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!!!

Back to work and MJ’s b-day and… (mega post)

Gonna try to get most of this writing done while I’m on break or riding home tonight because Homefront arrived this morning and I’d like to get a bit into that tonight after I get home. Feels super cold today, almost feels like it could snow and I shoulda worn long johns…

Anyway, I went back to work on Friday finally and only had a few classes. I was only one of two teachers at the school (Shinjuku) that didn’t decide to escape Tokyo/Japan in a panic. It was kinda nice and when I got home I actually felt a bit like things had finally gotten back to normal. Saturday was a nearly full day. After work I headed not home, but to Ikebukuro to stay at the folks’ house because we’d decided (because of train situation) to have MJ’s birthday party there (even after the parade out front was canceled) and mornin thought it would be easier to do all the preparations if we stayed over. The evening was uneventful if I remember correctly except that when our futons were brought out, along with their dust, I started to have allergy attacks. No good. I ended waking up around three because I couldn’t breathe and had to get out of the house. I ended up never going back to sleep. I stayed outside the rest of the morning walking around and taking pictures:

I came back in after the wife got up and hung out, took a couple pictures of MJ sleeping:

but still had to leave the house every so often because my allergies would come raging back. Finally the boy woke up:

He was looking good! Everyone else got up (or at least came down) and everyone got down to business, cleaning and cooking and playing and such:

Eventually I had to leave to meet Melvis at the station and to pick up the cakes. When we got back to the house everyone was there and the living room was packed:

K-chan was there too! I’d been looking forward to seeing her very much since I missed her birthday party last month and hadn’t seen her since new year’s but she’d forgotten me so it wasn’t until much later that I could get close to her and get a picture:

Next was lunch maybe and here’s a picture of the boy with avocado on his nose and a whole strawberry crammed in his mouth:

After lunch it was time for 一升もち and MJ did pretty well. He’s had a lot of walking practice and I think it helped because he already knows how to maintain his balance fairly well. He was able to take several steps and even get up after falling but it was a struggle, 1.8kg (about 4lbs) strapped to his back! He did well but I didn’t get any good pictures because I was trying to take a video (which wasn’t very good either) so I hope we can get some from the others there:

After that it was time for presents and MJ got a sweet music set and a bunch of great clothes, thanks everyone!

After presents we busted out the cake and tried to recreate the wife’s and my first birthday pictures (which we didn’t bring so had to try from memory). They turned out pretty decent (thanks melvis for the second one):

We hurried through the cake because MJ was ready for a nap, his cousin patted his head:

That was mostly it, I had to leave the house several times throughout the day to get some fresh air (especially after the windows were shut) and finally we took a group picture:

We headed home and Melvis came over, I was so beat after having been up since 3am but we played a couple games, had dinner and then it was time to crash. I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t breath again (last night too) because of allergy-residue I think. We’ll see how tonight goes.

Woke up and spent most of Monday walking around with Melvis, doing a bit of shopping, had lunch and I spent a long time trying to go through pictures and videos (like I said last night). That was mostly it. Also took maybe my favorite picture of the boy ever:

Sweet, think I’m mostly done, just had a no-show and a cancel so I had some time to write this, should be able to add the pictures fairly quickly tonight so games are a go!

Still having something  PTSD-like happening, feel like earthquakes are happening all the time and it sucks. I’m sure there are tons of people around here that feel the same thing. It sucks and I wish it would stop. It’s definitely reduced in frequency lately but every aftershock seems to kick it back into gear. Wish it would stop.

Anyway, I wanna wish a happy birthday to my baby boy, he’s come a long way in the past 12 months! It’s been a long year for we first time parents, learning new lessons through trial and error every day.  It’s been a fast year watching home much a little baby can change from day to day…

The wife had made a display of pictures in the living room covering those 12 months for the party but because of the earthquake and still somewhat uncertainty of the trains we had the party in Ikebukuro so no one got to see it. So I made a quick video of the pictures she chose, here it is:

Happy birthday boy!

down goes everyone…

Well MJ got sick, then his mom and I so my day off yesterday was pretty low key.  I did make a trip back to the home center to get some stuff for the earthquake preparedness kit I’d been meaning to get around to putting together for awhile.  I was encouraged to actually do it of course after the happening down in Christchurch.  I’ve been doing a lot of drawing lately and once I have something decent I might put it up here.  Also Play Asia sucks still and Killzone 3, which was released on the 22nd in the US (I ordered the US version) still has not shipped (and says that the release date is the 25th) so on my way to work today I’m gonna check out Bic Camera to see if they have it in as today (or yesterday) is/was the Japanese release date.  If they have it, hopefully I can cancel my order before it finally does ship.  That’s about it, I’m home with the boy right now because the wife had to go into her office today and normally she takes him to her folks’ place but since he’s still sick she didn’t really want to take him out.  He’s sleeping now and ママ should be here in about 15 minutes or so then I’ll get ready and head out. Too bad everyone’s sick, this Sunday Pure-child was supposed to be heading into to Tokyo to her husband’s parents’ house and were gonna stop by here too but their kid got sick last week so they postponed it and so hopefully Melvis was gonna come over instead. But now it looks like we’ll just be staying here for the weekend.  Hope everyone gets well soon.

Phore!

All my life I’ve invented and tweaked games (and drinking games/challenges) to make them, hopefully, more fun, exciting and challenging.  The two most successful ventures have been Ghetto Golph and Caps, two games I would love to play until the end of time.  Today’s venture into Ghetto Phrisbee Golph land ranks right up there with the best of them.  Today was the first ever Kugahara CC Ghetto Phrisbee Golph invitational (KCCGPGI) so I doffed my golph cap and my plaid knickers and headed out with the wife, baby and Melvis around 11:30am to the street out in front of my house to tee off. The wife hung with us through the first 8 holes and then took the baby back home but was kind enough to take a few pictures.  Melvis and I both had a camera so we did get a few shots but I didn’t take the big camera and we didn’t take too many shots because we were busy having fun.

It was a really beautiful day and a perfect way to get Golden Week in gear.

Can you find my phrisbee in here?  Some serious rough!

So the course traversed a pretty large area and diverse terrain of the neighborhood down to Tama river and back in a big loop.  The most difficult hole was the one along the river.  The wind was blowing and we had to dip down to the wide part because there were a ton of people on the walking/ bike path so we would have spent way too much time waiting for breaks in the people.  Other than that, most of the time  we had few people around and only had to wait for cars and people and bikes rarely.  I did end up having to climb behind some vending machines once to get a phrisbee back and Melvis replayed one hole (and got the same score even without the penalty stroke) after we ended up getting his phrisbee back from behind a school wall.  We were pretty careful with our throws and didn’t hit any cars (although Melvis went under a couple of them) or people. Here’s some more shots of some of the area covered:

I ended up with a final score of 197 (+29) and Melvis came in with a 201 (+33) so it was really close.  I think I might have to tweak a couple of the pars because that’s pretty bad.  I think I underestimated two holes in particular (the two that I ended up with 29s on ( Melvis had a 28 and 33 on those I think)).  I gotta say that today was a ton of fun and I can’t wait to do it again, probably want to do this same course at least once more so that I can see if I improved at all but then I might want to start plotting out a new course, maybe towards the other direction from the house…

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!