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?