Sorry it's been a while, but we somehow put the neighbor's internet out of commision and have felt reluctant to ask them to let us back on, now that it is fixed.
We're doing very well. I have started work, kind of. So far I have gotten up early in the mornings, but not really done any work. It's been a lot of fun, let me tell you. I'm spending a lot of time in the library, wishing they had more books.
Yesterday was the first day I was allowed on a computer at all, and it wasn't able to get onto Blogger. Since that seems my most effective tool for getting in touch with people, I wanted to wait till I could use it. That day has come.
Yesterday evening we walked around trying to catch these huge turtles that are in a sewage ravine by a power plant, but no dice. There is a good photo of Margaret looking really grossed out by a sea-slug/sea cucumber, but I don't have it with me, so just imagine it for now.
We are doing really well. When we have internet we'll be doing better, but there are no complaints as of right this minute. We have to find a cheap car, hopefully this weekend.
How are all of you?
Margaret says to tell her family that she is alive and well and will be making phone calls the moment she is able. Sorry to everyone who hoped to hear from us sooner, we're just not making it easy on anyone right now, what with not having a phone or internet. But we still love you all, we promise.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Many little unimportant, and one pretty sad, things...
The sad thing first: Heath Ledger died. That's kind of sad. I liked him in all the movies I ever saw him in and I suspect I'll like him in movies I haven't seen yet. He seemed like a fun guy to know and I know he's got a daughter that he's leaving behind and all. Sad. I know that my side of the family is rolling their eyes at this point, but it makes me unhappy. I'm crying, but that's mostly because Margaret just made me cut a bunch of onions. (Well, it's all because of the onions. I knew the news for hours before and the onions are making me cry. Now I'm over-protesting.)
Other than that, I have some links, some recommendations and some observations.
For Tom Pitrone, a link to an interesting and positive take on One From The Heart.
For my brother Rob I have the Hellboy trailer, you may have already seen it, but I want your feedback. Margaret says the final monster scene is too much. Thoughts? (Anyone else can chime in as well, of course.)
I strongly recommend the following two Christian Bale films: 3:10 to Yuma, and The Machinist. Both are spectacular, The Machinist is so heavily dread-filled, without being at all a horror movie, that it is almost terrifying. Margaret managed to see a cat outside our window while we were watching it and then couldn't sleep till I got up and checked everything out and made sure that there were no imaginary intruders. (I recognize that this might not be high praise to many of you, but to those on my wave-length here, it's a good'un.)
3:10 to Yuma, Bale manages to make being quietly heroic both sympathetic and frustrating, as anyone who has ever attempted quiet heroics can attest that it is. Also, does Russell Crowe ever do a BAD job? Maybe in that romantic comedy with Salma Hayek? I can't remember that I ever watched that, but he doesn't seem the type to shine there. Perhaps the better question is, does Christian Bale ever give a bad performance? He really classed up that dragon movie he was in. And I think he was even good in Newsies, though all I really remember about that is a kid named Crutchie.
As for the questions that keep popping up about my work, let me just say that there is no great news in sight. I think that my friend Cornelius and I are thinking about taking over the office area. We will be the Adminjerks, but at least we'll have work to do pretty regularly. I don't know, I spent the day there today and it was depressingly dull. The suggestion from Cornelius is to make myself as useful as I can, but I don't know how useful that will be. I suppose I can teach R.A./H.F.G. house painting techniques, or refreshers on why it is important to alway have a lawyer...
Margaret's family, shame on you! Margaret just told me she's never watched Malcolm in the Middle, for shame!
As to the rest of our life, this is the proposed vehicle style:
Though Margaret is angling for this:
But fortunately there are Disney characters on there and you all know how I feel about that. I am putting my foot down.
Other than that, I have some links, some recommendations and some observations.
For Tom Pitrone, a link to an interesting and positive take on One From The Heart.
For my brother Rob I have the Hellboy trailer, you may have already seen it, but I want your feedback. Margaret says the final monster scene is too much. Thoughts? (Anyone else can chime in as well, of course.)
I strongly recommend the following two Christian Bale films: 3:10 to Yuma, and The Machinist. Both are spectacular, The Machinist is so heavily dread-filled, without being at all a horror movie, that it is almost terrifying. Margaret managed to see a cat outside our window while we were watching it and then couldn't sleep till I got up and checked everything out and made sure that there were no imaginary intruders. (I recognize that this might not be high praise to many of you, but to those on my wave-length here, it's a good'un.)
3:10 to Yuma, Bale manages to make being quietly heroic both sympathetic and frustrating, as anyone who has ever attempted quiet heroics can attest that it is. Also, does Russell Crowe ever do a BAD job? Maybe in that romantic comedy with Salma Hayek? I can't remember that I ever watched that, but he doesn't seem the type to shine there. Perhaps the better question is, does Christian Bale ever give a bad performance? He really classed up that dragon movie he was in. And I think he was even good in Newsies, though all I really remember about that is a kid named Crutchie.
As for the questions that keep popping up about my work, let me just say that there is no great news in sight. I think that my friend Cornelius and I are thinking about taking over the office area. We will be the Adminjerks, but at least we'll have work to do pretty regularly. I don't know, I spent the day there today and it was depressingly dull. The suggestion from Cornelius is to make myself as useful as I can, but I don't know how useful that will be. I suppose I can teach R.A./H.F.G. house painting techniques, or refreshers on why it is important to alway have a lawyer...
Margaret's family, shame on you! Margaret just told me she's never watched Malcolm in the Middle, for shame!
As to the rest of our life, this is the proposed vehicle style:
Though Margaret is angling for this:
But fortunately there are Disney characters on there and you all know how I feel about that. I am putting my foot down.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
That Ol' Library of Congress
They's gone and put up a whole host of photos on Flickr. Click the photo for the link and enjoy the photographic history.
In case anyone forgot...
There is now a FIFTH season of the wonderful QI available for... um, watching.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
96 Hours+ of Liberty and our views.
Sorry for the delay. We haven't had any access to any sort of internet or phone for a few days now. We've moved into our house, the fabled New Covenant address that we had hoped for. It's gorgeous and due to the kindness of our upstairs neighbors we now have internet access. We're going to be getting fiber optic internet access, but as everyone tells us pretty regularly here, things take longer in the East than they do in the US. (Except getting apartments, we accomplished that in about 4 days.)
So, let's see, what all things can I tell you? So much has happened in so little time.
I'll try to start at the beginning. We went to the housing office with our paperwork for the apartment, in order to see if I had set it up correctly. There was supposed to be a couple of different types of downpayment, but our friend and helpful housing agent set us up so we don't have to pay them till PSD reimburses us. (Which they have done, supposedly, yesterday. I should really check that out...)
Ok, checked it out and it's fine. The question that remains is how to pay it to anyone. We get paid in dollars, which then have to be transformed to Yen, but that's complicated due to the rambling, changeable exchange rate. You never know what you're spending on anything, really. We can usually guess that Y100 is equal to $1, but it's always a little different than that. It's really a mystery, though. How do I write a check for Yen? Is it possible? No way to know today, I suppose.
This is the view from our back porch. It's amazing. Obviously this photo was taken on a cloudy day, but it's GORGEOUS today. I'll try to get a picture of it, hang on.
There you go. It's great!
The whole thing is pretty special. I was thinking this morning that everything is working out so well, that there either needs to be a big fall or maybe God is trying to show me that everything CAN work out well for people who are honest. It's probably just grace towards Margaret, but I am a lucky side benefitter.
Below is the letter I sent home, and to many of you, so it won't be news to some, but people whose e-mails I can't find, you might like it.
To one and all, whether you cared or not, I am terribly sorry for not getting in touch with any of you for the past several days. (Though some of you have been out of touch with me for far longer. That's the difficulty with this sort of long-range, wildly random, e-mailing. Those folks with the telegrams, they knew what they were about.)
My wife and I are in Japan. Well, we're in Okinawa, it counts though. Lovely place, there are some photos of it up at my blog, if you have the chance to look. There will be more up before too long. Margaret is planning on getting a Flickr.com account and there will be links to it sent to everyone, when we know what it is.
We got here about two weeks ago and we already have a place to live and all of our stuff set up. Yesterday we bought a couch and carried it a mile down the street together, before our upstairs neighbor came and picked us up in his minivan thing. (That's a point, all the cars here look like Hot Wheels. It's pretty cool. The highest speed on the whole island is about 50 MPH, so the cars don't have to have a lot of pep or be particularly impressive. As a result, we love every car that goes by. Our next purchase will be a vehicle and Margaret has her heart set on a van-like contraption that has 13" wheels.)
Our house is gorgeous, all wooden and, as Kanye West would say, Japanese-y. The drains attach directly to the sewer so they pong a bit sometimes, but there is a trick with bleach that seems to work well. Our view is incredible, the ocean is directly outside our back doors. We could, if we so desired, throw our furniture into the ocean. (We don't generally desire that.) The hot water heater is a little kerosene boiler that has to be turned on a few minutes before you want to use the water, but that's pretty cool, too. The whole place is wonderful.
A mile away is a store that we have affectionately titled, "The Everything Store." For those who know what I mean, it's like Conley's. For everyone else, it's a mixture of Wal-Mart, Home Depot, a grocery store, a Best Buy and a Pier One. Possibly the coolest store ever. We discovered it a couple days ago and have not gone a day without visiting it since. Everything is in Japanese, which makes every trip an adventure. In direct contradiction to what everyone was telling us on the way here, no one speaks English. We're as foreign as can be, which is really, really strange. Little kids look at us like we're some sort of bipedal dogs. The adults are barely more solicitous. It's pretty amazing.
Right up the street from us is a Family Mart, which is sort of like a 7-11. For reasons that, since we haven't learned a lick of Japanese, are a deep mystery, the teenagers who work there start talking, a series of rote phrases from what we can tell, the moment anyone walks in the door and then continue to chatter off slogans until the various, and also seemingly rote, cashier slogans as you leave. It has become sort of a game, trying to figure out what they might mean.
"Hello foreigners, welcome to our plus-good store with the fantastic prices and the expensive beer!"
"Enjoy your time in our frightening bathrooms, do your best to aim at the hole in the floor accurately!"
"Thank you for spending our comical coin money at our super-wonderful and extra glossy cash register, please place your money in this tray and keep your gaijin hands aways from mine and have a nice day!"
I haven't really found out what I'll be doing for work yet. I start on Tuesday morning, so I'm hoping it's good. I am a little worried from what I am hearing. It sounds like work here mostly consists of not doing much at all. Apparently we take a lot of classes on nonsense and then wait to be deployed. I want to do something a little more meaningful, but I guess we'll have to see how that works out.
How are you?
O+M
So, let's see, what all things can I tell you? So much has happened in so little time.
I'll try to start at the beginning. We went to the housing office with our paperwork for the apartment, in order to see if I had set it up correctly. There was supposed to be a couple of different types of downpayment, but our friend and helpful housing agent set us up so we don't have to pay them till PSD reimburses us. (Which they have done, supposedly, yesterday. I should really check that out...)
Ok, checked it out and it's fine. The question that remains is how to pay it to anyone. We get paid in dollars, which then have to be transformed to Yen, but that's complicated due to the rambling, changeable exchange rate. You never know what you're spending on anything, really. We can usually guess that Y100 is equal to $1, but it's always a little different than that. It's really a mystery, though. How do I write a check for Yen? Is it possible? No way to know today, I suppose.
This is the view from our back porch. It's amazing. Obviously this photo was taken on a cloudy day, but it's GORGEOUS today. I'll try to get a picture of it, hang on.
There you go. It's great!The whole thing is pretty special. I was thinking this morning that everything is working out so well, that there either needs to be a big fall or maybe God is trying to show me that everything CAN work out well for people who are honest. It's probably just grace towards Margaret, but I am a lucky side benefitter.
Below is the letter I sent home, and to many of you, so it won't be news to some, but people whose e-mails I can't find, you might like it.
To one and all, whether you cared or not, I am terribly sorry for not getting in touch with any of you for the past several days. (Though some of you have been out of touch with me for far longer. That's the difficulty with this sort of long-range, wildly random, e-mailing. Those folks with the telegrams, they knew what they were about.)
My wife and I are in Japan. Well, we're in Okinawa, it counts though. Lovely place, there are some photos of it up at my blog, if you have the chance to look. There will be more up before too long. Margaret is planning on getting a Flickr.com account and there will be links to it sent to everyone, when we know what it is.
We got here about two weeks ago and we already have a place to live and all of our stuff set up. Yesterday we bought a couch and carried it a mile down the street together, before our upstairs neighbor came and picked us up in his minivan thing. (That's a point, all the cars here look like Hot Wheels. It's pretty cool. The highest speed on the whole island is about 50 MPH, so the cars don't have to have a lot of pep or be particularly impressive. As a result, we love every car that goes by. Our next purchase will be a vehicle and Margaret has her heart set on a van-like contraption that has 13" wheels.)
Our house is gorgeous, all wooden and, as Kanye West would say, Japanese-y. The drains attach directly to the sewer so they pong a bit sometimes, but there is a trick with bleach that seems to work well. Our view is incredible, the ocean is directly outside our back doors. We could, if we so desired, throw our furniture into the ocean. (We don't generally desire that.) The hot water heater is a little kerosene boiler that has to be turned on a few minutes before you want to use the water, but that's pretty cool, too. The whole place is wonderful.
A mile away is a store that we have affectionately titled, "The Everything Store." For those who know what I mean, it's like Conley's. For everyone else, it's a mixture of Wal-Mart, Home Depot, a grocery store, a Best Buy and a Pier One. Possibly the coolest store ever. We discovered it a couple days ago and have not gone a day without visiting it since. Everything is in Japanese, which makes every trip an adventure. In direct contradiction to what everyone was telling us on the way here, no one speaks English. We're as foreign as can be, which is really, really strange. Little kids look at us like we're some sort of bipedal dogs. The adults are barely more solicitous. It's pretty amazing.
Right up the street from us is a Family Mart, which is sort of like a 7-11. For reasons that, since we haven't learned a lick of Japanese, are a deep mystery, the teenagers who work there start talking, a series of rote phrases from what we can tell, the moment anyone walks in the door and then continue to chatter off slogans until the various, and also seemingly rote, cashier slogans as you leave. It has become sort of a game, trying to figure out what they might mean.
"Hello foreigners, welcome to our plus-good store with the fantastic prices and the expensive beer!"
"Enjoy your time in our frightening bathrooms, do your best to aim at the hole in the floor accurately!"
"Thank you for spending our comical coin money at our super-wonderful and extra glossy cash register, please place your money in this tray and keep your gaijin hands aways from mine and have a nice day!"
I haven't really found out what I'll be doing for work yet. I start on Tuesday morning, so I'm hoping it's good. I am a little worried from what I am hearing. It sounds like work here mostly consists of not doing much at all. Apparently we take a lot of classes on nonsense and then wait to be deployed. I want to do something a little more meaningful, but I guess we'll have to see how that works out.
How are you?
O+M
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Amazing, Amusing, a Hope and a Hope
So, check THIS out:
We went and got all the stuff lined up to get our off-base housing. It looks good, we went out today and looked at a few places. We found THE place. We found a place, within, more than within, our price range. I did one of the smartest things I've ever done in this sort of situation. I had two lists of apartment listings, one from a month ago. I highlighted all the places that hadn't rented and then picked the ones that we might want from that list. What we ended up with was this place that's a second-floor apartment, it's approximately 20 feet from the beach. It's gorgeous. Really, really Japanese seeming and cool. All wood, two bedrooms, perfect. We were biased towards it from the first though, the building is called The New Covenant building. How's that for a sign?
Anyways, we'll have to see what the deal is tomorrow, but start praying for us. Margaret loves the place and I'd love to get it for her. Money is a little scary, but we'll figure it out.
Oh, and Margaret got her Okinawa license today, too.
We went and got all the stuff lined up to get our off-base housing. It looks good, we went out today and looked at a few places. We found THE place. We found a place, within, more than within, our price range. I did one of the smartest things I've ever done in this sort of situation. I had two lists of apartment listings, one from a month ago. I highlighted all the places that hadn't rented and then picked the ones that we might want from that list. What we ended up with was this place that's a second-floor apartment, it's approximately 20 feet from the beach. It's gorgeous. Really, really Japanese seeming and cool. All wood, two bedrooms, perfect. We were biased towards it from the first though, the building is called The New Covenant building. How's that for a sign?
Anyways, we'll have to see what the deal is tomorrow, but start praying for us. Margaret loves the place and I'd love to get it for her. Money is a little scary, but we'll figure it out.
Oh, and Margaret got her Okinawa license today, too.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Day Two and Photos
This morning we woke up around 8. Margaret fell asleep last night at 7 or so. We had made a dinner of pasta and bacon, with egg and garlic. It was pretty tasty, shaky cheese from the local shoppette rounded it out. It wasn't terribly Japanese, but it was kind of homey.
We got up and got dressed this morning, Frosted Flakes for breakfast.
I got a hold of my sponsor to find out what we're going to be doing today. (Answer, nothing.) and what I need to do/get ready for tomorrow. (Answer, lots of stuff.) And then Margaret and I went out to see what's around here.
It's pretty great, honestly. Everything, seriously everything is foreign. It's got to be one of the strangest feelings ever. There is virtually no English anywhere.
Ok, I just got the pictures up, so I'll try to explain a little. There are photos from the plane flight, where we went over Alaska, apparently? It's a mystery to me how that works, but I guess we did. It looks cool. There's the obligatory, Margaret thinks it's cool photo. There are a lot of pictures from today. We were walking and we found a big, huge, sand baseball diamond. There were all these little kids playing baseball. It was really cool. There is a picture of the terracing across the street from the baseball diamond. I liked number 13, who was kind of lerpy and didn't really want to be there. Margaret liked number 9, who was hefty and was completely off sync with the rest of the team. It was funny.
The photos of the gas station are to show that even in Japan, small-town gas station attendants have mullets. But also, look how small/narrow that carwash is! The cars here are so skinny! It's crazy.
More tomorrow, I'm sure.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Japonisme
When I was little Kate had a book of that name on the shelves and I used to take it down from time to time, I think it was about the influence of Japanese culture on French art, and I'd think that Japan sure would be a crazy place to visit. Well, as of yesterday evening, I live in Okinawa Japan. So far it's pretty military. We've seen two airports and been around a base, but the Pacific Ocean looks pretty wonderful and Margaret and I got some shells and things from the beach at the base we're staying at, so it's a start.
A little background, we got on a flight out of Cleveland on Tuesday afternoon, the 2nd of January, 2008. Our flight was supposed to be at 1:44 in the afternoon, but we got to the airport around 10AM, just to be sure that we got our rental car in on time and so on. (You ought to have seen me trying to navigate my 100+ pound seabag from the rental car to the rental car counter, in the snow and ice, wearing cowboy boots. For that matter, you ought to have seen Margaret trying to walk and drag two rolling suitcases, with the snow and ice, wearing cowboy boots. We were a little worse for the wear by the time we got on the shuttle to Hopkins.)
The flight was delayed out of Cleveland, due to the snow at O'Hare, so we sat around for a LONG time, talking to random people, and then, randomly, Joe Bromley, who was waiting for a flight out as well. When we got to Chicago it turned out that our connecting flight, to Seattle, had left already, so we waited a long time to get on the next one, maybe. We met a really nice guy who had just come in from Frankfurt Germany, he said that 8 days ago they'd told him there were lots of seats on the plane, so we were a little hopeful, and then there were seats, we even got to sit together. (Thanks guy from Frankfurt! Leonard Szymborski, by the way, if you ever run into him in the airport, say hi!)
In Seattle we got our luggage, got to a hotel and then got hold of Joe and Lisa Park. We went to this great place right by the airport called Roasters, which was super nice and had GREAT beer selection. Joe and Lisa, by the way, have matching tattoos that no one in their family will comment on. They are nice tattoos, though. They say something like, "If lost, please return to Yahweh," but in Hebrew. Joe and Lisa are well, and lots of fun. They look great, too. Really well and happy.
We got up super early the next morning and got a shuttle to the Seattle Airport, which was actually just right around the corner, and the really knowledgeable shuttle driver told us where to go for our flight. Then we haggled with the flight folks, so we could get our really heavy bags on the flight. Then we waited at the Seattle Airport for a LONG time. Thank God for Hudson News stores. Seriously, Hudson, your News stores are a life saver! Good work, Hudson!
The flight to Japan was LONG, very, very, very LONG. It wasn't bad, we had a pretty good time, and we hadn't really slept much for the previous few days, so we avoided most of the jet-lag, but it was a LONG flight. I read all of C.S. Lewis's Horse and His Boy, to Margaret. We also listened to a lot of The Godfather, on her iPod.
Arriving in Japan was nice. There was a sponsor there to help us out, HM3 Phillips, she is cool. She took us to the Commisary this morning, to help us get started and get some juice and things. Margaret and I have walked all over the base we're at, Camp Courtney, but I think that we'll try to live at Camp Foster and then I'll work at Camp Something With An H.
But we're well, and this blog, for so long neglected, should show some renewed signs of life, so check it out.
A little background, we got on a flight out of Cleveland on Tuesday afternoon, the 2nd of January, 2008. Our flight was supposed to be at 1:44 in the afternoon, but we got to the airport around 10AM, just to be sure that we got our rental car in on time and so on. (You ought to have seen me trying to navigate my 100+ pound seabag from the rental car to the rental car counter, in the snow and ice, wearing cowboy boots. For that matter, you ought to have seen Margaret trying to walk and drag two rolling suitcases, with the snow and ice, wearing cowboy boots. We were a little worse for the wear by the time we got on the shuttle to Hopkins.)
The flight was delayed out of Cleveland, due to the snow at O'Hare, so we sat around for a LONG time, talking to random people, and then, randomly, Joe Bromley, who was waiting for a flight out as well. When we got to Chicago it turned out that our connecting flight, to Seattle, had left already, so we waited a long time to get on the next one, maybe. We met a really nice guy who had just come in from Frankfurt Germany, he said that 8 days ago they'd told him there were lots of seats on the plane, so we were a little hopeful, and then there were seats, we even got to sit together. (Thanks guy from Frankfurt! Leonard Szymborski, by the way, if you ever run into him in the airport, say hi!)
In Seattle we got our luggage, got to a hotel and then got hold of Joe and Lisa Park. We went to this great place right by the airport called Roasters, which was super nice and had GREAT beer selection. Joe and Lisa, by the way, have matching tattoos that no one in their family will comment on. They are nice tattoos, though. They say something like, "If lost, please return to Yahweh," but in Hebrew. Joe and Lisa are well, and lots of fun. They look great, too. Really well and happy.
We got up super early the next morning and got a shuttle to the Seattle Airport, which was actually just right around the corner, and the really knowledgeable shuttle driver told us where to go for our flight. Then we haggled with the flight folks, so we could get our really heavy bags on the flight. Then we waited at the Seattle Airport for a LONG time. Thank God for Hudson News stores. Seriously, Hudson, your News stores are a life saver! Good work, Hudson!
The flight to Japan was LONG, very, very, very LONG. It wasn't bad, we had a pretty good time, and we hadn't really slept much for the previous few days, so we avoided most of the jet-lag, but it was a LONG flight. I read all of C.S. Lewis's Horse and His Boy, to Margaret. We also listened to a lot of The Godfather, on her iPod.
Arriving in Japan was nice. There was a sponsor there to help us out, HM3 Phillips, she is cool. She took us to the Commisary this morning, to help us get started and get some juice and things. Margaret and I have walked all over the base we're at, Camp Courtney, but I think that we'll try to live at Camp Foster and then I'll work at Camp Something With An H.
But we're well, and this blog, for so long neglected, should show some renewed signs of life, so check it out.
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