So my pickle was: do I wait until December to order this set and have my mother bring it out or do I start studying now with a soon to be out of date edition?

Thanks to the marvels of modern capitalism, I was able to purchase one book of the current year's set on Amazon here in Japan. It only cost 4,000 yen (about $10 more than American Amazon) and it shipped within 24 hours of paying for it. I figured one book will be enough to keep me busy until December and I can more or less just review with the new book and take note of any changes.

So now what I'll be doing is locking myself in my office on nights I drop Ayu off at work. I should have ample time to hit the gym during the day this semester, so the nights will be reserved for exercising my mind. I would stay home and do it, but I find when I "work" at home, it's more loafing around as I become a lazy shit. If I go to the office instead, I should be able to avoid the temptation to lay down, take naps and tank up on beer.

It'll be an uphill battle trying to study for my license after taking 5 years off from the finance world, but I'll give it my best shot. I was looking at the requirements for the Vermont CPA exams (yes, examS - there are multiple sections to the exam) the other day and I think the only thing I need is 2 solid years of experience and I should be good to go.

That's all for now! Have a good day/night!

Pumpernickel

2011-09-11T23:46:00.000+09:00

Ever since I was a little kid, one of my favorite breads has been pumpernickel. After I started baking, I learned a few interesting things about pumpernickel.

1. A true pumpernickel is a German bread that is extremely dense and heavy. It has almost no (or absolutely no) gluten. This is important to note because the gluten protein network is what allows breads to rise from gasses produced either chemically (baking soda) or naturally (yeast). Also, the German pumpernickel bread is baked in an oven with water, essentially steaming it. Since I have yet to make this, I can't comment extensively on the ingredient list.

2. American pumpernickel is very different. American pumpernickel has more wheat in it and is made with slightly different ingredients (from what I understand) and is cooked with standard dry baking method.

3. Pumpernickel bread is not made from the pumpernickel grain. It's a rye bread, or a rye-wheat mixed bread. The dark color comes from molasses, cocoa powder and coffee. I substituted the coffee with a bottle of coffee oatmeal stout. I figured they're both black and both have coffee in them, so it works.

So here are the pics from this baking adventure.

Pre-ferment: I mixed 1/2 cup of rye with 1/2 of whole wheat, a bit of yeast, 1 cup of water and stashed it in the fridge overnight. I repeated this process the following day. This helps build a rich flavor in the bread that will come through on the final product.

A close up of the pre-ferment.

Final dough after kneading for 15 minutes. I stashed this in the fridge to slow the yeast down since I didn't have the time to let it ferment (3-4 hours on the first ferment, 2 hours on the second, 90 minutes bench proofing the loaves. By putting this in the fridge, I was able to slow down and control the initial 3-4 fermentation and have it ready for when I had time.)

Final dough, bench proofing.

Finished product! Obviously it wasn't perfect or anything, but it's pretty darn good. I'm happy with it and I think I'll even make the same recipe again.

That's all for now! We have one more week on summer classes and I'm already looking forward to having a normal life again.

Have a good day/night everyone!

P.S. If by any chance you want the recipe for the above bread, let me know. I'll be more than happy to type it up.

Finally

2011-09-03T23:23:00.001+09:00

After about 5 or 6 months of tinkering with various ways to make bread that's good and doesn't split completely open when baking, I'm happy to report I've finally achieved a decent quality bread..I started this bread 3 days ago. Yup, three days ago. I started a pre-ferment with 1/3 a cup of high protein white flour, high protein all wheat flour and fine grind rye flour with a wee bit of yeast. I really like the flavor of rye (side thought: I bet rye beer tastes wickedly awesome) and I wanted to throw it in the pre-ferment to let it develop some full flavor. I put this in the fridge, covered, and left it one day for the yeast to do their magic. I took it out the next day and added 2/3 a cup of whole wheat and 1/3 a cup of rye flour, a little more yeast, and put it back in the fridge to let it go for another day.

When I took it out yesterday, it was frothy and bubbly, much like the beer below on this blog. I mixed my final dough up with another 1/3 cup of rye, 3 cups of whole wheat and 3 cups of white flour, with a whole jar of freshly toasted caraway seeds. I kneaded this for about 15 minutes and put it in the fridge over night. I took it out today after work, gently knocked it down and let the dough rest for 30 minutes. After that, I formed my loaves, let proof, and here they are.The first one split slightly on the side, but the second one stayed perfectly round the whole time with beautiful browning on top and no explosion marks.

My next bread project is going to be fun. There's a juniper berry bush right outside of my office. I checked it out a while ago and sure enough it has wild yeast growing on the berries. It's easy to tell if something has wild yeast on it by looking for a white, soft powdery substance. If you try to rub it off, and it comes off, you've got yeast. Another good target for wild yeast is grapes. That white stuff on the skin that rubs off is indeed yeast. Anyway, I'm going to harvest, nonchalantly, about 20 or 30 berries, bring them home and modify some of the above steps. I won't add the commercial yeast to it, as I hope to get enough wild yeast propagation from the berries.

A little over the top? Yeah, probably. When I have a free afternoon next week, I'm going to start it.

Frothy Beer and Pizza

2011-08-30T19:31:00.005+09:00

Ayu's up at her parent's house for the remainder of this week. Her grandmother isn't doing too hot and she's gonna be visiting her as much as possible. It sounds like she's doing bad, but I'm hoping she'll hold on and pull through. I met her only once but she's a whirlwind of a person. She's extremely energetic, outgoing, friendly and down to earth. I'm hoping, based on my meeting with her, that she's holding on with all the energy I saw when I met her.

We're on the cusp of summer classes here and I'm taking advantage of my last night of freedom from work to enjoy some beer and pizza making.

Here's the beer:

FROTHY! This beer was my second bottle of the night. The first was a french farmhouse ale called a saison. I used a cup of that beer to put into my pizza dough. The beer pictured above is a "Sierra Nevada Pale Ale". Yes...there's a reason that's in quotes.

And here's me par "grilling" some pizza crusts. I'm pretty sure if my landlord knew about some of the stuff I do while cooking here, we'd be kicked out in a heartbeat...

I took our steel colander, turned it upside down, borrowed the rack from our toaster oven and fired up the burner. It works pretty well. It works AWESOME for making crisps. Dinner tonight was a pizza roll (experimental) with a crisp brushed with olive oil and a little sea salt and fresh cracked pepper.

Now I must finish some work I've been putting off for about 4 months. Have a good one!

The World Is Changing...

2011-08-25T14:41:00.003+09:00

Finally, my legs are nearly healed. It no longer hurts to walk and the aurora that was flowing under my skin is subsiding. I was able to make it back to the gym today and do a light workout. I managed 30 minutes on my beloved elliptical machine and roasted about 500 calories. Tomorrow I might try to throw in a small circuit training routine and then go for 35 minutes on the elliptical. Judging by the scale, I had too much beer this summer break.

But that's OK! School's starting next week and in order to stay focused during the intense 2 week session, I'm going to lay off the beer (except for maybe one night on the weekend) and exercise daily. I find when I exercise during the school year, it helps me to stay focused on my work.

The main topic of this post however is my recent decisions involving next year. We have decided that it's time to go to America and will be leaving Japan in April next year.

To be honest it's a bit scary. We're making decent money here and I'm well on an established career track. To see all that come to an end will be a rather hard thing. However, the new opportunities that are presenting themselves are exciting (but challenging). It'll be an uphill battle, but for those who know me, this is what I'm best at.

I'm going to take the next 6 months to beef up on my business background. One of the things I might have to do is study for my CPA license. I've contacted one of my old teachers to see what I need to do to strengthen my prospects. Another step I've already taken is to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal online. Hopefully I'll learn some helpful things to further enhance my chances.

Another change that will be coming will be a new blog. I think I'll make the jump over to Word Press eventually...

I think that's all for now. Time to get to some reading...

Gnarly

2011-08-20T11:14:00.003+09:00

Gnarly coloring today:

Obviously my camera isnt good enough to capture it in all its glory, but you get the idea. Looks like its three bruises actually.

My left leg no longer hurts and once the right leg ceases to be painful, its gym/jogging time.

If my wrist doesn't heal in the next week or so, I'm gonna go to a doctor and see what gives.

Full Steam Ahead

2011-08-19T10:39:00.004+09:00

After returning from Tokyo, I got back to the gym and have been going everyday of the week. I've lost another kg and life is good.

That's what you should be reading. The real story turned out quite different.

We got back on Sunday and relaxed for most of the day. On Monday a buddy invited us over for a BBQ. Being a holiday still (Obon), I figured it wouldn't hurt much to skip one day of the gym.

The next day I got a good workout by riding my bike to a buddy's house to hang out. He lives about 45 minutes away by bike. Unbeknownst to me, but knownst to the angry gods of biking, I was to have a small catastrophe just before arriving at his house.

I'm not entirely sure what happened, but as I was turning a corner, my front tire hit a small "bump" so to speak. This caused my front tire to swerve quite a bit. My first reaction (which was my downfall - - literally) was to slam on the brakes. Well, I learned that my brakes work a little too well. The bike came to an immediate stop, but I didn't. The back tire flipped over me and down I went.

I bruised both of my thighs, sprained (?) my right wrist, and strained the other. Absolutely brilliant.

Now I need to wait until I either get full mobility of my legs back without the pain or for my wrist to heal to get back to the gym.

Here's what it looked like today. Beautiful coloring.

As far as the world of bruises go, I know this is nothing. I'm pretty sure I've had worse bruises, as well. The thing that sucks about this one is the location. It's right behind the knee and runs to the top of my thigh on the front.

Have a good night/day wherever you are and don't fall off your bike!

Lounging in Tokyo

2011-08-08T19:41:00.004+09:00

We've been in Tokyo for a couple of days now and it's been pretty fun. Yesterday we met Ayu's sister and walked around Chiba for a bit. We had lunch at an awesome place that was actually quite cheap. We were able to enjoy some brews that they made on site. For 4 beers and 3 meals, we paid a mere 4,300 yen. Not bad when you consider right down the road a pub has pints of Guinness for 900 yen each.

In Chiba we also found an awesome shopping mall. It was so huge that after walking around for 2 hours, we only covered 20% of the mall.

After shopping we went to Ayu's sisters place and I made some ratatouille that we enjoyed with a baguette we bought at a local bakery. Even though we spent all day walking around, it was a great day.

Today we went to Asakusa and checked out the famous Kaminarimon. It was super crowded, but enjoyable. At the gate, some dude came up to me and asked me if I could help him call his family. First he needed 1,000 yen, and I said sorry, I don't have it. No sooner than I finished saying that, he demanded to use my cell phone. He was rather pushy and the whole thing seemed strange to me, so we walked away after saying we can't help him.

After Kaminarimon, we took a stroll down towards the Tokyo Sky Tree area. The main structure is finished and it's massive. We ate lunch on a bench while taking in the scenery.

After returning to the apartment for a bit we set out to do some grocery shopping. Unbeknownst to me, but perhaps knownst to the rest of Tokyo, just 10 minutes away by walk is culinary heaven. In the basement of an upscale shopping center (that has a Harry Winston jewelry shop in it...) are two shops that have import foods (and an abundance of delicious beers!). After shopping around, I really dread going back to Ishikawa where all grocery stores carry the same thing and it's hard to find anything...well...Western for groceries. We picked up two Hawaiian beers, some nectarines (!), Indian curry and came back.

I have a feeling we'll be doing a lot of shopping at this place in the coming week.

I think that's all for now. I'd post pictures but I don't have my connector cable for the camera. I'll upload pics upon our return home.

By the way, I cannot figure out why on earth when Japanese men drink something on the commercials they look like they're giving birth or something. They make drinking something refreshing look absolutely painful. I dunno...

EDIT: It just occurred to me I never posted a link for the awesome brewery/restaurant in Chiba. Here it is: Harvest Moon

An Evening with Mr. Madison

2011-08-02T21:11:00.006+09:00

After waking up from a quick cat nap, which have become much more common since I bring Ayu to work and pick her up at 12:30am, come home, go to bed and wake up at 6:00am, I'm up and about.

I've cracked open an Belgian witbier and after polishing it off, I'm going to sit down with this gentleman:

My last summer trip to America, I bought this book and have been chipping away at it slowly. Now that I've finished my course, I've found that I'm accustomed to reading at night and it feels weird not to. Additionally, thanks to the course I finished, a lot more of Madison's writings have opened up for me and I understand them a little better.

This book is extremely interesting as it was written during the late 1700s through the mid 1800s. Personally, I tend to think that the problems we face nowadays are very different from the problems of Mr. Madison's days. However, reading his works, he talks about usurpation of power, about the dangers of fiat financing, about the need for a federation of states (did you know that before the federation of states in Ameria, there was a Dutch federation which the founders looked to as a sort of blueprint??) and so on. Sometimes, some of his writings could be lifted from the book and printed in an opinion section somewhere about this problem or that.

Although some of the book is heavy reading with the formatting/lack of spelling/interesting grammar of Madison's day, the content really is fascinating. I suggest anyone who's interested in American history or political philosophy to give it a crack.

After working through this book, I want to pick up two other books in the series: Alexis de Tocqueville and Thomas Jefferson. After that, I'll see if anyone else sparks my interest.

Have a good night/day everyone!

Course Update

2011-07-31T21:45:00.003+09:00

I just took my last course quizzes tonight. I scored a 95 and a 90 on the last two. That means I passed!!

Here's how I did:

Quiz 1: 65% (I know! I know! Give me a break, this quiz covered over 400 pages of reading!)

Quiz 2: 70% A wee bit better than quiz 1.

Quiz 3: 60% I dunno...bad drinking water maybe...

Quiz 4: 95%

Quiz 5: 90%

Course total: 76%

I was hoping to do better, but it's a passing mark and I'll certainly take that. I'm already looking forward to taking another class after the CRAZY busy workload of September passes. This course was difficult as I've had to wade through over 1,000 pages of reading, but it was well worth it. I consider myself enriched by the stuff I read.

Plus, now I've earned the right to come down harder on my students.

Have a great night/day all!

This and That

2011-07-27T22:50:00.004+09:00

I just got back from a jog and while trying to cool down I figured I would write a blog posting to keep my dear mother happy.

Not much is going on here. There's only about a week left of this semester and boy I couldn't be happier. Once school lets out, Ayu and I are going to Tokyo for a week. We'll leave Saturday and spend the week there and leave Saturday night (another night bus...) and arrive Sunday morning. It should be a fun week and I'm very much looking forward to getting away from Kanazawa for a week. I'm gonna bring my work out gear and try to get out jogging every day while we're in Tokyo.

About 2 weeks ago, I signed up for this fitness thing at the gym. They measured my body fat %, took my height and weight and then gave me two free protein shakes and a free sports drink. My body fat % was higher than I wanted it to be so that's why I'm working a little harder now to drop some extra pounds. I have until August 31st to work my magic. I'll post all the numbers once I cross that line.

The only other thing I can see worth mentioning is my failed sourdough experiment. It's been relatively warm here - but not hot - and I took advantage of the temps to get a quick yeast colony going. My goal was to make a sourdough with it, but I was too busy and I just kept feeding it. Tonight, I went to make a starter out of it, opened the jar and my sourdough smelled like Cabot Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese. Not exactly what I was looking for...

Moral of that story: Don't leave a sourdough starter in 90 degree temps for too long. NASTY.

Well, I can't really see anything more worth mentioning. I foresee my next blog posting being in Tokyo. Until that time, take care my 2 or 3 loyal readers!

I have a bad case of diarrhea

2011-07-20T19:39:00.002+09:00

Not really. A student sent me this vid:

If you find that hilarious then check out this one too:

I agree with what one commenter said on the other videos: "youtube needs a wtf button".

Yes, indeed.

Edit for the previous post

2011-07-01T22:41:00.003+09:00

I stated last week that the mild irritation on my throat was probably from heartburn. Since my stomach has been feeling spectacular I was anticipating this subsiding soon. But I didn't. It started to get worse and worse until yesterday I had to take it easy on the talking volume in classes.

Turns out the doc just found the beginning of a nasty throat virus. It actually blossomed into something that feels like someone is pushing in on my Adam's apple. My voice nearly gave out today and I'm hoping it will return to normal sometime soon.

I know it's a virus because 1) I gots a canker sore. Like my father, whenever I get a bug, I get a canker sore in me mouth that usually lasts for the duration of the bug. Reason 2): Ayu woke up this morning with the same exact feeling.

Man, I just can't win lately. At least my stomach is still sailing along ubber smoothly and it actually feels great. I suspect it has a lot to do with me cutting out about 6 to 8 cups of coffee, a few cups of tea and a few pints of beer daily. I read that caffeine can really make the ol' pouch angry and coffee is also extremely acidic. Add to that alcohol which works much like caffeine and I guess it's a recipe for disaster.

Tummy Update

2011-06-24T16:44:00.004+09:00

Well, I went to the doctor's today and had my invasive treatment done.

The results?

Absolutely nothing. The doctor said I look extremely clean inside, no cancer, no ulcers, no little green men drilling at my innards. Just mild irritation on my throat from what was probably heartburn and acid reflux.

Well, at least it's not cancer...

Now I've got to double down on my efforts to drop even more weight pronto. I'll do it and see how it goes.

Edit: How did I celebrate such news? With a couple of pints of IPA, of course. I'm going to go back on the one day per week drinking limit until I drop the final weight. Oddly enough, my stomach felt great yesterday, even before the exam. I'm also going to try eating much smaller portions from now on and see if that helps.

Homework

2011-06-22T21:37:00.002+09:00

It's time to put my money where my mouth is and do a bit of homework myself. We'll see if after this 4 week course I'm still willing to come down hard on my students. This week I have about 400 pages of reading to do for a quiz next week. It's a quick jump back into the water after nearly 5 years off from school.

All this is good, it keeps my mind of me aching tummy. I read some more cute news today that ulcers need to receive the biopsy treatment to test for cancer. Yeah, that's right, some ulcers are cancerous. Real cute.

Luckily, I also read that those ulcers are utterly unbearable and produce immense pain when the person eats. Right now, I'm actually eating more because when I eat it feels great, almost completely vanishes.

I've found this week, with my impending judgment day (yes, I realize I'm being pessimistic about this) I have no desire to hit the gym. If all goes to plan, I'll be back in action Saturday and Sunday of this week, hopefully with a more comfy tummy.

Also, I miss my beer :(

Life Goes On

2011-06-20T20:07:00.003+09:00

Well, it's Monday night and there's a whole week ahead of me.

I took advantage of the past weekend by making up some bread for this week. I took one loaf of my sourdough and spiked it with dried tomatoes and walnuts. It was pretty yummy! Next time I'll try some fruit and walnuts. The walnuts match the nutty, slightly sour tinge of the bread quite well, and I'm sure the nutrition boost is quite nice too.

Tomorrow marks the start of my online course at the Mises Academy. I'm rather excited but the workload will be more than enough to keep me busy. It's a short course and it is based on an important book written by one of my favorite authors, FA Hayek.

For those who are wondering what it's all about, it's a political science/economy course and the drawbacks and negative influences of government. Hayek, as well as the Austrian school of economics, firmly believed that the answer to most, if not all, of our problems today lie not in government coercion but rather in personal responsibility and individual freedom. I'll leave it at that and let you learn more if you're curious.

Friday is another important day in the book of Bill. It turns out my heartburn may be related to something else, something that I long suspected but never seriously considered:

An ulcer! So Friday I'm getting the famous stomach cam sent in to see what the skinny is. I have a good feeling it's an ulcer since I have the classic symptoms: nasty heartburn/reflux, goes away when I eat and a gassy/bloated feeling.

As most normal people would be, I'm quite nervous about it. I'm not nervous about the actual procedure but rather what they might find. When the doctor showed me pics of people with cancers and whatnot, it was enough to fire the pessimism, doom and gloom, the-world-is-ending engine in the brain.

My hope is they get in there, see an ulcer, and only an ulcer, and give me the meds I need to finally kick this thing. I can't remember the last time my stomach (or throat) felt relatively normal and I'm more than ready for a change. It's funny, when I was a kid and I saw all these commercials about sick adults complaining about this problem or that, I used to think, well, it can't be that bad! Now them I'm advancing in the ranks of age, I'm finding out that it rather sucks. If it's indeed an ulcer and I can kick it, I'm going maximum effort on my goal of attaining around 70kg before my birthday. Since I'll have that load of my shoulders, I should be able to do it.

I'll post some sort of update on Friday (perhaps with a cool pic!). Take care and have a great day!

Hiking

2011-06-12T19:41:00.011+09:00

Today a buddy and I went for a hike in the mountains. It was hard work but a lot of fun. There isn't too much to say about it other than I really prefer climbing up as opposed to coming down. Going downhill is way too hard on the knees. If you are ever in the Ishikawa/Toyama area, the mountain's name is 医王山（いおうぜん、Iouzen) and the specific peak was 白兀（しらはげ、Shirahage). It's a fairly easy climb but requires some focus and perseverance. Enjoy the pics!

One of the few paths up/down the mountain. This path was only wide enough for one foot to step, which made moving a little slower.

This was the view we had while we ate our lunch at the peak.

This pond is nestled in the mountains, about an hour's hike from the peak. We made it from one point to the other in about 50 minutes or so.

We left the pond and moved on to a waterfall. On the way down the mountainside we found a Japanese maple tree that was just starting to turn colors.

A bug that I ate.

(Just kidding!)

The previously mentioned waterfall. Notice the cave next to it. I wonder if there's anything living in there?

A salamander chillin' out on the rocks.

The last pic for this post: The waterfall-turned-stream continuing its journey down the mountain.

As I said before, it was great and I can't wait to get up into the mountains again!

Have a great day/night wherever you are!

*Also, a happy birthday shout out to my mother! I believe she's going on 20 years old this year ;) Happy birthday mom!

Sourdough v2.0

2011-06-07T20:31:00.004+09:00

I fed my sourdough yesterday and when I took the loose fitting lid off it, I was hit with a massively powerful vinegar aroma. Although I'm fond of my pet, it was clearly time to start a new one.

I rigged a new jar, put it underneath my trusty climbing plant (which I suspect is a collaborating point for wild yeast) and a day later it was already bubbling. Although summers here are way to intense, I suppose the nice thing would be an easy harvest of sourdough cultures once my old one turns to vinegar.

Tomorrow I'll be making sourdough rye loaves with toasted caraway seeds in 'em. YUMS. I'll bring some of this with me Sunday when I go hiking up a mountain with a buddy.

As a bonus, check this guy out from Scotland. Very awesome. He won the Britain's Got Talent 2011 season.

Jai McDowall (sorry, embedding was disabled on this)
Enjoy yer day/night!

Weightloss Update

2011-05-31T08:07:00.003+09:00

This morning I stepped on the scales to see how I was doing on my goal of 80kg for the first of June.

I've been working out really hard, eating relatively clean and refraining from excessive (read: nightly) booze.

My weight: 80.6kg

I'll take it. The weight goal is just a number. What I really wanted was to improve my health and I do feel much better. My heartburn is steadily subsiding, my energy levels are skyrocketing and life in general just got a bit more sunny and happy with the changes.

My next goal is to reach my destination weight before my birthday, September 14th. I still don't know what I'm shooting for, but I'm guessing around between 71-73kg. It's just a number, and I'll know when I get there by how I feel and look.

Have a great day/night everyone!

Rapture

2011-05-24T20:27:00.001+09:00

I haven't got much to say, but I found this in the comment section on a Yahoo! News article. Brilliant. If you're wondering, it is in reference to the failed rapture on May 21, 2011.

INSTALLING RAPTURE.
███████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ 44% DONE.
Install delayed....please wait.
Installation failed. Please try again. 404 error: Rapture not found.
EVENT "Rapture" cannot be located. The rapture you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.

Buzzzzzzzz

2011-05-07T23:11:00.004+09:00

I've long been appreciative of alcohol's "medicinal" qualities, although I have a suspicion it's not just me...

While I no longer enjoy getting flat out drunk, I do enjoy a good buzz every now and then. When I was a tad bit younger I did enjoy getting drunk, but now I much prefer to keep my senses about me and appreciate the fine and delicate line a good buzz straddles. Yes, yes, this could be the warning sign of an alcoholic. Worried? Nah, not really.

Tonight, after being sick for a week, after getting one day of good vacation time out of seven days, I decided it would be proper to indulge in a little bit of alcoholic medicine. Being able to drink beer is so much better than not even being able to keep water in my stomach.

I started off by enjoying two pints of English style brown ale. It was alright and a bit nostalgic for reasons I won't mention here, but it left me a bit thirsty for more. So I went back for two pints of coffee oatmeal stout. By the beginning of the third pint, we were enjoying some British comedy and having good laughs. (The comedy was called "The Vicar of Dibley" and I highly recommend it)

I decided I liked being somewhere in an alternative universe so much that I followed the stout with two very British drinks - coffee and brandy, and coffee and Baileys. All in all, after 3 hours, I had enough good laughs to keep me happy for a week and enough drinks to keep me satisfied and ready to attack the busy week ahead. I'm making good progress in my gym work and I'm looking forward to getting back to a normal workout routine after a bout of the...well...you know. Perhaps next Saturday night I'll wash down another intoxicating mix of comedy and beer and enjoy all the Brits have to offer. Although the booze is good, the laughter could be even better. Whoever said laughter is the best medicine certainly hit the nail on the head.

Tomorrow should be a good day of bread baking and errand running. Somewhere in there, I need to throw in a good workout as well. The sourdough (pictured above) is developing an excellent pungent taste to it and I couldn't be happier with my scientific experiment.

Have a great weekend everyone! Cheers!

Bacon!!

2011-05-06T15:00:00.003+09:00

It's a busy day here and I've got some downtime so I thought I would just say this:

A good way to lift the spirits on a busy day is to take a lunch break with a BLT made with Austrian slab bacon and homemade sourdough whole wheat bread.

I'm happy (and still mightily appreciative of the fact that I can eat again!)

I'm Just Here for the Food

2011-05-02T17:59:00.005+09:00

One of my heroes is Alton Brown. He takes a no non-sense approach to cooking and breaks it down into a methodology that everyone can do. I really appreciate this technical take on it, rather than the fancy-smansy overboard cuisine approach.

I recently scored his book, I'm Just Here for the Food. I really enjoyed it, but unfortunately I can't employ half the recipes he provides in the book.

Luckily he advocates not so much recipe formulation but cooking styles and methods, which have been a huge help.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to get into cooking. Additionally, a good way to kill some time on your lunch break and to hone your cooking skills at work is to search for Good Eats or Alton Brown on Youtube. He's a great guy and most of his stuff is online. Unfortunately, being in Japan, I can't watch some of it due to Script content or whatever.

The Road to Serfdom

2011-05-02T10:08:00.003+09:00

For those of you who know me, you know I take an interest in political economics (and economics, too!).

So, I found this course online and I think I might take it: The Road to Serfdom.

I've already read the book, which helps and Hayek is one of my favorite philosophers (my favorite being Bastiat).

For $95, I think it would be worth it!

Time To Kill

2011-05-01T11:56:00.003+09:00

I've got some time to kill and I can finally sit up long enough to write something so I figured I would do this.

Thursday night I came down with what was a "normal" bout of colitis. NOT fun stuff. I was spewing out both ends for about a day and a half and now I feel as though I've been hit by a rather large truck. Thankfully I'm on the mend now and started to eat foods again (yogurt this morning! yay!).

I'm a pretty avid reader and I thought I would start posting books that I've read and perhaps comments to each book as well. We'll see how this idea takes shape, but it would at least be something for me to do.

That's all for now, take care wherever you are --- and don't get sick!

Rye Sourdough Starter

2011-04-27T21:09:00.001+09:00

Trying my luck with natural forces, I have now started to make a rye sourdough starter culture. If it works out, I should have many days of delicious bread ahead!

Sourdough Starter

2011-04-26T20:50:00.003+09:00

This is what a sourdough starter looks like.

Consider yourself lucky you can't smell it through the computer. I personally don't mind the smell of fermenting wheat, but Ayu can't stand it. I've got about 10kg of whole wheat flour coming and once it gets here its baking time.

What exactly is in this? It's a mixture of lactobacillus culture (lactic acid) and wild yeast. The sour smell comes from the lactobacillus. I'll post some pics of my bread adventures in the coming week. I do need to use this critter up soon as it's getting to big for its home.

My One and Only Love

2011-04-23T17:28:00.003+09:00

Ayu came across this on a Japanese website.

I watched it and was blown away.

And he's only 16 years old!!

In other areas, I have definitely caught something in my jar rigged with flour. I woke up this morning to some foaming, bubbling and a sour smell. Should be working!! I'll leave it out for a few months and see what comes of it and then try to make bread with it.

Yeast Hunting

2011-04-20T19:23:00.006+09:00

I thought I would take a break from my current work at home tasks and post this fascinating piece of information.

I'm currently on the hunt for some wild yeast around the apartment.

What I've done is rig this jar with some water and flour.

My hope is that there are some wild yeast in abundance inside and will start to colonize in the flour. Should they decide to make it home, I'm gonna make a nice sourdough bread out of it. (Yes, I did remove the lid to allow yeast to come in, the lid is on in the picture since I was shaking the bejeesus out of it to mix it well)

I don't know how well it will go since I've read that city air isn't exactly ideal for yeast cultivation. If it doesn't work, I'll try cultivating elsewhere.

I should know within 3 days or so.

Hanami Pictures

2011-04-19T19:53:00.007+09:00

On Sunday we took a stroll downtown and parked along the river to bask in the sun, drink some beer and check out the beautiful flowers.

Here are some pictures:

This ad says something to the tune of "You will have pleasure that you can't have with Japanese women." It's something like a bar where Chinese women serve you all sorts of beverages and what not. As for what else they serve I don't know and I have no interest to find out...

All this, and it's only a 20 minute walk from our apartment! (if you couldn't recognize it, that is indeed sarcasm)

Blog Update

2011-04-19T11:17:00.002+09:00

You've no doubt noticed that I updated the blog. I'm gonna focus more on personal matters (of which I really have nothing exciting to share) from here on out.

I also got sick of seeing this dark blog every time I opened it up so now it's a little bit lighter and a whole lot brighter...if that makes any sense.

I've got some cool pics from hanami the other day I'll put up later.

An Evening Stroll updated

2011-04-10T18:15:00.007+09:00

It was a gorgeous day today and we decided to take an evening stroll around the neighborhood. Here are some pics:

This last pic, I dunno, let your mind think what it wants...

Dammit

2011-04-02T16:06:00.001+09:00

So I went to go to the gym today and guess what?

Closed at 3:00. On a Saturday.

Saturday.

Not a weekday, but weekend, when people aren't working.

I've had it with them. I'm joining a gym that's next to my school.

Idiots.

There and Back Again: A Teacher's Tale

2011-04-01T17:16:00.003+09:00

So the semester is starting up and I actually got a little lucky to have a "light" teaching load, especially compared to some of my co-workers. However, to my dismay, I looked at my classroom assignments: 10 class sections, meeting twice a week each, in about 8 different classrooms. So it looks like during the day, I'll get to become a hobbit and go on some traveling adventures in between classes.

I won't complain much because I could have been stuck with 12 sections (but nothing's finalized yet so that may change), but I need to come up with an efficient system that lets me know where to go and when to go there. Perhaps I'll do that tomorrow.

I'm fighting the urge to have a homebrew. I still believe homebrews are extremely healthy but unfortunately they are also high in calories. Normally, not a problem, but I have packed on way too much weight way too quickly. I'll probably be successful tonight, but I need to step up diligence once work gets going and sub the homebrew for exercise.

On the plus side, I have managed to shed a kilo and a half in the past week or so. Respectable and I'll take it.

747 take off -Anchorage

2011-03-31T18:33:00.003+09:00

When we left Alaska, I took this video. Enjoy!

Hunkering Down

2011-03-16T05:37:00.005+09:00

Things on the other side of the island look to be getting out of control with the nuclear reactors.

We're gonna go out today to buy some water, instant noodles, eggs, frozen veggies and cheese. Thankfully, we have enough beer :D

Call me a doomsday believer, but if shit hits the fan, I'm not going outside for anything.

Edit: I found this, it might be interesting for those who are in Japan:

Japan Radiation Map

The other one seems to have farted out for a bit, I found this too. Apart from the seriousness of it all, this is pretty cool (and helpful!)

Animation of Fallout

Donating

2011-03-15T09:01:00.002+09:00

We're heading down to Kanazawa city hall to donate money to the Red Cross. If you live in Japan, I suggest going to your local NHK website to find out where you can donate. NHK accepts donations on behalf of the Red Cross and has set up multiple centers to do so.

If you don't live in Japan, I've heard that the Salvation Army and Red Cross are two of the better ones.

A Bizarre Trip

2011-03-14T05:18:00.008+09:00

Just sit right back and hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip, that started from this tropic port, aboard this tiny ship...

We left Japan Monday, February 21st. Leaving Japan we had no major problems. I think there was a small ticket glitch in Komatsu, but other than that, smooth sailing.

When we landed in Chicago, I talked to my mom and she told me that our flight, which was originally scheduled for 7:35 pm, was delayed until 4:00am the next morning. I immediately went to the flight's board and saw that our flight was on time. I breathed a sigh of relief and we took a nap in a small area in the airport.

Ayu got up to go to the bathroom, came back and woke me up. She told me that our flight was now at 10:30pm. I checked it myself, was a bit disappointed but went back to my nap. A short while later, Ayu went for a walk, came back and told me our flight was canceled. I checked the board and in disbelief we both went to the customer service counter.

After waiting for about an hour a half, we finally got to talk to a person who works for United. While we were waiting, my mom managed to get us tickets out of Chicago early the next morning. The person at the counter said "I don't know why they did that..." and I expected to hear the flight was full. She then said that we could leave that night on a 9:05 flight. Happy, we left to get some dinner and relaxed at our gate, F7.

We got bumped around gates quite a bit - but more about that in a second. At our various gates we heard announcements like this:

"Flight blah blah blah to bleh bleh bleh, your flight is ready to go, we are just waiting to get a plane and a flight crew."

"Flight blah blah blah to Cleveland, we were flying in a flight crew to get you guys out of here but we sent them to the wrong city."

"Gates F4a and F4b will depart shortly. First will be F4a to blah blah. Next we will board F4b to Burlington. F4a, we are just waiting to get you a plane."

"Attention passengers, purple midgets from Mars are invading the world to steal our spaghetti."

Just kidding. It would have probably fit in with the night though.

Now, here's the fun part:

Our flight was delayed until 10:10pm. Then our gate was moved to F9. Then we were delayed again. Then our gate was moved to F14, F11, F12, F13, F4, and finally back to F11. During this nice heaping of gate changes we had additional sprinklings of delays. We didn't leave Chicago until 12:40am local time - almost 12 hours after arriving.

While we were waiting, we found out that another flight to Burlington boarded at around 1:30pm (earlier in the day, obviously), had the gate shut and then the plane sat there until 6:00pm. Apparently, everyone got in the plane and couldn't go anywhere because they realized they might need a flight crew...

We arrived in Burlington at 4:00am.

Our trip in Vermont was rather uneventful and relaxing until the last few days. As posted earlier, Burlington had 25.1" of snow. It was an awesome storm and was a blast to play in once the bad weather subsided.

We left Vermont on Thursday, March 10th at 8:00am. The flight to Chicago was rather smooth and uneventful. When we got to Chicago we had some Johnny Rocket burgers and boarded the plane.

Where we sat.

And sat.

And sat.

We waited about 90 minutes for 26 people whose flights into Chicago were running late.

Once these people arrived, we finally started taxiing down the runway. As we approached take off, the plane just stopped.

And we sat.

And sat.

And sat. (See a pattern here?)

After 20 minutes of waiting, the pilot came on the intercom system and informed us that there was a small, non-safety issue with our air conditioning system. We had to taxi back to the gate, wait for maintenance to inspect/fix it and then we could leave. This fiasco took another hour.

Finally, we were airborne.

Our flight to Japan was smooth with no major turbulence, which is always a nice thing. Then about 7 hours into the flight I noticed something weird happened. Since I can't sleep on planes I usually keep myself busy with trivial things. I was watching a show about an Alaskan ice sculpting contest when I noticed the plane made a sharp bank to the starboard side. I thought this was odd but kept watching the show.

5 minutes later, the captain came on the intercom saying that Tokyo had experienced a significant earthquake and we were being redirected for an emergency landing in Alaska. This was beyond freaky because for well over a year now I have been having re-occurring dreams about flying to America and having to make an emergency landing in Alaska. The last time I had this dream was probably 2 months ago.

We landed in Alaska at about 1am local time, got to our hotel at around 4:30am and slept for a few hours. As you can see from another earlier posting, we had a chance to do quite a bit of exploring/shopping for just one day. I also had some phenomenal local beers. We were only there for a day, but it was a great experience. It was especially nice to get out and do something besides watch how horrible the situation in Japan was turning out to be. Ayu was worried about her sister in Tokyo and we tried desperately to contact her to no avail. (Her sister was in Ishikawa during the earthquake, so she is safe, by the way).

We left the hotel at 3:40am the next morning to wait around until almost 10:00am to depart. The flight from Alaska to Tokyo only took about 6.5 hours and it went rather smoothly. I had a chance to talk to a flight attendant about the emergency landing and he said he has been a flight attendant for a long time and he never heard of any such situation like this, which adds to the freaky-ness of my dreams.

Once we landed in Narita, United paid for our bus over to Haneda, got us on a plane there and we finally arrived home at 6:30pm, Sunday, March 13th.

Although United really dropped the ball on our way to Vermont (a plane sitting at the gate for 4 hours due to a lack of flight crew?!), they more than made up for it with the return leg of the trip. They put us up in the Hilton Hotel, paid for our breakfast there ($40 at the Hilton), automatically put us on a flight out of Haneda, paid our $60 bus tickets to get there and gave us each 7,000 bonus miles.

I woke up this morning not sure if I was still in Alaska, or if I was back in Vermont, or if I was really home in Japan. Now I have to convince myself that somehow it really is Monday, somehow this trip really did happen and somehow things will be OK for the people on the other side of Japan.

Alaska Pics

2011-03-13T19:21:00.010+09:00

Here are some pics from Alaska.

These two folks were standing in the hotel lobby. I forget the specs on them, but they were both bagged in Alaskan territory. I was astonished at how big they were. You know, you see them on the Discovery Channel and what not and you don't give it much thought, but when you see them in person, it's terrifying.

This was the view from our hotel room.

We went for a walk in search of a hippy food store and once we left downtown for a bit, the view opened right up to this.

We made a friend on the way to said grocery store. This reindeer's name is Star and he/she was extremely friendly. Speaking of Reindeer, I really wanted to try some Reindeer meat, but I didn't get the chance...

As we were leaving Alaska, this volcano was releasing steam. On the other side of the plane was Mount McKinley, which I also got a chance to see.

Not Alaska, but a nice shot.

Obviously the world is quite messed up right now and this had a huge impact on our trip. I'll write more about what is perhaps one of the weirdest trips anyone can have. Additionally, I hope everyone will keep Japan in their prayers. I'm not a religious person, but if there's a God, I hope he stands by Japan, especially those on the north eastern coast, and helps them through this.

Chillin' in Alaska

2011-03-12T04:14:00.002+09:00

As most people know, Japan had a massive earthquake on Friday.

We were approaching the northern most part of Japan when the pilot came on the intercom system and announced that we were heading back to Anchorage due to a significant earthquake in Tokyo, Japan. Naturally, this worried us as we have friends and family in the Tokyo area. As far as we know everyone is OK.

So we're here, looking at the gorgeous mountains and getting ready to explore the area for the day. We're scheduled to leave at 8:00am tomorrow morning (Saturday) and fly directly into Tokyo. After that, I dunno.

And now we just saw that the Nagano/Niigata area just had an extremely strong earthquake.

Speechless.

Slab of Bacon and a Storm

2011-03-07T23:24:00.004+09:00

Today is the Monday of the week that we leave. We head out on Thursday and Vermont decided to give us a lovely parting gift: 2 feet of snow. It started snowing yesterday and we got about 4 or 5 inches during the day. I went out last night and cleared my parents' driveway and waited for the second blow to come in. It arrived last night and started snowing at a rate of about 3 or 4 inches and hour.

Unfortunately, my dad got out and moved the bulk of the heavy snowfall. I really didn't want him to do this because his back is less than stellar and recently his shoulders are about the same. The only thing I can do now is just keep on top of it and let him stay out of the snow. He says he likes it though because it gives him good exercise and this I can understand. We're waiting for the plow to come through and when he does he's gonna throw all the snow in the road - 2 feet of it - into the driveway and we get to do some hard working. I'll have to bacon fuel it.

Today is going to consist of a lot of shoveling and eating bacon. I went to Dakin Farms last week and bought a nice slab of cob smoked bacon. I really like the slab bacon because I can chop off huge chunks and have a nice Scooby-snack style bacon chunk.

Here are some pics. In the fury of the storm I couldn't get great pics. That and it's all white. Oh well...

Taking Flight

2011-02-20T19:49:00.005+09:00

It's that time again to spread me (our this time!) wings and take flight to Vermont.

During the course of the semester, life seems to get crazy busy and past trips to Vermont seem to be a distant memory and any future trips a lost hope. Then, all the sudden, the trips arrive in a hurry. Sometimes the trip seems to last a long time, but often it seems to go by too quickly. I wish I could switch the perceivable time passage of a typical semester here and a trip to Vermont.

I've found I've fallen in love with Vermont all over again. It's nice to be in Vermont from the tourist's perspective. I really enjoy being surrounded by nature, kick arse food and beer, and family. I would love to move back to Vermont, but alas, a job that pays above $25k a year would be a major stumbling block. I still have two years at my current post and I'll see how things look towards the end of my contract.

Speaking of my current post, I have to say I'm more than looking forward to the next semester. I've been given the task of teaching a new class - new for me that is. The class is Business English A and I've also been given a little wiggle room as to what I want to do with the class structure/grading and such. It's nice to talk about what I want to do in class, but now that I have to actually walk the walk, I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes. I didn't change much structure (read: grading) wise since it's my first run through and I really don't know what to expect.

A new challenge at work has definitely piqued my interest and stirred a bit of competitiveness within me. My biggest worry is that I will come across as a real hard-ass to the students. I'm going to take the next month and a half and try to find a way to have the students achieve my objectives and do this without driving them too hard.

And abrupt end but here's to safe travels and have a good evening/day everyone!

Wow

2011-01-19T14:55:00.002+09:00

I've been hitting these lately on youtube pretty hard:

I love the passion Paolo brings to music...His tunes are definitely my go to tunes.

Enjoy!

Winter Storm

2011-01-16T17:38:00.006+09:00

Today I woke up to meet a buddy for breakfast, walked out my front door and found this:

I was a little tickled when I saw this. I've been waiting for a good winter blasting here and it looks like we got it.

I proceeded to walk down the icy stairs and to my car, where I found this:

Living near the ocean, I realized I had the opportunity to go down to the beach and check out the carnage wrought by mother nature. Here's a pic, it was definitely better in real life. At one point, the wind was pushing me back. I had to boogey out in a hurry because I got caught in a snow squall. Being on the beach, the only standing object, in the middle of a thunder snowstorm didn't appeal to me much.

We drove around for a bit today, which put me in a bad mood all day. There were people walking right in the middle of road lanes, huge puddles of water everywhere, half the roads were covered in ice and the other half was icing over with black ice. Some genius a while ago here came up with the idea of using a sprinkler system so there's no need for hands on snow removal. I don't know how common this idea is in the world, but I know this: it doesn't work here. Being from Vermont, I have seen some nasty winter roads, and we have some brutal winters, but Kanazawa's roads take the cake for being worse. Instead of paying all that money to turn water on and repair water lines, why not just put down a little salt? Salt dissolves ice, not create it.

The other thing I really hate about the water sprinkler system is it sucks for pedestrians. Before driving here, I was a pedestrian victim of Kanazawa myself. As if 30mph blasts of cold wind aren't enough, as if the falling sleet/snow isn't enough, if a pedestrian isn't careful here they can take a good soaking from a car passing by kicking up all the water on the road. If they manage to avoid that, more than likely their feet will have become horribly cold and wet from walking in the slush solution.

I'm seriously debating moving to Hokkaido, where they have central heating, insulation, and I'd be willing to bet proper snow removal.

Can't wait to see next month's electricity bill after cranking the heat 24/7 just to lose 75% of it out our paper thin, uninsulated walls.

Happy winter everyone!

Warwick Avenue

2011-01-15T14:14:00.003+09:00

Recently, Ayu found a Welsh musician called Duffy. I've been digging her stuff quite a bit lately. I've noticed as I've gotten older my taste for music has kind of mellowed out and I'm more interested in music that is a little slower/traditional. I really dig stuff like classical, big band, folk, blues and soul, and oldies.

Speaking of which, tonight I'm going to see a local concert with a buddy. One of them is the chiropractor who fixed my busted back. Speaking of which, I should probably go see him again to make sure things are OK... Anyway, the chiropractor and another band is playing. I'm looking forward to it. Add on top of that what looks to be a monstrous snowstorm coming our way, it should be a good night.

Here's a vid of Duffy. I hope everyone is having a great day/night!

Setting Sail

2010-12-26T19:59:00.000+09:00

Well, we're off tonight to get me mum. Vacation has started!

I'm Dreaming...

2010-12-23T23:15:00.002+09:00

Looking at the forecast for Saturday, I would say my dream is very likely to come true.

Thank you, Bing.

Whoa

2010-12-22T12:18:00.002+09:00

This is cool. Really, really cool.

Warning: If you're an insomniac, don't open this link, you'll never sleep after this.

http://primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/

Edit: The link looked like it was down for a bit but now it's back.

Back

2010-12-16T18:25:00.003+09:00

One of my favorite hobbies is finding new ways to injure my back. So far this year, I've managed to do it twice, brilliantly I might add.

The first time was poor posture while lifting back in May or June. I was doing clean and presses and was riding the wave of good feeling while doing it. I wasn't paying attention but I accidentally curled my back on the lift. Whoops.

I felt pain from this not that day, or the next, but the day when I tried to lift heavy weights. A sharp pain ran from my shoulders to my head and I thought I was having a stroke or something. I called it quits, took a rest for a week and started on the recovery track while nursing my back the whole time.

A few weeks ago, thinking everything was okie dokie and ready to roll, I decided to do deadlifts. It felt pretty good to do it, and only a minor pain/discomfort when lifting. I finished my workout, went home, felt great. I woke up the next morning with that familiar feeling.

For the past 3 weeks I've been fighting this and all the lovely side complications it brings. One has been a constant lower back pain. Another, due to over compensation, sore abdominal muscles for nearly two weeks now. I finally took the advice of my good buddy and went to his chiropractor.

It was my first time seeing a chiropractor and I'm impressed. He had me lay face down on a bed, and he felt up and down my spine. Two minutes later, he told me that I had managed to dislocate a vertabrae which was causing all sorts of problems - including pinched nerves. He took about 40 minutes, gently twisted and pushed my body and said he was able to return the vertabrae and told me to take it easy for a while. I suspect that it won't stay there, but if it does I'm happy. Either way, I feel a lot better, like a dark cloud has been lifted away from me.

Once my stomach muscles are done doing their thing, I'm hitting the gym again (lightly) and getting back on track. I suspect what I did was over compensate and injure them when lifting a 5 gallon bucket of beer across the room and then spending 2 or 3 hours hunched over. Also, next week I'm going back to the chiropractor and make sure things are okie dokie and A-ok.

Hope y'all are having a great night/day!

It's Electrifyin'!

2010-12-09T20:39:00.004+09:00

Today was kinda cool. Since last night we've been in another one of those weather systems, but this time there has been an unusual amount of lightning to come with it. I love it. I love the raw power of lightning, the force of thunder echoing through my body and the general craziness of it all. Even as I write this it's a little wild outside.

The year is coming to a fast close and I'm looking forward to some time off. We're gonna go to Tokyo to meet my mother and walk around for a few days, then it's back here for some home cookin' and holiday celebrating. I would be lying if I said I don't miss the holidays, but I'll try my best to make up for it in a couple of weeks.

Here's the IPA going on about 2 weeks. It's a tad fuzzy since I took the pic in a hurry without the flash. You get the idea though.

A good night/day to all!

Edit: I think I have an apple addiction. I took one look at the apples sitting next to the box of oats and decided to make apple crisp...at 10:00pm. I'm almost done with this 11 pound box of apples and will need to pick up another Saturday or Sunday. On the bright side, I've contemplated doing an Apple Sauce Ale. I'll work out the details later.

Applesauce Update

2010-11-28T18:11:00.002+09:00

Low water content again. No burning this time though.

Man I love applesauce. Especially with real cinnamon. And honey. And brown sugar. Perhaps the best ingredient of all today: cognac.

;)

This weekend has felt refreshingly long, and for that I am grateful. We're kind of in a winter storm pattern here, but it hasn't been as severe as I thought. I hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Winter's Coming

2010-11-27T20:58:00.003+09:00

Winter's coming and what better way to get cozy than to make some apple sauce loaded with real cane brown sugar, honey, Vietnamese cinnamon and a shot of nutmeg?

Well, perhaps a better way would be not to burn said sauce.

A note to all aspiring applesauce cooks out there: when cooking apples for a new harvest season, make sure you keep an eye on the water content of your sauce. (Apples last season=lots of water. Apples this season=not so much)

Try #2 tomorrow...

Which Way Did He Go?

2010-11-20T21:08:00.003+09:00

Looking at this blog, I'm seeing it's quickly becoming a brewing blog/notebook. Whoops.

So here's something to chew on. I've been thinking lately about what lies in the Great Unknown. I still have ample time left on my contract here at school (2.5 years, give or take a bit) and there's no need to press the panic button just yet.

I have a background in business/accounting, and as most people who know me know, I also take a great interest in economics. What can I do with economics? I suppose I could make the most efficient use of my time being unemployed.

The way I see it is this: I have two choices. I can stay here in Japan, try to continue doing what I'm doing (and more than likely have to uproot to a new place). I certainly don't mind teaching and I certainly don't mind Japan. Sure, I have my qualms with it, but that's what adds to the entertainment value of living here.

The problem with staying here is that there's a pretty small market for what a white dude who speaks English can do. My stock is of no rare breed here and I have come to realize I'm essentially replaceable, almost at a whim. In order to stay in education, I need to publish papers, do research, go to seminars, hold seminars, give presentations, probably get a PhD at some point and find a cure for every known disease on the planet. If I can do that, I guess I would have a good shot at something in education. Even then, do I really want to stay in Japanese academia? Where I am now is pretty decent. Sure, it's not perfect, but it's a pale comparison (pale...pale ale?) to some of the horror stories out there for Japanese academia.

I've come to realize that perhaps the best route to success here is to jump the education/English ship and try to transition to the corporate world. I would say business, but that's so vague. I figure corporations are the best way to go. I can gain upward mobility, experience on someone else's dime and get a broad exposure to the business world. Perhaps after doing this, the next step could be my own business? But one step at a time. Of course, a path like this would take me to...a metropolis. Chances are, Tokyo.

The other option is to return state-side. Not just any state though, but I would like to be in the NY/New England area. I think this would be a nearly identical path as the business in Japan route, but with the home court advantage. It may not seem like that big of an advantage for some, but I think it would be HUGE. First of all, I'm an American citizen, fully authorized and able to work (and pay taxes....grrr....), I have a couple of American degrees under my belt and don't mind working for more if necessary. And of the obvious one, ENGLISH. Sure, I can learn Japanese, especially if the fire is lit underneath me, but I think being a native speaker in your country of business does help quite a bit.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Globalization. But really, in a land swarming with salaried sales people, selling everything from insurance to soy sauce contracts, and a limited market for foreigners, does Japan present the better logistics at surviving? I'm sure it's do-able, and others have/can do it, but I'm aiming for efficiency here, not an experiment. Part of my wondering and worrying here is that I don't want to hop around from this to that for the next 5 years. Also, any shortage of white guys who speak English and Japanese here? NOPE. And have business experience? NOPE. AND cured all the major diseases in the world? NOPE.

The nice thing about living in America is I would get to enjoy all the stuff I have recently realized I miss. Living in a foreign country is great because 1) you learn new stuff and 2) you realize the stuff you never appreciated before. Right now I have a massive hankering for a warm cup of spiced apple cider (that is the NON alcoholic version, too). Being close to family is obviously another plus (I shouldn't need to say this, but, depending on what your family is like, distance could be a good thing...)

I don't think America would have to be a permanent choice, but I would need to stack the experience deck for a few years or more before being able to translate that to Japanese success.

There are a few other small options on the table, which I think would be ready to roll at any notice, but I think the two major ones discussed above require a bit of prep work, none of which I'm doing at the moment.

Well, we'll see where I'm at when my mind comes back to this at some point. Something ticking inside me won't let me dwell on it too long though.

Cheers to all this weekend!

BTW: Had another homemade stout tonight. In a stein. Damn life is good.

Fat American

2010-11-11T19:53:00.003+09:00

With not much to write about in terms of brewing or anything else exciting, but wanting to keep up to date on this, I guess I could relay my experience at the doctor's office today to my faithful 3 readers.

I go to the doctors about once every 30 days to get medicine for my asthma. I'm a chronic asthmatic but it doesn't really interfere with my life thanks to modern medicine. I can still jog and sprint (maybe even more so than non asthmatics?) but my doctor checks me every month to make sure my lungs are still attached to the inside of my chest and to line his own wallet. I'm sure if people only went to see him when they were actually sick, he may not be as well off. He's a good doctor (most of the time) so I certainly don't mind going to see him. Besides, no medicine, no me. It's that bad.

Sometimes we shoot the shit about our favorite beers or my hometown, but sometimes he's morbidly serious about my "condition". What is my condition?

I'm a fat American. Supposedly, this puts me in the highest risk category for dying of being who I am. I think the common perception here is that all Americans are fat. Since all Americans are fat, all Americans are unhealthy. And they carry guns. I'm sure there's a correlation there.

So a month ago, feeling the need to assess my terminal condition, my doctor took my blood to test, for the second time this year, to make sure I have more than a month to live. I went in today and found out that...

I'm perfectly healthy. He almost seemed a little disappointed. HA! Yes, I have a little pudge around me waist and not rail thin like some Japanese men. But I eat a lot of healthy food (a lot being the operative word there). I love veggies, beans, tea and the like. I rarely eat meat. In fact, I could go weeks without eating meat and not really notice it. I don't drink more than 3 beers a night (WHAT??????). I try to exercise regularly, but more so now that I'm not as busy as I was during September and October.

All the necessary levels look good in my blood. My total cholesterol, both good and bad, is borderline low. I dunno if this is good or bad though?

Anyway, that's that. :::cracks open a beer::: Here's to you Doc.

Gran Torino

2010-10-21T23:30:00.003+09:00

Just got done watching Gran Torino.

Clint Eastwood is one bad ass mother *#$%&@ -- Pop culturally speaking, that is.

I highly recommend it. And I'm not easily impressed by movies.

Cookies

2010-10-20T21:22:00.007+09:00

Probably the best thing to do when watching your weight is to make a batch of cookies.

So I did.

Appealing to a sudden impulse, I whipped together a batch quickly after dinner. I was feeling a little nostalgic for some cookies I used to eat when I was growing up. I remember my mom making the best oatmeal no-bake cookies in the world. For some reason, my no-bake memory always involves cold winter days with the temperatures outside dropping to numbingly cold temperatures and/or an approaching winter storm coming in to kick up the winds and pushing the cold air through the windows. These days were always the best since the world would slow to a stop, we would all be stuck inside and my mom would seize the opportunity to bake up a storm.

...I was also a "chunky" kid too...

Although I really don't care much for the cold weather, my thoughts and feelings about it are slowly changing. I must confess that I enjoy crisp, cool days. Having been through what is now my 4th Japanese summer, I have to say I don't care much for hot and humid summers. This type of weather has turned my tastes back to the days when outside the temps would be -10 degrees F and the windows have ice frozen on the inside of them. I also have a greater appreciation now for the fact that snow can freeze two times, once when it falls and another if it hangs around to thaw out and freeze again (or everyday, all winter). I enjoy the nice crunch and creench sounds that snow makes when walking on it with heavy, clunky boots. Obviously Vermont isn't like this year round, but a place that produces consistent 95 degree summer days until the middle of September cannot duplicate such an experience.

Anyway, back to the cookies. It's hard to explain the aroma these cookies would give off. They were quite simple and quick to make, but the aroma would hang around the house all day, sometimes mixing in with the fresh, cold smell from outdoors if any people (or our cat) came to the house or left the house. The boiled cocoa and peanut butter had a nice, nutty smell, the oats had a smooth, warm and comforting grainy smell and when mixed with the frozen forest smell of outdoors, I can't think of anything more country like or appropriate for a winter's day.

Alas, those days are gone (for now), but I was able to acquire about 10 pounds of oats. I consider this a major accomplishment in Japan. For a people that claim to be health conscious, I'm not sure how oats slipped past the health radar. I had a nice hearty bowl of oats with brown sugar and milk for breakfast. I came home, took one look at the box of oats, and couldn't resist.

I'm nursing a small cold, probably brought on by stress and being too busy, and these really hit the "soul" spot for my health. With a nice long weekend coming up, I'll have plenty of chances to run these cookies off, but for now, I'm taking a trip to a place I have forgotten about for too long.

Tokyo! Day 2

2010-10-12T22:32:00.008+09:00

I just got done watching some Winter Sonata and figured I would drag myself to the computer again and write up day 2 of our adventures in Tokyo. For some reason, I only write this blog when I'm exhausted lately...

I remember waking up Sunday morning and not remembering much from the night before. I remember seeing Yoko Ono on TV with her boobs practically falling out of her jacket. I remember the three of us joking about it and then everything went blank. I really hate that night bus...

Once we got our act together in the morning, we went to the subway station and had breakfast. There's a nice little croissant shop there and they actually served sandwiches with real bacon. I really like the Aoyama area. For some reason, it feels calm and serene when the rest of the city is hustling and bustling.

After breakfast we took the train to Omotesandou Douri. This was a pretty cool area but most of the shopping is expensive. The street is lined with Armani and Burberry type shops. I found a little shop that I did like and I'm gonna hit it up around new year when they have a sale (the shop's name is Zara). As luck would have it, this street led us right to Harajuku, the day we went to before. Seeing it as a chance for redemption, I dragged Ayu and her sister to a local beer brewery shop. It's remarkable to be able to find a restaurant/pub that is practically empty when just 30 feet away there's a street with a flowing human ocean current. The name of the shop was Baird's Beer. We downed 2 pints of beer with a small taster IPA and had some lunch here. Although it was supposed to be shared amongst the three of us, I drank most of it. I highly recommend this place for anyone as their beer is so good and fresh that it can make a believer out of anyone.

Feeling a little warm and fuzzy after, we walked to Yoyogi Park (just down the road). This was another pleasant surprise in the middle of such a massive and bustling metropolis. There were people doing all sorts of crazy stuff here. We saw some people acting like they were in the Grease movie, some gothic people, a mime, people playing music and drums and so much other stuff. This place was great, but my memories are slightly muddled by my urgent need to find a bathroom to dispose of my filtered beer.

After we left here, we headed to Roppongi to check out Roppongi Hills. We got a little confused on our way and had to take a bus to the Hills after we got off at a subway station a wee bit too far away. Either way, we made it and saw a gorgeous view of Tokyo Tower under the dimming pink night skies. I wanted to take a good picture of it, but alas my camera has its limits. We found a kick ass restaurant in Roppongi Hills (Mori Tower). It was an Italian restaurant that served excellent food. The three of us ate (no alcohol) for about 3,300 yen total. Not bad at all. I was afraid that there would be some sort of weird charge to bring the total to 20,000 yen since the place was so nice, but my fears were without reason.

We strolled back up to the apartment after checking out a pet shop, packed up and head back to Shinjuku station to take the horrible bus back.

All in all, I enjoyed Tokyo quite a bit. I'm growing more and more fond of the city and the opportunities it presents. I highly recommend all the areas (except Ikebukuro--for now) that we saw and I wish I had more time to stay in the city and explore all it has to offer.

Here are some pictures.

This is the busy street in Harajuku. I guess a while back some people thought someone famous came here and it started a stampede. Seeing how crowded it was on this day, I wouldn't want to be in any stampede here. The beer place is just off to the side of this, so as you can see it was a nice respite from the chaos.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If that's the case, insert your own comments for this one.

These were the 50s dance people. They danced to stuff like Grease tunes and what not. Feeling a bit inspired, I switched to Sepia mode on my camera and started screwing around with the settings to see what I could get. I think I'm starting to get the hang of the upgraded photo taking power.

Another shot with Sepia. I'm really happy with this one.

Last but not least. I like the "mystic" look of this one.

That's all for now!

Tokyo! Day 1

2010-10-11T17:47:00.008+09:00

We had a long weekend here with yet another Japanese holiday. This one was to promote physical health. Obviously I'm working on being healthy, and it's very important, but a national holiday for it? What's next? Oxygen Day?

This blog entry might read a little clunky, but I'm too exhausted to care.

Anyway, we seized the chance and skipped out of town Friday night on a night bus to Tokyo. We met up with Ayu's sister early Saturday morning in Shinjuku Station. After a bit of Marco Polo trying to find her sister in such a massive complex, we headed towards our place of dwelling for Tokyo, had some Subway and dropped off our bags. At about 9:00am or so we hit the road and started exploring.

The first place we went to was Harajuku. Harajuku has a reputation in Japan and the World for being THE place to see all sorts of gothic/lolita people. When we arrived it was still a little too early to see many people but we did get a chance to do some stress free shopping (before the immense rush). We spent about an hour shopping and then grabbed some lunch. We found a small Indian food stand on "Weird Street" and enjoyed some spicy curry and Indian beer for lunch. I liked Harajuku, but I'll have more comments on this in my next entry.

After this we boogied to Ikebukuro, which, as you guessed, has more shopping. Here all we really did was go to the biggest bookstore in Japan. The store has 9 floors of books and their English book selection is fairly decent (and a helluva lot better than anything we have in Kanazawa). I was happy to find two books that I was looking for: The Great Gatsby and 1984. I've started reading The Great Gatsby, but I've been too exhausted to make serious progress on it.

After Ikebukuro, we went to Shinjuku (again). We wanted to walk around the area but the weather was unforgiving. We decided we could find plenty to do in the station so we wandered around for a bit and found a cafe in the Keio shopping complex. Here I had one of my all time favorite ice creams: matcha ice cream. I enjoy it with azuki beans and the parfait was more than enough to recharge my batteries and alleviate my aching feet.

After browsing for a bit, we found a great grocery store in the station. As luck would have it, we arrived just as they were cutting up a giant Yellowfin Tuna. Wickedly awesome.

The final decision to make for the day was what to do about dinner. Being exhausted from walking all day, we decided to get some sushi, some beer and go back to our room. After eating it was bath time and bed time. The night bus is cheap, but it's brutal. I couldn't sleep all the way to Tokyo and by the time bed time rolled around, I was in a zombie-like state. I don't remember laying down or falling asleep that night.

Here are some pictures from day 1 (Saturday). I'll write day 2 up tomorrow and with some recommendations for anyone who may stumble across this blog and wants to see some stuff in Tokyo.

I took this picture for my brother to see. He spent many wonderful years (sarc.) working at Subway and thought he might like to see this.

I'm not an architecture junkie, but I love looking at tall buildings. Tokyo is loaded with all sorts of cool stuff like this.

This was just cool to watch. The guy cutting the fish has been doing this for about 25 years. He looks kinda young, but I guess he started at 6 years old. By the time they finished, they had an audience of about 100 people watching and waiting for fresh tuna.

Enjoy your evening wherever you are!

Bread, Part Deux

2010-09-22T18:51:00.003+09:00

Second time around, it looks much better. Tastes better, too! I actually looked up how to properly braid bread and this time I substituted honey for sugar in the bread dough.

Vienna Braided Bread

2010-09-20T14:16:00.006+09:00

When a body stops working for the first time after going, going, going for about 3 weeks I guess there's a bit of whiplash.

I tried to get down the gym today, arrived at the parking lot to find it packed full from a local event which wasn't even happening at the gym. After fuming off my anger on the way home from a missed session at the gym, I came home and had lunch. While Ayu was finishing lunch, I had the urge to do something, anything.

So I pulled out one of my favorite cookbooks, Now That's A Linzertorte!, which I picked up at the Von Trapp Lodge in Stowe, VT. I found a recipe I wanted to try and fired away.

All in all, it came out decent. However, I didn't bother looking up how to properly braid bread on the internet before braiding my bread. Oh well, next time it will look better.

The taste is quite light and airy, but it's nice. I'm thinking the bread will go nice with some light cheese, honey, or fruit.

Here are some pics:

I Can See Clearly Now

2010-09-19T09:57:00.007+09:00

Finally, the awful work storm has lifted and all is clear. I suppose it wasn't that bad, but somehow, seeing the same class for 2 hours a day for 6 days a week is always exhausting.

With class being done, we took a stroll down to the beach. Here are some pictures I took, messing around with my camera's settings. They're all at the same time of day, within 20 seconds apart, but I adjusted some of this and that.

In other news, thanks to a lucky break of events due to some stellar people, I am able to purchase me brewing supplies this month. I'm happy about this because it gives me a chance to mess up a couple of times before my lovely mother visits (which I would like her to try at least one good beer that I make).

I hope all had a great weekend!

Good Day

2010-09-14T22:03:00.003+09:00

Today was a good day.

I walked to work while listening to a great book on my iPod. I normally drive into work or ride my bike, but since my bike tire is flat and it's cooling off outside, I decided to take a leisurely stroll in.

I got to work, completed my duties and walked back home. I had my reasons for not wanting to stay today. Any other day and I wouldn't mind staying to get some stuff done for a while.

We went shopping and picked up some grub and brews. I purchased a Hitachino Nest White Beer and a Wychwood Blonde Beer (check out the links on the sidebar for more information).

We came back, cracked open the brews, made some nachos in the oven, had a nice dinner and enjoyed a "cheesecake" which came out more like custard. Nevertheless, it was all delicious.

I particularly dig the White Beer with the coriander and orange peel in it. It's rapidly climbing my list as a favorite brew. I had it in Vermont during the winter and it matches the winter climate. It's nice and crisp and the spices add a nice contrast to the cold weather outside. I've had it in Vermont in the summer and here in the summer and it matches the summer climate. Those same spices that provide a contrast to the cold outside seem to provide a nice cooling feeling during the summer time.

Perhaps I'll give it a whack when I figure out the brewing stuff.

Humour Me

2010-09-13T20:45:00.003+09:00

Recently, I've become rather interested in British humour (misspelled intentionally). I enjoy it's dry, sarcastic tone. Also, it seems as though the British are quite free to say what they want on television, as opposed to us Americans.

This is called "The Thin Blue Line" starring Rowan Atkinson. For those unfamiliar with him, he's the guy who played Mr. Bean. The man is a pure genius. Enjoy!

If you liked this, just go to youtube.com and search for The Thin Blue Line.

Arse Whooping

2010-09-10T18:33:00.003+09:00

I just got back from a jog and WHEW! was that hard. I did a moderate amount of exercising in Vermont in the form of jogging, playing basketball, lifting weights, lugging firewood and lifting a few pints a day. When I came back from Japan I was beyond demotivated with all the work I was staring down the barrel of and didn't do much exercise.

Well, the work storm cloud looks as this it's thinning out and becoming more manageable in terms of time remaining. I figured I should get back on the exercise wagon before it's too late.

Goals for this leg (until the end of the next semester in February):

*75 kilograms. I'm not sure what that is in pounds. We live in the internet age, look it up. When I first started exercising I tipped the scales at a hefty 89/90 kilos. If you don't know kilos, again, look it up. If you're too lazy like me, you just need to know that's the Thunder brand of Chunky. I managed to get down to 79 kilos or so before going to Vermont and now I'm at 81 kilos. I think 6 kilos is do-able.

*Running at least 3 times a week. It looks like this will have to be my goal for the rest of my life as well. What I just discovered was that I absolutely cannot take running off, no matter where I am or what I'm doing. A few years ago I was diagnosed with asthma when I literally almost dropped dead from not being able to breathe and I have to take medicine daily to prevent attacks. Before I left for Vermont I wasn't Forrest Gump or anything, but I was hauling along pretty good and had no breathing problems whatsoever. Today decimated my lungs big time. I guess I've lost all the endurance that I built up and my body is bitch slapping me for it. Connecting the logic here, something tells me if I have strong running lungs, even with asthma, my resting lungs will be A-OK as well.

*Benching 200 kilos. Just kidding.

Go Bill Go!

Set Sail

2010-08-03T11:03:00.005+09:00

At last, tomorrow is the day of travel. I have to be at Komatsu airport for an 8:30am flight, land in Narita, Tokyo at 9:45am, haul ass at a good clip in Narita airport to get on my next flight for 10:45am and then endure the awful 13 hour plane ride.

I really hate sitting in a plane for 13 hours. When I was a young kid, I had no attention span whatsoever and the school wanted to put me on riddelin, or however you spell it, to calm my "ADD" down. My mom said I don't have ADD and I don't need meds. When I ride in a plane for 13 hours, I feel very much like I have ADD and can't hold still for more than 5 minutes at a time. This makes for a very long flight. It doesn't matter if I bring books, music, movies, a computer, the end result is the same: I just can't sit still. I am jealous of those who can sleep the whole flight without once waking up.

It looks to be smooth sailing all the way to Vermont, however. Once I arrive in Vermont, I have a typical, but long overdue, American meal waiting for me: Hamburgers and Magic Hat beer. This should be enough to keep me going for another 4 hours after landing.

The only downside to this trip is that it is only me going. We waited too long to buy tickets for the summer travel season and my ticket alone cost $2,600. So, Ayu will stay here and hang out with her family and see some friends. The lesson learned from this: BUY THE TICKETS EARLY! Which we will do from now on.

Well, I'll post from the other side. we got a new camera and the pics look better. Here's a test pic I took yesterday (I've been testing it out for a few days now).

As you can tell, I really love the light green rice patties. There's something soothing about watching the rice sway and dance in the wind. The smell isn't half bad either!

To conclude, here is a quote from Bilbo Baggins:

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."

Can You Hear Me Now?

2010-07-31T21:54:00.006+09:00

I came into this world in a normal way, I guess. I don't remember it. Actually, I don't remember much until I was about 4 or 5. My parents told me that when I was about 4, which I also don't remember, I was almost hit by a semi-truck on the road. How does this happen? Well, I'm not too sure, but as a result of me almost getting hit, my mom took me in to a hearing doctor and had my hearing checked. Apparently, I just didn't hear the truck.

So, we went to the doctor and my mom said I was tested and I passed the test no problem. I guess she was perplexed by this. How was it I couldn't hear a truck, but could pass a hearing exam? My mom suggested I was reading the tester's lips and repeating words back using that. The doctor said it was crazy and I couldn't possibly do that since I was only 4 years old. She asked the doctor to cover the lips and try the same test, sure enough I failed. Obviously, I don't remember any of this, and now all my memories include my trusty hearing aids.

I guess after getting fitted for my spare ears, I got home and ran into the house screaming in horror. A sound had scared the bejeezus (or however you spell that) out of me and I wanted my mom to tell me what it was. She obliged, came outside, listened, and told me what I had heard was...a bird singing.

Why the hell am I writing this? Well, the time is coming soon, within the next year or so, when I must buy new hearing aids (I hope to put it off longer though...) It's quite expensive, but so worth it. It's amazing to think that so much depends on something so little--and expensive!

Throughout my life I've always considered myself lucky that I live now and not 50 years ago or something. I can't imagine not being able to hear simple things such as a cat's meow, one of Beethoven's piano piece (well, that's not simple, but it's a simple joy in life), or even a friend's voice in conversation. If I didn't have my hearing aids, I wouldn't even be able to produce normal speech. It's also a bit scary to think I am right on the line between being normal and in near-complete silence.

One thing I do enjoy about wearing hearing aids is NOT wearing them. It's nice to take them out at night and fall into a world of relative silence. It's hard to describe what it's like, but if I were to give it a try, I would say it's like a winter's day. Remember those days when the snow is falling, there are no cars on the road and all the world has been muffled by the snow? It's something like that. It's actually quite peaceful. Dog barking at night? I don't hear it. Thunder? I don't hear it but the light from lightning wakes me up. My mom once joked that I could sleep through a tornado. I hope this isn't the case, and I don't want to give it a try.

Anyway, just some of my thoughts on that. When, and if, I buy new aids, I'll put a picture up of them. Right now I have what's called in the canal aids, they're nice, but extremely expensive. I might just go for the behind the ear one's next and save myself 50%.

As a reward for reading this boring post, one of my favorite Beethoven sonatas. It's even sweeter when I think I have the privilege of listening to something that Beethoven couldn't have when he wrote it.

La, La, La, La, Life is Wonderful

2010-07-27T18:36:00.004+09:00

This post is a little late, but last weekend was about as good as they come.

I woke up Saturday morning, met a friend for breakfast at a local restaurant and then went to the gym after. When I got back, we prepared to go over to another friend's house for a neighborhood bbq. I honestly didn't know what to expect, but we were blown away. The friends were great, the food was great, the atmosphere was great. The only thing that wasn't great was picture taking on my part. I ate a lot, drank a lot of beer and had a wonderful time. My hat goes off to all those who made such a great night possible.

On Sunday, we woke up early and met some friends who will shortly be moving. We all piled into the car and headed on up to the Noto peninsula. As I previously mentioned, I am completely in love with this area as it seems the further north one goes on the peninsula, the fewer people there are. People are great, but I prefer smaller quantities of them. We left at about 8:15 in the morning and got back around 10:15 at night. When we came back, we stopped at a local Indian restaurant for a wonderful dinner.

All in all, they really don't come much better than this. The only down side to all of it is the friends we spent time with, we will soon have to say goodbye to for a while. At least the memories will last for a lifetime.

Enjoy the visual exhibits.

(As you can see, I desperately need a new cam. This one is barely functioning.)

This last pic, I dunno. If you need an ashtray next to your urinal, it may be time to seek some help with that smoking habit.

Envy

2010-07-23T20:58:00.004+09:00

I try not to be envious of other people's abilities. I mean, we all have something we are good at and our own unique talents, yadda, yadda, yadda.

But when I see something like this, it makes me green with envy. Why did he get all the music talent?

With that, a fun weekend is set to begin. I'll have pics and whatnot available afterwards. I hope you all have a great weekend!

Country Roads, Take Me Home

2010-07-19T08:12:00.006+09:00

I feel as though I have just returned from a week like vacation. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to travel up the Noto Peninsula, all the way up to a nice little town called Wajima. As you can see, it's famous for a few things. I certainly enjoyed seeing these things, but to me, the best part was the green.

As with most of Japan, mountains rise and fall gently and continuously throughout the Wajima country side. It's almost as if, in the same way the wind can create gentle, soft waves on the ocean, it worked its magic on the land. They key difference in Wajima that captured my heart was that where the mountains fall and the land becomes flat, it's still green. I can appreciate the city to some extent, the human engineering, the things to do and whatnot, but it becomes a drag sooner rather than later. This is especially true on the drab concrete roads that crazy drivers run wild on. A friend once told me that Kanazawa drivers are the craziest, and worst, drivers in Japan. I didn't believe him until I started driving.

Up in Noto, things are remarkably different. As with the U.S., different parts of Japan have a difference in culture. I was surprised at the stark difference between Wajima and Kanazawa although they are both in Ishikawa, Japan and only 150km apart. The people up north are much like Vermont people. Straightforward, talkative, honest and witty (and they also know how to drive like sane people!). I enjoyed meeting people up there and was sad when the time came to leave. The food, I might add, was wholesome, healthy and satisfying. One incident impressed me while we were at the grocery store in Wajima. I was looking at the drink section and there was a group of girls about 10 years old getting a drink. When they turned around I thought I would get the standard "What-the-heck-where-the-heck-are-you-from?!" stare. They turned around and nothing happened. It surprised me because we were in a small town with almost no foreigners.

Being from the country side though, I could spend endless hours just staring at a field of green grass (or in this case, rice). It's particularly hypnotic when, on hills that already appear to be rolling with the winds, are filled with tall stalks of rice plants with their tops swaying gently in the salt filled ocean breeze. Another part of the stunning beauty of this place was how the ocean suddenly ended and mountains began. Some places had rocky cliffs to them, other places just a typical mountain. We even found a waterfall that manages to flow upwards in the winter time...That I will have to go see for myself though.

All in all, it was a great day and I'm rather sad to be back in the city today. But, life must march on. Here are some pics I took with my cruddy cell phone cam. The beauty of this place has motivated me to try to get my paws on a new camera.

Note: The pics will come later. Blogger blows when it comes to uploading pics right now and I won't fight with it. Perhaps I should jump ship to a new service as I always have a bear of a time uploading pics here.

凄い

2010-06-06T16:05:00.005+09:00

この人は凄く情熱的な歌手。。。僕の音楽のヒーローだ。世界中の人々がこんな純粋な感情を持ち続けて生きることができたら、この世は確かにもっと良い所になると思う。

ビデオ１

ビデオ２

NHK Yakuza

2010-05-30T18:51:00.003+09:00

After dealing with a feeling of somethings-not-right-with-my-body-ness for the past 2 weeks, I finally came down with a cold two nights ago. It hasn't been deadly or anything, but it has provided me with some BIZARRE dreams. This one I still remember so I thought I would share it with you...

I was sitting at home, working on something at the table, when NHK came knocking on the door. For those of you who don't know, NHK is the Japanese government mouthpiece. If you have a TV in your house, you MUST pay 3,000 yen or so a month (which, I do not, based on account that I never use my TV, let alone never watch NHK). This 3,000 yen a month is mandated by the law, regardless of whether or not you actually watch it. For those who don't pay, I've heard it's not impossible to get a visit from the Japanese Yakuza asking you "politely" to pay.

So, they came looking for their money. They had some sort of high powered light that allowed them to see through our foggy glass and see our TV. They shouted through the window "We see you have a TV!! You must pay!! If you don't pay then we will deal with you our way!!" I ran over, locked the window and said "NO!! I don't watch it!" The shouting persisted as they used their high powered light to see what I was doing. For those who are wondering, I don't remember if this dream was in Japanese or English.

Finally, having no emotional attachment to our TV, I took my meat cleaver out of the drawer, walked over to the TV, and put the blade through the glass. The NHK people were silent and in shock. I then took the TV, went out onto the balcony and threw the TV on top of their car. After this I said to them "You can keep the TV, I'm not paying you anything." And with that they left, and I woke up with a runny nose.

I'm off to scour the internet to see if there has been a discovery in the Japanese gene pool that dis-enables the use of turn signals when driving.

自業自得　（Reap What You Sow)

2010-05-09T14:20:00.006+09:00

日本語版

去年１０月、ラベンダーを買って植えて殺しちゃった。その時、嫌になって園芸をやめた。

最近、自分の育ってた野菜やハーブを食べたいと思い始めた。最初に植えた植物はラベンダーだった。ラベンダーは甘い香りがして、体に健康でリラックス効果があるからラベンダーを選んだ。
ラベンダーの花はお茶、お肉料理、さらにお風呂にまで使用できる。楽しみ！でも、５年間もかかる。。。（写真の白い物体は乾燥した卵の殻）

そして、昨日ホームセンターに行って、トマトとバジルの苗を買ってきた。

トマトの植え方は簡単だった。

けれども、バジルのことについて何も調べずに買うのは誤りだった。バジルはかなり大きくなるよ！だから、今日ホームセンターに戻って、もっと大きい鉢、土、それとローズマリーも買った。
ローズマリーとバジルは同じ鉢に植えた。ローズマリーがどれくらいで育つのか分からないけど。。。調べずに買う悪い癖のせいで。。。（反省）

バジルが枯れたら（秋・初冬）、ラベンダーをこの鉢に移動する。

ジョギングタイム！

English Version

Per suggestion of Ayu, I am going to post a quick English version to this, too. Last year in October we bought some lavender, planted it and killed it (quite quickly too, may I add).

I got pretty irritated and decided to give up gardening. Recently we bought some more plants to give it another try. We bought some lavender first and put that into a bigger pot. The white parts in the picture are dried eggshells (sorry, I won't repost the pictures). We decided on lavender because it smells great and is really healthy. Once it matures (up to 5 years) we can use it in stuff like tea, cooking and even in baths.

Yesterday, we went to the home store to get some more plants and pots and dirt and we picked up tomato and basil plants. The tomato plant was no problem at all. There was, however, a small error with the basil.

I didn't really research about basil before buying it and was a little shocked to discover it actually gets quite big. I realized the tiny pots I put them in wouldn't do the trick so we went back and bought a bigger pot, more dirt and a rosemary plant. When we got back, I put them in their new home. I don't know how long the rosemary will take to grow though...

It's jogging time!

ＧＷのプレゼント

2010-05-03T22:10:00.006+09:00

毎日政治的な話ばかりするのに飽きたから、今日の楽しかった１日についてブログを書きたいって思う。今週、日本ではＧＷがやっとやって来た。今まで金沢の天気はあんまり温かくなかったし、雨がず～～～っと降っていたから、今日の晴れた天気を思いっきり楽しみたくて、仕事は休みだからそうできた！！！！

起きてから、３０分ジョギングして、帰ってきてから遠足のための昼ご飯を支度していた。食事を持って行き、自転車で金沢の一番大きな公園に行って、木陰でゆっくり食べた。去年のある晩、散歩しながら僕たちはその公園を偶然に見つけた。これからも機会があり、天気が良ければ、公園に行きたいと思う。

公園をバックに撮った僕たちの自転車

食べた後、公園の近くですごい物を見つけた：

仏像の友人１

仏像の友人２

日本は近代的な国だが、今でもこのような伝統的な物をしばしば見かけるから、僕は日本が大好きだ。

今日は最高だった。

ところで、これからもっと頻繁に日本語のブログを投稿する　；）

There and Back Again

2010-03-19T13:41:00.006+09:00

Borrowing a title from one of my favorite book(s) (which I should re-read), I figured I would make my first post in a long time here.

First, my apologies for not posting for a while. As many of you can tell, I'm not the most enthusiastic blogger and can sometimes be kind of an introverted person.

So why the title? Well, we just got back from America about 2 weeks ago. So we went THERE (America) and came BACK (Japan) again. Clever, eh?

This semester is a bit of an important one for me. I have just completed my first 3-year contract with KIT and am about to start my second 3-year contract. This has provided a great backdrop for me to assess how far I've come and where I'm going.

My first assessment occurred on the health front. Every morning I've woken up, looked down at my stomach and said to myself, "Wow, impressive work tubby." And then I pretty much left it at that. Since we have a bit of time off before the next semester, I decided to join a gym, build a habit out of going before the semester begins and keep the momentum going from here on out. It's been about two weeks or so since joining and I'm feeling a lot healthier and more energetic. Brilliant idea!

My second assessment occurred on the Japanese language ability front. I've been here for 3 years, so naturally people assume I can speak Japanese. Can I? Just a little. Do I study enough? NOPE. I was motivated to cover some serious ground this break in terms of studying, but alas, I haven't. Looking forward, I do need to study because I don't want to be in the same situation 3 years from now when my next contract is done.

My third assessment occurred in terms of professional development. When I started here 3 years ago, I had NO teaching experience to speak of. I jumped from a 4 year accounting degree to teaching English. Because of that this whole teaching thing has been pretty new to me and I've had a lot to learn. Looking forward, of course I always want to improve myself as a teacher, but I also want to add some experience like writing textbooks, doing research and maybe even some course designing. I have great colleagues who are perty darn smart, so I want to take advantage of that and learn from them as much as I can while I'm here.

Are those the only assessments I did? Nope ;) But the rest is for me to know and for people to figure out. All I can say is, looking towards the future, everything seems like it will be AWESOME.

Here's to the next 3 years and beyond!

Insta-Blizzard

2009-12-27T10:03:00.003+09:00

Today is the day my mom arrives from America. This will be her 3rd trip to Japan and it looks like she will come out next year, as well. Every year she's had some sort of problem getting out here. The first year, her flight was delayed in Chicago for something like 90 minutes and then she was also delayed for her landing in Narita by 90 minutes. She then had to take a bus to Haneda (another hour or so) to catch her flight to Komatsu....which she missed by 5 minutes. The staff in Narita told her not to worry, they contacted Haneda and said she will be a few minutes late and Haneda said no problem, they'll hold the plane. Right....

The second year she had some sort of problem with delays again, but this time, the airline staff actually did what they promised and helped out my mom.

This year, from what I understand, just as my mom was arriving in Chicago, a strong snow squall/blizzard suddenly appeared and delayed my mom's take off for 2.5 hours. I'm following her on flight tracker now and she's only one hour behind schedule. Me thinks she should be fine.

On a different note, yesterday was a whirlwind of a day. I had to ride my bike, through the rain, to the asthma doctor to get my monthly meds or I die (really!) After that, I came back and had an excellent lunch. Ayu made some boiled buri (a fish that's kinda like tuna) and Japanese radish and it was exactly what I needed after riding in the pouring rain. In addition, Ayu's mom brought some homemade inari zushi for me (which is my absolute all time favorite!)

Ayu's parents came over and we went to the electronics store to get a small space heater and to stop my cell phone's service plan (I broke my phone about 2 weeks ago...) Turns out I got a new phone for free! They had some sort of special plan going on and I lucked out big time. After that, we went to pick up the VW and then we drove up to the insurance place Ayu's father uses to get insurance for me. That is also not cheap....of course....

I guess that's all for now. I'll keep my 5 or 6 loyal readers (I found out I had one more person than I thought reading the blog!) posted on my mom's trip here and the status on my driving test in a couple of weeks.

It's a little late, but Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays to everyone!

A White Christmas?

2009-12-19T11:06:00.007+09:00

Probably not. But snow on the ground the week before Christmas is certainly nice. Like other New England people living in Kanazawa, I find the usual gloomy, dark, rainy and snowless winter a drag. Finally, I got a break from that.

Although winter has just started, we've already gotten our first blast of winter here (I remember my first year here it didn't start until mid-January). It started around Wednesday night with thunder, sleet and winds gradually becoming stronger. As the week finished, the winds started to become pretty strong and we had sleet/hail storms all day Thursday. Colder weather moved in Thursday night and into Friday, the sleet changed over to snow and the winds at one point were about 35mph. Amazingly enough, one of the furthest areas south, Kyushu, is also getting a blast of winter. From what I hear, this is extremely rare, especially for only the middle of December.

Although the winds have died down quite a bit now, the snow is still coming down and everything is become a serene and relaxing white canvas. I certainly have no complaints about this, especially since it will probably be gone in 3 or 4 days.

Perhaps this year will be the year we have snow on the ground more often than not. According to some personal research, there is a temperature mechanism known as the pacific oscillation cycle. How this works is the ocean is constantly changing and moving. A big body of water, such as the pacific ocean, holds a lot of heat and affects temperatures greatly. There are two layers of water in the ocean: a warm layer and a cold layer. Every 35 years or so, the two layers switch. When the cold water is on top, the earth is colder. When the warm water is on top, the earth is warmer. Although I'm no scientist (which I guess even if I was it doesn't mean much these days), I have run some dates on this theory according to various weather accounts of the past and they all seem to line up pretty correctly to this 35 year cycle. If everything is as I think (and recent temperature trends appear that way), we will gradually see more "normal" winters for the next 30 years or so.

An interesting side note for this: When were people screaming that the earth is entering another ice age, only to see temperatures start to become warmer? Hm...

Enjoy the pictures and here's to a snowy winter!

Vroom Vroom

2009-12-03T20:45:00.007+09:00

After living in Japan for almost three years, I've decided to take the next, most obvious step towards insanity here: buying a car. Why is it insane you might ask?

Well first of all, it's really expensive. Every three years the car must be inspected. For those who are stateside, you may think "well, that's not so bad". The problem is, with inspection comes mandated repairs (such as brake pads, transmissions and what not). From what I gather, as the car gets older, $1,500 a pop for inspection runs about average. Sure, the car is safer but...

What good does it do to have good brake pads when you share the road with incompetent morons who can't even keep their eyes trained in front of them for more than 5 seconds while driving? I've been walking/riding my bike here for a few years now and I've seen some pretty horrendous driving skills (and almost been creamed multiple times by the esteemed graduates of Japanese driving schools). I'm hoping this experience walking/riding comes in handy for my defensive driving skills needed here.

The final thing I'm not looking forward to is paying a yearly tax based on the engine size (and vehicle size) of the car. Note, I didn't say the engine EFFICIENCY (mpg) but just the size. I own the car. It's mine. Why do I have to pay a tax on it? Because of how much air it sucks in to complete a kilometer of distance? What's next? A bike rider's tax since my lungs use air, too? Maybe a tax for my air pump? What about a double tax since I must also exhale C02 in order to fill the tire. I dunno, I just can't fathom it. This kind of thinking reminds me of that great quote by Ronald Reagan: "...if it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it." Maybe I can file for a subsidy if the car breaks down...

So at this point, my loyal 3 or 4 readers are probably thinking "Wow, what a whiner, just don't by the damn car". And for a while I thought that too. But I am looking forward to traveling to parts of Japan that just aren't easily accessible by bike/bus/train or....well I guess that would be it, wouldn't it? Also, growing up, my parents often took me and my brother for car rides, so I do love getting into the car and just exploring. It will be nice to do these things and enjoy a little more freedom to move around.

So without further ado, here is the car. It is a Volkswagen Golf Touran. The gentleman who owns it now is heading back Down Under and needs to unload it. It's got a pretty strong engine, is pretty efficient on gas and has tons-o-room.

Time to hit Wiki and study some Japanese. ワッショ～～～イ！

Recollections

2009-11-22T18:29:00.007+09:00

This isn't really a I-want-to-say-something-important post, but rather, just a few nice pictures I found on my flash drive of our visit to Vermont. The visit was absolutely wonderful, and I often find myself wishing to be back in that time, hoping to freeze it forever and enjoy the serenity of those two weeks....

Thanksgiving Dinner

2009-11-22T18:04:00.005+09:00

After a long silence, I finally found something worthy of writing about. I've been in Japan for around three years and have enjoyed most of it. I love the food, I love the people, I hate most of the drivers, but all in all it's a great place to live.

One thing I have been missing lately is some holiday food from the states. Call me American, but to me, a nice hearty meal is a turkey, some stuffing, potatoes, gravy and a nice dessert, not a piece of fish grilled with soy sauce and some rice and veggies(which, of course, is also delicious).

Today a friend of mine held a Thanksgiving workshop in which he taught how to cook a gobbler for Thanksgiving. It was kind of expensive (5,000 yen for one person) but since I haven't had Thanksgiving dinner for nearly 3 years, I happily paid it. It was fun cooking a traditional meal and even more fun doing it with a few 60+ year old Japanese Obaachans. I was amazed at their knife skills as they would probably rival some of the top chefs in the world. (/Start Script: British Accent) I like me knives, and I know me way with the knife, but those ladies were rather good. (/End Script: British Accent) We had a good time talking and one of the older ladies even had the experience of traveling to Vermont twice; once to Woodstock and once to the Von Trapp Lodge in Stowe.

The best part of Thanksgiving dinner is the leftovers. Since we have some, that's what's for dinner tonight. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there, in Japan or not.

Judgement

2009-09-28T07:48:00.004+09:00

Here I sit, on a Monday morning, at my desk in my office. This weekend was beyond hectic, stressful and tiring.

It all started on Saturday morning when I woke up around 6:00am to start moving. My friends helped me and we busted @ss until about 12:15. We took a 10 minute lunch break and we worked until 4:00. Thankfully, we got all the major stuff moved. The only thing left to do with moving is to finish unpacking (which is mostly done now) and clean up the old jail cell.

The real test came yesterday, Sunday, when I had to meet Ayu's parents. Under normal circumstances, this would be stressful, but I had the luxury of knowing that I was less than ideal for Ayu in her parents' eyes. We took a dreadful 2 hour train ride up to what is almost the northern part of Ishikawa called Noto. As the train kept pushing northwards, my stress kept rising. About 15 minutes before our stop, I remember the sheer terror that was running through my mind: I did not want to do this, but I knew I had to. After that terror subsided, a war started brewing in me: "don't do it!, but get it done with quickly!"

After we got off the train, I had the luxury of walking to her parents' house for 15 minutes. At this point, I was nearly in panic. I was terrified of what would happen if they didn't like me, if they made an objection to me right in front of Ayu and me. I honestly didn't know how this would turn out and what the proper reaction would be to anything they threw at us. In the 28 years I've been alive, I have never been so nervous.

We arrived at her parents' house and I faced my firing squad.

Ayu said "tadaima" which means "I'm home". Her family came to the door and...

I have never been so wrong in my life. At first it started off rather awkward seeing as we didn't really know each other. After a while though, the gears started to get lubed up and things started to flow more naturally. Ayu showed me her house and her mother asked us if we were hungry. I think I amazed them at how much Japanese food I could eat and they sent us back with about 20 pounds of vegetables from her grandparents' garden (these people are amazing and will have their own post sometime in the near future).

I looked at Ayu and said we should probably get going since it would be another 2 hours taking the train back to Nishi Izumi, so if we left at 8:30 we would get back around 10:30. Her parents immediately told Ayu that we were NOT taking the train and they would happily drive us back. They were amazingly kind and very wonderful people.

Her parents came in and saw our apartment, they loved it (despite the moving bomb that was detonated the day before), and offered to help us with some stuff they insisted we needed (like a new washing machine, vacuum cleaner and curtains).

Looking back, I'm not sure how things went so well, but I'm not going to argue with it. It's a nice change for me (for those who know of my usual, incredibly "good" luck, you know right away what I mean) and it feels nice to be able to relax, physically and emotionally...something I haven't dont for a long time.

Chimay

2009-09-20T22:34:00.009+09:00

Today was a great day to chill out. I've spent the past week going warp speed with school and on a news reading blitz. I decided I've had enough of the news and won't be writing about it here. After all, the 3 or 4 people who actually read this blog aren't reading it for my opinion on the news, they're reading it because I live in Japan and probably want to know what I'm doing.

Ayu and I hung out with a buddy today and it was about as uneventful and relaxing as possible. My buddy picked us up at around 10ish and we went to the only place that seemed approprirate on a sunny, warm-but-not day: the liquor store.

For those who have never been to Japan, there's one rule to live by: the beer in Japan really sucks. I know what you are thinking: beer is beer right? Well, it's true. Beer in Japan is about the same as beer everywhere. It's made with barely and hops and all that good sh*t. But the problem is, there is also cheap fake beer which is made with fillers and all the stuff that could possibly be used to drive down the price of the product. What's the purpose of such a drink? Who the hell knows. Maybe it's to make the satisfaction of getting drunk not so expensive? The result of this is: super cheap fake beer (actually about the cost of American beer) and expensive real beer. An example: a fall ale here, just barely and hops, for a six pack costs about $12. Sucks eh?

Anyway, back to the story. We headed over to the liquor store and stocked up on essentials for today: beer, beer and some more beer. Along with the standard Japanese six pack (real beer mind you), we bought some English Stout, and two smaller crafted Japanese beer. As a bonus, my buddy bought me a huge bottle of Chimay from Belgium. For those unfamiliar with beer, Belgian beer is perhaps the holy grail of beer. It's sweet, it's bitter and it packs one hell of a punch. Make it two punches. Actually, two punches with a sucker punch thrown in.

We gathered the essentials, went back to my buddies house and then hopped over to the store to get some chili ingredients. Beer. Chili. Sunny weather. Early Japanese autumn. What could make the day better?

The answer is quite simple. MUSIC. I started learning guitar about a year ago. It's been pretty much an addiction since I first put one in my hands. I bought a Yamaha to begin with, and thanks to being spoiled by playing a few nice guitars, after about 6 months, the Yamaha didn't cut it anymore. I had to buy something else. I opted to buy a Japanese made guitar, being in Japan and all. I think there were two main benefits to this. The first being it's hand made. The second, it's made here, so it's probably less expensive than any import Gibson on Martin or any other non-Japanese brand.

So we passed the day with beer, chili, youtube and guitar playing. The stars were indeed aligned and all was good with the universe. Here are a couple of pictures to provide you with some visuals for today.

To my 3 or 4 readers, I hope you have a great day/evening where ever you are and I hope the stars stay aligned for you as they were for me today.

Nara

2009-08-08T08:38:00.007+09:00

We're heading out for the States on Monday and I realized I haven't posted anything for nearly an eternity here.

A few weeks ago, as a final bash in Kyoto (Ayumi's moving up here this fall) we decided to explore the ancient capital of Nara. Without checking on the ever so accurate Wikipedia, Nara was the capital of Japan before Kyoto became the capital. This was something around 1,400 years ago. Now Nara sufficiently serves as a tourist hotspot and a culture heritage for Japan (although I'm not sure which is the higher priority).

The cool thing about Nara is that there are deer walking around the capital city. You can buy deer crackers and feed them to the deer, but this can be rather dangerous as the deer will end up fighting with each other for their crackers. Outside of the deer crackers, it's not advisable to give any other food to the deer. I guess a few years back many deer were dying because humans were giving human food to deer.

That's enough talking from me I guess. There are a couple of areas in Nara that I want to talk more about, but for now, I'll just post pictures of the pertty deer (intentional spelling). We're heading to Tokyo tonight on the night bus and going to some popular spots tomorrow. I'm sure I'll take many pictures and maybe upload them from the other side of the pond.

Take care everyone!

Enlightenment

2009-06-20T15:47:00.007+09:00

It is said that Buddha sat underneath a tree (what kind a tree is beyond me) and achieved enlightenment. It's a nice thought, but I think I found something better today.

It's officially rainy season here, with endless downpours of rain for 6 weeks straight...not. Today was actually very beautiful and balmy. With temperatures around 90°F, Ayu and I went for a walk and a picnic. As a bonus I thought I would bring my guitar along and enjoy some music at the park. We first went to a super cheap bread shop, bought some sandwiches and sweet breads and then headed to the predesignated park.

The downside to living in a city is that it can be hard to escape and find a patch of green. The first park we went to looked like a drunk jerk trashed the place with his cigarette butts and cans of cheap, good-for-only-getting-drunk alcohol (yeah, I'll say jerk, when it's hard to find a nice place, people shouldn't be rude and trash a park just because they have no sense of how to be clean).

As I murmured a few not so kosher words about the jerk, we left in search of another park. We finally found one about half a mile away and sat down and enjoyed our lunch. After eating I got a chance to play my guitar under a tree a achieved my own form of enlightenment. Not only am I grateful for a beautiful, warm sunny day, a chance to enjoy a picnic with Ayu, but also for the fact that no one in the neighboring vicinity complained of my horrible music. Here are some pictures of the park we went to. It's not much for those who may be viewing from a country area, but what's important is to use what you've got.

I hope everyone's enjoying a nice and relaxing weekend.

松魚亭

2009-06-13T10:27:00.007+09:00

今日は日本語ができる読者へのブログを書いてみようと思っている。　

書く前にお願いがあります。もし、日本語の間違いがあれば、自由にアドバイスを言ってください。

夕べは工大の教育課程合同研修会だった。金沢の松魚亭であった研修会は修学基礎・教職・英語に属している教師の向けの研修会だ。

こんな仕事の夕飯は大体行く気がしないけど、夕べはすごく面白かった。隣の人は昔アメリカのマサチューセッツ工科大学で勉強していたから、びっくりした！！　ＭＩＴはボストンにあって、僕はボストンに行ったことがあるから、いろんなことについて話した。話すうちに僕と隣の人は仲良しになった。

新しい仲間と話す以外にも、松魚亭の料理は伝統的な日本料理を楽しんだ。去年、このレストランの料理は今年ほどうまくなかったから、今年のうまい料理は期待以上で驚きうれしかった。　もし金沢に訪れる機会のある人は、ぜひ松魚亭に行ってみて下さい。

今回の日本語のブログは短くてすみません。日本語の勉強を続けて、今度からもう少しがんばって書いてみる！

またね、皆！

The Cockroach Hunter

2009-06-12T12:37:00.005+09:00

If you have ever been to Japan, or if you live in a warmer climate, you would know that insects can get rather big and abundant. I had my first encounter with the famous ゴキブリ　(gokiburi) or cockroach. Here's how it went down.

I needed to prepare some rice for dinner. As I opened the rice cooker, I startled my soon to be opponent. It moved so fast that I didn't get to see what it was very clearly. Despite this, I knew exactly what I was dealing with. I immediately forgot about dinner and the rice and went on the hunt. My first task was to figure out how do I deal with such villainy and not make a villainy-guts mess all over my floor. I decided to go with my proven Japanese-Giant-Insect approach: I found a bowl (or a glass works) and a sheet of paper (in this case, I used a plastic paper folder). I'm sure you can imagine how this works: trap the insect under the bowl, slide the paper undernearth and transport said villain.

After going on a wild goose chase around the apartment, I finally got my enemy. Now I was really stuck. I didn't want to smash its guts out as this would be too messy. I didn't want to set it free. It's been inside the enemy lines, it knows all the secrets. To let such a spy go would be disastrous for my homeland security.

I decided to boil the bug. Yeah, yeah yeah, I know. Gross right? I didn't want to kill it using a method that would make a mess, and I didn't want to roast it for fear of the smell of villainy filth. So, I decided to boil it. The heat would kill any bacteria or germs my villain would be carrying.

As I was heating up the water, I gave my soon to be executed spy a lecture on how the department of homeland defense works in the house of Bill. For 10 minutes the villain was told how he might be able to get away with it in another house, but not with me. At long last, he took the plunge and was finished.

I haven't had another one yet so maybe the message got out...

PARTY!!!!!

2009-06-08T20:16:00.012+09:00

This past weekend was the famous Hyakuman-Goku Matsuri (百万石まつり). I'm not sure if this event is famous throughout Japan, but I know it is famous in this area (the Hokuriku area). This festival celebrates the arrival of Maeda Toshie in the Kaga (Ishikawa) area. About 500 years ago, Maeda came to Kaga and under his rule the Kaga area became the second wealthiest area in all of Japan. To celebrate what Maeda gave to Kaga, people here have been having the Hyakuman-Goku Matsuri for 58 years now. A quick calculation puts the first year at 1951, so I'm sure there might be a bit of post-war moral boosting factor involved in it as well.

To make a long story short, it was a lot of fun. The first two years here, I avoided celebrating the festival as I thought it wouldn't be worth the hassle of dealing with crazy tourists for two days. If you should ever find yourself in Ishikawa during this festival, it's more than worth going. Here are some pictures from this past weekend.

These are the drummers for the opening ceremony. I think there was something like 150 drummers for this event. Being close to that many drums was incredible. Wherever you are, if you have the chance to see Japanese Taiko drumming, it is well worth the time to watch the performance.

This picture is of the procession that goes out before the actor playing Maeda Toshie. It's pretty cool to see people dressed up as feudal warriors, equiped with swords, bows and arrows. I'm sure none of their weapons were real or functional, but hey, as long as it looks awesome, who cares? The really cool part about this was that even foreigners dressed up as warriors. Maybe next year I will see if I can have a small part in this parade.

On day two of the festival, there are many events to see free of charge inside Kanazawa Castle. One of the events was drumming from Noto Peninsula. Although there were many groups drumming this weekend, this group was by far the most creative. They did an interesting dance and skit to go with their music performance.

Another interesting show was ひぃろ (He-e-ro). I guess he has performed and won many awards and praises worldwide. After watching his show, I could see why. However, at first I didn't know what to think of this guy. He seemed kind of strange, but he was very energetic. He started doing juggling and some funny gags, but the highlight of his show was the above picture where he starts doing balancing acts. He starts off with just his hands, but he works up to balancing on top of the platform with one chair, two chairs, and eventually three chairs stacked on top of each other. I don't have a picture of his three chair balance (I have a video though, hopefully I can figure out how to get that off the camera). I did however manage to get a picture of his two chair balancing act.

Of course there were many other things to see and do this weekend, but I didn't get pictures of all of them. Some other things were Jazz concerts, Japanese archery, Japanese gospel singers and high school dance teams. I'll finish off this entry with some pictures from the beautiful garden that Maeda Toshie had built nearly 500 years ago, Kenrokuen (兼六園）.

If you are interested in this festival and want to see some movies, I recommend going to youtube.com and searching for 百万石まつり (you can just copy and paste that).

Summer Heat

2009-05-27T13:44:00.004+09:00

Although it's been warm lately with only one "hot" day (83°F), today, for some reason, I started thinking about summer while teaching class. Perhaps it was the sweat in my hair from climbing all the stairs (9 floors up to my classroom)...

Many people have asked me about summer in Japan. Like most places in the summer time (excluding Alaska and northern Russia and such), it's hot. Just how hot is it? When does the heat begin? I thought it might be nice to describe a typical Japanese summer for everyone.

Typically, summer begins in Japan after the rainy season (梅雨　"tsuyu"). Usually, from what I've seen in my two years here, this is around the middle to end of July. Rainy season in Japan is not like monsoon season or non-stop pouring rain. Rather, it is usually grey and rains about half the time. Tsuyu is caused by the warm southeast Asian air pushing its way up to Japan. Because the warm air and the cold air meet as this air mass moves north, it often causes rain. I haven't seen a rainy season with pouring rain yet, but I do know this is the point that the humidity parks itself in Japan for a 4 month stay.

So, after the rainy season, the hot southeast Asian air is here to stay from July until about the end of September. The temperature during this time is usually a steady 90-95°F and sunny. During the nights, temperatures never fall below 80°F. This isn't too bad in and of itself. However, Japan is also extremely humid and I've been told Ishikawa is one of the most humid places in Japan. On any given day, the dew point is usually around 78°F and sometimes as high as 82°F. This essentially turns Kanazawa into a sauna. I've seen heat indexes here top 110°F. In my home state of Vermont, this kind of weather would prompt an emergency of some sorts and you wouldn't see any people outside until the temperature fell back into the normal range of 75-80°F.

So what does one do in this heat? How do people survive? The answer to that is easy. You get used to it. From last year, I tried not to use my air conditioner too much. One reason is it's really expensive. Based on your own electricity rates, do the math on this: run an air conditioner for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 31 days a month. It adds up QUICKLY. The other thing I noticed my first year here is that if you use the air conditioner all the time, it makes it much harder to go outside. If you stay parked inside an air conditioned room kept at 75°F all day long, going outside to temperatures that feel like 110°F can seem like stepping onto the sands of the Sahara. Japanese people are pretty good with the heat as they continue to do most of their normal activities: tennis, jogging, bike riding, etc. When in Rome do as the Romans do I guess....

Usually at the end of September, the temperature starts falling quickly, the humidity breaks and the cooler air for fall and winter move back into Japan.

I suppose that's enough for today...I've got a meeting soon (I despise meetings even though I learn so much from them)

またね、皆