Going through some old photos and feeling very nostalgic, and do I dare say, homesick for Japan. Hopefully once the seas calm a bit we should be feeling better about life here, but I guess the grass is always greener.

Haven't decided on a sofa yet, but until then we still have our two precious rocking chairs.

A funky little cafe on the edge of Chinatown serving up fresh baked goods and tasty espresso drinks. And if you get a chance try the sourdough.

My photo taking habits have become a lot like my reading habits -- a few exposures on this camera, a few on that one, taking longer than usual to finish any particular roll, if at all.

Another one of my father, aunt and uncle from around 1950. Any guesses as to what kind of car that is?

No big surprise here, but John Wayne made number 8 on the all-time top voices in the movies list. A voice I recognized well before I ever knew who John Wayne was, thanks in part to Full Metal Jacket.

Backing up data from my office computer(s) I came across a few old black and white scans my sister sent me after our father's funeral. I defiantly need to get a print of this one .

I've always disliked how my photos load in the browser, too choppy and it bugs me when the text gets shifted down the page. Looks darn unprofessional. Flash is cool, but a little out of my reach. The alternative, javascript. I'm getting ready to change servers (and hosts) so I'm having to go through and reinstall all the applications I use here, one being an updated version of Noel Jackson's slick PhotoStack. The current version (2.1b7 at the time of this writing) uses a script that gives a cool flash-like fade-in of your photos that I was able edit and use in MT. More info from the code author here.

(note to people reading via RSS reader, I can't get this to work in the feed so you need to open the post in a browser to see the magic.)

The above photo care of Philip Dyer (John Sypal and myself) was taken at the end of our photo shoot/trek from Kitasenju to Nippori on Wednesday. My film's sitting on the bookshelf, and will be getting on that real soon. John and Guy (1 and 2) have theirs up, with more to come.

And on another note, it almost killed me but this site finally validates (for now). Valid XHTML 1.0 transitional baby!

I dug out my Canon Snappy 50 this week, a camera that used to belong to my mother, and gave it to Frankie. I wish I could have captured the look on her face when I loaded it with film and explained to Fran that it was now her camera. She shot a roll and a half in the apartment Monday evening and finished the second roll at the park on Tuesday. She hasn't gotten the hang of the view finder just yet, opting to press her forehead against the top of the camera and fire away shot after shot in every direction.

I was planing on getting her a toy camera (not a holga or diana, an an actual toy) but what better way to put to use a camera that captured half my childhood, and I've already ran it over with my car (long story) so it'll handle any abuse a two year old might throw its way.

A section of sign outside a small Izakaiya near my office which seems to have a cult film theme to it. One day I'll bring a real camera and get the entire sign.

Under the proper conditions, enough light, a steady hand, and a bit of creativity my mobile phone can produce some nice photos.

This is not one of them. Just me lunch.

I'm not an antisocial person by any means, though when I'm invited out to larger gatherings in the city I tend to shy away. My mind goes through all the possible scenarios; I drink too much and feel lousy the next day, I miss the train and have to pay 20,000 yen in cab fare to get home, I don't recognize any faces and everyone feels unapproachable and so forth. My new secret weapon is the camera. Now every-time I hear about a party I think of it as an excellent photography opportunity, where, for the most part, people don't mind getting their photo taken up close and most rather enjoy it.

Phone-cams get little respect, as do compact 35mm and digital cameras. Polaroids are fun but none of these seem to garnish respect like my Nikon SLR with Speedlite flash. And I love being able to move around the room and jump into conversations if the opportunity presents itself, or shoot a few frames and move along.

Here are a few more photos from Saturday I scanned late last night, and yes I'm still learning how to use the flash.

A chocolate sculpture of the Mona Lisa from Tokyo's Salon du Chocolat. They had a few other pieces on display including a miniature five-story pagoda and a women's dress, all made out of chocolate.

We spent a brisk Saturday afternoon at Enoshima watching hawks circle and dive bomb people eating lunch on the beach steps. We were very careful, making sure not expose any food to the sky and still one of the huge birds swooped down going for what I guess was Frankie's milk box. No crowds, no vendors, and no speakers blasting Coca-cola jingles repeated ad nauseam. The Shibuya crowd can have Enoshima for their few weeks in the summer, and we'll take it the rest of the year. Just wish they'd leave it a bit cleaner.

What better way to spend a beautiful sunny day than at an indoor aquarium. Well I guess we could have gone bowling...

Frankie was really able to appreciate the aquarium exhibits this time. She bounced on my knee and clapped through the entire dolphin show, though I could have done without the whole "look, it thinks it's people!" aspect of the show. It may not be the most authentic wildlife experience for her, but until she can take the Zodiac ride out whale watching in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, this will have to do.

We spent this evening unpacking from our holiday in Victoria. The thing is, we arrived in Tokyo three days ago, so I guess Air Canada decided our luggage would have wanted to spend a few more days in Vancouver. That was real nice of them. My New Year's resolution: When traveling, pack everything in carry-on bags.

For those traveling back to Tokyo with small children on a ten plus hour flight, I totally recommend booking a hotel at Narita and making the last leg of your journey on a good nights sleep and buffet breakfast.

Some non-denominational holiday imagery from my family unit to yours. Photos from Masako's sexy new Contax U4R, and more to come.

The two of us decorated our pygmy douglas fir last night. The other, well she was content in taking it down at about half the rate we were putting it up, and tossing baubles into the kitchen. Charlie Brown would have been proud.

You simply haven't lived until you've been Christmas shopping with a 18 month old who just learned how to run, and wants to grab everything in sight. You simply have not lived.

The above relics were leftovers (overlooked in the rush *wink*) from when our new employer moved the IT operations department to a different floor of our building. When I first started working at this office almost three years ago, we spent the better part of a month hauling this god awful equipment around during floor layout changes. Oh the horrible memories of figuring out what goes where, and what connects to what, and what the hell is this.

I've been pining for a wide angle lens ever since our photo developing workshop, when I swapped my 50mm with Jim's 20mm. Having been accustom to 50mm, the 20mm opened the frame up so much I could almost see the back of my head. Yesterday I finally gave in and shelled out for a used manual focus Nikkor AiS 28mm f/2.8, which should be here in 1-2 days. Besides, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to own an SLR and only one lens, well at least that's what I've been telling myself.

Saturday morning with Fran -- the absolute best part of my week. And of course, the extra hour sleep doesn't hurt either.

And now for no apparent reason a photo of my powerbook with prized Girl Skateboards stenciled sticker. From the flickr mac stickers group.

The above images are the product of yesterday's late night kitchen developing session. This was the first time to get my hands wet with chemicals and despite the fact that I forgot to get a thermometer, bent the film badly on the reel and was pretty drunk, I think they came out nicely. I tried to stick with the Ilford product line (HP5 Plus 400 ASA, LC29 Developer and HYPAM Fixer) but had to bow to the fuji gods and buy their driwel wetting agent.

I sent my FM3A to Nikon to have the film advance and multiple-exposure lever fixed and luckily for me Nikon Japan doesn't know what a grey market warranty is. Now I only have my lomo, yashica, canon and sony digital camera to shoot with.

I'll be showing a small exhibit of photographs at the next sundown session in Shimokitazaka Sept. 19. If you're in the area drop by and check out the musical acts performing. I'll make a separate post on this later on.

For the past few months I've been using a new film scanner, the Nikon CoolScan V ED and the improvements have been phenomenal. The b/w scans I get and the upgrade to digital ice was well worth the price. Now I just have to sell the Minolta Dual Scan III.

I recently contributed a photo to File, an online photography magazine. Other current contributors include a few favourites of mine Jose Luis Martinez, Justin Ouellette, Neal Curley and Eliot Shepard. They're also building on a nice collection of galleries, one in particular that caught my eye was "Three Polaroids from Crete" by Jim Green.

For them that is. I'm my usualy darling self. My sister came across this photograph of us while visiting her good friend (also in photo) in Toronto, who looked after me quite a bit during my years living there. Many days spent taking me to swimming lessons and dressing me up as a girl then sending me to the store for Archie comics. And to answer that burning question, Yes. I did get a free bowl of soup with my haircut, as was the style at the time.

world peace now 3.20 @ hibiya park. starts at 1pm

to find march 20 events in your area check united for peace

a great collage of images from last year's internatonal day of action can be seen in a system of a down's music video for "boom" in which they teamed up with director michael moore.

finally getting around to scanning some more of the b/w i shot last christmas in canada. enjoi.

yet another from the batch of expired kodachrome with slight colour correction in photoshop, actually just "auto level". side note- hamdy's wife hiroko gave birth to their daugher laifa a month before frankie was born at the same hospital.

"and so... it really comes down to a very basic choice that we have to make as a civilization: either: we will learn to bury the animosities of our ethnocentric, militant traditions and come to understand that earth's survival depends on our collective, unified participation... or we will sustain this cycle of violence and revenge until humanity is returned to the status of primitivity and, earth reduced to the rubble of antiquity. it's really up to us... it really is... up to us."

-ending quote from short video channel surfing the apocalypse

thought we could use a little colour around here. the above is a selection from my first processed batch of 16 year old expired kodachrome. this is the original developed colour, it hasn't been photoshopped.

somehow i expected more, something a little wilder, not so uniform. i wanted to see all these "warped, faded, exaggerated colours" even though that's not what i read about and was not what others told me might happen. i choose to ignore that advice and hoped for something new and creative, yet maybe found it in a different way.

"within less than ten years a handful of global companies will own directly or through license the actual genes that make up the evolution of our species."

this is not science ficton but a chilling quote taken from a new documentary now playing in canadian theaters. "the corporation" is from canadian film makers mark achbar, joel bakan and jennifer abbott. mark achbar also directed the film manufacturing consent: noam chomsky and the media, which was the most successful canadian feature documentary ever made. i got this from noam chomsky's book understanding power published in 2002 but I think another film produced by now defunct canadian production house salter street films may have topped it, michael moore's bowling for columbine.

synopsis: THE CORPORATION engages us in a darkly amusing account of the institution’s birth as a legal “person” whose prime directive is to produce ever-increasing profit for it’s shareholders regardless of the cost to anyone, or anything else. this pathological nature wasn’t always written in stone. 150 years ago a corporation was merely an organized way of doing business. today it is a global power. view trailer

kerry vs. the chicken hawks, but what's a chicken hawk you say?

chickenhawk n. a person enthusiastic about war, provided someone else fights it; particularly when that enthusiasm is undimmed by personal experience with war; most emphatically when that lack of experience came in spite of ample opportunity in that person’s youth.

high profile warmongering chickenhawks would include:
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Newt Gingrich and so on. check the chickenhawk database for a complete listing.

recruit the chickenhawks today!

food for thought
arms spending has accounted for $1 trillion a year world-wide since the end of the cold war. this alone could provide $1,000 a year for every family on the planet.

just 25% of the cost of george w bush's star wars program would provide clean drinking water for the billion people who are currently without it.

source: uk socialist party

i've always had a thing for empty pools, especially abandon forgotten ones. it probably started when i first saw empire of the sun in which the young character jim makes his way back to his parents mansion to find all there belongings taken and an empty pool in the yard collecting leaves and dirty rain water.

this particular pool in the photo seems to be long forgotten on the roof top of my office. plastic molded deck chairs faded to a pale yellow and powder blue, you could put your ear to the concrete and almost hear the slapping of wet feet as they circled the pool long ago.

maybe it's just envy that i grew up without a pool, as did most everyone else in my hometown. no, we weren't poor, just six months of harsh winter doesn't leave much time for outdoor swimming unless you plan on using it for a skating rink for most of the year.

thinking i had something original here in taking photos of empty pools i did an internet search of other photographers that might have published the same type of material and i came across a book by an artist i've already mentioned on vudeja back in october. viggo mortensen's book titled "hole in the sun" described as "a series that documents and abstracts the urban backyard swimming pool as monument"

a few weeks back masako was walking through the station square with frankie on her back when she was aproched by a stranger. she introduced herself as a recruiter for children's modeling agency and wanted frankie to come in for an audition because as she put it "had a face like a doll". masako refused the offer politely and told the head-hunter that we were not interested. she told masako to "talk it over with your husband", they swapped numbers and she gave masako her card and said to expect a call from her office in a few days.

masako and i have discussed this before and both of us are strongly against selling frankie's image to any corporation whether it be for diapers, disney or a tobacco company. i don't believe child modeling is any different in canada but what makes it even worse in japan is way children are "classified" according to race, or is that nationality? well what ever it is they wouldn't list my daughter as either "japanese" nor "international" but "half". half? wtf is that!? half what? calling someone half in canada would result in a can of whoop ass being opened, but here it's thrown around like some sick badge of honour. if we are going to "classify" our children by fractions then let's get it right and do it across the board. children with 100% japanese blood will now be called 1 or whole or we could use the decimal system for a technically correct 01.0 (too bad there is no such thing as a 100% pure race but shhhhh... don't tell anyone) but wait, are we "grouping" by nationality here or by race? oh who cares! many people here seem to think they are one in the same anyway! so kids of 3 different backgrounds will be 1/3rds and so on. how about this, i propose that instead of taking away part of their identify when adding a nationality or race that we add a number like instead of half we would say double. yeah that sounds better! or an even better solution would be to STOP classifying and segregating our children period!

excerpt from "culture jam" by kalle lasn, founder of adbusters magazine

"half of all exotic dancers were once beauty-pageant contestants. that's a surprising statistic when you first hear it. it's hard to bridge the distance between the wholesome, naive, small town cavalcade queen who plays "the volga boatman" on the accordion and wants to be a vet, to the hardened stripper with seen-it-all-eyes grinding in red light on the stage of number five orange."

so sorry mom, you won't see frankie in any sears catalog, diaper ad or switch long distance telephone carrier commercials, at least while i still have a pulse.

lately i've been trying to build confidence by take more photos of people on the street. i've found outside the train station a great place to do this with the abundance of amateur and professional musicians, skateboarders and even old school break dancers all usually willing to have their photo taken.

most exciting for me is the skateboard photography, so if you know where i can find groups of skaters in and around sagamiono or machida sta. willing to be photographed please let me know. thanks.

broadcast me a joyful noise unto the times, lord,
count your blessings.
the papers wouldn't lie!
i sigh. not one more

it's been a bad day.
please don't take a picture
its been a bad day.
please

bad day r.e.m.

i've been watching mtv and editing these photos at the same time and came to these conclusions

-gwen stefani is hot, hot, hot. this is not news for me, i've always thought this even though i fear she may glow in the dark with all the make-up sometimes. and did no doubt trade in their guitar, bass and drum kit for a synthesizer and drum machine?

-outkast has style coming out his every orifice. i like this line from the hey ya chorus "shake it, shake it like a polaroid picture"

-good charlotte... when i first saw one of their cd's at hmv i took a listen thinking it was good riddance, so safe to say was very disapointed.

i was there.

"all he wants to do is be creative." "he doesn't care about money or personal hygiene or anything else. and he never has. if we made $10,000, he'd give it to the pizza delivery guy. he only cares about art." michael balzary, a.k.a. flea on guitar god john frusciante.

for christmas masako got me the red hot chili peppers greatest hits album and i've been listening to it non-stop ever since. it also came with a dvd including all their videos since blood sugar sex magik and higher ground from mother's milk. i was suprised the video for the newly released track fortune faded (which is also on the cd) was not on the dvd, but can be seen online.

photos from victoria, fm3a and dirty cheap film

back in tokyo enjoying the rest of the new years holiday. frankie is really missing the fresh air, parks and family back in victoria. lots more photos to come from our trip once I get them back from the lab and get a hold of a scanner.

tomorrow evening masako, frankie and i are catching a plane to victoria to spend christmas with gramma and grandpa. and by complete coincidence my good friend for close to 5 years in japan will be on the same flight to vancouver with us. see ya at narita dave!

some more photos from the nikon fm3a. i really should by a scanner now that 90 percent of my photos are now either from my lomo, yashica or nikon. any scanner recommendations? preferably one that can scan 35mm negatives and slides.

it's been almost 5 months since i've made a post dedicated to frankie and it's well overdue. all photos taken with my new nikon fm3a on cheap 100 yen rolls of film from costco.

Why was michael jackson spotted at k-mart? The sickest part of this joke it that not much has changed since i first heard it 10 years ago. i could not have said it better. oh yeah, because he heard little boys pants were half off.

Sign the petition now to Revise the current animal protection laws in Japan

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.

You know how the last song that you hear on the radio in the morning is with you all day no matter how bloody irritating. Well, I don't listen to the radio, and if you ask why, then you obviously have never listened to Japanese radio. Because I don't listen to the radio or watch TV in the morning before work my brain has to work extra special hard to dig up some annoying tune or tv commercial jingle. Today it's the Seinfield theme, even though I haven't watched that show ages. Well it could be worse. What's in your head?

just saw a commercial for UFJ, one of Japan's "Big Four" banks, advertising their new 24 hour ATM machines. What will they think of next!

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 have to share what has consumed me for the past few days with the rest of you. Saturday during a walk Masako, Frankie and I came across a pet shop not far from our appartment. What we saw there was absolutely disgusting, apauling and sad. Please read (in Japanese), and stay tuned for updates.

When I was a kid I remember asking my Dad what he did at work. "Drink coffee," he replied. What might I say? "Papa plays quake honney. And sometimes, just sometimes Age of Empires." Turns out my father was a stationary engineer at a paper mill, and drank coffee.

In other news, been watching a lot of teletubbies lately and did you know the ABC song and twinkle twinkle little star are like the same exact song!

Ahoy! talking like a pirate got old quick, it's one thing to talk starting every sentence with arr! and another to type it all day... in serious news my sisters experience with hurricane Isabel from Virginia Beach VA.

this is too cool. It's kind of like a dream I had once, but there were more guys with Chinese hats smoking keys involved. But I'll get into that some other time. Check out some of the artist's other animations after the game/movie/puzzle. found via greggman

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.

There was an assassination attempt on Sheikh Yassin today. I just want to say I loved him in Lord of the Rings!

"The United States is putting together a Constitution now for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It's served us well for 200 years, and we don't appear to be using it anymore, so what the hell?" - Jay Leno

"Well, we're all excited because President Bush has started his 35-day vacation. He's down there in Crawford, Texas and on the first day of his vacation he went fishing. He didn't find any fish, he didn't find any lakes, but he believes they're there and that his intelligence is accurate." - David Letterman

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.

My mother got back to Canada after a great week and a half spent with Frankie, Masako and I. She wrote this in her email the other day.
I'm amazed that doesn't happen more often. Right from the time you board the plane you listen to announcements, "this is a no smoking flight" "no smoking on this flight" "welcome aboard our smoke-free cabin" all the while you have a mini ash tray built into your arm rest on most flights, and no smoking signs are absolutely everywhere. This leads smokers to, well... think about smoking! As an ex-smoker I remember how hard it was to keep smoking out of my mind for the 10 hour journey across the pacific and could really have done with out all the little reminders.

First off, sorry it has been some time since my last post but we have been busy with our house guest. My mother has come from Victoria, Canada to be with her new grandchild. On Wednesday we attended a small ceremony at Minomiya Shrine in Odawara for Frances that marks the first month of her life called Omiya mairi.

I have a lot more stories floating around in me head but will close with these photos for now.

I've noticed a decline in smoking lately inside our station, as least when I'm there. Maybe I have the reputation of being the crazy gaijin that yells at you when you smoke inside the station... I don't blame them. The last guy I had a word with was actually reading a poster inside the station promoting the new "no smoking" rules while sucking on a ciggy! He quickly distinguished the butt and that was it, no confrontation. I'm beginning to notice not only surprise when I confront the rule benders but also a little fear as well. This is great news because the last thing I want to do when out with Frances is have to get into a confrontation with some salary-man over his smelly habit.

A small typhoon hit yesterday when Masako, her parents, Frances and I were on our way to Masako's grandparent's home to show off Frankie. Some hairy moments while on the Tomei Expressway with visibility almost zero.

Not too often do you see a photo with 4 generations together in one shot. This is one to go on the wall. Also some photos of during and after the rains taken from the car and from their front yard.

Frankie is recently started making cute little noises like she is trying to talk and she is also smiling more often... I'm tying hard not to seem like an "oya baka" I really am, trust me on this. I fill my mom's email inbox every couple of days with the days cutest photos.

seems my site has just turned from mostly text and only a few images to mostly images and little text. No big deal, nobody was listening anyway. enjoy the photos

Tomorrow Frances (aka. Frankie, Fran-chan, Franco) will be one month old. She is such a joy. We will celebrate with a hug, kiss and trip to Costco while Jiji (aka. Oto-san, Toshi) and Baba (aka. Oka-san, Machi) babysit for us.

*black and white shots taken with Toshi's Canon New EOS Kiss

My father in-law lent me his Canon New EOS Kiss, known as the Rebel G in North America, so I can learn how to use an SLR and take some black and white photos. I took my first roll in on Sunday and will see the results tomorrow. That is one thing lost with digital, the anticipation.

In Japan blue means green, well not everything but when talking about traffic lights and young fruits green (midori) becomes blue (ao). Even after five years I still have a hard time when someone says "oh, the light turned blue" or "better run or we will miss the blue light" when referring to the green traffic light. I always ask family and friends why this is but all I ever get is "well, we know it's really green but we just call it blue, no reason." Recently I learned that fresh green bananas, tomatoes etc. are called blue. I could not make the connection until the other day when a colleague (non-Japanese) gave me his theory.

In English when we refer to someone or something as new or fresh we use the word green, but in Japanese blue is used to describe new and fresh. Why is that? Because, as the theory goes, when babies of asian decent are born they almost always have a large blue bruise-like birthmark on their behinds or lower backs. Even though I am caucasian my daughter Frances has a light blue birthmark or "mongolian bruise" on her bum. The mongolian bruise or spot as they are called are sometimes confused with bruises caused by child abuse. Blue=Young. This explains the fruits but what about the traffic light? Like I said, this is just a theory. What do you think?

It has been a long weekend full of visitors cooing over Frances, pooping, changing, feeding, sleeping, sleeping, feeding, pooping, changing... opps pooping again, then changing, and it's time for feeding again.

*some photos taken around june in Shinjuku and girl in Bush "Not my President" T-shirt at noborito sta. can be purchased from Fat Wreck Chords

I'm back to work and Okasan is back for another week helping Masako with the house work. It seems common for most new Japanese mothers to stay at their parents home for up to a month after giving birth. I try my best to accept the customs here but that was one was too much for me. Masako's parents live an hour by train from us away from the city and there was no way I was either going to commute an extra 2 hours (already close to 3 hours) a day to see Frankie or just not see her until the weekends. Her parents understood my problem with that so Okasan (Masako's mother) has come to stay with us.

Frances is getting sweeter by the day. Her eyes wide open when I come home from work ready for papa to bathe and play with her.

On a side note it was my friend and coworker's birthday today, so we checked to see what other famous people share his birthday. No big names for him but for mine there was Pat Buchanan, Burt Lancaster, k.d. lang and rapper Nelly who shares not only the same birth day as me but the same year as well. Well gotta go, it's getting hot in herre

Today was Masako's last hospital visit before she gives birth. The doctor again reasured us that the baby is very healthy and active. It doesn't seem like too long ago when we were spreading the news of Masako's pregnancy when she was less then one month pregnant. How time does fly.

oh yeah, what do you think of my new design? I really got sick of the default and even modified 3 column version you get with MT because when you resized the page all the text and photos changed position. At the office I only open most browser windows half screen and hated the fact that my columns would overlap and photos would be repositioned every time I resize the page.

Masako received one free ticket to Hibakusha for July 4th and 5th in Nakano. If you would like a free ticket please send me an email with a mailing address or if you live in the area let me know.

Just a few experimental shots with the cybershot today. I found a bridge just around the corner from our apartment that crosses route 16. Our living room and bedroom patio doors open up to this very busy road but we have come accustom to it after almost 2 years living in Sagamiono. Actually the noisy road was a nice change from the US Navel base in Atsugi we used to live right next to. The air strip was only a stones through from our last apartment in Sagamiotsuka and we were right in the flight path. In the summer the navy pilots practiced their "touch and go" techniques until 11pm most nights, what hell that was! They would always seem to start training while I was making a long distance call home to my mom and have to go room to room trying to find a quite spot and end up in the bedroom closet just to hear her.

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.

I havn't heard it call me Dave yet or actually speak at all but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

Well I'm glad to say that we had a very eventful day. The day started early with our bi-monthly visit to Aiku Hospital. We got to the hospital at 8:45 and was able to leave a little after 10:30 so it was not as bad a wait as 2 weeks ago. Baby is facing the right way and all systems go. We only get an ultrasound done every second visit but today sensei gave us a "service ultrasound" very quickly. We saw a side angle of baby's head and the doctor remarded that the baby seemed to have a highter nose, (like her dad). Next week we will discuss the delivery date with the doctor.

Then it was off to the MATRIX Reloaded. Masako got us great center seats in the largest theater they had. How did I like the movie?, well I liked it fine but I'm still going to have to see it one more time to form a solid opinion on it. I'm sure glad I was told to stay till the end of the credits for the Revolutions preview.

And I finished the day over a few pints discussing digi-cams with Marcel. Marcel owns the CyberShot F707, which is the same camera I am getting from my dad. I have been looking at getting a compact camera that I can carry with me where ever I go. The list has come down to the Sony DSC-V1 and the new not yet realeased Canon Powershot G5. They both have 5 Mega Pixals, I have a 2MP sony now but I've read a lot of good things about the Powershot G3 so I thought it might be worth waiting for the G5.

As for the site, you will see many changes going on especially with the lay out of photos within the blog. Right now i am just experimenting with some styles and will be changing this every few days so please give me your feed back.

thanks!