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I’m working third shift for the next two weeks, and as I sit here trying to adjust to the overnight schedule, kids asleep upstairs, I just finished watching a movie. For some reason this lit a fire under my ass and I started to look into online workshops for writing.

This is where it all went down hill.. I spent probably 2 or 3 hours comparing Stanford, Gotham, Writing, and a few others. Then I moved on to local colleges and universities and remote sites with programs. I looked up summer retreats, and weekend get aways.

Then it hit me.. In the past 5 years, I have spent probably over 200 hours trying to find the best way to learn to write.. And only maybe 20 or so hours actually writing.

If you haven’t noticed yet.. I deleted the blog. I’ve relized that I have a bunch of huge time sinks.. I’m going to list a few of them, so if you see me disappearing from these, realize that I’m trying to do something better with my life.. And not just avoiding you.

1) This blog.. I haven’t been able to write in it for a while.. Been too concerned with all the eyes reading it and what they might think.. But I’ve got over 400 posts in this thing.. If the averate post is 500 words long.. That’s 20k words. Or 1/4 of a novel. I could have written my novel instead of this thing.

2) Facebook/myspace… I had deleted all of these previously, but I got pulled back in. I’ll probably keep my facebook account, but I’m not going to use it actively anymore, and probably delete everything from it also.. The reason for this is because I want to use it as a communication tool with distant friends, because it rocks at that. But I’ve been using it as a time sink for playing games and such.

3) TV… I get much greater enjoyment from a book or a movie than I get from TV.. So why do I keep watching pointless shows? I do enjoy watching House, 24, and Lost, but they are the same shows every week. Now that they are over, I really am not looking forward to anything, so I think I should just stop.

Unfortunately, I still need to keep the tv/cable for the kids. But for myself, its netflix or books.

So what does this gain me??? I’m hoping this gives me more time to focus on the things I want to do, writing and finding a system for beating the lottery. And more tiem for the things I need to do, like get to the gym and back in some form of Martial Arts.

The first two examples are important for my mental/intellectual health. And the last two are important because I am Tachicardic with High Blood pressure. Mix in my weight and I’m not going to be here much longer(This is doctor’s statement.. And with the chest pains I get, I believe her).

With that being said. I will post on this blog major updates.. Stuff like Savannah’s first date, Matthew’s first time being brought home by the cops, etc.. But no more random useless posts.

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So its been a while since I’ve posted. And I know alot of you are worried or concerned about how I am doing.

I’ve spent the past 2 months reflecting on what my part in all of this mess was. I have sought forgiveness from myself and from Laura for my less than perfect ways. Laura has yet to even admit that anything she is doing is wrong, so after two months of trying to save the marriage, I am done.

I am moving on with my life. For the past two months I had been bending over backwards for Laura trying to save the marriage. Giving in on everything and not really pushing back on anything. This year will be different. I am focusing on me, and if certain things about that statement make her angry or upset, then I’m sorry, but me and the kids are most important and I will do everything and anything to make sure that the kids first, and then myself second are taken care of and in the best possible situation.

I’m no longer letting her take advantage of me and am starting to expand my life to exclude to her. I’ve started making new friends to go out with and they are keeping me quite busy. Most of them have been through what I have am going through.

But basically, I am doing well, just not posting much.

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I’ve been taking care of myself, getting my ducks in a row.. Preparing for the worst, hoping for the best, but most importantly putting myself first.

Since doing this I have started to have a couple of good days. Many true friends have come out of hiding to support me. These are the same friends that I always show up for when they need me.

What’s funny is my wife kept telling me I should go out and spend time with my friends. But me and my friends are always busy. We have full lives with out trying to make time for each other. But I really learned and understood that “Going out with friends” isn’t what is important. That’s just keeping busy. Having friends from all over the world reaching out when you are in need, that is where the true friendship lies. And I guess that has been why I have always been content with not going out all the time. I always knew I had true friends and always felt supported by them, even when we were not in constant contact.

So, thank you to everyone out there for reminding me that true friendship goes way beyond just hanging out, but is actually about being there for each other.

I just wanted to send hugs and thanks to everyone.

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So I am working 3rd shift for a short time. And of course that means poor little fluffy animals must be sacrificed. Anyone who remembers last time I worked 3rd shift will remember me complaining about all the animals that chose to commit suicide under my wheels.

Its not that I go looking for these fluffy things. But for some reason when I drive in the wee morning hours, they pick my car to jump out in front of. It usually ends up being about 1 a month when I work 3rd shift.

Tonight, my first night on 3rd shift, marked the first murder in a while.. A little possum thought it could cross the road in front of me.. Instead he learned the gross vehicle weight of my car and how that pressure feels when applied through the tread pattern of my michellen tires.

Lets hope this is the only casulty.. But knowing my luck, there will be at least 2 or 3 more before I get off third shift.

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So we have a typhoon headed to tokyo.. From what I understand this is very bad news because typhoons wash up monsters like godzilla and such. So even though no one is scared of the typhoon, they are scared of giant lizards coming out of the typhoon to attack us.

But seriosly, people here see typhoon and they think nothing of it. I have a strange feeling that the way typhoons spin backwards from hurricanes make them much weaker than hurricanes. I describe a few of the hurricanes I’ve been through to people in tokyo and they can’t believe it… They have no concept of a real tropical storm…

I just hope the typhoon doesn’t ruin my chance to to go to sumo this weekend..

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So…. As I’ve been in japan for two months now I’ve been getting very home sick. I think part of the reason is because I’ve run out places to go so my weekends are calming down alot. Add in the fact that my kids had their first day of school ever and I missed it, they always were taken care of by me or their gradma before, and I’m pretty homesick…

Last night I went to a hanabi festival with a friend from work, the one in the photo from ninja akasak, aye-san. While there we met up with alot of her friends and they all brought homemade food and drinks and it was very nice.

Today though I just stayed home and watched Lost, bought it on itunes so I can watch it here.. Around dinner time cho-san called me and we went to get yakiniku, bbq where they sit a bbq on your table and you cook your food. He could see I’ve been kind of down lately and finally I said, lets go to pachinko. He hates pachinko but I just wanted to do something instead of going home. This time though, I knew what I was doing.. I put my 2000 yen in the machine and played.. The bells and whistles sounded and I kept playing… Then after another 30 minutes the bells and whistles again and such.. I ended up filling up three buckets with balls.. I figured each bucket was about 2000 yen each so I was up and decided to quit.. We exchanged the balls for a card, then took the card upstairs and exchanged it for some chocolate and some “Plastic”.. I took the plastic downstairs and around the back of the place and there was a door with a small whole in it. The opening was barely enough to slide a hand through. I slid my “Plastic” through the whole and the guy gave e back 16,000 yen.. I hadn’t doubled or tripled my money.. I had gotten 8x my money.. w00t… I love pachinko now ;).. Especially evangelion pachinko…

That is all.. Still homesick, but at last got to have some fun…

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Ok, so last weekend.. I went out to ninja akasaka with a few friends. This was a very hip/trendy/pricey restaurant. You show up and the entrace is kind of hiddent and blended into the side of the wall. After you find the entrance you are told you must go through ninja training to eat there. A secret passageway opens and a ninja escorts you through the maze. The maze is the training grounds and sometimes you have to duck pretty low to get through. Once you finish the maze you end up in the restaurant. But it doesn’t look like a restaurant, it looks like an anchient village with each table being in its own little ninja house. We climbed the rocks to our ninja house and proceeded to eat. All the food was presented very well in a fun manner and was very delicious. Only issue was the price was a bit high, but what do you expect when a japanese ninja theme park restaurant focuses on presentation and serves things like caviar potato ice cream ;)…

After ninja akasaka me and cho-san went for a walk to roppongi where we had some drinks for the rest of the night and caught the first train home in the morning. It was all in all a good night even though I was sick from all the vodka for 2 days later…

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So its been a while since the last update… I’ve been quite busy partying, drinking, and working so haven’t had much time to keep up, but I want to make sure you all know I still lub ya..

Two weeks ago or so I went to Kamakura(Big bronze buddha place), and enoshima(Sufer town).. It was alot of fun, you could even climb in buddha’s ass. We walked around and saw a few of the temples there, I think there are 60 temples in total so we didn’t see anywhere near all of them. Afterwards we caught a train to enoshhima and watched the pretty girls on the beach, and hiked to another temple and lighthouse. All in all it was alot of fun and to finish the night off we ended up going to see a live performance by a coworker in fujisawa area.

Check out the photos… Video of band will come shortly..

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So I installed a new comment plug in for wordpress.. Its called commentluv and it should now visit any comment posters website and download the latest post on their site via rss and add it to their signature. Please post some comments if you have a blog and use your blogs url for your sites url and it we should start seeing some comment luv..

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Soooo. Lets start with pachinko… I went to a real pachinko parlour the other night. Not the “Game” house that featured pachinko like last time.. And sat down with my 2000 yen to play. While playing though I aparently won something big.. I didn’t know what it was.. But the machine started beeping and flashing, and playing a music video.. It was really cool, the guys even walked up and put a flag on my machine because I was A WINNER.. The problem was, I turned to cho-san and asked him.. What is this.. And he said “Its a popular song”.. So me, being gaijin I thought when music was over it would spit out a shit load of balls.. Well, 5 minutes into the song with me and cho-san watching it someone finally explained that I had to play through the music video to win big….. WTF??????? 7 minute music video and you tell me this after I sat here watching for 5 minutes? So I start playing and the balls just pour out of the machine.. I must have doubled or trippled my money in just those 2 minutes of playing.. Imagine what I would have if I had played through the whole song instead of being a LOOOOOSSSSEEEERRRR and watching the music video.. Le Sigh…

Second thing that makes me a looser.. I installed Hardy Heron — Ubuntu, in a virtual machine.. But get this.. The japanese archive servers for ubuntu are sooooo bad that 50 percent of the time I get 404 errors when running apt-get update.. And you know, installing SDL libraries? Impossible.. How can Ubuntu not keep the japanese mirrors in sync with the US mirrors?

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Went to Nikko this weekend. First up, Nikko temples. There were alot of georgous temples there and hot water onsens. And yes I got my ass naked and got in a onsen. Was a pretty good time, will let the pictures speak for themselves:

Secondly we went to Edo wonderland.. Which is home to many ninjas and samurais.. This was alot of fun as they had alot of shows and it was like a festival atmosphere alot of places. Again I will let the pictures and videos do the talking for this one also:

And now the ninja video:

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Well, we went out for fugu, Deadly Blowfish, on friday night. It was alot of fun. Fugu itself isn’t that great, but the atmosphere was alot of fun. Had fugu sashimi, which tasted alright, and also a fugu that we boiled at the table. The fugu was soo fresh that it was still moving on the plate.

All in all, I would never order fugu again. Not because it tasted bad, but because it was just blah. There is soo much better food in japan than fugu, I understand why japanese don’t really eat it except when americans ask them out to try it.

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Here’s the video of the clock..

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Well, today was asakusa day. I went and visited the temples and shrines. Saw lots of buddhas and really big lanterns.. The bazaar was really neat as its the first place I’ve seen really japanese souvenirs.. Everywhere else has had a few things here and there, but this place was jammed pack with junk, I mean souvenirs

The temples were beautiful, and I even found a bunch of kimono and yukata shops.. I wonder if they can make a yukata for my size..

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So it must be festival time in Japan.. Tonight is the Tokyo Firework Show.. And while walking home I hard music.. After putting some stuff down and going outside.. I found a festival just 4 buildings down from mine at the local elementary school. I didn’t hang around too long because I was by myself and it was a small festival. But here’s some pictures of the atmosphere at a festival..

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So trying to catch up on posting photos.. Here are the photos from Yokohama when we went to china town and the fireworks show

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So.. First thing I must tell you is… Maido Cafe is very much like vegas.. What happens in Maido Cafe stays in Maido Cafe..

First here is my license to Master:

As you can see I am a level 1 master.. You move up the ranks by going more and more.. 4 more visits and I become a Silver Master.. I can’t remember what that title is, but right now I am a “My Master”…

Next thing you need to know.. Maido cafe is not about sex.. Very far from it.. Its not even about being “Sexy” like we think in america. Maido cafe is all about…. How to say…. Only way to say is to use Japanese.. Kawaii. Ok, so most of you are wondering.. What the heck is Kawaii.. The best way to describe it is “So cute it makes you sick”.. Everything they do is very cute.. Of course they are also very subservient in their presentation.

So you go into the maido cafe and wait a very long time. This is because we chose to go to one of the best ones. We looked at a couple but they were basically just cafe’s with girls dressed as maids.. This one was true Kawaii Maido Cafe.. In fact the rumors are @Home started the maido cafe scene. So after waiting you get ushered to the dining room. There we had to take off our shoes and sit on the floor in very comfortable floor seats.. This is because maido cafe is all about being served kawaii style while at home by a maid. So you sit down and they introduce the menu and prices.. I ordered a Iced Tea with Milk and a omlette on rice and a photo.. They don’t let ou take photos in the place to help keep the mystique about what goes on in one..

When she brought my iced tea she sat down beside the table and presented it to me.. Then she offered to pour in my Sweetener(Japan uses a liquid sweetener in everything, no sugar). Here’s where the kawaii comes in.. She warned me, I won’t stop pouring unless you say “Mo-eh”.. I asked what is “Mo-Eh”.. The explanation is “When I get something I really like and am very excited about it I go “Mo-Eh”, so it means I am very happy”. Ok… I can do that.. She pours the sweetener and I do my best “Mo-EH” j-girl impression.. It was funny but very cute.. Then she offered to pour my milk for me… This time though.. She wouldn’t stop until I went “Nan-Na Nan-Na” with my hands besides my face like a cat pawing his whiskers.. Wow.. this is getting to the Kawaii stage.. So cute its sickening.. But soooo much fun because everyone does it for these girls because they are cute and wearing maid outfits.. So she pours the milk and I do my “nan-nay Nan-nay” face and we all laugh. Then she offered me 100 straws so I had to pick one. I picked the green and she took it out and then stirred my drink for me.. Are you getting the subservient undertones here.. I can’t even make my own drink… Afterwards she still wouldn’t let me drink my drink. This is because it wasn’t Oishi(Delicious) yet.. We had to make a symbol like a heart with our hands and pour love into the cup.. I’ve got to say though.. This was the best milk with iced tea I ever had so maybe this kawaii stuff works..

Later my omlette comes and she asks me.. What do you want me to draw on it.. I told her something very kawaii.. So she drew a kitty cat on the omlette with ketchup and then made the hash browns into paws and the potato salad into a bear. Again, very kawaii..

After eating, it was time for the picture.. She took me to the picture room and told me she wouldn’t take a picture unless I put on the cat ears and gave me a very sad face.. Then when I put them on she got all excited and started to jump up and down.. I again had to do the cat whisker thing for the photo.

After the picture went back to the seat and we played rock paper scissors with the maids and they had a little show on the stage with the winner.

Gotta say though, we all think maido cafes are all about sex. They really aren’t they are just about kawaii and having fun. We had a great big smile on our face but it had little to do with the girls and their clothes, it was all about the fun games and presentation.

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So I went to my first official Japanese festival today after work. It was the shimbashi festival which is located in downtown tokyo right around the corner from my office.

Let me start by saying that festivals in japan are like street fairs. I show up at the shimbashi eki to wait for cho-san and the smell of the food is just sooo goood. The japanese will put anything on a stick. And one thing about festivals is its the only place to get greasy japanese food. They had fruit on a stick, chicken, pork, steak, octopus, and even hand made candy on a stick.

While walking around we found an place where they had old Japanese toys. One of them was a top that you wound up on string and then through it on a bucket top with a friend. who evers stayed on top longest or spun the longest won.

Then we found the traditional games like Fishing for Fish.. But they were real fish. They give you a bowl and a piece of rice paper. You have to use the rice paper to catch the fish and get it in the bowl. The problem is that rice paper disintegrates when it gets wet. They also had a similiar game where you had to catch a bouncy ball with a thin ice cream cone that would melt when it hit water also.

We found a game that my super gaijin powers was well suited for though,. You bent over and tossed a ring on a toy and you won the toy. So my super long non-asian legs and arms allowed me to reach over and practically place the ring where I wanted it.

We continued walking and found a pagoda like park where there were a ton of lanterns and someone singing traditional japanese songs. After a beer and some pork on a stick people in kimonos started dancing and they broke out the drums.. It was really fun to watch, kind of like the scene in Karate Kid where daniel is in okinawa and everyone is dancing at the festival. Of course I got in the middle and danced a little bit so cho-san could get a picture.

Once we left there we found another plaza where for 100 yen you could bowl 2 balls. I challenged cho-san since he had beaten me at tops and got a strike.. Stupid me.. The strike meant I won a real bowling pin signed by famous japanese bowlers I now had to carry around with me. We met up with cho-san’s coworker and went to a traditional sashimi style restaurant where you had to take your shoes off to enter and sit on the floor.

Had a few more beers and some good sashimi and then called it a night… All and all.. Japanese festivals are alot of fun. I forgot my camera though so I have to wait to get the pictures of me dancing from cho-san.

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So yesterday was a very busy day. I started out by heading to akihabara in search of my dvd player. Finally found one.. You had to go to the top floor of the building, then find the secret stair case on the floor and that took you to the “International” section where you needed a passport to buy stuff. Once there I found the rack of portable dvd players and asked. Which ones are region free.. He responded all of them.. I thought I was in heaven. All the players were ntsc and pal and region free. So I bought an 8 inch portable sony dvd player that was region free.

Now I can watch any regions movies on the go or on my tv. And the sony had much better quality than the other ones.

I then left for musashi kosugi where I met up with cho-san and we travelled to Yokohama. Once there we went to china town. It was kind of boring, had a few cool things and a chinese style family restaurant. We ate there, then went to the park where 60 billion other people were to watch the fireworks. The first spot we picked was ok for sitting. But we couldn’t see anything because of the tree. This sucked because we didn’t know where the fireworks would be or else we wouldn’t have sat there.. About 5 minutes in though we moved a bit and were able to see. Slowly people left through the show so we were no longer cramped and actually were able to lay down and watch the last half of the show.

After the fireworks we went back to china town to look at all the people walking around in kimonos. Yes, japanese girls wear kimonos to festivals like this.

We ended up in a game parlour. I got 1000 yen worth of “Metal” which I quickly doubled in poker and then we played all the other games until we were out. Caught the express train home and I slept 12 hours…

I’ve got pictures of all this but wordpress cross posting is broken right now so I’m avoiding uploading pictures.

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So tonight, we decided to go to ropongi. Me and cho-san. First we got there and visited a store called Don Quiote. It was a duty free electronic/toy/grocery store that sold everything one could want in one place. While there I picked up a edame keychain.

Then cho-san knew of a Cabaret style show in the area so we went and saw it. The food was just ok, but the show was excellent. Japanese women and men dancing to hard beats in kimono’s.. We drank a pitcher of beer between the two of us, plus one drink each.

Afterwards we walked around ropongi and every minute some “African”, mostly nigerian, would walk up and ask me if I wanted to go to a “Gentelman’s club”. After the 20th approach by these people we decided we needed to get off the street, so I saw a jamaican reggae bar.

We went in and it was the best atmosphere.. We got there before it got busy and they were so interested in cho-san as he hadn’t ever expercienced reggae or red stripe or anything jamaican before. So we spent the night there drinking and playing drinking games.. They have some fun games here. Cho-san lost one that me, him and the bartender were playing so he had to drink something called “Scorpion Bite”. I asked what it was and it was basically Vodka, Tequila, and Gin mixed with Chili Peppers and soaked for over a year. After many many many red stripes it was time to go home because the trains stop running at 1:00 am. So we wandered to the train station and head home.

When we got home though Cho-san had lost his key. So we had to wake up Yoruzu-San so cho-san could climb out his window and through his own window.. I know, stupid drunk trick.. Cho-san got back in his apartment and found his key. It was hidden inside his mobile flip phone.

The point is.. Lots of fun drunken debauchery in Ropongi.. And I think we will be going back to the jamaican bar again.

Sorry if this post wasn’t legible I’m writing it after drinking way tooo many beers.