SOFTWARE, JAPAN, SELF-ACTUALIZATION AND

So this week is pretty important for families in Japan. Much like Thanksgiving is a time for distant family members to meet and eat dinner together in the US, New Years in Japan is filled with family events.
Here in Maebashi, in the prefecture of Gumma, we are visiting with uncles, aunts, cousins etc. […]

Tomorrow we are going to the city of Maebashi to see Ayako’s family, and to visit with some friends there. We will eat, drink, and be merry
New Years Eve we will spend with her parents and brother and will probably eat some special soba noodles. These special noodles are eaten at […]

Merry Christmas!
This was not my present, but it does have a bow. This square watermelon was $150 in the store, too much!

Off to see Avatar at behest of Matt.

Don’t let the title fool you, these are two completely different topics. First up, just a photo of some old armor found at the Himeji castle:

Pretty cool armor, although not nearly as protective as European armor from the same time period (as far as I can tell). Granted, much more flexible and easier […]

What happens when Charles Abbott decides to cook supper after too much grocery shopping?

That’s right, hamburgers, hash browns, and salad.

There were NO hamburger buns anywhere, so I resorted to English muffins… still very tasty

First up on this friday photo post is dango. Rice balls grilled to a tasty treat. Here are the famous Mitarashi Dango (original) from southern Japan:

Next up, a deer in Nara. Deer is “shika” in Japanese (pronounced she-ka), in a previous post I mentioned that they were considered sacred in some areas.

And […]

Today was interesting… very interesting. It started off with a very busy day at work. Work was so busy and demanding that it really drained me (thanks to the people that wrote the Gumblar virus, a most insidious piece of software).
Lunchtime was spent with 3 co-workers at an Italian buffet (in Japan they […]

Quick post before my laptop battery dies (and before I fall asleep exhausted from putting this IKEA bed together).
Here are 2 more interesting photos from that trip in November I took, during which we saw the awesome Himeji castle.

This building was famous for having 13 floors / roofs. Jyu-san-to I believe […]

I often get asked about the temperature differences between my new home in Japan and my last abode in Alabama, USA. So this quick post will cover what I know.
Tokyo’s latitude (lines going east to west) is roughly that of northern Tennessee, so it is a little higher up in the northern hemisphere than […]

I stopped by the local convenience store a couple days ago and stumbled across this new drink.

Surprisingly it looked like a tabasco sauce bottle, but in plastic form. I figured perhaps Japanese people like hot-sauce flavored drinks.
I decided to buy one to give it a try.

On closer inspection there is a small label at […]