Farewell Victoria Regional Transit System. You've been good to me the last two years, been mostly on time, clean buses and friendly service, but it's just not going to work out. I can no longer justify the almost $60 hit to my monthly pay for the Pro Pass when I spend less than 30 minutes riding the bus each day. I picked up a new commute bike today at Reckless. They were clearing old stock and I got a 2006 Marin Muirwoods for half price. The commute shouldn't take more that 15 minutes and since I don't waste 10 minutes waiting for the bus each morning that's time I could be spending at home with the kids.

This should come as little surprise but lately I have next to no time for this site. Vudeja's taken a back seat to other more important priorities like work and family, and although I still try to read up on my friends sites when time permits I've fallen way behind on that as well. And yes, we're moving again at the end of the month. We sold our townhouse and bought a small 2 bedroom house with a 1 bedroom suite on the ground level. It was built in 1937, has beautiful hardwood floors, fireplace and a big back yard, which Frankie's so excited about, on a 6000 sq feet lot just off Gorge road in Saanich. For the new mailing address just sent me an email. The first chance I get I'll be posting some photos.

Until my next bi-annual weblog post you can check out my flickr photo stream, and I just joined facebook as well.

I know it's been quiet around here the last year or so, but I should mention I'll be leaving for Japan monday morning for 3 weeks. Masako and the kids have been there already for a few weeks and I'm so looking forward to see them. If anyone wants to get together shoot me an email and I'll be posting photos to my flickr photo stream.

With the help of my mother we're half way done painting our new house. A definite improvement from the mustard yellow covering nearly every wall. The next job, and our most challenging to date, will be to pull up the existing worn-out first floor carpeting, spotted with stains and cigarette burns, and lay fresh laminate and some vinyl flooring the the kitchen and entrance. Even with all the moving, cleaning, re-wiring ceiling lights, building shelves, potty training, cleaning, assembling countless boxes of swedish designed flat-packed furniture, cleaning, and about a million other little things it was nice to relax last weekend and enjoy our first barbecue as home owners.

We've been keeping our eyes open for a two bedroom apartment since moving back to Canada but with the baby due in early January and the in-laws arriving shortly after we decided to step up the search a few notches. After losing out on a beautiful suite in a 1912 heritage house and other ideal suites that either didn't have shared laundry or even a bathtub, we decided on a large two bedroom in one half of a 1950's side by side duplex. Our rent and utilities will be going up (oil furnace) but it should be well worth it to finally have an in-suite washer/dryer, driveway, and fenced in backyard. Hopefully the current tenant will be out a week or so before the end of the month so we might be able have Christmas in our new home. Only 32 sleeps to go.

Here we are three months after moving back to Canada, holding down employment with slim chance of contract renewal in two months, problems with Canada Post mysteriously bypassing the Vancouver customs office for reevaluation and shipping a box of our worldly possessions back to sender (read Japan), British Columbia's Medical Services Plan providing us with bum information back in May and the possibility of a $20,000 medical bill, and general run-of-the-mill suckyness all around. Other than that everything is peachy. The highlight of my week -- roasted pumpkin seeds. Toss your cleaned seeds in some olive oil and a generous amount of sea salt, and lay out on a baking sheet for about 30 minutes at 300 degrees.

So I was googling my name the other day (shut up, you do it to), and came across this article from the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Just for the record, like it needs to be said, this is not me. And if I'm ever in Vegas I'll be sure to keep my distance from the crank and homicidal fugitives.

I've finally been able to join the employed ranks of 93.2% of Canadians, and can now say the riskiest part of moving back to Canada is behind us. And what a relief it is. I was employed in under a week when we first moved to Japan, so it was rather stressful and a shock to have to wait out two full months to find a job here. Watching our savings slowly disappear, most of the couples we spoke to mentioned that three months is about the average it takes most to find a new job in this city. Victoria is starting to feel really small, but being able to walk to work downtown in under 10 minutes is unbelievably great.

No more Folgers and Busch for this guy. We can now afford to buy some proper living room furniture, which up until now has consisted of only two rocking chairs. And they're great as far as rocking chairs go, don't get me wrong. But it's still a rocking chair, and I have two of them. No matter how big your home, trust me you only need one, and I use the word need lightly.

Half of the boxes we shipped by surface arrived today. Frankie's books and DVDs, our photo albums, winter clothes, rice cooker and most importantly my beloved Bialetti espresso pot.

Violent, convulsing attacks of culture shock aside, life has been rather smooth. We've got a small apartment downtown Victoria within walking distance of almost everything. Sure, you can walk the length of Victoria's downtown in a single gum chewing, but it has the big city vibe with plenty of great coffee houses, one of those olde timey photo studios, sidewalk cafes, pubs, used book stores serving fair-trade-organic-shade grown-low emission-glbt friendly beverages, and a Chinatown™ (is someone franchising these things?).

You can't get away from the talk of high gas prices, but as someone who hasn't driven in six years I honestly can't remember what I paid before. We couldn't find any of my first choice, a 1970 Karmann-Ghia convertible, so we settled on a Toyota Echo, the Corolla's wussy little sister. The personal space of a car is nice, but I do miss drifting off listening to music on the train in Tokyo.

Some random points. Dispite this country's uptight liquor laws, the beer selection is by far superior. What exactly is the hokey-pokey? and what is it all about? There are more takeout Sushi shops here than my old neighbourhood in Sagamiono. Poker somehow became a spectator sport, and Reeses peanut butter cups now come in packs of 4. I'm only 26 yet clearly remember when they only came in packs of two fer chrisakes!

Apologies to anyone stopping by to see new photos as my front page is rather stale and a sporting patches of smelly green fuzz in the corners. I hope to rebuild my developing kit soon and get back into a photography routine.

Tomorrow afternoon we'll be on our way to Narita airport. Hard to believe the ride is over, and what a ride it's been. As I've said before the time has come to move on to hopefully bigger and better things. In the six year and two months in Japan I've; I’m sure we'll be back in Tokyo some day, but this time on a lucrative ex-pat deal, sitting in the big office with a comfortable leather chair that provides full lumbar support. That’s a joke, but not the part about lumbar support –- that’s important in this age of computer-related repetitive stress injuries. As you can understand I've got to get packing, and if I'm not back online in a week, just wait longer.

With mixed feelings, we've decided to pack up shop and leave Japan mid July. A combination of factors influenced this decision, a decision that's been pondered for years. I can honestly say that leaving this place is the most difficult choice I've ever had to make. Leaving everything I knew behind moving here six years ago pales in comparison to my feelings about leaving Japan.

I always wussed-out on the higher diving platforms when I was a kid, and I imagine this is what if felt like stepping off the edge with nothing under your feet. You know you'll be alright, but you're scared shitless nonetheless. I've got so much more to say on the subject but I'll save it for another time. And of course things might not be updated as often as I like for the next month or so. As you can imagine we have a *ahem* fairly large to-do list to tackle.

Barely thirty minutes after I knocked off last night we awoke to the screaming of fire engines in our neighbourhood. I jumped up, stepped into a pair of pants and opened the sliding door to the balcony to see more fire engines making their way to our block from the main route and other support vehicles parked down the street. It couldn't be our building, but to make sure I opened the front door. As a testament to out building's solid concrete walls I was greeted by flashing red lights and blistering sirens. The street was clogged with emergency services workers and our pajama clad neightbours, most of which I've never met nor seen, in the hall trying to make sense of what was going on. After about five minutes an announcement came over a loud speaker telling us it was a false alarm. Apparently some shit-for-brains came in off the street, ripped up all the posters on the lobby bulletin board, trashed some mailboxes and pulled a silent alarm. Two minutes later the fire department, police and ambulances were gone. The neighbourhood spectators retired to their warm futons, myself included, although it took a bit longer than usual to get back to sleep.

I've got a few items that don't quite deserve dedicated entries so I'll try to sum them up in one posting.

Trying to listen to a badly ripped version of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States: Highlights from the 20th Century (read by Matt Damon) on the train was the tipping point in convincing me to search for replacements to the standard iPod ear buds. I settled on a pair of Sony MDR-EX71SL in-ear type earphones. They do a great job of blocking out noise on the train, as well as keeping bodily noises in, or rather amplify them in my head. On the way home from work last week I ran into a KFC between stations for a quick dinner, paused the music and removed one ear phone to place my order. As I ate my twister I kept the music paused, put the right earphone back in my ear (for symmetry) and was amazed by the how loud the crunching, gulping, swallowing and breathing sounds got in my head. It was like putting your ear to the abdomen of a pregnant dog.

I made a great vegetarian chili last night, then added ground beef. It's sad how my brain is trained to be suspicious of meatless dishes. I keep telling myself next time I'll leave the meat out. I don't know what's stopping me as the beef really doesn't add much to the dish in the way of flavour (tabasco, chilies, paprika and cayenne take care of that).

Developed my first roll in many months on Saturday. I haven't developed as much as I would like due to the fact that until now I've had to wait until Frankie has gone to bed before pulling out the chemicals. With better planing, quick and thorough cleaning as I went, I was able to finish one roll, from mixing chemicals and loading the tank to hanging the negatives to dry in less than 15 minutes, or the time it takes Frankie to watch her inai-inai-ba DVD.

I buy and read books in quick rapid spurts followed by droughts where I systematically forget about the books I've bought and start adding more to my wish-list. I received the latest shipment from Amazon in the mail yesterday and will post on one of them shortly.

Last night reaching for a jug of mugi-cha on the kitchen table my hand slipped tipping the jug and soaking both Masako's Newsweek magazine and my cell phone. It worked fine last night but this morning its alarm failed to wake me up and no amount of battery charging will turn it on. Doh. Anyone trying to get a hold of me on the mobile before I get a chance to replace it this evening will encounter problems.

I caught a nasty stomach bug the other day and have been unable to even think about food until this morning. A single slice of toast filled me right up. My prescribed capsule pills cover almost every possible colour combination, and of course getting ill in Japan also means lots of room temperature Pocari Sweat and yucky tasting powder medicine. Joy.

I've been steadily acquiring new and used wrist watches for the past 5-6 years, either though celebration, tragedy or just plain old material lust. These timepieces mark milestones and could almost double as photographs the way they retain the moment or circumstances from which I obtained them. These memories bring mixed emotions, and make my Timex and Casios more valuable than any gold Rolex or Tag Heuer, though I wouldn't turn down the offer.

Last week, material lust helped to track down a vintage chrome plated Casio DBC-610, one of those geeky looking calculator watches from the '80s. I don't plan on using any of the special functions, even my girlish digits are too meaty for its tiny key pad. I've seen a couple watches that try to capture that vintage nerd look, but nothing does it like the real thing. The date was even preset to 1985, luckily fully Y2K compliant.

What's Mark been up to lately? If you answered (G) give yourself a gold star, and grab a cookie on your way out.

Hey it's my birthday, but I'm too high on cold medicine to enjoy it (and yes I have a cold). I'd better get some sleep, and maybe I'll get what I wished for 9 hours from now.

After the last few weeks of selecting, editing, printing and framing (no blood, a few tears and plenty sweat) ten photographs are now ready for my exhibition on Sunday. If you're in the area come by and enjoy the live and dj'd tunes from 5 till 10.

Date: Sunday Sept. 19th 5pm to 10pm
Event: Sundown Session 13.0
Venue: Antena Cafe, 2-14-2 Shimokitazawa JOW Building 4F

When I left the apartment this morning Masako said something about me looking like a tree. She was referring to my decision to wear brown pants with a newly purchased brownish-green shirt. Oh hell, now that I think about it I do look like a tree, and a poorly dressed one at that.

I wish I was five again and had my Mom pick my school clothes for the next day. No thought involved, just change into what ever was neatly folded at the foot of the bed every morning. I guess I lucked out in that my mother was not colour blind like so many of my school mates parents seemed to be. She never prepared pin-striped pants with plaid shirts or solid royal blue jump suits, and I thank her for that. There was the odd pair of suspenders but to the best of my recollection that was all my doing, in fact I think it was she who tried to talk me out of wearing them a few times.

Smart black pants, little cardigan sweaters and acid washed jeans were a staple of my wardrobe for a good part of the 80�s. And turtlenecks, lots and lots of turtlenecks. I never understood the whole turtleneck thing but then again you never have to justify your attire when you're five and your mom dresses you.

When the hell did I start talking with my hands so much? It never occurred to me until I noticed myself explaining the benefits of a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to a client like I was conducting the New York Philharmonic. I'm not gay and none of my friends are politicians, weather men or Italian, so what gives?

Ever since I worked as a daytime bartender in a Trendy Thunder Bay nightclub, I've taken to wearing polished leather shoes full time. And yes I understand that the words trendy and Thunder Bay sound funny together and that they should. But what I mean is trendy for northern Ontario standards, and even that makes me giggle. It's just that simply stating we served beer with a class and didn't have bear or moose on the menu just doesn't have the same ring to it.

I bought my first pair of fake doc martins when raking in minimum wage serving/spilling rye-and-cokes and never looked back. From that point on I came to judge many a stranger by his or her footwear. "Hmmm, 1970 era Nike�s eh?", I'd think to myself, wondering whether or not they were newly purchased and were going for the retro-look or they'd simply been wearing them since the Nixon administration. Intent is everything when talking about fashion.

In my first year of high school Country-Rock, to this day I still shudder when I hear these two words together, and cowboy boots were all the rave amongst the pick-up truck driving crowd that hung out in the automotive mechanics wing of my school. You would have thought this type of student, which compromised upwards to 75% of the student body, who kept pin-ups of Garth Brooks and Richard Petty in their lockers, and who frequently argued over in-depth topics such as "Ford vs Chevy" or "Arctic Cat vs. Polaris vs. Ski-doo" would have discovered the highly fashionable aspects of the cowboy boot long ago.

Wearing pointy snake skin footwear didn't automatically make you cool per say, case in point being my father. He rarely wore anything but denim and cowboy boots, a man who owned a closed full of boot-cut jeans well before the GAP made them an �essential�. I had a close friend fall victim to this trend, whose first act after pulling them on was to try and light a match off the sole like he presumably saw in some western. Sure I rant about fashion faux pas committed in the past but coming from a person who once wore scrubs from the local psychiatric hospital bought at the Salvation Army with suspenders and cut-off short with long underwear underneath finished with 18-hole combat boots should have no right to criticize.

Back then if someone were to judge me by my second hand combat boots they might come to the conclusion that I was tough, rugged, sensible, reliable and thought highly of punk band The Dead Kennedys due to the DK logo etched into the heel with white out. Yet if they were to look at my smurf blue hair and safety pin ear ring they probably would have rethought the sensible bit.

For some reason I can't stand running shoes. They just never look good on my feet even with shorts when I resort to Birkenstocks. It might have something to do with the shape of my legs, I can't explain it. I'd rather trek the back streets of Tokyo barefoot then wear shoes endorsed by a professional athlete. Now days I wear nothing but black polished doc martins and, possibly due to the way I walk, the toe of my left shoe is always scuffed up to the point where you can see the bare leather under the black. I haven't polished them in a while, going for that rugged, sensible look again sans smurf blue hair.

I once heard someone say you could use the same comparison on a persons watch instead of shoes. Nonsense I say. I wear an '83 model Casio G-Shock and I'm neither 20 BAR water resistant nor am I ever constantly five minutes late. Yes, and my watch being a 1983 model. I bought it three years ago and it's meant to be retro. It�s all about intent.

I have this odd, tight, numb feeling in my legs and hip, like the lower half of my torso has been dipped in a giant vat of cooling caramel sprinkled with safety pins with the safety off. It's really that odd. My best guess would be that it's from sitting at length with my legs in the shape of a pretzel last night at the izakaiya, or quite possibly the happoshu.

I long for my chiropractor or massage therapist in Canada (both covered by BC medical btw) to bend and break me in previously inconceivable positions expelling every bit of gas from my joints, or an hour long oil massage kneading all cares from my back and shoulders. I do understand the dangers that come with "spinal manipulations" and that some compare chiropractic treatments to voodoo or witchcraft but it would feel soooo good right about now. Up to this point the happiest days of my life include our wedding, the birth of my daughter, and the day I had both a massage therapist and chiropractors appointment only hours apart.

At this point I'd gladly let an friendly overweight Thai woman administer a traditional Thai "beat the crap out of me" massage for 400 baht. She'd try to up it to 600 baht, then I'd threaten to take my business across the street and that's when we'd settle on 500 baht but no free herbal tea afterwards.

all is well here and frankie is getting cuter by the day. getting cooler out now and enjoying nightly hot baths, it's like returning to the womb every night.

i have been spending some time away from vudeja lately posting photos to my fotolog and my lomohome.

looks like i have an entry just for me on one of tokyo's best photoblogs. less talk and more rawk.

Too busy today to post an update on the pet shop story but will get to that tomorrow. Masako and I are going to check out tokyo tower tomorrow night as it will be lit up in pink light. When matrix reloaded opened in Japan tokyo tower was lit up in that matrix neon green colour and I missed that one, so not again.

We will post English and Japanese updates on the pet shop tomorrow.

I remember we were finishing up some cisco labs in the hotel classroom when one of our classmates who had gone back to his room for a study break called up to the room. He spoke with our instructor for a brief moment, hung up the phone and told us that a plane had just crashed into the world trade center in NYC. We all looked up for a second and imagened a small 1-2 seater cessna bumping into the colossal building, then went back to work. After a few more minutes of study we decided to hit the restaurant for dinner. Before our food could get to our table Wallace ran in huffing, puffing not able to speak in full sentences. We ran to his room with door open and the FOX news channel breaking news graphic scolling across the screen. A few seconds after our eyes focused on the television the second plane came into view and slammed into the second WTC tower. We sat stairing at the TV set in disbelief as the first tower fell, then the second. Thinking back it still seems surreal, spending Sept. 11 2001 in India with Wallace, Roland, Robert, Ahmed, and Ashish.

To make a long story short this is how I got my little battle wound today. I was walking back toward Masako and Frankie at Machida Sta. after buying a ticket and I saw she was tring to get a young teenager with his girl friend to put out his cigarette inside the station. When I returned he was still holding the smoke as Masako repeatedly asked him to butt it out. He gave the common yeah, yeah, yeah defense but wasn't budging. He finally got the message that we were not leaving untill he did what we asked and broke off the burning tip and tossed the still burning cigarette at Masako. I lunged forward and gave him a good hard punch/shove in the shoulder. He came right back at me but never tried anything. We went face to face for a few seconds as I egged him on some and his girl friend pleaded with him to just go. We walked away laughing a little and seemed to make him even more angry by the looks of his face red. Masako and I both tought he was just tring to impress his girl but obviously failed miserably. I didn't think he got a chance to hit me but noticed three red marks on my inner arm from his nails, a few minutes later.

I came across a photo of an ice cream man enjoying one of his products on standardmotion.com and burst out laughing. Not that the photo was that amusing but reminded me a story from high school. This is one of those "you had to be there" stories but I'll try my best to tell it.

Andrew, one of my best friends from High School, lost his job at McDonalds and decided to take a summer job with Dicky-Dee Ice Cream. The dicky-dee guy peddles around a dorky looking ice-cream freezer mounted onto three bicycle wheels and sells ice cream treats around his designated neighbourhood for less than minimum wage. Being the "Dicky-dee guy" is the absolute bottom of the job barrel even in Thunder Bay so a lot of us were surprised that Andrew would take the job. He must have been convinced of all the money he could make when he was recruited , I mean interviewed.

The official summer holiday had just begun and it was Andrew's first day on the job, so first he had to pick up the equipment. The Dicky-Dee office, or were the ice cream and bikes were stored was just the other side of the Intercity shopping mall. He picked up his ride and frozen product then proceeded to bike across town to his designated area of westfort about 8 km away. Keep in mind that these ice cream cart bikes handle like shopping carts and that 8 km probably feels more like 16km. Just across the river from the shopping center biking towards westfort lies the Canadian lakehead exhibition grounds. It was a few days before the fair was to start so the exhibition grounds were full of carnie folk setting up camp. Andrew, thinking he could make an extra couple bucks on the way to his final destination, decided to veer off the sidewalk and take a detour through the fair grounds. One of the carnies spotted this skinny teenager and called over to him, sadly Andrew took the bait. Carnies came out of nowhere, and completely surrounded Andrew and his transportation. Not able to make a getaway on his dicky-dee mobile he gave up and watched as the carnies raided not only half of his ice cream but also swiped most of his money from the cash box.

After the carnie episode he biked all the way to my place and dumped his card on my lawn yelling a string of four letter words. I fell on the grass and almost spilt my gut laughing, "you did What?!" as he reached inside the cart for an ice cream. "Don't you have to pay for that?" "Fuck it! I have to pay for all the goddamn stuff the carnie folk stole anyway!!" he said while laughing and crying at the same time.

That is why the photo I saw of the ice cream man eating his product triggered this story. He ended up getting fired that day and still had to pay for all the stolen ice cream and cash. If you didn't find this story funny or amusing, maybe you just had to be there.

*I took the above photos on Saturday in Omotesando where even constuctions sites are covered in style.