Category: General Musings

Before I went to Hoshinoya, I had a kind of slow weekend in Tokyo. I went up Friday night and stayed with some friends. They were going on vacation the next day, so I got a key to their really nice apartment. Saturday Tomo had to work, so after we met for lunch I went to Mito for the first time in a couple years. I wanted to see my friend Maeno-san and his wife and child. We had a good time catching up and playing with trains. It is really funny to see Haruto-chan and my niece. They are the same age (two weeks apart) and Haruto is all boy while my niece is all girl. Haruto likes trains, trains, cars, trains, and trains. His Japanese and mine are about the same level. It was funny to see him wearing a rocket t-shirt I had gotten him. I figure the t-shirt came out for my visit but when we were looking at pictures later there was another picture of him in the same t-shirt. Hey, when your dad does orbital mechanics you wear those things proudly. He was not shy at all and greeted me immediately with a “Konnichiwa Fish-san!” I mean he came running up to me to say that. As soon as he realized I was leaving at the train station he burst into tears. Awwww.

We had a good time as you can see below.

 

 

 

What is home? I’m now back in Nagoya, which for the moment is home. I have an apartment, it is where I work, and I have a lot of my “things.” I came from Los Angeles, which is where I own my home and which I consider to be my home. It was great to be in my place where I have all of my things that are not in Nagoya. I have a dryer that can dry clothes in under 3 hours without completely wrinkling them. I have three floors of living space. I have a walk-in closet, a dresser AND a window seat in my bedroom. I visited Indiana during my trip as well. Indiana is where I grew up, sometimes it is where I am from, and I still refer to it as home, like “I will not be home for Christmas.” I have no material possessions left in Indiana, but I do have family there. But now I’m back in Nagoya, home, in a fierce battle with jetlag.

While in the States, I think I was single-handedly trying to stimulate the economy. As I write this on my desktop, I now have a MacBook and a PowerBook G4 hooked to each other so the G4 can migrate to the MacBook. Yes, I bought the new MacBook.

Of course, I feel that I needed it. I chose to downsize a little to make it more transportable. Moving from 15 to 13 inches doesn’t seem like that much, but it is lighter and more compact. Also changing from a Motorola chip to Intel should improve application performance. I even have a buyer lined up for my old computer, which is nice.

While I was home, I also bought some clothes. As winter approaches I felt like I needed to update my wardrobe to fill in some gaps with clothes that fit. I now have a new coat, dress shirts, dress pants, and socks. My book and DVD library has also expanded.

I apparently left my voice in the US. I caught the cold that everyone seemed to have. My voice almost completely disappeared. I don’t sound like “me” currently, but at least I can be heard. Yesterday, complicated by all the flying, I could barely be heard.

The weather has turned significantly more winter-y than before I left. My apartment could even be considered to have a chill in the air. Mind you, whenever I have jetlag, temperature control is one of the first things to go. As I said before, I definitely have jetlag at the moment.

Even though I went to the dentist is LA, I didn’t find time to get my haircut. I went out today and accomplished that task. This time, however, I pulled pictures from a magazine to be able to show the guy who cuts my hair. He couldn’t make me look the model, but the haircut isn’t bad.

I’m back in the States now. I was approaching the limit on the amount of vacation I can accrue, so it was time for a break. I decided to fly back to the States to see my friends and family. I would also have enjoyed traveling around Asia, but it has been almost a year since I’ve seen my family – including a niece I hadn’t met yet. I’m now in Indiana, heading to a Purdue football game in just a few hours.

I knew this was the case, but everything is bigger here. Much bigger. I used to think my place in El Segundo was small. I have a little perspective now. My bedroom seemed HUGE. Enough space for a dresser, and a window seat, and I could walk comfortably around the my bed. No sideways shuffle to get to the closet!

Food. Wow. Americans eat big portions. I don’t think I’ve been able to finish any meal that has been placed in front of me. So … much … food.

I’m working on my mom’s computer … so this a quick, stealthy update. Things are good.
It is fun to see family!

I went to Takayama last weekend but didn’t put any pictures up. I will.

Oh, how are ya doin’? I’m sittin’ here all the way in Japan. I guess over here they don’t even call it that. Can you believe they call it Nippon? Who knew. Not one of the newspapers people put in front of me ever called it Nippon. Oh, I did notice the kids here are sooo smart – they can speak foreign languages at such a young age. How do they do it? They have never met a maverick like me though, so it takes some gettin’ used to for all the for’ners here. Luckily, I can’t understand the darn press here, so I just answer their questions they way I want to, which is what I try to do at home anyway. Anywho, I can’t find the soccer moms and joe-six packs here so my message of change, of bein’ a maverick, of, you know, getting my message across, well, its about creatin’ jahbs really, doncha know.

Even here, I can’t get away from Sarah Palin. I’ve seen the Katie Couric interviews, I’ve seen the Tina Fey skits. Isn’t it a really bad sign when Tomo finds the Tina Fey skits hilarious? I’ve seen David Letterman express his displeasure over John McCain’s no show. Damn, I’ve even see the ladies of ”The View” duke it out over sexy Sarah. I NEVER WATCH “THE VIEW” WHEN LIVING IN THE US! What has happened to me? Am I starved for US media? What does our country look like to the rest of the world? Sigh. Well, I am doing my part. I have confirmation that the County of Los Angeles has sent my absentee ballot. I was in Japan during the last general election as well. I was glued to the interweb during that election – I’m sure I’ll get little done on November 5 at work. I’ll be watching the results come in. Last time it was a public holiday in Japan and I got to stay home. I got so upset though I had to go for a long walk.

Well, this isn’t supposed to be a political blog, but a lot of my non-work time is consumed wondering about the election.

In other news … hmmm … Fall is still arriving. It is raining tonight which is fine because I can sit inside, hang out, catch up on emails, write in my blog, watch a movie, do some laundry (yes, laundry), read more about American politics.

The Radiohead concert was GREAT. I’ve seen them three times. The first time, thanks to Pablo, I got terrific seats at the Hollywood Bowl. So terrific that Jon Bon Jovi and Emilio Estevez were in the box next to me, Cameron Diaz was a few boxes behind me. The second time I saw them was at the Greek. Tomo and I met Pablo before the show, and we noticed Toby Maguire two people in front of me in line. And then we realized it was Leonardo DiCaprio with him just in front of me. Oh, cool. Here in Japan, at Saitama Super Arena, we had tickets in the front section. We didn’t try to get to the very front. We stayed a little way back but were still as close as I was at the Bowl. No celebrities that I recognized but the show was amazing. The best of the shows I’ve seen. Shows in Japan start so early – this show started at 5:00 pm. We were out of the Arena by 8:30 pm. Cool! I like that! Constrained by train schedules.

OK, well, thanks y’all for readin’ my simple blog. I’ve got to fold my laundry as any maverick would do!

Oh – The title of this blog takes some thinking. Just say it out loud.