Category: General

Yesterday I had the opportunity to buy a couple of cans of Sapporo beer which is one of my favorites. So once my little kaiju had gone to bed, I cracked one of those bad boys open and started to relax at the computer a bit. A little while later I felt compelled to practice my Japanese writing, so grabbed my workbook and headed off to the living room.

I was only working on A through Ko which are pretty simple, but try as I might things just wouldn’t come out right. Well, in one of those “Duh!” moments, I realized that I was already pretty wasted and should have been happy to get as far as I had already. An hour or so later things started coming out the way I wanted them to. So all you kids out there, don’t drink and do kana! It may not be the law, but it’s still a good idea!:oops:

Yesterday I was soooo happy to get a Valentine’s Day card! The card was from my wife, but that is not a usual occurence most years since of the two of us, I go more for sappy romantic stuff on average than she does. I was so happy I actually had to restrain myself a bit. Not only did she get me a card, she also got me the Swimsuit Edition of Sports Illustrated. This last part I felt was a bit odd (in part because I generally prefer to ogle Asian women) and in fact I would have preferred chocolate, but it’s the thought that counts! I was sure that once again I’d be forgotten because she didn’t have time to get a card. Yayyyy! 😀

Winter has returned to Chicago! Temperatures have dipped into the 20’s and once again everyone is all bundled up. Still, after a good solid week of strong, 2 mile lunch time walks, I wasn’t going to let a little cold weather get in my way. And I’m glad I didn’t since the sights I witness along the way are every bit as much a reason for my lunch time excursions as the need for exercise.

One of the nicer things about this winter has been the variety of stylish boots the ladies have been wearing. While spying a pair of these on the return leg of my walk, I noticed what I’ll call “Chicago Rouge”. This was the delightful rosy coloration of the cheeks of the lady to whom the boots were attached. She had a chill induced blush that, in her case, perfectly complimented her looks and attire. Sometimes I love winter in Chicago!

Out on my lunch time walk in downtown Chicago, I couldn’t help but notice a number of very attractive dark ladies. Hooray! When this happens I’m always reminded a girl I went to grade school with named Lisa. She was really quite dark, black (#000000) actually and very pretty. Alas, I was too immature at the time to act appropriately, or at least better than grabbing her bottom on occasion. The really sad thing is that I also remember growing up, that even among black people, those of us that were actually black in color were often made fun of. The “high yellow” girls were the real prizes to be sought after.

I never felt that way, so today I say hooray for the dark girls! 😉

恭 å–œ 發 財! Happy Chinese New Year! Today begins the year of the dog and boy are the kids dog tired after a day of celebrating my youngest daughter’s birthday at the bowling alley! And quite by coincidence, the birthday girl wanted a dog themed party to boot! Arf!

* BTW, I apologize in advance for my probably incorrect transliteration of the Chinese. I felt that this choice made it easier for an English speaker to pronounce the Cantonese version of the expression.

Got my W-2 form today and this year I have promised to get the taxes done early, rather than the usual days before they are due after much nagging from WillowBrow my lovely spousal unit. Since I’m on a low nag diet, I’d better get out there and buy some tax return software!

This marks the first post since changing the blog from Nucleus CMS to WordPress. A hearty thanks goes out to Nucleus for getting me started and working when other blog software wouldn’t work with my host! Now I’m looking forward to getting things set up and all pretty under WordPress. So things are probably going to look weird around here for a bit.

Today was tough… First I had the unenviable experience of being in the Principal’s office because my eldest daughter got into trouble at school. I used to get into a bit of trouble when I was younger before I got baptized (honest to God!), so I knew about being in trouble. After that bit o’ fun I headed off to work where the hard disk of my main desktop computer greeted me with sounds of sandpaper rubbing and loud clunking sounds. Oh joy! Lucky for me I had very recent backups, still I predict great pain in the coming week…

Well, I guess I’ll work out the frustrations in Vana’diel or Azeroth this weekend.

WillowBrow is playing up  a storm on the piano right now, and it could not have come at a better time for me. Most of my days at home or work are filled with some kind of tech tinkering or other, that’s just me. Today I was feeling rather annoyed after discovering that my recent wireless network reconfiguration (had to move stuff around) had knocked the TiVo box off the network. I’ve tried a bunch of things, but have had no luck. Then as I sat at my computer simmering over this, I began to hear the sweet notes of piano music and the tech problems didn’t really matter anymore. Oh well, I guess that makes me the savage beast…

Not much commentary here. I just found it interesting that two men who took a stand, each in his own way, against his own people for the sake of what was right have recently passed beyond this world. Maybe just a coincidence, maybe not. So without further comment here are the links to stories that speak for themselves.

Hugh Thompson: Conscience of America

Azuma Shiro (東史郎): Conscience of Japan

Okay, I got nothin here today! My wife went to a spa today and among other things got a really nice manicure done. Reds really go well with her skin color, so noticing her dazzling hands, I wanted to see how easy it would be to quickly snap a shot with the digital camera and get it up to my blog all using Ubuntu Linux. I’m hiding out here in Linuxland to weather the current WMF exploit afflicting Windowsland. Turns out I was able to do everything I needed using the gThumb image viewer without the annoyance of Windows’ digital camera wizard which insists upon putting spaces in the image file names, which sucks if your web server doesn’t like files with spaces in them!

Anyway, enjoy a lovely hand!

Shame on you Bishop Ira Combs! Protests and complaints about Walmart’s labor practices are nothing new. And the thought that Walmart’s practices may not be Christ-like as one group’s current Where Would Jesus Shop? ad campaign suggests, may not be new either. But what I did find new and disgusting was that rather than send a Walmart official to defend itself against the latest criticism on CNBC’s On The Money, they send Bishop Combs! I could only be sickened and shocked to see someone supposedly called to bring the Gospel of Christ, instead bringing the gospel of Walmart’s corporate interests!

My grandmother’s body died this morning. I say it that way because I think her spirit left this plane a few days before Thanksgiving. She went into the hospital and onto a respirator. Soon afterwards a neurologist pronounced her brain dead and we knew that the woman we all loved had gone to be with God. This morning she was taken off the respirator and officially passed away.

I’m hundreds of miles away and feeling numb. I knew this was coming, we all did, but now that it is here I really don’t know what to do next. There’s just a feeling of emptiness and loss. My grandmother’s story here is over. She had a good one, a real story of faith, love, and romance.

This morning I decided to pick up a sandwich at McDs since I had rushed out the door without eating. On my way out I made eye contact with (heck we almost ran into each other) a lovely light skinned black woman. During this time there was a palpable pause and what I think was a ドキドキ (doki doki*) moment of the type often encountered in shoujo manga. She was quite a beauty with long legs and some really sexy red pumps. Well, the moment passed, I stole a few more glances, but ultimately said nothing. Afterall, I’m happily married to quite a babe already, so it was a bit surprising to be affected this way. I guess the old saying, married but not dead applies.

* doki doki: thump thump or heart throb

Once again one of my lunch time walks turns up something that just knocks the ol’ socks off. Generally, you don’t see a lot of blonde haired Asian women in Chicago, and when you do it usually just doesn’t look right. But today as I exited the Virgin Megastore near my office, I had the good fortune to spy the most spectacular blonde Asian woman I’ve seen. It just all worked, the hair color and length, her skin tone, and, for me, the glasses pushed it over the top. Good show!