I experienced my first earthquake last night. It wasn't particularliy "moving" shall we say, but it sure was cool to feel the entire building shaking for no good reason. It's all the more cool when you realize that it's not just the building, but the entire surface of the earth that is shimmying and shaking around. It was a good end to a frustrating and rainy day in which I had to fix Jennifer's 3speed belt drive bicycle. If ever I have worked on a more cumbersome project, i cannot recall when. It was a blight on my day with no uncertainty. The three hours that i pitched out the window while "repairing" her bike merely resulted in a 6km walk for her this morning as the whole rear hub came apart after my watchful and dilligent ministrations. Goddamn infuriatin.

Also, a shout out for dear old Mom. It's her birthday today, so if you're going to be seeing her soon, give her a hug from her vagrant son.

Well, we survived the eruption. Honestly in the city there have been no effects. I haven't talked to Andy yet, but I'm hoping to get some interesting info or pictures eventurally.

Another interesting thing; they're building a log house down my route to work and the thing has Pella Windows installed in all of the fittings. Those litttle sheets of glass and casements came all the way from my home state to be slapped into a log cabin in the middle of Nagano City. What a weird world. I imagine that the logs were shipped from somewhere in northern Minnesota too.

The volcano that we hiked earlier this summer Asama Sama is now actively blowing up. The bodies are scattered everywhere and the power is almost off, thank god for the battery life of this little laptop, i've only a few minutes in which to compose my last will and testament. Here goes:

Ian, you can have my stereo.
Asa, you can take my guitar.
Leah, you can take my cross country skis and crazy hats.
Claire, you get all the kitchen stuff, but you'll probably have to fight for it with Kelly. She's a pushover though.
Mom, don't worry about my student loans, I think that you don't have to pay them back if i die.
Dad, sell my bike and buy a nice urn for my ashes (if they can be sorted from the volcanic debris and the accumulated dust in my apartment)

Everyone else, just do paper rock scissors for the stuff of mine that you want.


Actually though, the mountain really is erupting and probably no one will get killed. Our friend Andy however lives only like 15 kilometers from the mountain, however. It could be a nice show for him tonight.

Yoda lives, and he's a japanese missile scientist. I have been proofreading for a professor from the local university who is actually a leading japanese expert in missile defense theory. He's really just Yoda in disguise though.
Get this, he's short, even by japanese standards, he has an unkempt mop of grey hair, he has brownish-greenish teeth from all the coffee and whatnot that he drinks and the clincher is that he makes the same throat noise that Yoda does, constantly. Who better to calculate "Force Vectors in Anti-Missile-Missle Countermeasures" than a Jedi Master? Believe me if I ever want to know about the Force, I'll go straight to Yoda.

Hey party people, has anyone been to the Philippines? If not, just wait till I get back and can tell you all how cool I am for going to such an exotic and wonderful place. If you have been there, then please feel free to give me all the advice you can. Jennifer and I are going sometime around the 17 of September, hopefully by which time the typhoon season will have settled down a bit. I've heard that the only gurantee is that there's no gurantee on the weather though. I'm hoping to have mostly sun and some serious sweat stains by the time I get back. The planning is still in phase 1, so any input would be greatly appreciated.

Today was an interesting one. I started off teaching the saturday class at the girls highschool that i pretty much hate. Moreover, the saturday class is 2 hours long, a long damn time in the annals of teaching and thirdly began at 9 which made it my earliest class of the week. When I arrived i saw 5 japanese girls and 1 blonde haired blue eyed tan skinned north american. There's an exchange student at the school and she was in the "Special English" saturday class. It was strange to have that sort of combo, not just a student who was better than the others, that's normal, but a full blown native speaker in the class. It went all right, she was a trooper and even though serious boredom clawed at her she perservered. Me, it's my job. I am no stranger to boredom. She is one of the Rotary Club exchange students and as such is a trooper. I can't imagine myself as a highschool student picking up and traveling to another country solo, much less living there for a year. It would be one thing to do as Laura Moench (Annie's first year roomate and my last summer housemate) did and travel to a European country where one may have at least studied the language and may have a chance at least of blending in, this girl however is shit out of luck in that respect, blue eyes, blonde hair, Canadian accent, the works. Good luck to anyone who can handle such a culture shock. I myself had a pretty damn hard time and I'm a quarter century old (good way of saying 25 huh) at 18 or whatever i would have folded like a wet McDonalds napkin.
After my strange english class I went rock climbing with my predecessor at my job Jodi and Lara. It was my third time to climb outside and it was soooo great to be better than the previous times. I really felt successful this time, I even started a lead climb and did reasonably well at it. I am looking forward to chances to try outdoor climbing in the future.
Lastly, i went to a barbecue where this Kiwi guy Hayden remarked, "Lemme just size those up here, good lord, you've got hobbit feet!" It was the first time my feet were called hobbity and while somewhat shameful, it was a really good slam, one of the best I've had leveled against me. Hobbit feet they are.

I just got back from a weekend spent on the small island of Sado, about 2 hours ferry ride from Joetsu in the neighboring Niigata prefecture. Jennifer, Lara, Jodi and a new kid on the block Carrie all drove up to Joetsu at 5am and hopped on the ferry going to the island. I really like ferry travel. It's a good time to read a magazine or a book and there's something really cool about being on a big frickin ship. As there had been recent typhoon activity the swells were pretty fierce on the way out. Lots of folks were seasick, barf smell in all the restrooms. I wasn't feeling so bad, partly because I was looking out at the bounding main the whole time. I'm glad I did because I'm the only one in our whole party to have seen a whale. I've really got no idea what kind it was, medium sized something or other. It took a breath and arched its back and was gone.

After arriving at the island's harbor we walked about 100 meters to the camping are, tres convenient no? We set up our tents and proceeded on to the festival area. The whole reason for the trip was to see the Earth Festival sponsored by Japan's renowned Kodo drummers. As it turned out, we didn't get to see the Kodo drummers, but we did watch many of the other acts and some lesser Taiko drum ensembles. The highlight was probably the Saturday evening show where we saw Fanfare Ciocarlia from Romania. THese guys are kind of like a combination Jewish Klezmer, Italian traditional brass band, some German Ooompah and a healthy dose of rural rowdiness. It was a great show all in all.

Island life is always mixed for me, it's nice to be in such a relaxed atmosphere, but at the same time, it's a little claustrophobic. I am a kid of the Midwest, i really need my stretching vistas and my endless highways to nowhere special.

And the smug look tells it all. I secretly think that I rule. Hard to believe that the handsome devil in the red jacket was hit by a car not two days previous.

Here we are at the summit, we're standing in front of a big friggin cliff, and honestly, if i'm going to go to someplace death defying, i'm not taking Lara or Jennifer. They're both pretty chicken when it comes to heights. Notice the crouch position.

As we walked up the ice the warm air hitting the snow created a great bloody fog bank that we walked through. I hate fog because it, not surprisingly, fogs up my glasses and makes it hard to see.

The first time I've really walked on a glacier. Honestly, I'm not sure that I'd really call it a glacier, but it's pretty damn close, this much snow in August is gonna stay, regardless of what you do to it.

Shane in his natural element, at 2700 m

So, i slapped a bunch of pictures up on the ol website. nothing is too new, in fact they are mostly from earlier this spring at the Ombashira festival. We're currently watching the documentary "Supersize Me", the one where the film maker takes it upon himself to ingest nothing but McDonalds for a month. It's pretty good edutainment. It's educational, not particularly biased and interesting to watch. I'll give it 2 thumbs up. Something I thought was interesting from the movie was that many of the "Nutrition Experts" or "Food Specialists" were pretty fat or flaccid themselves. I suppose it's either a case of "the pot calling the kettle black" or " maybe, "it takes one to know one".

Anyway, this week has been good. Why good? Because when it comes to the work week, short equals good. I've got a 4 day weekend this week due to the national holidays for Obon, or "Visit dead people weekend" where people go out to the cemeteries and clean and burn incense. It's kind of a nice family holiday, nobody is freaking out like for Golden Week in May.

Cheer Squad

Let's enjoy fun times.

Dazed and Confused

Community Involvement

Log Riding

Festival Food

Ombashira