Author: michael

Travel

Harvest Moon and Awaji Island

  Ah… Summers in Japan.. If anything makes you miss being literally anywhere else on Earth, it’s a Japan summer. With temperatures in the high 90’s with 95-100% humidity, no breeze, and precious little shade, it’s more than a bit south of paradise. We’re very lucky to have aircons in the main rooms of the […]

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Osaka Science Museum

(Originally written Aug 20, 2021) It’s been raining for about a week straight here in Osaka. Somewhere between the amount of rain in Florida where it feels like someone dumps a bucket of water over your head, and Seattle’s rain of someone dipping their fingers in a bowl of water and flicking it at your […]

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Denden Town (Nipponbashi)

Ah, the days before social distancing.. Henceforth referred to as the ‘beforetimes’.  It’s hard to remember back to a time when every thing was normal and I didn’t bat an eye at Jack’s usual behavior of licking door knobs.   Wait, I think that was two weeks ago.  As I said, time is blurry in the […]

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Japan Brickfest

We’ve been busy living it seems. Between Lori starting a new (several) jobs, Zachary being in 3rd grade and getting a lot of homework, and my work staying busy, we haven’t seemed to have had a lot of time to explore like they way we were doing before. One of the things Lori and I […]

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Kyoto Railway Museum

I work a normal 5x8hr days a week and in January I’ll go to “shift” work, with means four 10hr days.  I say “shift” because to me it seems like a normal day, spending about 9 hours a day at work; so I’m thrilled to spend one more hour and get three days off.  A […]

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Mission: Get a Hanshin Tigers hat

So, Lori and the kids are in Seattle, and I am on my own.  Time for an adventure!  Since we moved here without bringing a lot of stuff (just two suitcases each), we have more winter clothes in bins at the old house in Seattle – Lori and the boys made the trek back to […]

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Universal Studios Japan (On Halloween)

So far my take on Halloween in Japan is: Put up posters for Halloween, generate hype Move products, sell sell sell! Rip posters down at precisely 11PM Oct. 31st and back to BAU; replace with Christmas advertisements. I’m really lucky; the team I’m on in Osaka is mostly English speaking, and very social, and they […]

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Typhoon Trami Part II

So, Typhoon Trami is barreling down on Osaka. I need to get to Tokyo for work. The winds are projected at 160Kph.   I have no idea how fast that is but it sounds fast.  Like Lori, my mind is going back to the images we saw of the Typhoon Jebi that hit Osaka while we were […]

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IKEA

Ah IKEA…  I once decided to make my own entertainment center based off an IKEA design using 3/4″ plywood.  It took me probably 16 hours longer to make and cost more in raw materials than the IKEA version did.  Granted, you can’t put a price on the experience of crafting a piece of furniture with […]

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KFC

Every so often, the desire to fill my stomach with delicious Kentucky Fried Chicken becomes an urge I can no longer ignore.  Like Spock and the Pon farr, Lori knows that it will only get worse until that itch gets scratched.  Leaving for Japan has me worried about a lot of things, not the least […]

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