What to say…?

No news is no good news.  Nothing happening around here.  Contrast the beautiful weather we were basked in at the time of my last post that left me sunburnt.  Like that sunburn, that nice weather has faded away.  I gotta say I’m OK with it, I like the cold better than the hot by miles and I don’t mind the rain either.  But it does kinda hamper our “getting out” and “doing things.”  And what the hell is up with the timing?  On Sunday we had the front of a Typhoon (that later dissipated before hitting us) dumping rain all day followed by three (work) days of decent temps and even sun.  BOOM! Right as I reached my station coming home from work last night the rains began and haven’t let up all day again.  Enough about weather, time to see what I can scrape together for some sort of update of what I’ve actually done.  Probably sprinkle in a picture or two if I find anything decent, probably be of the boy and maybe no explanation because I’ll probably end up doing it after I finish writing. 

So, stuff I’ve done/been doing…

Well, I actually just finished making my lunches for the next two days: pizza and okra soup.  I’ve made it through two weeks of packed lunches and starting on week three tomorrow.  It’ll be the first time (the pizza) that I haven’t made everything from scratch but so far it’s been good.  After the wife had the baby she stopped making my 弁当s everyday and I’d expected it and don’t mind.  But I’ve gotten pretty tired of buying lunch everyday.  First, it’s expensive, but more important, I’m just lazy and don’t want to bother looking for something each day.  So what I’ve been doing is Thursday and Sunday nights I’ve been making lunches for the following two days and because I don’t have one prepared for my Wednesday I’ve been eating out that day.  Wow, boring, next.

I finished setting up my desk-o-lopolis and now have the PS3 in the office too.  I’ve got the 360, PS3 and DC all hooked up to my 2nd monitor and it’s nice.  I also hooked up the sound set-up better with a couple purchases and now there’s no wire switching/sharing which is great.  Only thing I have to plug in sometimes is headphones.  I still would like to get a new desk and we’d planned on looking for that (and a table and something else) at ニトリ today but bagged it because of the rain and because we had to be around for an A/C unit to be installed this afternoon. One of the reasons I want a new desk is to put both my monitors on one place and the other is…

Well, I’ve been drawing a bunch lately and with my current desk (which was perfect in the old place) there’s just not enough space to do it here.  The counter in the kitchen is too short and the table we have now is not good either.  If we get a dining table maybe I don’t actually need a new desk.  Anyway, most of the drawing I’ve been doing has been at work on breaks.  Long breaks.  I’ve been doing mostly character design and I think I’ve got dude? and Melvis nailed. Mrs. dude? and morning are pretty much spot on but I’m, of course, having the most difficulty with me.  Nothing to put up at this time but I’m hoping to get a couple different projects going soon.  The writing is the hard part for me though.  Not my forte.

Video games.  Finished L.A. Noire and that’s a good game, not perfect by any means and maybe I’ll talk a bit more about that in another post but no spoilers here for now.  Got DiRT3 and that game is badass so far.  Gotta finish Killzone 3 and get more into Mortal Kombat as well.  Also, need to start Portal 2… A lot to play.

Also received my license translation from JAF and it came pretty quickly.  The website said it might take a week but came back in two days.  Sweet! No I’ve gotta make my way to the testing center and get to the next steps…

Think that’s about it for this time around.  Probably jot down a couple notes and fill in some other loose ends about what’s been going down in a supplemental update post this weekend.  That is, unless, we actually do something.  Oh yeah!  (Sorry Casey!) Canucks had an amazing win today, not a spectacular game but bruising and the NUCKS came away with the only goal of the game with 19 seconds left!  SWEET!!! GO NUCKS!!!

2010, the year in the rearview…

So here we go!  I was thinking to do this a couple days ago but instead just enjoyed my vacation.  Didn’t really do much, just played with the boy, and the wife, and did some work around the house.  Also got in a little video-gaming last night.  Down to my last two days now…  but I’m hanging out at home all alone now (the wife and boy are in Ikebukuro, the wife wanted to do some work and I think she wanted to give me a little free time to crank up the Sugar Bowl and root on the HOGS!!! losing 7-0 right now…) Anyway, time to take a look back at what happened in the past year, it was a big one… In last year’s post my pictures had a lot of people in them, this year, none (well, my hand-made it in one, and a statue).

Jan ’10

We kicked off January with a trip to the in-laws’ for my first traditional Japanese New Year.  We checked out Ekiden live and also a museum dedicated to dried seaweed.  I got a baby care-package from my sister and the wife changed her name.  We made a trip back to our old favorite Yukugaya-Otsuka restaurant and took some sexy pictures. I started doing some beer reviews. I took some pictures around Ikebukuro and my 360 died…

Feb ’10

In February we got a pretty decent snowfall and my 360 came back to me!  I think it’s February when I (could have but didn’t) celebrated 4 years in Japan. Got a new shelf and the Saints won the Super Bowl. I got a great Valentine’s Day present from the wife and the plum blossoms came out.  My brand-new baby niece was welcomed to the world as we waited for our own baby to make his way here…

Mar ’10

I got a sweet driving set-up for Forza III. ママ came to visit and the wife and I took a bunch of photo walks to help try and kick-start labor. We celebrated St. Paddy’s day with some Irish food, made some black and tans and… my boy was born! The cherry blossoms came out.

Apr ’10

In April the M’s opened a disappointing season but a dapper baby helped kick it off right. I went to Asakusa with a college buddy. I did a big clean-up and toss-out and we took our first “family outing”! Other than that, lots of pictures of my new baby boy.

May ’10

In May the wife broke my toenail… We got the boy a mobile and the two newest babies met for the first time in an epic battle!  I cleaned up the garden, planted (what would become) a failure of a garden and I tried my hand at park golf. My grass started to come in and we got MJ’s passport.

(oh man, Arkansas is in trouble, down 21-7…)

June ’10

June was a pretty quiet month overall as we anticipated July’s trip but we did have a baby visitor and I celebrated my first Father’s Day as a Father. We also had MJ’s “weaning ceremony”. June done.

July ’10

In July we took a big trip to the US as a family and visited my sister.  We had a wedding ceremony, I got a new bike and the wife and baby came to visit me at work. Also No Airplay’s 4th anniversary.

Aug ’10

This month we took a trip to Ikebukuro but I’m not sure why and I tried a really, really cheap Happoshu. The tomatoes ripened and MJ played with them. I wrecked havoc on the garden. MJ got a hat and dude? had a baby! The NDL draft also went down…

Sep ’10

In September I broke that bowl pictured above, we went to a local festival, blew some bubbles and checked out some apartments.  Started packing too.  The boy started crawling!

Oct ’10

My b-day, the wife’s b-day and a move to Saitama (Fuck! 28-7 now…). The boy started sitting up by himself and pulling himself up on stuff. I shaved myself a terrible mustache and had it come back to me with a terrible picture on my gaijin card.

Nov ’10

In November we got MJ some floor tiles and went to a local park for some lunch outside. We took a trip to Ueno Zoo for the first time and same for Kawagoe. And we celebrated Thanksgiving!

Dec ’10

In December MJ started standing by himself and eventually took his first steps! We watched the Huskies take the Apple Cup and secure a Bowl game. The wife’s sister came out to visit, and we had our first family Christmas!

So that was 2010.  Pretty exciting year with some big changes in the house, literally and figuratively. It was a great year but also it was the first year in a long time I didn’t go to a game or a concert.  Now that the boy is a bit bigger and older, hopefully we’ll be able to at least get out to one (several) this year.  Maybe try to do a little domestic traveling too.

2011…

I’ve got a few goals this year.  I’d like to change jobs but not a huge priority, we’ll see how things shake out in these first three months.  I want to at least try to get my Japanese driver’s license. The big one however is that I think I’ll be taking the JLPT lv. 1 test in December.  I took lv. 2 a couple years back and passed and I’m sure that my Japanese is better now than it was then.  Still gonna be a lot of studying…  I haven’t studied one lick since I took lv. 2…

Anyway, it was a good year, hope the next one is even better.

The End.

(un)pleasant (valley) Sunday

Most of my Saturday hopefulness was washed away on Sunday. It wasn’t a bad day, just a bit more stressful and busy than I had hoped for. Not too relaxing.
I did end up playing a bit of guitar and I even started the foundation for a possible new song. I did end up playing a little bit of God Of War III, but only a little.
I didn’t wake up early enough to watch Butler’s win but I did see Duke’s win (cough). The Tigers game wasn’t on and so I ended up having to watch fuckin Yomiuri destroy Hiroshima. I found out that my 光テレビ has gotten even worse, Discovery channel is gone and all the JSports channels too! Fuck!
I couldn’t watch the Frontale game live but did end up watching it at midnight, win!
I didn’t take any pictures of the boy (he was having a bad day, he’s had a stuffy nose and was cranky all day making it difficult to do too much) but the wife did:

The weather was pretty crappy and so I didn’t get to take any Sakura pics but since I got to leave work early on Saturday, I made it home (almost) in time to get the illusive sunset and sakura pictures I wad hoping for. Ended up being about 15-20mins late for really really good pictures but oh well:

I didn’t end up cooking lunch but I made dinner, it was pretty good:

The thing that made the whole day a bit shot was that I ended up spending (wasting) a ton of time making a video from the pictures the wife and I took on our trip to Hokkaido last year. I ended up down that path because I had been tinkering with the PS3 media server and ended up watching some older videos that I had made of previous trips. They were cool and I realized that I hadn’t made one for the Hokkaido trip. I also realized that the Windows 7 version of Windows Live Movie Maker is missing one of my favorite effects from the previous version, lame! I finished the movie and it turned out well, I exported it in 1080i and it looks amazing but it took a long time.

Finally, dude? and I hopped online for some Bad Co. 2 action. It was a really rough beginning for me because I hadn’t played at all in over a week. As the night rolled along, I got my sea legs again and came out one level up, sweet!

2009, year in the rearview…

To start this off right, I suggest that you follow this link and fire up this song to read along with the post…

2009 was a year that’s hard to put into words.  I had numerous failures and struggles, but I also had some of the greatest moments of my life, all within the span of 12 months.  I had illnesses that I thought were impossible to get, broke a bone for the first time in years, caused damage to my back that still gives me constant problems, said goodbye to more friends and also began to prepare to welcome my son into the world…

Also, crappy that I couldn’t figure out how to bring the old style “rearview” posts to Word Press.  I tired, but failed, so here’s the new style, don’t like it as much… also had to resize all the pics because the old format didn’t work and so everything is pretty crappy quality now…  damn!

Jan ’09

January started out with me being sick.  I was still able to start a new blog that didn’t last even a month.  I handed out the first (and possibly last) NAPpY’s, watched Takushoku finish 17th (didn’t make it this year) and ended up injuring myself ice skating, putting my training and exercising on a hold that would continue the entire year!

Feb ’09
Watched the Super Bowl, celebrated Kenkoku-kinenbi with an envy show and some sushi, introduced you to one of the Yukigaya Pimps, got a new dictionary and welcomed Griffey back to Seattle!  My knee still hurt…

Mar ’09

In March I started to finish some games, but I was also fooled into believing that Red Dead would come out waaaay earlier than it actually will.  I taunted a child, they found the Cornel, got poo on me, watched a bunch of WBC and started my baseball stadiums of Japan reviews and grabbed Antonio’s package.  During the month, I also witnessed someone eating their own dandruff… *shiver*

Apr ’09
Oh April…  I hurt myself real bad and said goodbye to a good friend, finished my stadium reviews and didn’t do much posting about anything else except for some old pictures.  I went to my first few games of the year with mixed results and celebrated round face’s marriage and baby announcement.  I also got my picture in a magazine!  I think that April was the last no airplay podcast too…

May ’09

May was pretty exciting.  Mornin and I hit up a few games during golden week, we all celebrated round face’s b-day and Mr. Infidel’s farewell as well.  I got engaged, got some new sandals and saw a crazy dude walking around Akihabara with a rabbit on his shoulder… Melvis got a year older.

June ’09

June was sparse…  Pretty much 3 things.  Went to Hokkaido, which was rad, for Tora’s wedding, a baseball game and tourism!  Finally got around to celebrating Melvis’ b-day, and mornin and I went apartment hunting, got an apartment and started packing.  That’s pretty much it.  Oh wait! Also got a PS3, and I paid in all 500円 coins…

July ’09

This is the peak of my year, the zenith of my happiness? It was a good, good month, but only posted 5 times.  Maybe I was too happy?  In July, I moved, got married, and found out that I’d be a father all in the span of about 1 week.  It was sad that I left Yukigaya (Kugahara is a good place to live, but that’s about it…) but the new apartment is a ton better, and especially with a baby coming, I’m super glad that we got out of the old, dirty place.  Being married has been great, and knowing that we will have  a new family member in about 2 months has also been a source of nerves and excitement.  I also shaved my head, played tennis, went to our (new)  local 盆踊り, and started to see more and more strange creatures show up in the garden.  Tora and dude? also came into town!

Aug ’09
In August I didn’t really do too much once dude? left town.  I googled my name, and had a barbecue in the backyard.  Also held the NDL draft, which turned out to be my worst fantasy season ever!  Just terrible.  Melvis and I went to see envy again.  August, done.

Sept ’09

September brought my PC a bunch of problems, a trip to Osaka and Hiroshima with mornin, dude? and Mrs. dude? to got to Koshien, Mazda Zoom Zoom, Kyocera Dome, Nagai Stadium and Miyajima.  Great trip, never ended up posting about it really though.  Maybe to come?  Also, mornin finished her graduate school!  And we both got iPhones.  I also got deep into football for a while, at least until stupid daylight savings time… happy b-day dude?!

Oct ’09
October found me in Yokohama for Oktoberfest again, and in Ikegami for another O-eshiki.  Had the Brother and Sister-in-laws over for some fajitas and Wii.  I ordered some games from Play Asia and… nope, that’s really it.  Oh wait, nope, it was my birthday and mornin’s too.  I gave her 8 days of presents!

Nov ’09
People started having lots of babies around this time of the year (Casey and Apoc) and I started thinking about moving to Word Press.  Had a nice Thanksgiving with the wife, shaved my head again, maybe for the last time before I go home later this year.  I jumped back up to 12 posts this moth, but most of them sucked and I just complained about stuff… The old no airplay had died…

Dec ’09

In December I moved over to Word Press and also found out that I was going to have a baby boy! Round Face’s baby girl was born.  The wife and I bought a new camera and started taking photo walks around the neighborhood.  We also had a Christmas Movie Marathon and I ate turkey!  I made it through another year…  A year of strife and celebration.  A year that hopefully made me wiser and stronger.  A year that I didn’t really accomplish most of the things I thought I would, but a year that I did many things that I didn’t expect.  2009 was a good year.  I think 2010 will be a whole new one, I can’t even begin to imagine what things will be like on this day in 2011, but I wish for the best.

2010…

Mornin and I are gonna have a baby boy, right about 2 months away now, and we are planning to travel as a family to America in July, to see my family and have a small wedding ceremony.  We’ll visit my sister and grandmother in Arizona and my Father and grandpa (hopefully) in Las Vegas.  It should be an interesting year, I’m not really ready to come up with a list of things that I want to do/achieve besides those two just yet, maybe soon though.  I still need to post some pictures from the first two days of this year, and describe the craziness that those two days were…

here’s to a new year!

pan-demonium

for a wedding gift, dude? and his lady sent mornin and I a bread maker and a t-fal (hot water pot). we received them earlier this week, thanks guys! and sorry about how long it took for us to decide what we wanted!
anyway, yesterday, on my day off, mornin fired up the bread machine and churned out a pretty nice loaf. I had a couple slices on my sandwich today for lunch. I’m just hoping that we can find some sourdough starter somehow so I can enjoy some delicious sourdough bread sometime soon. I love the stuff and it’s been a long time since I’ve had it!