We camped for the low low fee of $50 in this lavish campsite. Well, they did have running water and serenety. How about that serenity?

We went rock climbing near Nikko on Sunday. The place was pretty awesome, but quite the zoo. I've never been anywhere with so many people climbing, although that doesn't really say a whole lot.

Me after close to 5 hours in the car, with one left to go.

We ended our road trip with a beautiful and stunning view of Mount Asama, the nearby active volcano. It's pretty cool to realize that we hiked to the rim of the beast just a couple of months before it blew.

Remember when I said I was awesome because I busted my bike pedal, well, I just got more awesome. I discovered that in the past week or so my rear rim has developed quite a nice crack in the sidewall. Yay. I usually like rebuilding wheels, but I guess it's a bit different when it's my stuff that I need every day.

It has occurred to me that I post only rarely these days. I can't explain exactly why, laziness I guess. I get pretty wrapped up in my little projects, as i'm sure most of you who read this blog already know. In that respect, it was a pretty busy week this past one.
My new project has been hammering smallish holes into largish rocks. I'm putting up a new rock climbing route. it will be one that no one else has done before, because I'm the idiot putting the bolts up there. There are three main branches of rock climbing; bouldering, traditional climbing and sport climbing.
In bouldering the object is to climb very short but very hard rock "problems" consisting of anywhere from 2 to 10 moves for the most part. In this variety of climbing one does not use any rope because you're usually only a few feet from the ground. If anything, you may opt for a "crash pad" to soften the landing area a bit.

Traditional climbing is regarded by most people as the most challenging mentally as it is the process by which silly humans scale rock surfaces and with the aid of a rope and specialized tools or "protection", they keep themselves from hitting the deck. Protection originally consisted of steel pitons hammered into cracks but recently has come to rely on easily removable "nuts" and "cams" which wedge into cracks and crevices to protect the climber. I don't do this type of climbing.

The last type is the most commonly practiced (at least in the US, Europe and Japan) which is commonly known as sport climbing. Sport climbing utilizes a rope, of course, as well as pre-placed anchors drilled and affixed to the rock. This allows for a more gymnastic and dynamic style of climbing, since the climber doesn't have to worry about putting in his or her own protection into the rock. Overall, this style of climbing is extremely safe, and compared with many other sports, has a relatively low injury rate. For reference ask my brother, he had his tooth crammed through his lip this past summer while playing a friendly match of soccer.

Anyway, this past week has seen me suspended on a rock face laboriously hand drilling holes in a basalt outcropping with an improvised hand-powered rock chisel. It has taken me about 1 hour per hole so far, but I'm looking to improve my rate with the purchase of a bigger hammer. Aside from smacking the back end of a carbide-tipped drill bit a thousand times, I could buy a battery powered hammer drill, unfortunately, they're somewhere in the range of $600-$1000. For now, I'll just kill my afternoons by smacking my thumb with a hammer 20 feet off the ground.

I've been waiting to post about my adventurism last weekend because I've been waiting for the pictures, you see, having a digital camera does no good if you don't bring it. Last weekend we hiked up a mountiain to the east of us called Nekotake. It was a great adventure full of thrills and spills. Well, actually it was mostly cool from the standpoint of the perfect weather and the natural beauty of the place. In other conditions, it might have been considered a slog. The slope of the mountain is really shallow, even though the thing is tall by Japanese standards, 2207 meters. I'll tell the story with pictures.

Here's a view of Lara and Jennifer in front of a Snow-Cat and by extension, the mountain we climbed Nekotake. The resort operates helicopter rides up to the top, but we opted for the hard way, climbing. Fortunately, the slope is quite mild so along with 0 risk of avalanche, the climbing wasn't so strenuous. The real goal is climbing Fuji and skiing down it next month.

The adventure started at the top of a ski lift where we put on our snowshoes and for me, my climbing skins and proceeded upward.

Here's one of the pictures of the hike upwards. You'll notice Jennifer with a snowboard shooting out the top of her bag. In the background are the North Alps of Japan. We're planning on hiking a good number of them this summer.

The clouds that whip over the mountain leave sublimate this frosty coating over the pine trees up here. The japanese call these things "snow monsters" and it's not hard to see why.

Here's a view from the top of the spectacular Mount Asama Volcano about 30 kilometers directly south of us. That's a cloud of sulphurous gas, in case you're wondering.

Here we are at the top. From the left to right we see Simon, Lisa, Dawn, Me,Shane, Jennifer and Lara.
While it took us about 2 hours to climb to the top, the hike down was all of about 25 minutes. It's kind of a letdown to see all your hard work evaporate like that.

As I was pulling in to the alley behind my office on Wednesday, I noticed a strange sensation in my right foot and then suddenly my foot came free of the pedal. Or actually, the pedal came free of the bicycle. I looked down and sure enough, my lovely bicycle had suffered a slight setback as the pedal spindle was firmly attached to the bicycle, but the pedal body was firmly attached to my foot. This presents some obvious problems, in this case, how do I get myself back home? I was fortunately given a ride by a co-worker and endeavoured to fix the pedal the following morning. This also proved problematic because upon closer inspection I discovered that I have completely worn through the bearings on the inside of the pedal, the wee balls were rusty and mangled and no longer functional in the least.

This brings me to the interesting part; it felt kinda good to see the destroyed pedal guts. There's something quite satisfying about wearing out sports equipment. If a car breaks down, of course you just get pissed and think of the money you have to spend on fixing it. For a bicycle however, I just think, "Yeah, I pedaled that thing to DEATH!" It's the same feeling I got from seeing the stacks of old running shoes when I was running a lot. I feel powerful to have made this artificial product yield to my manly power. Additionally, it's an excuse to get new toys, which may be the real inspiration after all.

In a short addendum to the email sent to me by CJ last week, i would like to just mention that this email caused CJ and his wife Clar to be refused entry to their then current fitness club. Apparently the Aspen Fitness Club in Cedar Rapids, Iowa found that CJ's vociferousness had no home in their establishment. Maybe it hit a little too close to home.

I'd like to post an email that I received from a friend of my family's CJ Ong, fitness consultant and multiple time Ultraman Athlete. Ultraman is like an Ironman (2 mile swim, 100miles on the bike and then a marathon) but in Ultraman you do multiply those distances by a factor of 2 or 3. He's finished several doubles and a triple. My point is, this is a guy who knows what he's talking about, and additionally, he's one of the few guys who really looks good in a moustache and ponytail.

I often wonder why America is the fattest nation in the world. With 60% of our adult population consider overweight or obese I offer the following opinion: The fitness club or facility industry is partially at fault.

A poster in a gym that I was recently in proclaims "cardio does not have to be so hard" and that working with the fitness professionals there will provide "maximum results with minimum effort."

Excuse my French but who are we fkn kidding here?

I agree that cardio does not have to be so hard but in reality it needs to be structured intelligently and offered to the members of a gym in a productive fashion. Offering 4 rip roaring high heart rate group cycling classes per week is counterproductive to weight loss! Look at the research.

And as for the farce of minimum effort for maximum results let's get real! People are lazy. So if they think they can get the maximum results in a minimum amount of time that is what they will buy into. And the fitness clubs bank on that. Most fitness clubs foster deception -- just like the infomercials hawking home gyms that will yield a beautifully sculpted physique in just 20 minutes a day! News flash: Those physiques were not built on just 20 minutes a day or with minimum investment! (some were built with the help of a plastic surgeon but that's a different subject!) Why would you want a client to actually reach the "apex" of fitness when you can keep stringing them along with false hope? More gadgets, supplements, pretty workout clothes in plus sizes - need I say more?

At the gym I see a few trainers who actually practice "personal training". Sadly most trainers are nothing more than glorified "fitness baby-sitters" who use a canned program for all their clients - everyone does plyos for six weeks-regardless if you are a grandmother who simply wants to be able to play with her grandchildren or a triathlete looking to improve their performance. The good trainers utilize differentiation and discrimination in their fitness program design as opposed to approaching personal training with a "no child left behind" philosophy.

The "no child left behind" philosophy that permeates many of today's fitness clubs is making America die a slow and agonizing death. It costs the country money in increasing health costs. In most group fitness class settings the emphasis on the part of the management is making sure that everyone has FUN, FUN, FUN. The QUALITY of the instruction is not measured at all by most management but rather the QUANTITY of instruction - NUMBERS, NUMBERS, NUMBERS! And woe be to the instructor wants to teach above the average! They might as well put on pair of safety glasses and be prepared to take a donut hole in the eye - wait it's been done! Here's another news flash: Even those below average (which is 49% of the population) need to be challenged so they can advance.

It's time for the fitness club industry to practice what they preach! One of the greatest athletes of all time is Olympian Dan Gable - he never deluded himself into thinking he could achieve maximum results with minimum effort. And as a coach he practiced what he preached. There was none of this bullshit of standing around with a whistle and a potbelly saying it doesn't do the athletes any good to have me do push-ups along side of them in practice.

It is time to have good representives in the fitness industry. I am offended by fitness class instructors with a roll of fat around their middle telling people to work harder.
Why would anyone want to join a gym where the membership counselors are fat?
I cringe when I see a client working with a personal trainer who allows them to bring the back in hyper extension when doing a standing bicep curl.

It is time for the fitness club industry to shape up! Quit dumbing it down, be honest to the members - quit stringing them along to make money and quit looking at them as a cash cow.

Instead of a fitness apex America is destined for a fitness nadir. It's gonna hurt!

C.J.

I realize that I have often posted about my increasingly AWESOME physique resulting from my extensive weight training, rock climbing and Atkins Diet, but last week I suffered a psychological setback. While comparing arm sizes with Jennifer and flexing in the bathroom mirror, I discovered to my chagrin that her arms are still bigger than mine. I can empathize with my friend Ben Knudson's recent shock to find that his neck size is significantly smaller than expected. I guess that maybe it's easier for me to accept my scrawnyness in Japan where I tower over most people and am bulkier than a good number. I've got evidence, I go to onsens (Japanese communal baths). Ben, however, lives in the land of the large, and what's more, a good number of his friends are pushing 200 lbs.

Last night we watched "Touching the Void" it's the documentary style film about Simon Yeates and Joe Simpson, the guy who while climbing a mountain in the Andes broke his leg and then fell over a cliff and then was abandoned as dead and miraculously arrived in camp some 3 days later after crawling off of a mountain. The film was really well done and thrilling to the last, even though we know that the story worked itself out alright in the end. It kind of tempered my desire to be a mountaineer, though I really want to go to the Andes now. I recommend the film to anyone, and particularly those with an outdoorsy bent.

Coincidentally, I believe my brother Ian is flying to Chile today. I'm not sure of his exact itinerary, but he'll be flying out of Miami and eventually ending up in the city of Valparaiso somewhere along the coast of that oddly shaped country. He'll then hang out and be disoriented for a day or two and afterwords he'll celebrate his twenty first birthday someplace south of the equator, making him the first Ritz to venture south of that mark and certainly the only one to celebrate a birthday outside of our hemisphere. Buena suerte Ian y cupleanos feliz!

I just thought I'd post my proof positive that I'm actually paid up on my student loans. I've been holding on to this email from the Sally Mae corporation for a couple of months and I thought that i'd just share my joy with y'all now.

The list below includes all the loans in your account with us. Loans marked with a star (*) are the loans referred to in this letter.
Original Loan Date: 01/17/03
Original loan amount: $12,661.17
Outstanding Principal: $0.00

Well, another set of my friends has become homeowners. Emi and Tim Baldoni are now the proud owners of a house, in Minneapolis of all places. I guess there is no reason for me not to get a house of my own, particularly now that Jennifer is on track to save $40,000 from our time spent in Japan. That's right, 40 grand in a little over 2 years. As for me, if we count my paying off of college loans as savings, I've saved more like $14,000 since I got here. Since much of that has been erased due to Dear Old Macalester, I'll probably go home with something like $7000 when all is said and done. Not bad, but not even in the same ballpark as Jennifer.

I guess this is Emi and Tim's new abode. It looks nice, quaint in that sort of twin cities way, makes me want to drink a Dunn Brothers coffee and raid the Whole Foods dumpster of plenty.

Another week has gone by and what do I have to say for myself? Not much, that's what. My job is fine, my home is comfortable, I am living the life of a foreigner in a strange land. I discovered to my surprise the other day that there's a girlie club near my office called "The New Ritz". I asked, and they are offering me a free round of drinks for me and 20 of my closest friends along with the company of any of the fabulous Filipina women they employ. The catch is that I would have to join the Yakuza and drive a black Toyota luxury car or maybe a Mercedes. The only catch would be that I'd have to bleach my hair a little an grow it into a mullet. So yeah, life is good.

I just caught wind of this from Alf's Mom, all you people who may have known the glory days of Alf should really check it out. It reminds me of what could have been. Alf, while not blogging has apparently been busy in China nonetheless.

ok, I forgot to post in reverse chronological order, so the posting is kind of screwy. You should start first at the bottom of the pictures and work your way up for maximum dramatic effect.

Our last day in Sapporo was spent recuperating from the previous day in Sapporo and we capped it of with a nice round of crabs. Expensive but tasty. I'm just glad we didnt' have to cook the poor bastards, they've got quite a personality.

needless to say, drunkenness ensued, though no really reckless behavior on the part of anyone in our immediate party. I was the DP, designated photographer, so I went light on the booze.

And then to the bar with the free drinks for women. As we entered Shane made a count, 47 women to 12 men, including the 4 bartenders. Now that's what I call a meat market.

Next came the hot baileys ice tent, a cup for 200 yen, what a bargain.

There was also a good selection of ice sculpture. Apparently one can make a pretty good living from being an ice sculptor, weddings, bar mitzvas, tractor pulls, you name it, they want sculpted ice.

We later toured the Sapporo Brewery where I bought a cool T shirt and marveled at the universal language...beer.mmmmmmm.

Here's a fine example of snow sculpture from the Sapporo snow festival. Imagine a bunch of small sculptures, mostly cute, and then some giant and really cool things such as this one and you have a good picture of what was going on.

I'm going to post a photo history of our Sapporo trip, prepare for a lot of photos.

We started out on Thursday about noon and got in to Sapporo about 5, found our hotel and then ventured out on the coldest day i've experienced in Japan. It was snowing like hell as we perused through the streets filled with snow and snow sculptures. We decided on ramen that night and found our way to a famous ramen district of Sapporo. It's pretty close to the red light district but a block over. After this we stopped in a trendy little bar and after headed back to the hotel. My pictures start the next day when the weather was a little better.

We're headed up to snow country tomorrow. Hokkaido, the northern most island beckons us. Thanks to the lovely birthday discount fare, Jennifer, Lara, Shane and I are going to see the famous Sapporo Snow Festival. We also intend to sample Sapporo beer and various otherworldly delicacies. Most interestingly, for Japan that is, is that the roads are all supposed to be straight and intersect at right angles in this miracle city. We'll have a boatload of lovely pictures to share with everyone when we return.

Jennifer and I had a pretty good weekend leading up to her birthday yesterday, superbowl sunday in fact. Saturday involved a trek to the neighboring city of Ueda, one of the top 3 sunniest cities in Japan. The aim of our trip was beef, big and bloody and brasilian. For some reason, Ueda has a lot of Brasilian immigrants and therefore hosts a lively subculture that is very interested in BBQ. After procuring our 2 kilos of red flesh we returned to lovely Nagano and socked it in the fridge. The evening was filled, incedentally with the always lovely but now ridiculously popular because it's illuminated in several colors Zenkoji temple. We stopped on by and then on to dinner and what else? Karaoke!! It wasn't my idea and Jennifer and I had planned to maybe do something else with our time and avoid hangovers, but what can you really do when everyone wants you for your lovely personality and great looks? Nothing, so you go and you sing your heart out to a room full of drunkards and a TV while the shocked attendant brings drink after drink to the room. Such a lovely hobby. Such despicable things done to fine songs.

For me, karaoke is one of those things that I don't really have a good time doing but at the end I can look back and say, "Hey, I'm glad that I did that." In particular there was another midwesterner there saturday, Tim, from Milwaukee. It was great to be around another one of my own kind, people who know what High-life is and who can appreciate mosquitoes. I can't wait to get back to the motherland people, it's calling my name.

Now here's a midwesterner by god, and what a man, a beer drinking, sausage loving, Milwaukee son. I knew one of those good but lazy men once...

Debauchery in no uncertain terms. If a man can't stand, he ain't much of a man, but he'll carry on with the tunes until they rip the mike from his hand.

Beef, as big as your head, how do you explain that?

lovely Zenkoji temple scene of many tripods and about $100,000.00 worth in cameras per evening (for real, I saw like 20 nikons)

I can tell that I'm a little bummed, I get the urge to buy stuff. I can't recall if it's always been like this, but recently I've been trying to buy my way out of depression (mild). My other problem is that I love gear intensive sports. I love cycling, skiing and rock climbing and I particularly love all the cool gadgets that you can buy to make it seem more enjoyable. I always say to myself that I am just a conneseur of fine products, that it's ok as long as they're high quality that i'm not wasting my money, but really, it's just a lie to allow me to buy cool stuff.

Don't fool yourself people, your not enjoying the finer things in life, you're enjoying toys.

Anyone who says that sake is hangover free is a damn liar.

Saturday we spent a sizeable chunk of the afternoon touring one of the locally renowned sake breweries. The brewery is called Waka-midori and means "Light Green", like the color of new shoots of rice. We arrived about 2:00, Shane, Lara, Jennifer and I along with the hookup; one of lara'a co-workers and his wife. They were both flight attendants in a previous line of work and therefore both had impeccable English. It was the first time that I'd heard a Japanese person use the term "microbe" in a sentence. Not that I doubt the abilities of some of my students, but this was pretty much unheard of from a higshool english teacher. Anyway, we arrived about 2:00 and took a nice little tour of the brewery, tasted some of the fermenting rice sludge and saw the room where they make the starter batch of koji and yeast to get the sake really rocking in the fermenters. They use open fermentation tanks, which I thought was pretty odd, most beer brewers want to seal off any outside influence from various yeasties floating in the air, but I guess that this brewer is famous for his distinctively flavored sake, probably a result of the airborne wild yeast. We sampled some sake from every stage of the process, the rice, the rice mash, the bubbling concoction in the tanks, the freshly pressed finished sake and then some other stuff that had been ageing for a couple of months. The time was about 2:45 and I was a little tipsy due to the high octane levels present in our various samplings and also the fact that among our group, I liked sake the best, therefore prompting me to drink the leftovers from everyone else. Our tour now over, had but to sample the finished wares and be on our way. Little did we know that this would be a 4 hour process.
Mister Imai, the owner brought us into his 100 year old house with magnificent japanese woodwork and screens and sat us all down at his heated kotatsu table where we had a spread of appetizers including salad, fried chicken bits and pickles as well as an assorted selection of at least 9 liters of sake for the group of us. Not only was it sake, but particularly it was "Dai-ginjo" sake which is made from only the core of the rice grain and is also about 20-22 percent alchohol. The weakest stuff at the table was apricot wine which had about 12 percent alchohol. We did our kanpais and our toasts and then proceeded to drink about 7 of those 9 liters. This was followed closely by the owner's wife introducing herself briefly and then whipping up some fried noodles and gyoza dumplings for us. After this last feast we packed up and prepared to go (rather tipsy by now, but since Shane and I at least had ridden bikes, no big problem) only to find that Imai-san had already ordered two pre-paid taxis and refused to let us ride our bikes home. A more awesome display of hospitaltiy I have never seen. Not a yen paid by us and we each left with a giant magnum bottle tucked away in our jackets.

Oh yeah, and we went skiing on sunday, but really, how can you top an evening like that!

Here is an actual picture of a pair of snow kangaroos. The female is the larger of the two and more powerful, but otherwise indistinguishable from the male. In general, the female will kick the crap out of potential suitors until she finds one who fits the bill. Little is known about their habits and I'm lucky to have cought them on film.

It has been supposed that the picture that I posted of the Kamoshika is actually that of a Japanese Snow Kangaroo. This is decidedly not the case. Snow kangaroos are somewhat taller with large pontoon like feet to help them jump through the drifts of often powdery, deep snow that coat the mountains and hills around Nagano and elsewhere in Japan. Snow Kangaroos are most closely related to the Yeti-dog of inner Mongolia and are recognisable by their dog like canines which they use to root for grubs and tubers. The Kamoshika, on the other hand is also known as the Japanese Serow and is related more to the goaty-llama type animals that so frequently inhabit petting zoos around the world.

In other news, I just finished Eric Larson's "The Devil in the White City" a true historical account of H.H. Holmes, the first known serial killer in the US as well as the trials and tribulations of the World Columbian Exibition in 1893. Let me start out by saying that i'm a little biased of course because I'm really an urban planner at heart and also as a one time resident of Hyde Park in Chicago, I have a soft spot for Chicago based literature and since I was only a 5 minute walk from where the Exibition was held, more than a passing familiarity with the grounds. All the same, it's history that reads like fiction. It was so good that I found myself cringing at the thought of such rabble rousers as Eugene Debs spoiling the progress of the honorable architect and builder Daniel Burnham.

This, along with The Jungle is a "should read" for anyone who has stepped into Chicago for more than a passing glimpse at the airport.

This is the lovely Boob Mountain Range. I ascended almost to the right teat that you can see there, but snow and a cramped schedule prevented me. Damn that 3:00 class!

I would like you all to see one of the finest names for candy in all of the land. This really defines a bit of the japanese love of the sappy. In what must be one of the corniest, most faux-sincere countries on the planet, it's really the product names that stand out.

Behold the mighty Kamoshika, lord of the buxom hills.

I climbed within 20 vertical meters of the top of Lower Boob Mountain the other day.

If you look outside our window, you can see two mountains off over the M-Wave building. From this perspective and that from much of this part of the city, you would swear that they were meant to emulate a voluptuous relative of the Jolly Green Giant. Since I had no class until 3, I took it upon myself to do a little mountaineering up along the ridge line. Jennifer and I had attempted to summit Greater Boob this past summer on an incredibly hot and humid day, we were forced back by lack of supplies and also lack of will. I decided I wasn'a ganna stand fer it anna' moer!

My new boots proved to be adequate and the snowshoes that I purchased for the low low price of $50 last week were actually unnecessary, though I lugged them all the way up just in case. I could have used them at the top, where the snow was about a meter deep, but the terrain was so steep as to prevent their effectiveness. What I really could have used were some ice axes. You know, the kind that mountaineers always carry to help them through all kinds of snowy and icy terrain , and which also may be used as a crude hunting implement or means to defend against wildlife gone amok.

As we touch on the subject of wildlife gone amok, I ran into 3 examples of the unique and strangely zen Japanese Kamoshika. The animal is rather like a goat but when you bumble across one you are momentarily unsure what to think. Dawn, the Kiwi from Suzaka usuall describes them, "You know, Kamoshika, the pig-dog-goat-bear things." Fortunately for me, they are incredibly docile (often giving the impression of stupidity) and allowed me to take several choice pictures of them.

I finally reached the not-quite-summit and then, realizing the time, lept down the mountain in a quarter of the time that it took me to get to the top. That's the beauty of jumping into giant snowpatches, they don't hurt you, unless they're covering pits or logs.

Overall it was a successful expedition. Next, I will make an attempt at Greater Boob. My report will be featured exclusively on this website.

Last saturday as i mentioned, was the Nozawa Village Fire festival.

A little background on festivals in japan. Festivals are the only times when this otherwise staid and calm culture really just freaks out. Festivals are a chance for the participants, whomever they may be, usually young men, to get totally ripped with their buddies and go do something stupid while wearing ridiculous outfits. The one we saw last spring in which men ride logs down dirt embankments was one example. Another example is the festival where they fly giant kites which sometimes kill people upon crashing. The Fire festival is the latest and by far the most outrageous disregard to safety and common sense that i've ever been witness to.

This particular festival is based around two traditions: First is that of burning your newyears decorations on the 15th of January, the second is on the idea that the ages of 25 and 42 are particularly bad luck years for men here. The synthesis of these two beliefs results in the following procedure.

The townspeople of Nozawa Village drag a bunch of brush and trees down from the mountains sometime in the fall and let it get good and dry. Then about the 13th of January they prepare the shrine which looks something like a giant ornamental birds nest reaching about 40 feet high. On the 15th of January the 25 year olds and the 42 year olds get pretty lit on sake and light a large bonfire at the edge of the arena surrounding the shrine. At this point the 25 year olds and the 42 year olds gather around the shrine and chant and get ready with the old guys on top of the bird nest platform. The next stage is where it gets really interesting. Village notables as well as some young children light reed torches on the bonfire and march towards the large shrine in a ceremonial effort to set the thing on fire. The younger set of unlucky men, armed with pine branches and nerves steeled with alchohol wait for these dignitaries to try to light their shrine and then calmly swat the flames out. After about 2o or so minutes of this the shit hits the fan and groups of drunken village men of all ages join the fight. They take up the torches that the old guys pitch down from the roof, run to the bonfire and lighting them, head back for the shrine to do battle. These guys are for real, they stage ambushes, rushes and full on frontal assaults with their burning torches. I saw guys whipped in the face with bundles of these flaming reeds. Time and time again the stupid drunks attacked eachother. While the supposed goal of the attackers was to destroy the shrine, it seemed more like the attackers were trying to destroy the faces and hair-dos of the defenders. It was not unusual for glowing embers to sputter out on the hair and flesh of the unlucky 25-ers. Thank god that i'm not from Nozawa, as this would be my year!

here's another shot of the hapless 25 year old defenders. Note that these guys are hooked by the wrist to the shrine, thus giving them some motivation to keep it from going up in flames.

torches being carried towards the shrine

I wish that I were competent in cool things such as avalanche prediction. It is my utmost desire to travel via ski to the more remote places in the snowy mountains around nagano, but my boundless enthusiasm has had a kick in the shorts after receiving this email from a fellow foreigner in the area.

If you or one of your friends starts a slab avalanche, you have a few seconds to get off that slab before it breaks up and you fall over. Once you're down, your board/skies will dag you under. If you make it unscathed to where the avalanche finally settles, you will often be in a sitting position. You have 2 options then. Try to punch a hole through the snow before it freezes or try to make as big a breathing space around your head as possible. All it takes is a few cm above your outstretched hand. As you breathe under the snow, your breath will melt patches of the surrounding snow which will immediately re-freeze to form a fatal bubble of ice around your head- not a nice way to go.Avalanche snow settles and freezes within seconds. You will not be able to wriggle or move. Snowboards or skis have no chance of getting through it. You have approx 15 mins of breathing air available before you fall unconscious. Then your brain has a further 3-4 mins before it starts dying of oxygen starvation. So your friends have 15 mins to dig a hole for you to breathe on your own

I'm reminded about my tendency to go overboard with stuff. I tend to get an idea in my head and obscess about it for a good long while and then, without much experience to back my mental calculations, i go nuts. Former roomates and friends of mine will readily confess that it can happen that I get in a little over my head. One might consider my home-made banana moonshine or the cortizone injection that I whipped up in our kitchen using some anti-itch spray and a bit of stolen lab equipment.
I guess the moral of this story is, I should probably show some restraint when venturing out of the groomed tracks this winter. Please, all you praying folk, pray for my willpower and restraint.

I'm in the process of reading my third Tom Robbins novel. I've read "Another Roadside Attraction" and "Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas" and now I'm on to "Villa Incognito". While they are always good for some trivia and a laugh, I didin't really fall in love with the other two, and I'm not sure why I'm reading this one. I guess I shouldn't be so critical of myself, it is afterall a book and not a cycling or climbing magazine. It would behoove my atrophied noodle to work on reading more works with more than 10 pages devoted to a single topic.

In other news, tomorrow is the Nozawa Fire Festival. I believe that I posted a brief sketch of this last year, but tomorrow I will actually see the event, rather than just hear stories and legends. It is basically a time for the Japanese to get ripped on sake and burn down some towers upon which old men are standing. It sounds like good fun, i'll be sure to write more tomorrow.

the nice thing about this digital camera that Jennifer and I bought is that I can take as many crappy pictures as I want and post them simply and easily. My myriad readers should brace themselves for an onslaught of photography.

Here's a picture of me that some random passerby took shortly after my damaging fall. You'll probably notice two things. 1. The snow is really deep. 2. My skis are called Mountain Noodles.

Japan has the same attitude towards snow that it does about so many other things; let it be and maybe it will go away on it's own. The local government occasionally plows the larger streets in the event of a large snowfall, but they just let any road smaller than 4 lanes "clear up of it's own accord". This really makes for challenging bicycling to say the least. I haven't crashed yet this year, but then again, I only rode to work once so far. Today is snowing like crazy, so we'll have to see how my luck holds out.

I don't know for sure, but knees aren't supposed to make a popping noise are they? I took a digger yesterday at the end of the day, while going not too fast and admiring the sunset. Sproing, flip, pop, groan is the appropriate order of it i believe.

Oh well, i guess it's just time to be a grumpy bitch while i heal up.

The first day back at work is always a hard one. Fortunately Friday is the easy day, my best students and best class environments. It's also easy since I've got a 3 day weekend coming up tomorrow through Monday. What a way to start back into the old grind eh? Skiing should figure prominently in the weekend's activities, I'm hoping to establish some new bruises and bumps on my arse.

In other news, jet lag is not as bad as the process of shrinking one's stomach to it's pre-gluttonfest proportions. Since being constantly exposed to food during the recent holiday binge, I've increased 2 dress sizes and have noticed alarming signs of distress around the seams of various clothing items.

Well, it's good to be back. Mostly, it's good to be done travelling as we were in some form of transportation for the past 27 hours (that includes airport time though). In the plane back I started and finished "Timequake" by Kurt Vonnegut and watched three shitty movies, "Little Black Book", "Catwoman" and "Shark Tale" with the last of those three being the most enjoyable by far.
I had a really good visit home. It was almost too easy to be back. It is one thing to live in another place for a year and a half, but really, there's almost no experience that can erase all of my formative years at home in the good ol' US of A. I honestly expected there to be a good bit of culture shock coming back home after my longest ever absence. The biggest problem I had was portion management. American restaurants are psychopathically overserving us. Why don't we just pay a little less, get a little less food and keep our waistlines thinner and our wallets fatter? I don't know, i guess there's always going to be a thrill in a mountain of food. The thousand calorie rollercoaster eating binge. Not only were restaurants troublesome, but the glorious home cooked food available at my fingertips every second of every day was sincerely heart stopping. I put on a couple extra kilos just for good measure at every house i visited.
Now, back in the land of no insulation and no snowplows, I'm going to find it hard to stop thinking about the life that could be, lounging around the US.

Oh yeah, if anyone out there across the ether finds a set of keys, 1 house, 2 bike lock; please let me know. You see, I somehow misplaced them in all the festivities. They're either at Ben and Marye's house, Emi and Tim's apartment, or someplace else in the Midwest. The last time I remember them was at Ben and Marye's house, but I'm pretty sure they made it past there. Oh well.

Don't ask me to cook Japanese food for you. Jennifer and I made a feast for our families and as I'm typing this my mom is puking in the bathroom. The octopus balls didn't agree with her. Everyone else is OK, but she's suffering man.

Time flies here in the ol US of A. I can't believe that I've already been home for a week. It was awesome to hang out with people in the Twin cities and home life hasn't been that bad. After some serious consideration. I think that i like living in the US better than living in japan. That said, I'm looking forward to hanging out with all the homies back in Nagano. Well, i guess that means Lara, Shane and Dawn. With luck there will be some lovely powder snow waiting at Myoko Suginohara so that I can actually use the half day passes that I bought with my hard earned money. Cheers for now, I'm heading to see the old country, Sioux City Iowa.

It's a long week when you're waiting to go home after almost a year and a half. This is the 24 hour stretch here, this is the money shot. We head out tomorrow morning at about 7:30 and the plan is to avoid sleep until then, well actually until we get on the plane, but you all know me and cars, out like I was hit with a bat. I've still got to get a little last minute stuff for peeps back home, mostly the gallons and gallons of sake that i'm bringing back. It's cheaper than beer here by a long margin and quite good, not like the skunky stuff you get back in the US, but more on the relative merits of alchohol later, I'm heading for the promised land. Head East young man, head East!! It's manifest destiny in reverse!

Ok folks, here's the itinerary for the upcoming holidays.

Leave Japan at about 2:30 pm, December 18th (saturday) and arrive in the Twin Cities at 2:00 pm. Freaky.

We plan on staying in the twin cities for the next couple of days, going home on Monday sometime in the late afternoon, early evening after gorging ourselves on such regional specialties as Steak, Ethiopian, and Holy Land deliciousness. We hope to spend some time with all our favorite people including, but not limited to; Ben and Marye, Emi and Tim, Timmy Pavlish, Paul, Annie, and with the possible strange reunion of my former roomates, Doug, Alf and Jude. This seems unlikely as certain members of the enterage have become estranged over an incident involving Chinese virgins. With luck no other virgins will get in the way of a great reunion and "Fun, Fun, Fun Times." If you are lucky or willing, you may have the chance to bid, yes bid, for the chance to have two smelly travellers and about 1 metric ton of souveneirs in your house/apartment whathaveyou. Contact the comment box below for further details.

For the week immediately preceeding Christmas we will be lounging in comfort in the fabulous burg of Ames, Iowa, home of the Husker Stomping ISU Cyclones; the biggest bunch of nitwits ever to tear down a goalpost.

After fattening ourselves for a week or so, we fully intend to travel East to Amherst Massachusetts to visit our good and somewhat thinner and bronzer friend Meghan Greeley who will have just returned from 2 years in balmy Guinea in equitorial West Africa. From Amherst there is also a good chance that we'll meet Steve and Yarrow, where we will swap stories about Asia.

From the East we'll head back to our home high in the still snowless Japan Alps where we will attempt to recover from jetlag and begin teaching RIGHT AWAY!

We have shitty 100 yen and cheaper gifts for ALL of you, so don't delay, the time is right, let us sleep on your floor Saturday and Sunday night!!!.

Jennifer and I sat down today and got out our map of the US in an attempt to narrow the focus of our future domicile. We decided, after reflection on our household's worth of shit stored in her parent's basement, that we should really make an effort to set up an actual household somewhere. THis would of course be in a city with a nice cosmopolitan feel, a population of no fewer than 500,000 and no larger than 24 million. We would have to have access to at least one world class institution of higher learning, or at least a university with a world class urban sociology/education program. We also figured that the place must have ready access to outdoors activities such as cycling, rock climbing and hopefully cross country skiing. There must be a thriving and diverse immigrant community, if for no reason other than that we really like to eat. The Bible Belt has been ruled straight out.

The list as it stands, is in no particular order:

Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Denver
San Francisco
Boston
Twin Cities
Chicago
Milwaukee
Portland
Seattle

Some outliers include New York and at the behest of our good friend Lara here, Montreal

I spent a really enjoyable evening with my (former, now quitting) boss and his family last night. It was really great to be hanging out with a family, even if they aren't my family, for a change. Aside from the fact that I really don't want to be a parent full time, I had a blast with Tomo's son, Yuma. Yuma's about 4 and a half and the kid's absolutely addicted to Disney. His platelets look like mouse ears, no shit. Tomo hates Disney, as well he should, they've successfully colonized this country with an efficiency that would drive the Conquistadors green with envy. You can name any Disney/Pixar/animated feature from the past 10 years and this kid can tell you the characters names, and what's more the names of the actors who did their voices, English and Japanese. Wow, I would like to have him on my Trivial Pursuit team.
It was really nice to hang out with Tomo and his wife Kayo. I realized while there that I had first met his family a year ago and Tomo over 15 months ago. Odd to think that I've been here that long, and that I've seen kids getting noticely older while to me it's just another year. I'm scared of all the shocking things that have happened in my absence from the US.
I went solo as jennifer was rather preoccupied with packing for our impending return to the Motherland. In a little under a week we'll be back in the Midwest, home sweet home. Tonight we watched "Garden State", directed and starred by Zach Braff. It's a fabulous movie about coming home all screwed up and getting your head back on straight. I recommend it to anyone as a good film and I found it to be particularly fitting as a person who's been out of touch with his home for a long time.

I'm getting a little antsy about the impending trip home. IN a little over a week and a half, I'll be back in the US. I honestly can hardly imagine the joy, the rapture and the culture shock of being back home. I'm soooooo sick of Christmas here. It's just as shitty as Christmas back home, the incessant music in all store (including my office) the shopping bonanza signs and everybody on shopping spree all over town, but there's none of the hopeful family feeling that was cruising under the surface in the US. Here people go "Christmas Shopping" for themselves. My new shirt, it's a present FOR ME! I guess that's one thing that the Japanese take to heart, a reason for shopping. I'm living right in th middle of Consumerville, next to Packaging Square, on Shopperset Ave.

I found my new vocation yesterday. Think apparently dangerous, think ice, think winter, think sliding down headfirst at high speeds.

That's right! SKELETON!

The Nagano Bobsled, Luge and Skeleton team held their open house yesterday and it was open to the public. About 50 people showed up for the event, about 25 of them foreigners. We showed up at 8:30 and got a little safety lesson at the 1998 olympic course and then we were shuttled up the mountain to the 8th turn (out of 15 turns total). We then waited our turn for the thrilling experience of shooting down an ice tube at 40 miles per hour (the pros get up to about 80-100). It was a damn scary experience the first run. The sled just kind of accelerates on it's own and you're relatively unable to steer. According to our coach we should, "Think to-fu, make the body like to-fu."
Well, the first run, i was decidedly not tofu and smacked the wall a good 8 times before sliding to a stop in the finish area. Jennifer smoked me by some 3 seconds. I kind of knew that I wasn't going to do well, I pretty much suck at things where natural grace and poise are concerned. By the second run, times were slower due to soft ice. I beat jennifer this time, to my delight, but still sucked in general. I thought "tofu, tofu, tofu..." to myself but it really didn't have any effect.
One thing that really surprised me was how safe it all felt. Once you get over the shock that you're going to be on a small piece of plastic and steel hurtling down the olympic course, it's not so bad. The sled is built in such a way that there is little chance of you actually falling off. You pretty much have to try to tip the thing over, and even then it would be difficult. Your center of mass is so low that going around those death-defying turns actually is the easiest part . The hard part is not hitting the wall coming off the turns. It was, however an ultimate rush. Physically, it's not so difficult but mentally you're on the edge. Pretty awesome if you ask me. If ever you get the chance to do Skeleton (can't vouch for luge) take it, you won't be sorry.

I'm feeling a little stressed about the visa matters that I previously wrote about. I gotta get everything processed in 2 weeks, which as anyone knows is like lightspeed for a government bureaucracy. Good luck to me I guess. Lets not get deported now, shall we!

I had the privelage of waiting around for several hours to change my visa the other day. If there's one place you can be sure to find foreigners, it is of course, the immigration office. I really should stop by an american immigration office some time to see how they compare. I imagine that the japanese office is a little bit better since they're such bitches about letting people into the country in the first place. Apparently, if I overstay my visa, there's a good chance I get deported and fined something like $5000. If i had that much, it would still be a problem.
Sitting and watching the crowd change in the filmy haze of flourescent light and poorly delineated smoking areas was an interesting experience. I get to try guess the nationality and situation of other undesirables like myself and then to sneak a glance at their passports to confirm my hunches. While i was waiting a large, well dressed young guy came in with a stack of green (Philippine?) passports and began to fill out the forms while his gaggle of young ladies waited in the car. While it's not fair to stereotype, I must assume that they were probably "hostesses". It's kind of odd how blatant the sex industry is here. There is little pretense about it, you go to a hostess bar where you pay some pretty girl a lot of money to sit and engage in small talk with you and then if you're willing and can afford it you pay some extra cash and sleep with her. There's a small enclave of Russian women operating and living in an apartment not 100 meters from my office. They are just the modern Geisha, imported to fill a spot vacated when the Japanese became too affluent to bother with the trade.

On a personal financial note: FALL DOLLAR FALL!! I'm going to be the richest boy in the world, assuming of course that the dollar falls to the 50 yen to the buck ratio that I dream of! I just won't be able to buy anything outside the US for a while, or travel cheaply. Se la vie.

Saturday was a pretty good day. First slept in till noon, a first for this year I think. Dawn, Lara and Shane came over and we talked the talk and drank the drinks until the wee hours of the morn the previous night, so I had to rid myself of the odious 二日酔い　(futstukayoi=hangover). A wee bit later I was rock climbing, just to sober up you know. Got my kiester spanked by the rock, as will happen sometimes. In the evening we went to the Suzaka International Exchange Freakshow. Suzaka is the neighboring city where Dawn lives and the event was not actually called freakshow, but that's what it amounted to. I have never been asked the same question so many times as on this particular evening. "What's your name, where are you from, how long have you been in Japan?" I even got my genitals bumped by a really drunken guy who was complimenting my "strength". What a great time!

Sunday was pretty decent as well. I went climbing with Jodi and Lara and Shane yesterday. We tried to go to Tobi-iwa (near Sakaki, maybe I got the name wrong)but unfortunately the road is out about halfway up the mountain due to earthquake or erosion, not sure which. We instead went to Omuro (near Tomuli burial mounds) It was pretty good but I'm pissed at myself because i dropped a quickdraw into the weeds there and couldn't find the damn thing. Gotta go back this morning with some rakes ane shovels and implements of destruction to find the damn thing. Oh well, that's stupidity for you.

It's been a while since I've posted, but we've been vacationing fiends for the past 4 days in Kyoto. It was a whirlwind expensive trip, as you might expect in the most popular tourist destination in Japan (outside Tokyo Disney, of course). We took a bunch of pictures, which will probably be ready sometime next week and right now I'll spare most of the details for some general observances.

As i've said before, there is a season for everything in japan. There are seasonal foods, seasonal flowers, seasonal hobbies and seasonal vacation spots. and this weekend Kyoto was the hot spot. This happens to be the season where the beautiful japanese maple is king. There were thousands and thousands of elderly japanese men smoking profusely, toting giant multi-thousand dollar cameras and stopping everywhere to take pictures of the beautiful things that Kyoto is so renown for. This is cool and all unless you're trying to find accomodations in a place.

Here's a quick rundown of the trip. We started off in Nagano at about 10:30 pm and arrived in Kyoto about 5 the following morning, Saturday. We immediately took the train from there to the nearby city of Himeji to see the awesome castle there. It's the one after which the imperial palace in "The Last Samura" is modeled. After checking it out, we headed off for the city of Nara which houses the biggest all wooden building in the world Todai-ji, a thousand year old temple, well it was established about 1000 years ago, but damn if the thing didn't keep burning down all the time. This particular building is about 300 years old.
THe next day we spent in Kyoto lugging our packs around, looking at some temples, castles and the like. We then found and checked into the scummiest hotel I've ever had the pleasure to stay in. It was basically a shanty town with a single set of toilets and showers and some modest plumbing. The paper thin walls provided us with an earful of the drunken neighbors "tussle on the tatami" at 3 am.
The next day we went to the old imperial palace and the "silver temple" with it's VIM (very important moss, like VIP)
After that we took the surprisingly inexpensive train to Osaka where we saw the biggest aquarium in the world, big enough to hold an adult whaleshark. It was cool.

More on it later, when the pictures are developed.

So, this week has been a draining one. It's not like I've really had that much more work than normal, but my general level of stress and apathy is getting me down. I've bungled a couple of things here, namely missing two lessons in as many weeks. I can blame it on foolishness or forgetfulness, but I think what it really boils down to is Apathy with a capital A. With a month left until we're going home for christmas it's increasingly hard to stay focused on things here. I pretty much don't care about doing a good job at work, mostly about getting through my day. That has its benefits, as in I don't really mind if a lesson is bad, as long as it fills the time effectively. It also has negatives, like, each lesson is 70 minutes of boring hell at worst and stalling tactics at best.

Oh well, this weekend we're going to Kyoto for a nice little 4 day holiday. It should be a welcome respite from the japan I know and am tired of and a foray into the uber-crowded and expensive world of tourism here. I'll be sure to pep up when I get back and post some of our pictures on the ol' website.

This country is sometimes just perfect. Yesterday, on what I thought was going to be a rainy day, shane and I hiked up in 55 degree sun to one of the local crags and went rock climbing for 4 hours in the beautiful outdoors. The mountains are supremely beautiful with the changing leaves right now. It's just like they were painted. I can honestly say that if I liked my job better, it would be easy to stay for ever. Of course, that's just whistful thinking, but I'm a sentimental guy.
As for rock climbing, it's an interesting sport for me. Firstly, it requires a great deal of hand and arm strength, something that I absolutely lack. This is coming around though, but slowly. I think that I saw a muscle the other day as I was flexing in the mirror. It could have been just a bone or some oddly shaped tumor, but then again, it might very well be a muscle. Secondly, rock climbing is the only activity that I've done where fear plays such a big factor in success. There's nothing to really be afraid of once the gun goes off in either cycling or running, my other two sports. With rock climbing, however, there's a definite fear factor involved. If you go up the rocks and don't have your head about you, it's scary. When it's scary, you lack confidence, and when there's no confidence you are screwed.

I was contemplating what foods to bring back from Japan for all y'all to feast on. I'm for sure bringing some mochi, the gooey rice cakes. I am also planning on bringing home a Tako-yaki maker. Tako-yaki are the "japanese fastfood" from Osaka consisting of a fish flavored pancake batter ball filled with some rice crispies, ginger, green onions and a fat chunk of octopus. You can make them with shrimp or weiners, but the official ones are only octopus.

Can you buy octopus in Iowa? If you can that's pretty wicked. Within my parents lifetime, the mighty octopus has made his return to Iowa after a several million year hiatus. The last ones there before dead frozen ones came in on trucks were swimming around in the shallow sea with things like brachiopods and gigantic ammonites. Trippy.

I just realized, fortunately, that I have to renew my visa in about a month. It's pretty crazy to think that I've been here that long. It's just been one wild ride, for sure y'all. I'm tolerating my job pretty well, particularly since i've had a good number of easy weeks in a row, and the prospect of our trip to Kyoto in another week makes it all the better. Fall has been just bitchin so far. We've had a whole week without rain (ending today) and the temperatures have been in the teens and twenties C all week. I've been here so long that I can even understand Metric intuitively. I remember one time where I was bitching about Farenheit and the rest of the Imperial system to my dad when he said, "Celsius will never catch on, the degrees are too big, 9/5 of a Farenheit degree." I didn't want to scoff at the time, but really, that's why they created decimal points. Oh well, those who know him realize that my Pa really just likes to have an answer handy no matter what the question. Go ahead and try him. Sorry Dad, but ask Mom, she'll back me up.

This is in response to the discussion started by my venerable Blog colleagues, Tim Pavlish and Ben Knudson
It is also in large part due to the fact that my brain is atrophying at an alarming rate while the brains of my former classmates seem to be rapidly stacking up the neurons, whence my attempt at a reasoned argument on the subject of the environment.

Tim started his post by bemoaning the fact that Bush is still the Douchebag in Chief with an even greater Republican majority which, among other things will gut the environment even further. Ben then countered with a stance that at first attempts to refute Tim's claims that the Bush administration is particularly more anti-environment than the populace as a whole. Ben then finishes his post with a rejoinder for us not just to talk like environmentalists but to buy like environmentalists.

I'm going to first try to respond to Ben's claims about the environment.

1. drilling ANWR is bad

why should i care about the arctic national wildlife refuge. you say anwr will be ruined. ruined for whom. ruined for caribou and marmots. ruined for tundra.

Drilling in the ANWR is bad, not necessarily because of the actual drilling, which could be done to minimize damage to the area, but because exploratory drilling in a park is symptomatic of a bigger problem; oil dependency and in particular foreign oil dependency. The US is the biggest consumer of oil in the world, importing over 54% of the oil that we burn, mostly in our cars. Though it is a somewhat different topic, this oil dependency is, I believe, one of the biggest, most costly risks to our national security. I dare anyone to come up with legitimate reasons to be involved in an Iraq without oil. New exploration and drilling does not address the root probem, that is consumption. Ben asks us to put our money where are convictions lie, is it so different to ask the government to do this as national policy? With a simple increase in the CAFE standards the government could both reduce our foreign oil dependency and spur innovation, innovation that has so far been lacking in the US auto industry. This increased requirement may have a short term cost but a great potential for long term rewards. The potential to sell increasingly fuel efficient cars to foreign buyers cannot be discounted. China, which desperately wants cars, but can absolutely not afford the oil to power the Explorers and the Tahoes and the Caprices that we currently offer, would be a prime market that could be tapped. Yes, drilling in the ANWR is bad.

2. forests should not be logged.

why should forests not be logged. maybe you would retort that logging destroys flora and fauna. why are flora, fauna, and landscape so important to you. is it the aesthetic, the value you give it...

It would be foolish to say that we should never log forests. We have a whole government department devoted to when and how we should log and mine our natural wonders. What does need to be said is that short term profit cannot override long term planning, particularly when we're talking about natural systems which regard years about the same way that people regard hiccups. Bad logging and mining practices can in a short time decimate existing populations of plants and animals, can destroy the landscape that is vital for these systems to regenerate and can introduce destructive and invasive species which will limit the fertility, productivity and diversity of future natural systems. This is a problem if we ever want to use these places again. Mines in the Rockies constantly dribble arsenic and mercury into freshwater supplies, but we want to drink from and recreate in that water. Natural pests such as fungus and pine borer beetles destroy inexpertly logged areas for years, limiting the potential for future use. Logging also increases erosion which kills off tasty species such as trout and salmon, which we would eat. Maybe just as bad is the trend for cabins or second houses which constantly invade natural stands of wilderness by cutting roads and laying electric lines and septic systems. This not to mention the gasoline required for the off-road capable vehicles required to get there. I don't say that I wouldn't love it, but Ben's right on this one. We can't all have the cabin in the woods, there won't be any woods left.

Lastly,

3. global warming is bad.

it isn’t that bad. and remember, humans are the great ameliorators, we can change and fix in a hurry if forced.

Bullshit. Global warming is bad. We already have preliminary evidence of rising sea levels, changing current patterns and crazy weather. When's the last time that Florida got rocked by four huge hurricanes in a year? How about Japan's record 10 life taking typhoons. It's easy to say that global warming won't make that much of a difference when one is a privelaged westerner who works in an airconditioned office, but it's going to be a lot more bleak if any of the predictions of global warming come to pass. Humans are indeed the great ameliorators, it's true, but only the ones with the money and resources can do any ameliorating. The rest of us just die. The Sahara is expanding at hundreds of square kilometers per year, droughts caused by global climate change cripple many parts of the world. Oh yeah, with a couple fewer inches of rain, the Dust Bowl days are not that far off. Now that would really suck for an Iowan, Minnesotan or Nebraskan. I sound apocalyptic, I realize. I simply wanted to point out that when something happens to the earth, it happens to everybody.

So, as a result, I'm not really looking forward to the environmental record of the past 4 years being duplicated in the next 4. Like Tim said, all that it takes is one Yes vote to cancel out all those No's.

When one is in a foreign country one is often subject to differing views of international politics. Some of them are quite interesting and some of them make you cringe. This week will be spent explaining why Americans spent their time and votes to re-elect one of the worst presidents in recent memory. I think that we should really turn to our spiritual guides, the Canadians, for solace and reconciliation. We would have more national holidays, universal health care, decriminalized marijuana and also the nicest public servants in the known universe.

Oh Canada!!!!

We can dream, can't we.

Here is one of the perspectives of our northern neighbors.

Mild depression setting in.....
Results indicate future stupidity in the whitehouse.....
Can't . . . bear. . . thought . . . of . . . more . . . shitty . . . . government.


The great thing about this will be explaining to my students who ask, "Why is Bush American President AGAIN?" To which I must respond, "I don't really know. My country is at least half full of fools."

Realistically, I rather expected it to happen. I knew that Americans are fools, just like the Japanese, the Chinese, the Mexicans, the Germans. Hell, over half of the world is below average, I guess that it's just fair that that half gets to represent the US for another 4 years. At least now, in many ways, Bush will have to shoulder the blame for the things that he started; Iraq, the economy, the impending terrorist attacks (there will be something) and the unsustainable tax cuts. My big worry however is that things will just get fucked up even worse and by next election we'll have martial law and Bush and his "good friend" Vladimir Putin will have similar powers.

Here are some pictures from our hike last weekend. The weather was grey but afforded a good view. There's a particularly dashing one of yours truly.

This is Voting Day. I'm praying and hoping and avoiding all news outlets for the next 36 hours. Please tell everyone you know to vote. (also tell them to vote kerry, if for no other reason than he's NOT BUSH)

I must give out due congratulations to my former teammates on the Macalester CC team. The 3oth was the MIAC Conference race on the venerable Como Golf Course. I remember the pain vividly. It looks like the fellas had a pretty good race and that, given the times, it was a pretty rough and windy day. Paul, I'm sorry that Martins escaped you for the final race. At least you look cuter in tights. Bo, nice job, and Roscoe, I'll definitely give you an 'attaboy for effort. Good luck at Regions (nationals as well, dare I say) and also next year.

I gotta give a shout out to my dear old dad. Today i recieved a perfectly timed box of halloween candy. Inside were all of the necessities for the day; halloween candy, the Toons, the Onion and 2 cans of beets. I admit, my dad took a hit for the team to the tune of $36.80, but man was it appreciated. The halloween candy is of course because today is Halloween and the beets are because I've been pining for Borscht in my diet and you can't get beets for love or money in this country. Well, actually they can be had for an exorbitant sum, but I haven't bothered to shell out for that yet.

Jennifer, Lara, Shane and I along with a good number of other folks hiked up and down Myoko-yama just yesterday, halloween-een. It was one of the better hikes i've done here and aside from it raining on the last hour of our 7 hiking, it was perfect. The typhoon last week brough a sprinkling of snow to the top of the mountain and from the summit we had a great panoramic view on a grey yet clear day. It was what I imagine perfect Christmas weather to be. I can't wait to get back to the US and get myself some real hiking boots though. My hand-me down Nike boots are just a pain to hike in.

After the fabulous trek we headed back to Nagano for one of the most fabulous pizza bonanzas ever. This guy Peter, one of the longest staying foreign residents in Nagano has established his little bistro where he whipped out tens of pizzas to an eagerly awaiting crowd. Imagine 40 people shoved in a dorm room and eating pizza 'till they puke and you have the general idea. I did 9 plus a little salad and some pasta. I could have made ten, but really who needs that. Shane likewise equalled my 9 and the friendly rivalry shall continue until the next pizza bash.

On a side note, pizza here costs about $30for a pizza-hut multi topping pizza. Compare that with the ad in the Toons for 4 medium pizzas for $14.44 from Home Team Pizza in Ames.

Why isn't voting day a national holiday? In japan they've got like 20 national holidays a year and they're doing fine. I mean, everyone loves a national holiday. Sure november also has Thanksgiving to it's name but within a similar span of time the US also has the Christmas (not official but defacto) and Newyears. We could make it kind of a stretch of holidays extending from October 31, Halloween to November 1, which we could call Spirituality Day (instead of the denominational All Saints Day) and then we could do it up right with Election Day. If that name doesn't seem so fitting we could call it "National Futility Day" or maybe "Random Guessing Day" for those people who think that we don't need to bother making any more effort to get the poor people into the voting booth.
What do you think reader(s)? Are you with me?

I think that from now on i'll refer to the Onion for my election coverage. They at least are unbiased and fair regarding their reporting practices. Just look how evenly irreverent they are.

Ok, this is mostly a facts post. I just wanted to let everyone know that while we did notice the earthquake here, nothing bad really happened in our prefecture. The 6.7 quake was centered about 100 miles from here and did a pretty good deal of damage in what is already a poor ken. I was actually rock climbing at the time and didn't really notice anything from the original quake but I did feel several of the aftershocks, including one last night at about midnight and one this morning, kind of a seismic wake up call. As I mentioned, while rock climimbing I noticed an odd shaking in the trees and what sounded like an animal moving quickly, which was probably just the earthquake shaking the ground. As we were hiking out from the climbing area in the dark we noticed one of the aftershocks though. It was pretty cool actually, first a couple of dogs in nearby farmhouses started going nuts and shortly therafter the ground started jiggling and the roof on the nearby Buddhist temple started shaking and rattling.
Jennifer had a better show. When the quake hit, it really set things to swaying and in fact started jiggling all of our liquor stash on the shelf. She ran into the kitchen to support the stuff just as the quake was ending. We're on the sixth floor which really accentuates the shaking. Even the little quakes get the lamp swinging.

I also ran a half marathon race yesterday. I tend to think of it in terms of a big fat race, but realistically there were some mitigating factors. 1. I ran the first ten kilometers in a leisurely 56 minutes, which works out to about a 9 minute per mile pace and ran the second 11 kilometers in 46 minutes which is about 6:45 per mile. I was always told that negative splits are the way to go when running a race. Had I been in shape and run the pace that we used to run in practice, it would have worked out to about 1:31 rather than 1:42. I guess that tells me that I should train more ( which I don't really, my other hobbies tend not to rip holes in my feet and give me a case of "runners runs" for 12 hours after the event). Maybe when I get back to the states I'll be more interested in late fall races, Living History Farms for example, but unless I get someone to drag me back into it, it's unlikely in Japan.

Now for a well reasoned post to sock it to all of you getting bored with my whining. I'm going to lay down the law on all of you doubters of my sincerity and intelligence. Well, mostly i'm talking to Ben, just because he's my cyber-foil.

I dislike George Bush for the following, well articulated (?) reasons:
1. The federal deficit is a goddamn nightmare. It will bite me and my generation in the ass just as it's going to hit my parents generation when social security runs dry in the next couple of years. According to the IMF, the US deficit is reaching levels where this body would chastise smaller governments and send in little IMF spies to keep the govermnet from doing stupid stuff. Here's a quote from the NY Times

The dangers, according to the report, are that the United States' voracious appetite for borrowing could push up global interest rates and thus slow down global investment and economic growth.

"Higher borrowing costs abroad would mean that the adverse effects of U.S. fiscal deficits would spill over into global investment and output," the report said.

Bush can point out the fact that the weak dollar resulting from his fiscal policies will strengthen exports, but that's a short term effect only. Long term, like when I get back to the country, will be a little less cool.

2. Bush and co. misled the American public about the war in Iraq. They didn't check their intelligence, they didn't have intelligence in some cases, and they relied on questionable sources (Chalabi anyone?).

3. Once on the ground Bush and the US military screwed the pooch, let Iraq get way the hell out of hand and then refused to admit failure by sending in the forces needed. I'm not a genius, but honestly, i saw this shit coming a year off. Regardless of the human rights abuses Saddam Hussein perpetrated against his citizenry, at least they weren't being blown up by pissed off mujahedeen on a regular basis. Iraquis are not so different from the rest of the world, they prefer the devil they know to the one with "Foreign Occupier" written on his face.

4. The Bush campaign have used scare tactics to reinforce it's hold on the American psyche. The War on Terror is a great damn catchphrase isn't it, makes you a little afeared that another turban clad crazy will blow your house in suburban middle america out of existence. Cheney himself said that the US would not be safe in the hands of another president. That's odd, they told Iraquis that they'd be more safe under US control too, what about those soldiers getting blown up every day? Are they more safe under a Bush Whitehouse.

5. Bush is crap on the environment. He vetoed the Kyoto protocol, which while not the finest piece of international legislation could have at least served to give alternative energy technologies (of which i am an ardent supporter) a kick in the pants.

6. Bush favors the death penalty and opposes abortion and stem cell research. In one case he wants to play God, "Thou shalt not kill... unless you're government sanctioned in Texas". While in the other he leaves the fate of unwanted pregnancies and mothers in trouble in the "hands of the Lord". Talk about a waffling line on life.

7. Bush is strongly connected to Consevative Christian groups and is likewise opposed to gay marriage. I am in favor of love in all its forms and I'm not comfortable putting a definition on what is good love or bad love.

8. Bush and Republicans in general did not renew the Assault Weapons Ban. Super, that's one thing that I"ve been missing out on here in Japan, my assault weapons and gun toting fellow citizens.

Now for the point where I give Bush his dues. He is strong of will. Even when the analysis, opinion and in some cases the facts are against him, he holds fast to his convictions. This is good if you're a comic book hero, a revival preacher in a pickle or if you're infallible. I don't think that Bush is any of those (not even the revival preacher).
Bush is not afraid of adversity. He sticks to his guns. Commendable, but only if you are never wrong.
Bush projects earthyness. I really think that, other things being equal, I would prefer to drink a Budweiser with Bush than with Kerry. However, i would rather drink a nice Sam Adams any day.
Bush is heartfelt and honest. I really think that he believes he's doing the right thing every day. The trouble is that, like many others, I don't think he's doing the right thing.

As for Kerry. I like what he has to say. I like that he seems to be a cautious and patient person. I like that he changes his mind. I'm not even put off by the way he may have changed his mind about the Iraq war. I've certainly had mixed feelings. I think that if put in danger or in a tough situation, he would have the strength and resolve to get through it. (Think politics in general, the threat of excommunication and well, that whole Swift Boat thing for starters) Kerry at least has pro-environmental leanings. Kerry advocates fiscal responsibility. We'll see how that goes, but at least he's thinking about it. Kerry, like Bush, seems earnest and determined on the things that are important to him.

One last note before I conclude my longest post ever. Edwards seems like a nice guy. Cheney is, in all likelihood, devil spawn.

Alf has somewhat assuaged my fears about him. He's not voting because he's made a pact with his father in which niether of them will vote because the votes would cancel eachother out. This makes a lot of sense from alf's perspective, he gets all the benefits of voting, plus he can be lazy. However, alf will miss his chance to potentially choose school board members, approve judges and maybe Congresspersons or Senators.
I have two other comments on this matter:
1. Why doesn't Alf backstab his father? By voting for Kerry from China Alf could add his sentiments to those of the millions of sane people who will not vote for George Bush while his abstaining father would be caught unawares. They don't call it a "secret ballot" for nothing. Plus such a vote would serve as insurance in case Alf's father decides to doublecross him. Simple game theory's all it is, ya gotta vote.
2. I still don't see why anyone is interested in voting for Bush to begin with. I can only imagine (based on my experience with a frustrated Alf) what sort of "swears" must have come out during the discussion.

As for me, I would honestly vote for Mickey Mouse if he were the only opponent to Bush.

One of the nice things about Japan is that it's exceedingly easy to meet other foreigners. With so few other options for socialization here it seems that anyone who can speak English is automatically part of the club. Now it's not exactly as though i'm saying that Japanese people aren't worth hanging out with, I really enjoy talking to most of my students and I wouldn't mind seeing them in a bar or hanging out on the weekends, I do it occasionally. It's just that since my desire to study and practice Japanese has waned since getting here, so has my guilt over not having Japanese friends. My main attempt at internationalization is at the rock climbing gym through meeting people there, but for the most part, the people who hang out at the gym won't talk to me because I suck. It's a pretty clique-y country and the fringe hobbies such as rock climbing are really so. Plus, i'm not really willing or able to play into the big affable gorilla that most Japanese seem to be looking for in their foreigners. If I had the gift of gab, i'd be a popular guy.

I just got an email from doug in which he, the arch-liberal green party archetype voted for kerry, just as I did. I mailed my ballot in this past monday and just like Doug said, it feels good. Doug also apparently wants to find some sort of heathen sexpot in china, but frankly, this is to be expected. What was unexpected and in fact rather shocking is the fact that my good friend and well known anti-Bush kermudgeon Alfred Austin Shoemacher Hickey IS NOT VOTING IN THIS ELECTION!!!!
Of course rather than independently verifying it with him, i've decided to post it for all of my tens of readers to individually harass that stupid lazy hypocrite (more things come to mind, I know that his mom reads this website)
Anyway, i would like all of you to collectively overload his inbox with a flood of indignant emails. Is Wisconsin not a swing state y'all? The NY Times info-graphic says that it is!
Please, hassle Alf at ahickey@gmail.com

Here's a little TMI* post.
Japan has some interesting ways of making a person feel good about oneself. For one, people are big into the compliments. It's like national policy to say that everything is; beautiful, wonderful, the best ever, the smartest, sooo good at Japanese. These comments are especially poured on if there is nothing close to reality about them. Just a look at Japanese TV will show you what I mean. Every program seems to be about complimenting someone on his cooking, courage, beautiful fashion or something. The mainstay of TV is made up of "variety shows" where a panel of famous or semi-famous people sit around with ridiculous haircuts and sample a wide variety of foods and drinks that are either prepared before or in the stage kitchen. At this time the panelists are all required to shout jokes at eachother and scream, "Suuuuugeeeei!" or the more gutteral surprise noise, "Arrrrruuuughhhh!?!" It's no wonder you can't get a straight answer out of people, it's their culture to sugarcoat and be amazed.
The second, and more personal way that Japan can make a fella feel good is in their clothing selection. While it's annoying and uncomfortable that none of the pants here can really accomodate a person with an actual ass, it is rather complimentary that an Average Joe like me is just TOO HUGE for Japanese brief style underwear. No way in hell that I can get comfortable in those things. It is possible that the discomfort arose principally from the Who-da-man strut that one gets upon discovering that he's the new "cock of the walk" as it were.

*TMI in this case stands for Too Much Information

I heard from a reputable source ( an elderly student of mine, why would she lie?) that bush was recieving live help via a radio earpiece during the last presidendial debate. As my student put it, "Therefore, he's stupid." Wouldn't it be great if that were true, that we really had a very clever robotic puppet for the President of the United States, If that were the case, we could easily impeach the impostor. Since Bush is apparently just an actor portraying the president, I nominate Martin Sheen to replace him once he's out of office. I think that Sheen protrays a much more magnanimous and respectable president than the current drawling muppet.

I've been in a sort of "Whitehouse Fever" recently. Firstly, it's October 2004, a month before the election and the fate of the free world hangs in the balance. Fucking Bush. We've been listening to the presidential debates on npr.org and have found them to be pretty interesting. I wish that I could have watched the TV version to get the whole effect, but the radio only version has a great bit of nostalgic feeling, even if it's radio downloaded from the internet and played over my laptop's speakers. I honestly thought that Bush did a lot better in the First debate than the commentators seemed to think that that he did a lot worse in the second. Kerry was pretty even both times, but honestly he seemed to kick ass in the second one. Bush just spouted off the same lines as in the first; "I know how these people think, I talk to them every day... That just ain't how it is...etc." Kerry seemed to bring new ideas into the second debate more than Bush. Of course I'm just biased, if I fucking hate that waste of 4 years in the office and all of his warmongering suplicants on the hill, of course I'm going to give him negative points for whatever he says. Likewise if I agree with pretty much everything Kerry says, of course I'm going to give him props for that. What I still have a hard time believing is that anyone can actually support Bush for any reason. Someone back home, please tip me off as to why. I can understand the reason that single issues advocates (pro-lifers, religious zealots, gun nuts, Saudi princes and the shamelessly rich) but I am just going mental trying to figure out how anyone can be "on the fence" at this point. It's getting to the point that i'm starting to have dreams about the election. Yes, I 'm voting for Kerry and yes I'm sending in my overseas ballot tomorrow.
The second form of White House Fever is actually West Wing fever. Jennifer's been downloading last season's episodes and as per usual, I'm totally entranced. It's partly because it's so fricking good, but mostly because it's just like reading Tolkien, the show transports me to another world where there are real honest good guys and I definitely know who I want to win. I can imagine for a short hour what it might be like if there were someone in the White House fighting for what I believe in. Ahh, the sweet bliss of reverie.

Ok, there have been a lot of picture only posts recently. I've run out of space on the local server and so have been using a program from Blogger that allows one at a time posting only. It works well for one or two pictures, but it takes a long time with more than that. The weekend is here and aside from the typhoon yesterday, our 8th of the season, it's been nice. Typhoons have a really particular and predictable weather pattern. They blast in one day, rain a ton and then are gone in about 24-36 hours leaving us with a usually very clear and pleasant day.
We had hoped to climb one of the mountains in the Japanese alps this weekend, Yarigatake, "The Matterhorn of Japan" but the stupid typhoon killed those hopes. I'm thinking that today we'll get out and do something, but i'm not sure what. Since becoming a working stiff at a real job the weekend has attained paramount importance to me. I feel pretty unfulfilled unless i get some outdoorsy stuff in on the weekend.

Ok, the last of the pictures today. This is a typical traffic jam in Manila. It's one of those "Traffic lights are optional" places.

Over the course of the trip we either accidentally or intentionally met up with this couple from Germany who were, "Only on a 3 week trip," about ten times. It's not so hard to find someone who has the same guidebook as yourself.

Here's the spunkiest hermit crab on the beach. While the rest of his compatriots were hiding away this dude was busy jumping off of tree branches and such.

Some of the local toughs. They were busy pushing eachother into the water when we arrived at the biggest beach that I've ever seen.

The ferocious MONITOR LIZARD!

Here is the hellish road that we took for several hours to get to the site of the world's longest underground river where a bunch of these shots were taken. We hired a van and were carted around like the imperial capitalist turds that we are. It was really convenient.

After the canoe day, i got myself a bit of food poisoning and slept for about 12 hours the next day. The following day we took a 9 hour bus ride through jungle on the shittiest roads I've ever been on to get to the city of Puerto Princesa. From Puerto we took the road in the following picture to the tiny town of Sabang where the outlet of the world's longest underground river is. We were able to take a tour of only 1.5 kilometers of the total 20 kilometer length.