Mostly There

Pictures

2010-04-02T22:46:00.003-04:00

I'm using this post as a shameless and quick way to post some pictures.

3 Inches from a Russian polar bear

2009-12-25T18:44:00.004-05:00

We've been continuing to have a great time here in Japan. Unfortunately it is almost over. Tonight will be sort of a grand finale for food when we go to Arai's, a gourmet sushi chef! I can't wait.

We've had various recent adventures, many of which are slipping my mind right now. Thankfully we have been taking some pictures and they are refreshing my memory.

We went out with some of Jori's old friends. We had a great time, including some great food.

We visited a local bar that Jori and her family used frequent growing up. This isn't what you would think of as a typical American bar, but rather just a restaurant that serves beer. Jori was sad to hear that this will be her last trip to this restaurant as they will be closing up shop this coming March.

We also went to the Sendai Zoo (and dinner) with Jori's former piano teacher. It is a little hard to see here, but at one point Isaiah and I were 3 inches away from a Russian polar bear. It even tried to lick Isaiah (but for the three inches of glass he would have).

More from Japan

2009-12-20T01:33:00.007-05:00

We've been in Japan for over a week now. Actually, we are past our halfway point of our trip. Things have been going well. Here. I'll just post briefly that...

We saw some old friends in Gunma; the Morita's and Sakurai's--sorry Sakurai's we didn't take any pictures with you there.

Isaiah had a great time with Kiyoto who is about one year older than Isaiah and talks a mile a minute. Makes Isaiah seem quiet!

We have been having some great food here again. Here Isaiah is eating a bento.

We've also had a great time with family. Last night Isaiah had some fun with g-ma and g-pa while Jori and I went out for a date.

Update from Japan

2009-12-15T00:13:00.004-05:00

It's been a long time since I have posted. We are on a three week hiatus to Japan right now and since I have the time, I figure it might be a good time to blog a little bit. It is a wee-bit easier than personal emails to different people who may or may not care about our adventures here. So, I'll leave it open for those who want to read it.

Greetings from Japan!

We arrived safely, but not without a little drama before we left the States. On the way to Chicago we had difficulty in starting our van on several occasions. The key wouldn't turn in the lock--wouldn't budge at all. It eventually turned with about 5 minutes of praying and jiggling (and a little cursing)--we're hoping to be able to start it upon our return to Chicago.

Then on Monday morning, we went to the airport, and...Jori had the wrong passport. Why we still keep her old expired passports is beyond me, but...it turns out they really don't let you fly without a valid passport. Fortunately, the ladies at United took pity upon us (truly) and changed our ticket to the following day without charge (probably should have cost ~$2000 to change, which would have been the end of our trip right there). So, we had our friend back in SC go to our place and rummage around until she found Jori's correct passport. She Fed-Exed it overnight and we were ready to go on Tuesday. We received three benefits in the delay. 1. We were able to meet up with another of Jori's cousins on Monday in Chicago. 2. The only available flight on Tuesday for us was a direct flight from Chicago to Tokyo, instead of the ORD-->Seattle-->TKO. 3. The only available seats were in economy plus (5 more precious, precious inches of leg room for free). Then on the plane the stewardess was kind enough to move the gentleman next to us to the exit row meaning Isaiah had a seat all to himself.

He was a trooper on the airplane. He didn't sleep too much (he actually was sleeping for takeoff and landing but not in between), and was a good sport in having to sit relatively still for 12 hours. The flight was as smooth as can be (love big airplanes). Jori and I were even able to watch a couple of movies on the plane.

In Japan, the benefit of being either pregnant, or with a young child, grants you expedition through customs with the diplomats. We were very thankful of this as we originally went to the back of the line which looked like it would have taken us at least 2 hours to go through, but instead they sent us to the front and we were out within 15 minutes.

Another lovely service they have in Japan is that you can ship your luggage from the airport to your destination for about $20. This was a welcome service for us. We sent our luggage off to Sendai and then left the airport on the train for our friends in Gunma without 50 pounds of excess baggage.

The trains leave and arrive exactly on time here. If your ticket says 8:17pm, that is when it leaves. No earlier, and no later (unless there is an earthquake--ie an act of God). I love the efficiency and ease with which one can travel here. It is unfortunate we are so sprawled out in the States, which probably makes such a system impractical. Well, here's hoping for high gas prices. Yes, I just said that, and meant it!

OK, we have a babysitter right now (Jori's mom is back from school) so we are going for a walk. I'll have to update with more later.

Priorities

2008-02-27T15:11:00.001-05:00

OK, it’s ranting time. I heard a very interesting speech the other day in a Sunday school class at church that was given by Jim Wallis via the wonders of DVD (he is the editor for Sojourners). The upshot for his speech/sermon was that the Iraq war is not a just war, and that we as a nation need to repent of this war. All in all it was a great speech. He started off by saying the war in Iraq is personal for us as Americans. This he connected to our troops that don’t come home, or come home without a leg, or mentally scarred. However, I think the problem, in part, is that this war is not personal enough for us as Americans, and thus we allowed for it to happen, and continue allowing it to happen. So, here is a website that I came across thanks to FCNL. If you select your town it will calculate the taxes that the people in your city have paid since the war started and alternatives that money could have provided for instead. Turns out State College PA has contributed $32.9 million dollars in taxes directly to the Iraq war to date. For that price, 39, 587 homes could have been provided with renewable electricity, or 562 new music and arts teachers. It’s appalling. And that’s just to date. This year, our taxes could be spent instead to add another 10,000 homes with renewable electricity, but sadly, we’ll just blow some stuff up with that money instead. Seeing as State College doesn’t even have 40,000 homes it seems like a shame that our whole town could be completely renewable right now. And people complain that renewable energy is too expensive. I guess it is a matter of priorities.

Check it out for yourself.

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/tradeoffs

Let the masses weigh in!

2007-11-08T12:01:00.000-05:00

As predicted, here is a blog about baby’s. Ours to be specific.

From time to time I learn a little Japanese. Little is really an overstatement. I probably pick up about 1 word a month. These words range from practical to silly. Everything from “thank you” to “that was totally delicious”. (In case you couldn’t figure it out “thank you” was the practical, and “that was totally delicious” was on the line of being silly—but still practical really.) Well, about 3-4 years ago I learned the word “shamoji” which means rice paddle. This wonderful little instrument is what we use to collect rice out of our rice cooker. It is a very useful tool that we would be lost without. Somehow it is specially engineered to prevent the rice from sticking to the paddle, something that amazes me to this day. Anyway, the word “shamoji” has a particular ring to it wouldn’t you say? I would and did. Just say it in your head a few times as your are reading this: “shamoji, shamoji, shamoji”. Oh yeah, a great word. In fact I clearly remember saying when I learned it: “hey, that would make a great name for our first child”. Now, before you claim this as slipping into the silly column, let me explain.

“SHA-MO-JI”. There, now you understand right??? Right!!!

I’ve been trying to explain this to Jori since she found out she was pregnant to no avail. “What would we do when we visit Japan??? I can’t tell people our child is Shamoji”. After a couple of hours of obstinately pleading my case as above, “SHA-MO-JI”, she eventually relented...sort of. The agreement was/is that we could call our child “Shamoji” until he/she is born at which point a “real” name would be given. I took this as a decent compromise for the time being counting on time to allow for “Shamoji” to grow on Jori.

My plan took a turn for the better the other day. By chance, for our Halloween party at youth group, a bunch of we leaders were dressing in green and going as gang-green (get it—sort of like gangrene). Anyway, Jori wrote the Japanese character for green on my arm as a makeshift tatoo. Fortuitously, someone who was watching asked Jori what it said.

“Midori” she replied.

“Whaaaaaaaat????” I said very excitedly. “Like the Japanese violinist???”

“Yes” she said

“How come a famous Japanese violinist can be called ‘green’ and our child can’t be called ‘rice paddle’”??? I asked incredulously.

I had her cornered. Lined up in the cross hairs. She replied with a somewhat lame retort of “it’s sort of like naming a girl April”.

I still think it is a great name. It’s a character building name. It’s unique (do you know any shamoji’s???). It even provides for some nice alliteration “Shamoji Sharda”.

Jori’s lab mates are doing a terrific job of using the name with great frequency and enthusiasm. In fact, in her lab you could say that Shamoji is developing character already. So, now I need your help faithful and well respected blog readers. What do you think of Shamoji??? It’s a great name isn’t it.

It’s a boy. Just kidding...sort of.

2007-10-19T10:21:00.000-04:00

No we didn’t have a baby. What we did have was a healthy 5 pound daikon. For those of you who don’t know, a daikon is a Japanese radish (white) that is tasty in a number of Asian dishes including miso soup. It was so big though that we couldn’t resist having a little fun with some picture taking. Speaking of baby’s though, Jori is expecting, and is due around April 11. We’re having lots of fun in the anticipation process, and future blogs may contain lots of baby related posts. However, at my rate the next blog may be after April 11. hmmmmm. That would certainly be a baby related post at that point. One of the fun things that we have done recently is babysat for our landlord’s grandkids while they went to a football game. This involved dunking their 2 year old into an ice-cold pond in their backyard. It was a good learning experience with someone else’s kid and now we know not to do that with our own kids some day.

Summing up Grad School Life

2007-05-11T16:27:00.000-04:00

One of the reasons that I love watching the Simpsons is because of their uncanny ability to stereotype. Here are two examples that hit close to home for me. I particularly like the second one. (I haven't figured out how to display these videos within my blog yet so all you get is a link--sorry).

http://youtube.com/watch?v=tAXN6gTmRN4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKJ652wtutg&NR=1

Revenge

2007-04-17T15:11:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, while driving home form my guitar lesson, I was channel surfing and came across a radio station where the host was thankful that the gunner in yesterdays tragedy killed himself so that A: the justice system wouldn’t get a chance to “screw things up” by letting him off without the death penalty, and B: that he wouldn’t spend 20 or so years waiting for the death penalty while just soaking up tax payer dollars. I quickly changed the channel, so I don’t even know who I was listening too, but the level of revenge that people seek is very disheartening. I know that not everyone agrees with that sentiment, but I also know that those statements do represent the thoughts of a lot of people out there. I have a lot of upset thoughts on the matter, but I really don’t feel like fishing them out in a logical manner right now so I’ll just leave it at that.

A spoon full of water goes a long way to believing

2007-03-08T13:09:00.000-05:00

I recently, or, as it were now, not so recently, returned from Christmas break after spending 2 weeks in Michigan.

While in Michigan, I was privileged to eat with many friends and family, including my 5th grade nephew Joshua and my 2nd grade niece Anna. As we were sitting down for lunch, Anna noticed that I had a spoon in my glass of water. What she didn’t know was that I had left the spoon in the glass from earlier in the day when I had used that very glass and spoon to make hot chocolate. She wanted to know why I would have a spoon in my glass of water, and I of course was going to have a little bit of fun with her curiosity. I responded with a straight face that I use a spoon to stir my water in order to make it taste better. By the look on her face I could tell that she wanted to believe me, but wasn’t quite buying it, so I emphatically told her to try it for herself. She immediately grabbed a spoon and started stirring her water, and a bit to my surprise, agreed that the water tasted better. I reassured her that of course it did. This inspired Joshua to reach for a spoon and perform the same ceremonial stirring of the water. He drank and responded, “it still tastes the same”. One sold, and one skeptic I guess. So, I pushed the sale a little harder by saying “that’s because you stirred it in a clockwise motion. You need to stir counter-clockwise for best results”. He almost started stirring in the opposite direction and then a sly smile appeared on his face as he turned to look at me. The gig was up.

This little story got me thinking though. As ridiculous as my water tale was, I couldn’t help but think of another tale that is equally ridiculous. That is the tale of Jesus Christ. The Son of God??? Died and raised??? For me??? For you??? Paul tells us:

Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. –1 Corinthians 1:22-25

I suppose Paul was right, Christ crucified is really a stumbling block. I also imagine that depending on what side of faith you are believing on, the ridiculousness makes all the difference. The difference of hope and gratitude, verses disbelief and doubt. If you believe in this ridiculous tale then you find the miracle and wisdom of Christ crucified. If you don’t believe in this ridiculous tale, then you find your evidence for doubt that this miracle happened, and proof that there is no such wisdom to be found in believing such stories.

What will we find if we jump in for the spoon that is Jesus Christ? Will the gig be up? Or, will we find the power and wisdom of God?

Who Put That There?

2007-01-31T11:25:00.000-05:00

Our youth group divides itself in to more manageable small groups each semester, and this semester my small group decided that it would be a nice idea to take turns bringing homemade goodies to Wednesday nights to share amongst ourselves. We played the nose touching game to decide who would bring cookies first, and by the time that I realized what was going on, it was very clear that my nose was the only one that was not being touched. For those of you who don’t know the genius of the nose touching game, it consists of each individual touching their nose in order to ‘elect’ the last person to feel their nose to do a certain task (usually an undesirable task—it really is just a slightly refined version of the playground “not it” game). Anyway, last night I had to make some goodies for tonight and Jori was kind enough to help me out. Earlier this week she made some cookies for a lab meeting. They were easy to make, but she reckoned that the addition of butterscotch chips (lets call them BS-chips for shorthand) would significantly enhance the gooey goodness of these cookies. Unfortunately we did not have any BS-chips in the house, so my part in making the cookies was to go out and acquire some BS-chips. Our car recently died, and thus I had to literally run to the store.

I left out of the front door with some trash to take out on my way. I stopped off at the garbage can, and then was faced with a decision. Do I continue out the front way and walk around the block, or do I take a short cut through the back yard? Seeing as it was bitter cold out, I opted for the shortcut, and I also made the decision that running there would limit my time in the cold as much as possible. As I was running through the backyard, I thought that I would be ‘cute’ and wave to Jori in the kitchen, and just as I was realizing that she couldn’t see me out in the dark—Wam! I was flying high and down onto my back. What the??? As I collected my thoughts, I realized quickly what had happened. For what ever reason, someone a long time ago tied a telephone cord into our maple tree in the back yard. This happened so long ago that the tree has grown around the cord such that it is permanently fixed into the tree. Fortunately there is enough of the cord that we can stretch it to our back porch to make a nice clothesline. However, the telephone cord hangs about neck level, is nearly invisible in broad daylight, and completely invisible at night. So...you guessed it, I literally clothes-lined myself while running. It was classic. Straight out of Home Alone. Textbook. Neck gets snagged, feet continue in a forward and upward motion. Stay suspended for a brief moment in a parallel to the ground pattern and wait for gravity to take care of the rest. If only there had been more snow on the ground. As it would happen to be, there was only about 1 inch. Bugger.

As I got to my feet and did a self inventory for damages, I looked into the kitchen window. Jori still (and fortunately) couldn’t see anything, but I could tell by the look on her face that the sound had startled her quite a bit. Anyway, I continued onto the store sniggering to myself all the way. I picked up the BS-chips, and headed for home. When I returned, I naively asked Jori if she had heard a strange noise about the time that I left. She said that she did, and it sounded like the neighbor’s house was being broken into. I told her the real reason, and we both had a good long laugh. The good news is that I am fine despite a slightly bruised feeling in my throat. The bad thing is that it didn’t leave a really cool looking black and blue line across my neck. I mean, what fun is this sort of thing if you don’t have some evidence for the pain you went through right?

Annunciate clearly or else...

2006-09-15T12:03:00.000-04:00

It isn’t always that I have something worthy to blog about. Not so today!!! Actually, I’m partially stealing off of something I saw on Leno last night. They had a bit on funny video clips that they found on YouTube. Most of the clips were rather uninteresting, but one caught my attention. It was a clip from a Japanese game show, where the contestants were made to say a tongue-twister correctly or face the consequences. I’d try and explain it, but really I think it deserves a view for full justice. Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5PS8zHBbxg&mode=related&search

Only in Japan would they produce and conjure such a game show. Only in Japan could someone have such a crazy idea of saying a tongue twister for a game show, and adding the genius idea of whacking the contestants in the chops if they failed to say the tongue twister correctly.

A few months ago I watched a Japanese game show with voice over by some American chaps. It was equally hilarious. They played this game where they have to swing on a rope across a muddy, watery mess, and try and land on a wooden platform at some distance away. One guy totally face-planted the side of the platform, ricocheted off, and then fell into the muddy, watery abis. He got up and laughed, did a little jig, to which the voice over said “milk, milk, lemonade, turn the corner fudge is made”. Really messed up stuff eh? They all had on these strange costumes as well—uber Japanese. Actually, an even better game that they played was a hyped up rock/paper/scissors. Two people (opponents) stood on apposing podiums in fun costumes/dress, did a little dance for about ten seconds at which point they flung their appendages wildly about for another five seconds before revealing their rock/paper/ or scissors. The best part was the commentary as they reviewed the play in slow motion. NOTHING is as exciting as watching a replay of rock/paper/scissors in slow motion. I’m telling the honest to goodness truth here—I almost peed my pants. Unfortunately, their podiums were too far apart for the contestants to use their scissors to cut the other persons paper in celebratory fashion. That was a little disappointing. With so much pomp and effort leading up to the revealing of r/p/s, it seemed anticlimactic to end with only jumping up and down like a sissy for the victor. No closure.

Having watched these game shows has left me to ponder: “why are we so far behind in the US”? I don’t get it. We have cheesy reality shows and game shows that only last a couple of seasons. Why not combine the two into game show reality such as seen in Japan? I’d tune-in to watch that!!!

In honor of Bushes plummeting approval rating, here is another funny clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVjz-H5PdSA

Unavoidable Circumstances

2006-09-07T15:16:00.000-04:00

The little undergrads are back again in State College. The peaceful quite has disappeared. Roads are much busier, stores are busy, Wal-Mart is crazy busy, and the most annoying part is that they walk around talking on their cell phones without noticing any of the world around them—especially bikers. This is most frustrating while biking on campus. They walk 15 abroad across the sidewalk/bike path/road, see me coming, and still remain fixed in their formation assuming that someone else in the bunch will move for me or that I’ll opt off the sidewalk/bike path/road onto grass to get around them. Jori has this problem solved with the use of a bike bell. She “dings” and they part like Moses and the Red Sea. It is really an amazing thing to observe. I, on the other hand, can be heading at 20 plus miles per hour at a group, but apparently that isn’t intimidating or frightening. However, a little “ding ding” equates to absolute authority of the path. Huh??? I wonder what response I would get if I put a small air horn on the front of my bike? Hmmm. Perhaps that would bea bit overboard and then they would just be frightened in their tracks, which would leave me in the same predicament. Drat.

I usually stay away from Wal-Mart as a matter of principle and of practicality. I don’t like supporting “big-box-mart” if I have a chance, and quite frankly I find shopping there to be stressful. Perhaps I find it stressful because of the clutter, the people, or the constant bombardment of advertisement which they do so well there. I especially make it a rule to stay away from Wal-Mart the first few weeks of the new semester. All the things I don’t like about Wal-Mart are amplified to the nth degree and then some. I have been quite happy with myself for restraining from Wal-Mart for at least the last 6 months. However, as luck would have it I have had to make 3 trips to Wal-Mart this past week for work related items. It has pained me greatly each trip. Strolling around the parking lot looking for a parking spot, dodging the clutter and the people inside the store, waiting for ever in line to pay for things. Man what a headache.

One thing that I have noticed is that the undergrads are looking younger and younger. Not only them either. I have long thought that college football players looked so old and mature. Maybe it is the size, but this year, they look like a bunch of young undergrads to me albeit large ones. Unfortunately, this appearance leaves me to conclude that is not they who are getting younger, but I who am getting older. I don’t particularly feel older. I can still out run most of them on the frisbee field, and my parts still function without additional creeks and stiffness. I suppose I am loosing hairs on the old noggin at a fairly steady rate, but I can deal with that...or at least I'm emotionally used to it. But, noticing how “young” the undergrads look this year is a bit of a downer.

Seems strangely familiar???

2006-08-23T17:18:00.000-04:00

Check out this site:

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/numa.php

Could Gray be a Pen name? What do you think???

Adventures in Grad School!!!!

2006-08-18T18:57:00.000-04:00

Like a lot of things I have on my plate right now, it is high time that I got around to updating this. I could easily argue that I should be updating my lab notebook, working on a presentation I have to give to my department next Wednesday, doing other experiments and things of that nature, but I really don’t feel like doing that right now. I don’t necessarily feel like blogging either, but out of all the things that I don’t want to do right now this seems to be the most tolerable. I also don’t have a subject to be blogging about at the moment either, so be prepared for some supreme blogging crap.

Summer is almost over now, soon the myriads of undergrads will return to graze the campus, fall drunk into the street while talking on their cell phones and the quite peace that currently exists will be gone. Alas, I only have a few more short weeks of solace before they arrive in all their...err... glory. I also have only a few more weeks before youth group starts up. I am looking forward to that starting again, but it does mean that I will be substantially busier. So, what will I be doing during my last few free weeks? Slaving away at the lab of course. As mentioned already, I have a big presentation that is due next Wednesday, and hordes of experiments just waiting to be done. Actually I have one of those experiments stoking in the fire as I write; an experiment of paramount proportions. This is the kind of experiment that could make or break the coming years of my graduate school life. The best analogy that I can come up with is that of a detective trying to solve a murder mystery. He may have his suspect with a strong case, but if ten people verified that said suspect was out of town during the time of the murder, then his case loses its footing. The experiment I am doing won’t confirm the murder (read hypothesis), but it will tell me at least if the suspect was in town. As I am writing this I am practically getting an ulcer as every second ticks away. In about 30 minutes I will have a good clue as to the fate of my upcoming days here at Penn State. Yes, this is the kind of experiment that requires going out to eat for dinner. Either a dinner built in with a huge sigh of relief, or one of extreme disappointment/depression. That’s right, celebration or drowning/wallowing in misery. I’m not holding out a lot of hope right now as my recent bout of success rates at about 1 out of 10 experiments working properly. Before you shower me with pity or go thinking that I am a horrible scientist, you should probably know that 1 out of 10 experiments isn’t to far off of par for the course. Depressing isn’t it. I guess I’ll take some of that pity after all.

Ah, of course...I just checked on my experiment. I set you all up with a success or failure kind of jolt, but it seems as if I left out the third and most common option in the world of science, and that is an experiment not working. This isn’t a negative result. No, no, no. A negative result at least tells you that you are barking up that wrong tree. The experiment not working leaves you with absolutely nothing. No right or wrong. It just leaves you hanging. Hanging on broken promises made by companies of easy to do recipes for experimental success—lousy liars, giving you pretty pictures and touting high success rates. Bagh!
Back to the drawing board. Success has evaded me again!!!

Selling a story at any cost???

2006-07-19T12:44:00.000-04:00

An actual headline I recently viewed on CNN.com:
“Breaking news: Hezbollah rocket fire into Nazareth, believed to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ, kills two Israeli citizens”.

???

More precious than Gold???

2006-04-21T11:08:00.000-04:00

I often will tell Jori that our lab regularly purchases items that are more costly than gold on a per weight basis. That may seem hard to believe as the current price of gold is $624.5 per ounce, but it is true. For instance, the other day I placed an order for 100 ug of stem-cell factor (let me qualify that I am not doing research on embryonic stem cells, but need this for the bone marrow stem cells I am working with). Just so you know, 100ug is one thousandth of a gram (there are roughly 22 grams in one ounce). If this were gold, the price would work out to be about 2.2 cents. As it was, this item cost a mere $750. Some quick math reveals that this item is about 34,000 times more expensive than gold. Unfortunately, my item doesn't retain its value like gold does. With gold, one could conceivably purchase an ounce at $624.5 and then sell it a day later at the same price give or take a dollar or two. Again, I wasn't so fortunate. You see, I made a colossal blunder. I purchased the wrong $750 stem-cell factor, and in fact needed a different $750 stem-cell factor (I work with mice not humans and I ordered the human stem-cell factor--yup, pretty dumb mistake). The moment I realized this I was sick to my stomach and overcome with guilt for miss-spending valuable lab dollars in such an idiotic way. Ah, but maybe I could return the stem-cell factor you say? There was that hope inside me as well. Somewhat fortunately they allowed a return of the product, but at a 25% restocking fee. The kicker was that I still needed the mouse version of stem-cell factor that I meant to order in the first place. So, with the additional 25% restocking fee, in the end the mouse stem-cell factor that I need for an experiment will cost 42,500 times more money than its equivalent weight in gold.
Psalm 119:75 says "The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold". Maybe if I were writing a modern day Bible like "The Message" that was geared toward scientists I would have to reword this to read "more precious to me than a kilogram of stem-cell factor." Just in case you are curious as to how much that would equate to, it would be 7.5 billion dollars. Yikes!

Watching the World Baseball Classic is more dangerous than a horror flick at our house.

2006-03-16T13:32:00.000-05:00

Every now and then Jori and I will be watching a suspenseful movie. During the more climactic/suspenseful scenes Jori usually reaches over for any appendage she can grab on me and then hold on for life. Holding on is actually putting it kindly. It is more like intense squeezing and pinching.
The other night the two of us were watching the World Baseball Classic together as Japan was taking on the US. Jori of course was pulling for Japan, and I was pulling for the US. The game was very close throughout, and in the later innings when it was tied, there were several opportunities for either Japan or USA to pull ahead. During these "suspenseful" moments I was squeezed, pinched, and hit multiple times. I don't think it helped matters that Japan was robbed of a crucial go-ahead run in the 7th inning either. Team USA went on to win the game 4-3.
I do have to say though, that watching team Japan was more fun than watching team USA if only for the fact that team Japan played such wonderful fundamental baseball (minus one or two blunders).
It was a fun night overall.

Dogs and Service!!!

2006-03-10T15:11:00.000-05:00

Hello blog readers,
It has been a while since I have updated, and there are several worthy updates worth sharing.

Firstly, two weeks ago I was preparing for my comprehensive examination (the second of three major exams in grad school). One night, as I was walking home by myself, it began to snow quite heavily. My mind was still on my studies, and for the most part I was in my own world as I was walking along. Because of the snow I was also looking down at the ground for the most part to avoid snow flakes perpetually bombarding my eyes. Just as I had crossed a not-so-often-used street, I decided that it was time to look up. There before me was a woman with two golden huskies. Beautiful looking dogs. She was graciously moving off the sidewalk with the dogs as I began to pass her. Well, just as I was passing her, the dogs began to bark, and try to pull away from her. Being huskies, and she of smaller stature, they won the tug of war. One of the dogs cornered me in front playfully biting my glove (didn’t sink through), and the other did the customary sticking of the nose in my butt routine. The lady quickly corralled the dogs, apologized, and I began to move on. However, about a block or so further down the road, I began to realize that my rump was hurting a little bit, and the more I walked the more I realized that it hurt more and more. When I arrived at home I inspected and sure enough, that dog had sunk his tooth into my rump (I still wonder how he pulled that off). No worries though, all is well. I took my comps on the next day and all went well.

Secondly, for the past week I have been in Wheeling, West Virginia with our church youth group on a mission project. It was a great opportunity to serve God, and to build relationships with the community and the kids. Wheeling is an extremely impoverished city that seems to be vanishing. Over the last 30 or so years about 40% of the people there have moved away. Everything is run down, and really probably should be condemned and raised. However, there are still people living there and in need of so much of the basic things in life that we (at least I) take for granted on a regular basis. I can certainly say that this trip has helped serve as a personal reminder not to take for granted all that I am blessed with. The amazing thing is that despite the poverty, and what seems to be such a hopeless situation, there is still hope in such a bleak environment. I had the privilege of working with two groups there that are committed to helping kids with after school programs, which many of these kids attend daily with diligence from 3pm to 9pm. They are using what they have to reach these kids, which in one case meant using an old abandoned church that was literally falling apart. Still, the love, the food, and the lessons that they receive there will undoubtedly make a mark on them for the rest of their lives. This trip has also made my studies here in school seem so very trivial—and I’ll just leave it at that for now. I have done service projects before, but they always seem to open my eyes in a different way each time, or at least re-open them.

Breeding Violence vs Cultivating Peace

2006-01-21T17:12:00.000-05:00

I know right from the get-go that this is likely going to be a long post. I haven’t updated for a while now, but this isn’t meant to be an update on my personal whereabouts and goings on. That said, I don’t expect many people to read this as you may or may not be interested in the politics of China and the U.S..

Part I: A Bright Side
A little over a week ago I read an article that talked about a curious event that happened in southern China near Hong Kong. In this area, there is a huge economic boom focused in large part around industry. This once rural farming area has now become the home of the “new” China-- bustling city life with promise for the future. Anyway, there happens to be a five star hotel in the region that houses on a regular basis around 800-1000 guests (no doubt the kind of folks that have well lined pocketbooks). One day about two weeks ago now, all 800+ guests were kindly informed that they were checking out immediately. ALL of the guests left, security blanketed the surrounding vicinity, and streets were blocked off for the entire neighboring area. Was there a bomb in the building??? No. In fact no explanation was given. Rumor had it that Kim Jong Il had crossed over from North Korea and was making his way down to southern China to witness firsthand the economic boom that was taking place, and to evaluate whether or not Korea might also be able to adapt such an economic policy.

You may remember a couple of years ago (shortly after the U.S. invaded IRAQ) that North Korea threatened to build nuclear weapons. The response by the U.S. was to NOT talk directly with the Koreans even though that is exactly what they asked for. The U.S. position was to stonewall the Koreans right back. Some could well argue that such tactics were necessary or at least warranted, but I don’t think you could call it a very creative approach to diffuse the situation, and there was certainly no effort by the U.S. to try and befriend an old enemy. The end result was the U.S. agreed to pay loads of money to the Koreans by way of oil (which we are so abundantly blessed with?), and the stalemate will again present its ugly head again in the future. (this wasn’t the first time such an exchange had occurred).

Getting back to China, on Thursdays Times, there was an article revealing the fact that in fact Kim Jong Il had in fact been in China for about 8 days touring the economic developments of the emerging country. Accompanying this article was a large picture of Kim Jong Il, Hu Jintao, and other various party leaders with a scientist at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural sciences. Adorning their faces were ear to ear stretched smiles, including one on Kim Jong Il’s face. The beauty of this picture, I think, is revealed in the smile. In all the pictures that we see on the news of Kim Jong Il, he is always portrayed as a stoic leader, never smiling, always stern.

While the U.S. is focused on narrow minded policies that alienate and agitate allies, China, meanwhile, is displaying some excellent, creative soft power. Instead of stonewalling North Korea, they offered to let the isolated leader try to become a part of the world society with their invitation to come to China. They invited/challenged him to follow their economic pattern of success that could allow the North to become less dependent on threat tactics such as nuclear proliferation. They opened the door, and offered friendship. How about the U.S.? Not much of an open door with anyone anymore, and recently it seems that if the door is opened, it is only opened to see long time friends leaving.

Anger/fear politics creates enemies, breeds violence, and costs ridiculous amounts of money in bombs. Creative/diffusing politics creates friends, removes violence, cost a little mental energy, and far less money—and money spent on such propositions are often used to build up instead of destroy. It is funny, we learn a lot about these practical policies in the Bible. For China being a non-religious nation and the U.S. being a “Christian/Biblical” nation, the U.S. has a lot to learn.

On a related note of fear, anger, and related bad policies, check out the movie “Munich”. I have to warn you though that it is intense. However, as a good friend of mine said after seeing it, “sometimes we have to see what we don’t want to see”.

Part II: A Dark Side
It wouldn’t be fare of me to talk so highly of China without saying that they also have much yet to learn. In that same southern area where there has been such a tremendous economic boom, there also has been corruption and deceit. On the very next page of the Times article that I have just talked about, is an article discussing how China has essentially taken the land away from the farmers in that area to build the new industries. As it turns out, there were frequently town meetings for the local farmers about the future plans for the region. All the local farmers would normally attend, pay their 10 kuai entrance fee, and sign in. Well, at the end of one of the meetings, the farmers were told to get off the farm land that now belonged to the local government. The farmers were angered because they had not sold their land. The officials informed them that they all signed the sale contract when they walked in. They had been fooled to believe they were signing in, but really they were signing off on their land.

Of course, the farmers revolted. They protested, rallied, and rioted, demanding they at least be paid an honest amount for the land, which was their viability and their only trade. The government responded by sending hordes of police to the area. Now, the city is a ghost town at night when the sun goes down due to the inflicted curfew. The farmers essentially have no option. So much for creative soft power.

Technology

2005-11-30T11:37:00.000-05:00

Those of you who know me, know I love technology. For the most part this has served me well, but boy it sure can be a royal pain in the you know what. I have been typing my thesis proposal recently, and the geniuses that be, made a lovely little program called EndNote, that makes the arduous task of citing references about as easy as possible. All I need to do is download a citation from the web, and Endnote formats the whole thing according to the journal style of referencing that is required. Ha, I can remember all of those classes in high school and college that taught "Chicago style" and other referencing styles. Talk about a pain. Well, kiss those days good by. The days of thoughtless citation are here. Call me lazy if you must, but I am quite happy to be called so for such convenience. Muaahaha.
However, this lovely technology caused me a great deal of grief recently. For some reason, this magical program, magically decided not to format the citations as needed, and in place of beautiful citations, it put these long computer-code like looking items in the text of my proposal. Now my proposal looked like gibberish (though it could be argued it was gibberish before this happened). I spent the whole day yesterday trying to solve this problem to no avail. AUGH!!! Then, to top it off, it rained like crazy yesterday with wind and all making my giant umbrella more of a sail than a water shield. This allowed my fake goretex jacket from China to act very well as a sponge. So I sat all day in wet clothes, no progress on the writing due to the technical issues, and then walked home in the wind and rain to complete the soaking. Steam was coming out of my ears. Never has grinding cardamom for dinner felt so satisfying.
Today, I became sensible and called the company that makes Endnote, and after being on hold for 25 minutes, they fixed my problem in about 1 minute. Now all is well again as my proposal appears to be normal again and I am in dry clothes.

An Atypical Day

2005-11-07T14:14:00.000-05:00

This past Saturday was an unfortunate day of missed events for both Jori and I, but still a great day for each of us independently. On Saturday morning I went fishing with a labmate of mine. We left at about 9:00am which is fairly early for me on a Saturday morning. Fortunately my labmate drove. We went to a local state park that was fully decorated in fall foliage. It was a great morning to be out fishing. We were successful in catching 4 fish—2 each. We caught three bluegills and one smallmouth bass, but all 4 were much, much too small to keep. Still some satisfaction was salvaged in just catching fish period, and at 70F in November with a beautiful blue sky we greatly enjoyed the peaceful stillness of God’s creation. Around noon the fish went out to lunch or something because we didn’t even get so much as a nibble after that. We debated about heading back to State College around 2pm, but decided that it would be best to fish for another hour or so to avoid the football traffic (the game started at 3:30). So, around 3:00pm we headed back for town.
I arrived home around 3:30 to find a note on the table from Jori. She had gone to the football game with one of our fellow youth group leaders. As it turns out, our landlords stopped by our house shortly after I had left that morning for fishing and given Jori two free tickets. If only I had made it back an hour or so earlier when we had first thought of leaving! So, I spent my afternoon doing various chores and listening to the game on the radio. Sounded like a good game to boot. Oh well.
Later that night we were to go hear the American Boy Choir perform at a local church. Why they scheduled this on a football weekend, I’ll never know. Anyway, Jori didn’t make it home in time from the game, so I was left to go without her. Before I left the house I left a note telling her that I would save a seat for her in the back as long as I could fight the others off. The concert was amazing. The little pre-pubescent boys were divided into treble 1, 2, and alto. Just amazing. I’ll never complain about singing gospel tenor again that’s for sure. Just as the concert was ending, and just as I was walking out of the church, down the street just a few meters was a slightly out-of-breath Jori, who had tried her best to make at least part of the show. Oh well once again.
So the two of us spent our Saturday in a very atypical American way: the Wife went to the big football game while the husband went to a concert. The somewhat sad thing is that had we known ahead of time about the football tickets we probably could have both gone to both events together.

mmmmm, chicken enchiladas

2005-11-04T12:57:00.000-05:00

About two years ago Jori and I found ourselves explaining to her Chinese postdoc, Bing what fart meant. Jori had another labmate who was prone to southern emissions, and who was not particularly ashamed to let it be known (perhaps because they are in a small room and it is hard to cover such things up). For most of the English lessons we gave Bing we were able to fairly easily explain what a word or grammar structure should be, but with this one he just didn’t seem to get it. After a lot of explanation he finally got it and told us what they call it in Chinese (sorry, I can’t remember it). We of course wanted to see the pinyin (phonetic spelling) in a Chinese dictionary so that we might better understand how to say such a crucial word. As it turns out the translation in the Chinese dictionary was: “to pass wind from bowels”. We all agreed that despite the hilarity, it really did quite adequately define what fart meant.

The reason that I bring this up is that a couple of nights ago at youth group we had chicken enchiladas. Oh, they were soooo good. However, by the end of the night, I was practicing some major butt cheek squeezing exercises. (before any of you might think of turning a “nose” in disgust, I ask if you may also have ever found yourself in such a predicament). Fortunately the night was almost over and it was time to go home. We walked home that night (me about ready to float home), and I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I let out a "squeak" and apologized to Jori as I looked behind us to confirm that the closest person was about 200 yards behind us.

Those of you who know me may know that I usually walk pretty quickly, and so does Jori. In fact I almost never am passed by another walker. I’m not really saying this with some sort of pride, but just as a matter of fact for the continuation of this story. I was still as bloated as can be, and had to get it out of my system. Oh what sweet relief. I let out the wind from my bowels. You know, the kind that have a lovely assortment of natural tonal qualities that would set my nephews or niece rolling around on the floor for hours recounting its grandeur. Jori and I of course burst out laughing, at which point Jori looked behind us to see if the man who was 200 yards away might have noticed. Well, as Jori’s continued laugh with disgust indicated to me, he most certainly must have noticed. As it turns out, we had a speedy walker on our heels. This guy in a suit was right behind us—poor fellow. We tried to stop laughing in sympathy for the poor guy, but by this point we had the giggles—the kind you pray you don’t get in Church, and the kind that are virtually impossible to stop. We slowed down at this point to let the guy advance well in front of us. I can only imagine what he told his friends and family later that night.

Lift Jesus Higher

2005-10-25T13:00:00.000-04:00

Two quick updates to take me away from more important grant writing.
First, it is snowing like crazy here today. It is way too early to be snowing. I normally love the snow, but when it is wet and heavy, and more than likely only to last half a day, I don’t want anything to do with it. I must say though, that the white contrast against the fall colors makes the foliage quite a site to behold.
Second, is that last night was choir practice. This year, we only have one tenor, but have two basses (very different from the first year when I was the only bass and we had 3 or 4 tenors). Anyway, for the good of the team (ie choral balance) I have made the switch to tenor—that is until we can acquire another tenor. Recently, we have been singing “I came to Magnify the Lord”, which is a gospel song. Well, to those who have sung gospel tenor before, you know that they might as well call it alto since the majority of the notes play well above middle C. This song includes a lovely repetitive part at the end that consists entirely of eeeeee-dddd-eeee-d-e-f . Once of that would be high enough for me, but it strings on for about 10 times altogether. Also, I personally enjoy a section that sings “lift Jesus higher” with d-e-f. I’m doing my best with it, but the squeaks and falsetto are often the best that I can do. A good challenge though that also offers amusement at my sake for the benefit of others.

Amtrak to the rescue!!! (yes that is an oxymoron)

2005-10-13T17:46:00.000-04:00

It has been a wild and crazy couple of days here in PA. It turns out that our Japanese friend who was staying with us earlier this summer left for Japan yesterday. On Saturday he emailed me wondering if he could stay with us on Monday and Tuesday night while he finished packing and sending all of their stuff which was at our house. We agreed, of course.
Sunday:
He met me at Church and said he had a big favor to ask of me. I thought of a couple of things that he would probably ask me to do. I thought he would ask me to help take boxes for shipping to the post office, or hold any mail that still would come to our house, orsomething along those lines anyway. Well, he then informed me that his plane ticket was for departure from Philadelphia.
Toru: "I just wondering, if it's gonna be ok for you to drive me to Philadelphia airport on Wednesday? Actually, I already ask several others, but they all say no."
Dan's head: "no shit, they all said no?" (pardon my swearing, but I'm just letting you know what was going through my head). "no one want's to drag you rear down to Philly at 4am in the morning, and then drive back to State College, a trip of 8 hours minimum?"
Dan' Mouth: "let me think about it"
Toru: "ok"
Monday:
He came over and packed the entire day, though in the end we both determined that our house really looked like it had been hit by hurricane Toru, and that the next hurricane (I think we are up to T this year) should be aptly names hurricane Toru. Then on Monday night at 10pm, the next conversation takes place.
Toru: "I'm just wondering, do you have any boxes for ship overseas?"
Dan's head "Why am I not surprised?" "Foresight man, foresight!!!"
Dan's mouth: "no, sorry"
Toru: "Can you take me to Wal-Mart to pick up some boxes?"
Dan's head: "let's think about this a little. Why don't you call some of the major grocery stores and figure out if they have any strong boxes, before we run out in the approaching wee hours on a box hunt."
Dan's mouth: "call them and find out if they have any first"
Toru calls.
Toru: "nope"
Dan's mouth: "try some other places"
Well, to make a long story shorter, we eventually determined that the north town Wal-Mart did have some boxes after 11pm. So, at 11pm, we went to Wal-Mart, after a pit stop at another one of his friends houses, where he had some of his other things. After leaving the friends house (about midnight), we went to Wal-Mart, rounded up some boxes and headed for home. At this point, I also gave him the following option: to take him to Harrisburg, PA (about 1 hour and 45 minutes away) to the Amtrak station on Wednesday morning. He agreed, so all was well.
Tuesday:
I arrived home from work at 7pm or so to find that the car was missing. This was only a partial surprise as I had told him he could borrow it earlier in the day to take some boxes to the post office. However, the post office closes at 5:30 here in town, and with the worst traffic scenario, it would take 10 minutes to drive back to our house. He arrived back at 7:30ish (we never found out where he went after, sometimes it hurts the old noggin less if you just don't know).
Dan's head: "I'm really not at all happy that you have most likely just used our car for other purposes without my knowledge."
Dan's mouth: "Were you able to mail you packages?"
Toru: "nope. Well, I went to post office at 5:00, and ah..."
Dan's head: "Dumb ass, what in the world did you wait until 5:00pm for?"
Again, to make a long story shorter, he thought they would be open later, and that he could get it all done before they closed, ie, the mailing part at the post office wouldn't take so long. After listening to him bemoan the fact that the US doesn't have post offices open 24 hours a day, we told him that we could drop of the boxes for him the next day if he gave us the money to mail them, and then he proposed the following: to drop him off at the post office at 7am on Wednesday morning in Harrisburg with all of his boxes, and then he could just take a taxi to the station. The problem with this idea was two fold: #1 it was far more complicated then just letting us do it here in SC, and #2 the train he was going to take left at 7:30 (30 minutes after the post office opens). Still, he was adamant that this must be done this way, because he didn't want to be a bother to us (not like driving to Philly would have been). Rather than expand on the throbbing my head was going through, I obliged thinking it was his grave he was digging, and by golly, one more day of this backwards logic wouldn't kill me.
Wednesday
At 3am we load up the car. At 4am, we take off. At 6am, we stop at the train station to by his ticket. At 6:30, we arrive at the post office and unload all of our boxes, waiting for the doors to open. At this point, Toru realizes that all of the shipping forms that he had filled out the night before, were not in his bag, and most likely still on our table in SC. Ok, I should point out that up to and through this point Jori and I had been praying non-stop that somehow all would be accomplished on Wed, and that he would get on that plane for Japan. Read for multiple intercessions from God. First, we were able to talk with postal employees who were gracious enough to give us more shipping forms to fill out while we waited for the doors to open. Second, there was someone there who spoke fluent Japanese, and could tell Toru exactly how to fill out the forms. Third the doors opened at 7am sharp. Forth it only took about 15 minutes to mail all seven of his boxes. Fifth, the train station was only about 4 blocks away. Sixth, he made his train on time. Seventh: Amtrak strickly forbids taking more than two carry-ons on board, and there is no checked luggage. Toru, had three items. They let him on with all three.
Whew!!! I hadcontinuesg drive back to SC.
Wednesday night, the hurricane continiues. We were driving back from a concert and joking about how we would probably gPittsburgh from him, telling us he was still in the States, in Pittsburg or some place random CIRCUMSTANCESote to all those reading: NEVER, EVER, UNDER ANY CERCUMSTANCES, SHOULD YOU JOKE ABOUT SUCH THINGS!!! :)
When we arrived home, there was a message on our machine from Toru. HPittsburghll in the States. He was in Detroit however, and not Pittsburg. He made it to the airport where his connecting flight to Tokyo was, but the plane to Tokyo had already left without him. I called him back, and found out that his flight from Philly was delayed two hours, and therefore did not make his flight in Detroit. NWA put him up in a hotel for the night, and he was going to fly out on Thursday (Today) at 3:20pm. Hopefully he is now somewhere high in the sky on hiamendto Japan. I think I will sleep very well tonight.
Let me ammend this so as not to confuse you. It was bitter sweet to see him off. We had become good friends this last year, and we will miss him, but the timing issues of the past few days added for a little more stress than I would have prefered.

Make Some Noise!!!

2005-10-10T15:03:00.000-04:00

Well, I have to follow up last weeks blog of football experiences with a new football experience. Unfortunately, we were not so fortunate to obtain tickets this week. Instead we were invited to our Japanese friends house for dinner on Saturday night while the rest of the town gathered in the Stadium or huddled around TV's. PSU's opponent was Ohio State which was ranked #6 at the time compared with PSU's #18 ranking. I was at the lab until dinnertime, which happened to be about the same time as kickoff. When I left the lab I could hear the noise of the crowd at Beaver Stadium (about 1 mile away from my lab), and the game hadn't even started yet (shows how much noise 109,000 folks can make). I had to walk/jog home, and as I was passing through the down town area (about 2 miles away I could still hear the noise). Even as I approached our apartment I could still hear the noise from time to time (about 3 miles away)!!! That night we didn't even need to watch the game at dinner, we could get a good feeling for how the game was going just by listening to the crowd from 3 miles away. Actually, in addition to the crowd at the stadium we could here shouts and the like from neighboring apartments in every direction, and also the synchronized honking of car horns. Yet another interesting experience.

On a more serious note, I was just reading about the earthquake that hit in Pakistan. I couldn't help but notice that the quake was a 7.6, or 0.4 points higher than the quake we experienced two months ago in Japan. While there was little destruction in Japan, and only 1 death as far as I know, the quake in Pakistan has already accounted for over 30,000 deaths and maybe many more. I'm not sure what kind of quake they had, but I know the one in Sendai was 10 seconds of the up and down kind followed by 30 seconds of side to side. The up and down kind is the worst. I guess the point that I am trying to get here (be it ever so pathetically) is that the difference in structure and preparedness was the difference between catastrophe and a one day bother.

Random Procrastination Worthy Thoughts

2005-10-04T15:08:00.000-04:00

I am so thankful that I don't have any allergies. I was recently talking with someone from another lab who said that she is allergic to mice (not very good since she is the primary care person for the mice in her lab). She has to put on a labcoat, gloves, mask, and the works before handling the mice. If a mouse were to run up her unprotected arm for instance, she would break out in hives all over. yikes. Yet she chooses to stay in this profession. There are many others in my lab and in town who have terrible allergies to tree pollen. Every now and then it kind of hits them out of the blue. My labmate even sneezed so hard and often that he had to be given a neck collar. Again, I am thankful I don't have any allergies. Actually, everyone should be thankful for that. I am a pretty grumpy and miserable person even with a common cold. :)

I am actually taking a break from writing my thesis proposal right now. I am also writing this on my not-so-new, new laptop. As you remember, my previous laptop was crushed in a recent bike accident. Well, some guy outside of my department heard about my mishap and offered to give me an indefinite loan of a laptop he had that was just sitting around. It isn't the newest or the fastest, but it is certainly functional. It is most convenient right now for writing my thesis proposal. Speaking of my thesis proposal, I have decided that it is a pain in the rear end. I more-or-less figured that it would be a pain, but now I really know that it is. It is a good learning experience though, and a good challenge despite the added stress of having to complete this far sooner than I am really ready to complete it by.

You may notice that I have modified the comments section. It has been rather annoying to find that spammers were leaving there comments on my blog (ie: computer programs whose sole purpose is to advertise). Now, you will have to complete one more step to post your comment. It really shouldn't be that much harder for anyone to do so.

Ah, now I remember what I really logged on to blog about in the first place. This past weekend Jori and I did something that we would never normally do--especially on a Saturday here in PA. We went to our first PSU football game. Our landlords normally purchase extra tickets that they give away to clients or employees, but there was a late cancellation, and they gave us two extra tickets ~$45 each. We sat right on the 50 yard line a few rows up. Absolutely great seats. We could see everything from the game to the crowd very clearly. The crowd, by-the-way was nearly 107,000 strong, and I can now tell you that that many people can make a lot of noise. There were organized cheers that the WHOLE stadium would participate in. The sound of that many people shouting "lets--go--p--s--u" would reverberate through the stadium and our ear drums. The crowd would also stand up and cheer the loudest when the opposing QB would be trying to communicate last minute instructions to his teammates. It must have worked because PSU shalacked the Minnesota Golden Gophers 44-14. The offense was good, the defense was good, and the crowd was a heck of a lot of fun--much better than watching on TV.

I have to admit, I have never really had much of an appreciation for the football fans who buy season tickets to games and then tailgate and plan important family events like weddings around football games. However, now I think that I can at least understand. I'm not sure I would plan my life around a football game, but at least I can understand why others might.

OK, back to thesis writing now. Please pray for Jori and I as we are both writing our thesis proposals right now, and are both on the busy side of things, and at times almost unbearably so. Pray that we may have diligence to complete our work, but also patience with one another and others as patience seems to be the first things to go when I am stressed/busy.

God is in the Driver's seat! Or, God is the air bag! Maybe it's best just to say God is in conrtol!!!

2005-09-03T15:02:00.000-04:00

Imagine this: You are riding your bike home and are 3/4^th of the way home and finished with all of the uphill work. Now is the best part, you hop on one of the main streets in town and head down the last quarter mile stretch which is pretty much all downhill. There are no cars behind you as you quickly gain speed to about 30 mph with fresh air rushing through your clothes on a beautiful sunny September day. A car is stopped at an approaching intersection waiting to turn left to go the opposite direction of what you are going. Unfortunately the car doesn’t see you. They pull out, see you, stop when you are but 15 feet away from their car, and completely block your lane. In that split second you must chose between hitting the pulled-out car or swerving into oncoming traffic. Instinctively you chose the stationary car blocking your lane. You squeeze the breaks as hard as you can, but really how much can you slow down in 15 feet. You hit the front of the car. Your inertia and the force of the collision propel you over the car and an additional 10 feet past the car. Your bike mostly travels with you as your feet were in the toe clips. Remarkably, you summersault while airborne and land on you back, well, really your backpack, and your elbow, and rotate to your right side. You can’t breath, and your elbow is in excruciating pain. People are surrounding you, asking if you are ok, if you need to go to the hospital. Imagine what might be going through your head?

Well, I’ll tell you what went through mine. I thought that I would shortly pass out and wake up in a hospital with all sorts of tubes and machines hooked up to me; I thought I might have a collapsed lung; I thought I might have a serious back injury; I thought my bones might be sticking out of my elbow; I thought something internally must be ruptured after something like that. My first instinct was to fight to stay conscious so I didn’t go unconscious for who knows how long.

I slowly stood up with air slowly and painfully re-entering my lungs. Almost too frightened to look I stole a glimpse of my seemingly still intact elbow. I reached to pull my bike and myself off of the road. Amazingly, I was “ok”.

Now, thoughts of God’s grace and care were starting to fill my head. As I was telling Jori later on when I arrived home I couldn’t hold back the tears as I was still pretty scared, but also filled with the profound sense that was God watching over me. I could think of a hundred of things that could have gone wrong. I could have been on a flat road instead of going downhill, in which case I probably would not have completed my summersault and would have landed squarely on my head. I could have broken my back; I could have ruptured internal organs; I could have broken other bones; I could be in a coma right now; heck, I could be dead.

Actually, God’s grace started earlier in the week—though I sure didn’t envision it would work out this way. Earlier in the week a friend was having her laptop looked at as it was not working properly. Technically, the laptop made a pit stop in with the technician about a year and a half ago. The previous tech couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it, and it essentially was left as forgotten. Well, a new tech came along and thought he would give it a shot to repair it. Part of the reason it couldn’t be properly looked at is because the CD-ROM drive was missing. However, it was found last Thursday, so I delivered the CD-ROM to the tech and he informed me that the hard drive was pretty much shot. Hmmm, I began to ponder. It just so happens that my good Japanese friend had a nice computer that he totaled it when he dropped it and shattered the monitor. So, I thought I could use his intact hard drive in this computer that was good except for the hard drive. So I negotiated the acquisition of the laptop with the faulty hard drive from my friend. (if the technical gobbledy-gook is confusing, just understand that it was by freak chance (so I thought) that I acquired this laptop). So, on Thursday, September the 2^nd, I put this new laptop into my backpack rapped in an extra set of clothes that I had in my desk and headed for home, knowing not what was about to happen. As I stood at the site of the accident recovering my body and my thoughts, I remembered the laptop. I wish I could say it faired as well as I did, but I can’t say that. What I can say with some certainty, is that the laptop, which was rapped in the extra clothes, “broke” my fall.

Now as I sit here typing this, I am left with some scrapes and bruises on my arm and leg, and a pretty decent bruise on my lower back. Aside from stiffness, I’m felling pretty normal right now. I did have to get a tetanus booster, but that was relatively painless. I’m still amazed, but ever thankful to God, who watches over me, even when I don’t know it, even when I’m not thinking of Him, even when I don’t deserve it: He IS watching over me.

Earlier this week I had given a verse to a troubled friend of mine:

Jerimiah 29:11

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

I can’t think of a better verse right now.

This Space Reserved

2005-08-28T20:46:00.000-04:00

We’re back in State College now trying to get back into the swing of things at school and at home. It seems strange to have to cook meals and wash dishes again. We have been so spoiled over the last month. We really didn’t have to do anything at all. It was a true vacation.
After arriving back into the lab I was quickly reminded again of responsibility. As it turns out two of my lab members are moving on now. One because he graduated and another due to financial issues. Unfortunately this means that I will lose two close friends who always made coming to work a little more enjoyable. I will miss them greatly. They were also two of the three individuals who sit next to me. Now the only one who is left spends most of his time at home electing to do his lab work in the evening or the weekend. It will be more lonely now, but I guess I have my peace and privacy now (not that I really wish it). Perhaps this will speed me along. However, whatever speed I may have gained in privacy, I now have lost to extra lab tasks. There are a number of lab tasks that must be done, and now that we have two fewer people in the lab, the rest of us must pick up the slack. The biggest chore for me will be the additional care of 8 more strains of mice bringing my total to 10 mouse lines now. I am quite certain that I can now dedicate one full day of work each week to taking care of mice. I’m not sure how I am going to manage all of that just yet, but I guess it must be done. The rest of us in the lab will quickly realize how much work those two did.

One thing that we have noticed since coming back from Japan is that everyone here in the US is so big, and I’m not just talking about height. It’s true that many of the Japanese were probably a little too thin for there own health, but conversely, many Americans are too large for there own health—much too large. With escalating health care prices in recent years I can only wonder how much of health related issues may be caused by being overweight. It is really kind of sad.
While we were driving back to State College we were listening to a Christian radio station talk about the high gas prices. The announcer said rather indignantly “if this keeps up I might have to drag the bike out of the garage to commute to work.” Oh my, heaven-for-bid one gets some exercise. Wow, talk about embarrassing yourself on the radio. It’s terrible. The majority of the world uses mass transportation at the very least, while an even greater majority still remembers that God gave people legs to walk and bike instead of work the two levers we have come to know as acceleration and break. If escalating gas prices will remind people of that again, then by all means, levy a $10 per gallon gas tax.
There is some hope though. When we went grocery shopping yesterday at Wegmans (our local grocery store), we noticed a reserved parking space sign very much out of place. Wegmans does have some reserved parking for handicap folks, and even some reserved spots that are for people with children—all of which are very close to the front of the store. This parking spot however was very far away from the front of the store. In fact it was almost at the very end of the parking lot. It read “Space reserved for those who know a few extra steps can help them stay healthy”. Sadly no on was presently parked in that spot, though there were a number of cars parked directly adjacent to that spot. (I think the reserved thing threw them off). It’s a win-win situation. Less gas=more money. Less driving=more exercise. Less obesity=lower health care. Fewer waste/emissions=cleaner environment. Other people in the world seem to have figured out this conundrum; hopefully we won’t be too far behind, lest we want to continue to be the leaders in the “behind”.

Good Old Mother Nature’s Alarm Clock!

2005-08-16T02:36:00.000-04:00

Early this morning Jackie left for College in the States, and we were up to see her off. The night before we had been out bowling, and then over to Araisan’s for a midnight snack to send Jackie off. That said, we were tired when we came back home from the train station when Jackie left. We started packing for our own trip tomorrow when we decided we flat out needed a nap. So, we pushed all of our clothes we were preparing to pack off of the bed and set the alarm clock for 12 o’clock which would give us an hour long nap. After about 45 minutes of just lying there (not really sleeping) our room began to shake with great vigor—a most unusual feeling. There was a great rumble of noise (almost like a train that was passing closely by), the air conditioner was rattling, and Jori said: “oh this one is pretty big” rather nonchalantly at which point I asked if we should go outside, and she quickly replied yes, and we were out of the door as quickly as you can imagine. The only part that slowed us down was trying to grab the door-knob as it danced its was around my hand.
Yes, we were hit with an earth quake here in Sendai. Just the other day I was telling Jori that the only experience that was missing from Japan was an earth quake. Ha! No more! We were pretty much at the epicenter of the quake which in town registered at about 6.0. The true epicenter was a little further out at sea measuring about 6.8. Tsunami warnings have been posted for midnight here tonight with waves of up to half a meter (not really threatening). When we were outside cars were bouncing up and down and sideways, as well as trees and buildings. The news station said it was 10 seconds of up and down shaking followed by 30 seconds of side to side shaking. I have had experiences where I have wanted to get out of a plane, car, or train, and just get onto some solid ground, but this time it was the solid ground that was the issue, which was very weird. Mentally I sort of expected that once we were out of the house that we would be on “solid ground”. Nope!
Was there damage? Well, the quake was felt as far down as Tokyo, a roof on a swimming pool building collapsed, the subway has been shut down, the trains have been shut down (though hopefully open by tomorrow morning), and aside from a few things falling off the shelf here, the only visible damage was a little bit of plaster that fell onto the piano here. All in all, it wasn’t much of a scare, but also not far from it. From what I am gathering, it was about as big as one can comfortably take without a real scare. If you want to read more about it check out the report on CNN.

Final note #1: Alternatively, mother nature’s natural alarm clock can also be drinking a lot of water shortly before going to bed. :)
Final note #2: The dancing door-knob is an exaggeration—all else was true to the best of my recollection.

Two sides of the same coin

2005-08-11T22:35:00.000-04:00

This past Sunday Jori and I went to a park with a bunch of her former classmates. It was like a small class reunion (and about as fun as one too). Again, it was about a million degrees in both centigrade and farenheit, beyond maximum humidity, and in the noonday sun, but did we seek shelter in the shade-no. Did people make comments about the heat-yes. I don't think Jori was even having a good time. To make things worse, none of them would speak English (though several could), which meant extra translating duty for Jori. This was compounded when there was really nothing worthy of translating. It was a small representation of her high school class, but all of them seemed to buy the consumerism bate hook, line, and sinker. Talk about dry conversation. I think it was kind of sad for Jori to see. Many of these girls had been captains of different sports teams, had high ambitions, and were outgoing, but that all seemed to have been lost now. They were all amazed that Jori was married and going to grad school (almost surprised that she wasn't in the same consumerist school of thought as they were). It was a painfully, hot wasted 3 hours of a Sunday afternoon.
Actually it was a nice contrast to the others we have met here. These others are Christians, and boy what a difference you see in their lives. Instead of this dull, boring life of buying everything in site, and looking at marriage as something to do out of obligation, these people are contented, and wanting more than the consumerist society is offering. I think it is an amazing revelation of how the void of God is filled with the things of this world and how that still leaves an emptiness. You can also see the purpose in the lives of those who have chosen God. It is awesome to see. I'm not sure if I am making complete sense here (or any sense at all for that matter), but I'll leave it as is for what it is worth.
On Monday night we hit the town for the Tanabata festival. Instead of tulips everywhere, you have giant, colorful streamers dangling from all over the sun mall. The sun mall is an enormous outdoor strip mall. The real heart of the festival are the concerts, the foods, the people, the costumes, and the general good cheer. Street vendors are crying out from their stands, with voices blending and blurring with their competitor just a few meters away. It was great fun.
Tues and Wed were mostly spent lounging around--it was great.
Yesterday we went hiking with two of Jori's friends. We drove a car to about 1 km in the mountains, then we took a ski-lift another 300 meters or so, and then hiked about 700 meters to finish just below 2 km. The trail was one of the most steep and difficult trails that was completely groomed that I have ever seen. Rocks and wooden planks were all very nicely placed for the hiker. That said, it had rained before we got there, and we were pretty much hiking in a cloud from the time we got off the ski-lift, so everything was very wet and slippery. With the steep slopes, they had placed a few rescue ropes here and there just in case anyone fell down the mountain side. We also passed a significant amount of snow heading up the mountain, and even had to traverse some snow our selves. This provided a lovely refrigerator effect for us, which was nice because we were all plenty warm from the acclivitous slopes we were ascending. It was a wonderful hike. The whole side of the mountain was covered in flowers that were in full bloom-yellow, white, purple, and everything in between. I can only imagine what it would have looked like if we would have been able to see for more than 10 meters.
Last night we went to Araisans restaurant for supper. This is about as top class as it gets in Japan. The food was one delicacy after another, all very ornately displayed. I think I had about 40 different kinds of food. Maybe about 15 different kinds of fish, some tofu, and a smattering of veggies. Wow, what a meal.

No Comment Your Honor!

2005-08-11T22:08:00.000-04:00

I have received a number of emails from people asking how to make comments, so here is the run down.
Step #1 Click on the "comments" word at the lower right hand corner of the post that you would like to comment on.
Step #2 Write your comment in the space provided.
Step #3 For identity, choose other and enter your name, nickname, anonymous, or some name you always wish you had--it's up to you.
Step#4 Click "Publish Your Comment"
That's all there is to it.

Bottoms up!!!

2005-08-08T00:24:00.000-04:00

Day 1

Our recent trip to Nagoya was slightly “derailed” when we found out that we could not take the shinkansen (bullet train) all the way to Nagoya, but only to Tokyo. That meant that we would have to take the 6 hour donko (very much not a bullet train) from Tokyo to Nagoya. The donko gets its name because it always goes donko, donko, donko on the tracks. We had just started along from Tokyo when we suddenly came to a stop. Somewhere on the line, there had been an accident, though we still have no idea what happened. Thus we had to wait on the train for about an hour before they cleared things up. The shinkansen would have taken us about 4 hours from Sendai to Nagoya, but instead it took us about 11 hours in total, and when you are not mentally expecting to travel 11 hours in one day, it tends to be a VERY LONG day.

I said we traveled to Nagoya that first day, but that is not quite accurate. We actually traveled to Taketoyo, which is about an hour south of Nagoya, where the Morita’s graciously gave us first class treatment for the length of our stay. Mrs. Morita had told us to come hungry (which we certainly did since we hadn’t even packed a lunch for our expected 4 hour journey), and she sure didn’t disappoint. I’m sure we had enough food on their table for 10 people, and I may well have eaten enough food to feed about 4 people. The combination of extremely good food and an extremely empty stomach is a great combination.

Day 2

The next morning we took off for Nagoya to see the expo there. The best way that I can think of describing the expo is to say that it is probably the closest thing to a modern day worlds fair. There were corporation buildings there displaying some of their latest technology, country pavilions from what appeared to be every county in the world, and all the while maintaining the theme of sustainable development for the future (I was greatly looking forward to it). Though it was about 36 degrees centigrade and 99% humidity my enthusiasm was not abated. Nor was it lessened by the average wait of 90 minutes of standing in line just to get into the buildings. (does anyone actually believe that?) The good thing was that the inside of the buildings were almost worth the wait to get in. One of the more redeeming qualities was that the Morita’s came with us. They were really cute. They would walk along slowly at times almost as if they weren’t having a good time, but then they would take off running, beckoning us to come with them quickly. This happened on two occasions. The first was to get into a building that had cars you ride on though different sorts of scenes (very Disney like). The second was to see a talking information Robot. Mrs. Morita thought this was the greatest thing in the world. You could ask it questions, and then it would answer them for you. All in all it was interesting, and at the end of the day I can say that it was worth it, but if you asked me if I would do it again, or if I would recommend it to someone else, I would hesitate to say yes.

Day 3

Mr. Morita returned to work while Mrs. Morita took us to a small town called Tokoname, which subsists almost exclusively on the production of Pottery. The entire town was a production of pottery actually. The sidewalks had shards of pottery in them, the city walls that held back the terraced land was built with rows of pottery glued together with cement, and there were no shortage of shops for us to stop at to admire the traditional Japanese pottery. Despite the heat, the trip was well worth it. That said, you can only look at pottery for so long, so we returned to the Morita’s house later that afternoon.

While waiting for Mr. Morita to return from work for supper, we discovered one of the true marvels of the region, and one that really topped both the expo and the pottery village combined. I should mention that the Morita’s are the parents of Yuki, and Ko-Ichiro, our good friends in State College, and we had learned from them that Mrs. Morita does her own weaving. So, to fill in some time we asked to see her do some weaving. Well, she showed us her huge loom, but it wasn’t currently threaded, and since there are over 200 slots to be threaded, that demonstration wasn’t going to be happening anytime soon. She did however offer to show us how she spins HER OWN THREAD, from HER OWN COTTON that SHE GROWS. It was absolutely amazing to see here pull out her own mini cotton-gin, separate the seeds from the cotton, flatten the cotton, roll the cotton, and then spin her own thread (an experience that I latter tried and accomplished myself). She then showed us some of the material that she had woven on her loom, including some that she had made literally from the ground up. As if this were not enough, she then showed us how she makes her own wool (though it was disappointing to find out that she doesn’t have her own sheep, but rather visits a local sheep herder). It was amazing.

Later that night we went to dinner at a very nice restaurant. I would say it was a 5 course meal, but that is not being entirely accurate, and really I feel as if I must be quite accurate for posterity sake. It was really a seven course meal. Mr. Morita asked if we wanted any Sake (Japanese beer/wine of sufficient potency to be used as engine degreaser). I looked wishfully at Jori in hope that we might dodge that one, but she said it would be insulting to them, so just “suck it up” and have one for the team. So, I obliged. You can see why I became nervous when we were first brought a very healthy size, or not so healthy size, stein of beer even though I had not ordered one (Mr. Morita had for me). The beer was a good, stout, Japanese beer (I wouldn’t have expected any less). Then came the sake, you could almost see the fumes of alcohol evaporating from the mug. Normally when having some of the stronger wines or whiskeys you might expect a shot glass or at the least a very petite size glass—not so on this night. Again, we received a very healthy portion. However, whereas the Morita’s joined us in the first round of beers, they did not partake in the engine degreaser elixir. I have never been pushed to my limits with alcohol, but I was convinced that tonight would be the night. Amazingly, light headed was the worst that I ended up (though I slept VERY well that night).
I must digress for a moment. Those of you who know my dad, know that if we have a family dinner or so (say pizza), he will find a way to beat everyone to the punch and pay for the pizza. Moreover, if anyone should try to insist on paying for their share, he will refuse out of generosity. The Morita’s are even more of this line. We wanted to pay for the meal since they had offered to let us stay with them for a few days and were our own personal tour guides, but they would have none of it and paid for the whole thing.

Day 4

That morning Mrs. Morita took us to the train station and we departed to Tokyo (this time mentally expecting the longer donko ride). That night we walked around in Tokyo with Jori’s high school friend Pe and also had dinner with her. Later we returned to our hotel which normally would have cost us $200, but Mrs Yoshida in Sendai has a business contact there that allows her to stay there for about $50 a night which is the price we received (we were very thankful).

Day 5

In the morning we slept in and then had lunch with Tanmi (one of our friends who had lived in State College). All I have to say about Tokyo is that it is a very big city with super inflated prices, and impersonal people. We were ready to head back to Sendai on the oh-so-very-nice shinkansen, where people are more relaxed, willing to smile, and only slightly inflated prices.

A: Beegetebie sandwhich. Q: What did you have for dinner?

2005-08-01T08:13:00.000-04:00

The last few days have been busy. We have seen traditional Japanese dancers, eaten very good food, seen temples, friends, the ocean, etc. The weather has been mostly good, but it is getting hot and humid as we lost our good sea breeze. By the time we reached church yesterday (40 min walk) I could feel the sweat dripping down my back into the neither regions below. eeeewwwww!!!! The sun was scorching hot as well. The reason for this is that by 10 am the sun is at is full power positioned at the east/west half way point. This is a wonderful surprise at 4am when the sun first starts to rise. Even if you sleep until 7 or 8am it feels as if you have slept away half of the morning. It also means that the sun goes down at 6:30pm. So, by the time 10 or 11pm roles around, it feels very late. One of the first days we were here (the first mon), we decided to get up for a walk around the city as the sun was up (5:00am), and so were we (jet lag). I would have guessed that the people here would have adapted to the sun's rising and be busy as could be by 6am, but they still seem to wait until 8am to really hit the work day. That said, our walk was quiet, but boring as ALL of the shops (including many of the breakfast shops) didn't open until 9am or even 10am.
On Saturday we went to see some traditional dancers with Jacky and some of Jori's friends. It was quite a bit more interesting than Dutch dancing. So many colors and so many people. All of the dancing was to the beat of traditional drums and also traditional flutes (I think I just about have the beat and song memorized). Some of the food highlights include: Okonomiaki (pancake on a stick), octopus balls (mmmmm, tasty), standing up yakisoba (we stand and eat noodles). Slaughtered English was also a highlight--the above title should read vegetable sandwich--good try!!! Later on Saturday I got to experience my first round of Karaoke. All in all it was a lot of fun.
Sunday was full of worship. Both services we went to were in Japanese. The first was traditional, and the second was more lively. Both were great services, and the sermon (translation courtesy of Jori) was theologically sound. In the second service they had a lot of singing (my legs were tiring). At one point the leader stopped the singing (all in Japanese), and said something of what appeared to be of great significance. I leaned over and asked Jori. She said he said "focus and meditate on the words". oh, right. Once again, it was great to see the people of faith here. They are only a few (only 20 at the second service), but they are dedicated, and truly a church family (coffee hour lasts 1-2 hours easily). It was great.
Today (Monday) we went to Matsushima, which is a fishing village with many little islands reaching out into the Pacific Ocean. We had a boat tour, visited a temple, and walked to several of the islands (the ones connected by a bridge anyway). We also had outstanding food. I had eel for lunch, and for supper was a tasty variety of food. I think only pictures could adequately describe this, but I'll briefly try. In the top-center was tempura (fried fish and vegies). In the bottom-center was shashimi sushi (raw fish sushi), in the lower left was a salad of sorts and tofu jello. In the lower right was noodles and soup. In the middle right was a dish that is beyond description: it was like a delicate tofu paste with mushrooms and what not inside--very good. in the upper right was some sort of vegetable--maybe a cabbage of some sort. And, in the upper left was cantaloupe and water melon. All of this was served in individual dishes on a very large tray. It was so incredibly good. We ate all of this while sitting Indian style on the floor in our own private room. The entire day was courtesy of Jori's piano teacher and friend. It was very nice of them.
Tomorrow we are heading off to Nagoya, Kyoto, and Tokyo. We hope to return by Friday. Ko-Ichiro's parents are putting us up in their home in between Nagoya and Kyoto. We will likely be staying with Tanmison's parents in Tokyo on Thursday night. We are looking forward to it a lot.

Rain, Rain, and More Rain

2005-07-27T21:23:00.000-04:00

The first week in Japan has been mostly filled with rain. Our arrival was in the sun virtually until we landed. Then, it was like we landed in Michigan in January with 72 degree weather. My meaning is that for the next 4 days we didn't even see a wink from the sun. The rainy season is just finishing here (rained almost all day for the first four days), and on top of that we were greeted by a typhoon. We never had the bulk of it, and when it was supposed to hit with full force (yesterday), it decided to dissipate. So, in replacement of the typhoon, we had a lovely sea breeze with clear blue skies. It was heavenly. The good thing is that all of the rain allowed us to have a good rest and to get over jet lag.
After arriving in Tokyo we took the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Sendai. I hadn't managed to sleep at all on the airplane (despite my efforts), and I was ready to see the sites of Japan. Once again, despite my efforts I was out like a log on the train. bwuaaa!!! oh well. I will just note here that the train system was really efficient and smooth--and fast (at least I presume).
The first four days were spent mostly indoors. As I cannot think very clearly right now, I'll just list some of the highlights:
--traffic light nostalgia in the Murchie living room (Apparently Jori's dad thought white lighting was a little too bright so he has been experimenting with different colored lights, which currently happen to be red, yellow, and green).
--rain
--giving an introduction speech at Jori's Church. That caught me off guard a little bit. There new pastor was having a welcome lunch after church, and EVERYONE was giving speeches. Of course it was all in Japanese, so I just sat there politely while eating my fair share of sushi (and ginger root straight up--later I found out that was only there for decoration--good to know now, would have been better to know before). Anyway, I had no idea about the flow of the different speeches or what was really going on when Jori was given the microphone. She said something lovely I'm sure, and then gave me the mic for a speech. I felt like I was dropped in the middle of nowhere (ie NO context what so ever). So, I just said a few words about my self. Then a lovely old man raised his hand and said "I have a question" in near perfect English. So I said "ok?" Then he asked the question in near perfect Japanese. Jori translated "he wants to know who is taking care of your mice right now". I had mentioned nothing of my mice, but apparently Jori had, or word travels fast here. An odd experience.
--lots of people
--rain
--being a head taller than everyone
--long walks
--taking the offering at English worship--and the offering prayer (all spur of the moment)
--rain
--very interesting architecture (you'll have to wait for pictures as I am afraid it will take me too long to describe it here)
--rain
--food
--rain
--parking garages (again, pictures will have to do)
--rain
--food
--rain
--um, let's see, what else...oh yeah, it rained some more
Are you getting the picture???
That is why yesterday (and today) has been so wonderful. The city takes on a whole new appearance in the sun light. Sendai is an absolutely beautiful city. Despite the closeness of all buildings, and need for the maximum use of all space, they have managed to plant a good deal of trees and bushes.
Yesterday we went up to the mountains with Jori's friend Shoko and her friend Makoto. They are both very strong Christians, which was great for Jori to see as Shoko was not the last time they saw each other. And now she is on fire. It was refreshing. Anyway, they took us to the mountains and an onsen (hot spring). It was an outdoor onsen, and very beautiful and relaxing --though I was overheating after about 15 min. After that we went to a huge waterfall in the mountains. The only one I have ever seen that is bigger is Niagara. It was awesome. The mountains are some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. Certainly, they are the greenest mountains I have ever seen. Not one spot was empty. It was all very, very lush--as was the country side in general.
Were hopefully off to the beach now on our bikes. Later

The First Post

2005-07-26T09:31:00.000-04:00

Greetings to all, and thank you for viewing my very first posting. It took me a frustratingly long amount of time to come up with an appropriate title. After pondering many good titles, and following through in the spirit of indecisiveness, I finally picked from a handful, selected a title, and said good enough (not really). As it turns out that blog name was already taken. So I returned to the table of indecisiveness, until I decided good enough on another title. Still no luck. Unfortunately there are so many blogs out there that many of the titles halve already been taken. Then it occurred to me that maybe good enough was really good enough, and fortunately it was. Good enough also happens to be my fathers life motto, so I can give him a good laugh in the process.
Good enough also seems to be as good a theme as any, as I don't expect these postings to be highly polished postings that I would feel worthy of true publication. I hold no promise to perfect spelling, or correct usage of words. An example of my written ineptitude is a short quote from a paper I once wrote: "these logical phallacies". I almost handed that one in to a philosophy prof one time--my English major/ guardian angel Doug caught that one before I sent it in (I think he wishes he hadn't now just to see what the prof might have written back to me in the margins of the paper). :)
On the Blog title of "Mostly There" it seemed to be as good a title as any that I could arbitrarily assign for the time being. Perhaps I'll change it, and perhaps I'll not. We shall see.
While I am in the mood for disclaimering... I may post frequently, but don't be too surprised if you see a lapse of several months between postings. I haven't yet mastered the art of keeping up on emails with even my best friends and family members, I don't know why this will necessarily be different.
With that, I think I will close this first post. Enjoy.