Friday’s Feast

Appetizer

How many times per day do you usually laugh?

I chuckle many times a day, but laugh maybe only a couple times a day.

Soup

What do your sunglasses look like?

I don’t wear sunglasses. When I lived in Japan, I got used to not wearing sunglasses, since nobody wore them (except Yakuza and Gaijin). I felt strange wearing them over there, so I never did. I just kinda gave them up I guess.

Salad

You win a free trip to anywhere on your continent, but you have to travel by train. Where do you go?

All around, but especially Canada and Alaska.

Main Course

Name one thing you consider a great quality about living in your town/city.

Friendly People

Dessert

If the sky could be another color, what color do you think would look best?

A deep purple or blue/green would be cool.

Japan Dreaming

In ’95, after I visited Tokyo with my parents, I decided I wanted to live in Japan. So the next year, I moved there and started living my dream. I also met my dream girl there and we got married. However, her longtime dream was to live in the States, and a couple years later when the opportunity arose to move back, we decided to take it. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel any regret, however, meeting new friends and having two wonderful kids in Texas has been pretty damn awesome!

Our recent trip back to Japan reminded me of just how great it was when we lived there, and Mariko and I have talked about about moving back when the kids leave the nest. This got me really excited, and actually every time I think about moving back there (even if it will be 15 long years down the road) I get butterflies in my stomach.

It’s funny how my attitude has changed. It used to be that when I thought about Japan, I felt melancholy from the memories of the life we had there in the past. But now when I think about Japan, I am thinking about the life we will have there in the future. Lots of butterlies right now!

Super Sentai Cosplay


Deka Ranger and Magi Ranger Girls

Bay and Koa, but mostly Koa, are really into Mahou Sentai Magiranger and Dekaranger which features both groups of rangers. There is one part in the show when the two Magi Ranger girls, two of their enemies, and the two Dekaranger girls are all together, but the evil ones are dressed as Dekarangers (SPD uniforms), then the Dekaranger girls are dressed in the bad girls gothic monster costumes. Then, the Magiranger girls go poof and are dressed as Dekarangers. This whole cosplaying of cosplay made my head spin. I don’t want to analyze the dynamic too much. Of course all the girls are super cute, so it’s all good, as the kids say!


Mea and Nai, the bad girls


Umeko and Jasmine (Dekarangers), dressed as the bad girls


“Rawwrrr” would not be inappropriate here

More links:
Official Mahou Sentai Magiranger page

Official Dekaranger page

Super Sentai Database

Decluttering the Office

We’ve been trying to clean up the clutter in our house this year, and I am concentrating right now on our office. I’ve been “collecting” all of our old bills and statements for the past couple years and putting them into a big pile. It’s really ugly. But the past few days, I have been scanning them in to the computer, and the pile is going down! I’d say I have about 50 more docs to scan. Our Epson 4490 scanner can scan to pdf (even multipage) which makes it super easy. I am using the naming convention “Company Date.pdf” (“Time Warner 20071019.pdf”) then dumping them into subfolders (Utilities, House, Auto, Medical, etc.). Then the papers go into the trash or shredder depending on what they are. I am doing about a dozen per day, plus anything new that comes in. I’d wish they were all just electronic statements to begin with, but not all the companies offer a paperless option.

I need to mention that it’s inspiring to read our friend Mikey’s decluttering blog posts. Very inspiring! His house is always so clean and organized.

Wish I Brought the GPS to Japan

I decided not to bring my little GPS unit to Japan because I figured it wouldn’t be very useful since I don’t have any map data on it. Plus I could travel lighter because I wouldn’t have to bring extra batteries and charger. But now I regret that, since it would have been good to save the track data and look at it in Google Earth. For instance, I would have loved to check out the route our bus took up to the resort in Kanazawa. Oh well, next time I will remember!

Sailing!

Today Jeremy, May, Bay and I went to Brushy Creek Park for a little sailing. This time we went to the little point, and it was even better than the small fishing pier. The wind was great, and the boats sailed nicely. It’s most fun harassing the ducks. Oh, sorry Mikey, I rushed out the door and forgot to let you know we were going!

I think I am going to repaint the Brezza di mare. I am going to sand off the black, then paint a dark metallic grey for the under paint, then the blue wave design on that. I also sent off my Victoria Class registration form, so I should receive my sail #’s shortly! I will put the numbers on the stock sails, but I really want some good-looking sails in the future. But before that, I need to paint the hull to match the original design.

View more of today’s sailing pics (photographed by Jeremy) in my Flickr set.