Easter Goose

I know everyone waits to see what fine clothes the Goose on the Porch will put on for the season. He is dressed in his Easter finest, a matching top hat and tails of a spriny blue with a vest of spring colors over his white shirt and bow tie. He carries a basket of eggs to distribute as he has taken the place of the Easter Bunny. He has the ears of the dead bunny on his hat.

Lawrence Road widening plans

This is an article from the Palm Beach post about widening Lawrence Road south of Gateway. There are no plans to widen it bewtween Hypoluxo and Lantana.

Palm Beach Post

For those of you who are living in areas away from South Florida and are missing the latest happenings there. Or for those too cheap to spend the fifty cents, you can read the news of the area online. The title of this post will take you to the Palm Beach Post website at http://www.palmbeachpost.com. I like this site and use it to keep up on the happenings down there. I also like to play the Sudoko game available there (Accent>Comics and Crosswords>Sudoko).

Enjoy

A St. Patrick's Day tribute

I guess there is not always gold in the pot at the end of the rainbow!

Life in the Midwest -- boring

Well, there is no rule that you should only post here when things are exciting, so I will post about things here.

This week we started a new quarter. I have had two classes so far, but will have another one tonight. I will be teaching Monday morning, Wednesday morning and evening, Thursday evening, Saturday morning and early afternoon. Yup I have to work Saturday, but I am off Tuesday and Friday. On Tuesdays we watch Jeremy so he and I get to have fun together, maybe on Fridays Valerie and I can have some fun together. I hope the bicycling weather comes soon.

Valerie finished making a knitted - felted bag for me. It is about 24 x 18 and very, very good looking. Using it sometimes is a problem as people keep stopping me to compliment it or to ask about it. She is thinking of going into business making them. We have had several serious requests already. I will take some pictures and post them here soon.

Jeremy is now eighteen months old and as cute as can be. He is learing to speak so we spend a lot time pointing to things and saying the name. He has started using the word "NO!" a lot, he must here it, but, I fear, not from his Grandmother much. She loves him and indulges him like a grandmother ought to. He loves it when "Mom-mom", as he calls her, gives him "RIDE!" in the wagon she got him for Christmas. Anything with wheels intrigues him, his father works at his grandfather's tire business, so I guess it is in the blood. He is learning to play the harmonica and really enjoys it, his mother and her mother are good singers so his love of music comes from that side of the family.

Alex and I have been getting together to study for his CCNA exam. He needs to pass this so he can be a qualified Cisco Network Associate, then he intends to pass his CCNP and become a network Professional.

I have heard that Trace is living in Bloomington, to return to school; but he has not called me. so I cannot confirm this.

The big news is that Marlana is going to Europe next month. She will arrive in Paris on the eigth. Yup, April in Paris. She is meeting a friend there who is studying in Spain for her International Business degree from the University of Illinois. They are doing spring break together. I am not sure of the itinerary, but I think it includes Venice, Rome and Prague. Her mother is very excited.

Well, that is all the excitement I can handle now. How 'bout you post about your life.

NEWS

Random news items:

Joanne is travelling to Oregon to attend to Becki. She'll be gone from Tuesday 3/14 thru Monday 3/20. A tonsilectomy is in the works.

Carolyn is at home - for a while. Suddenly unemployed. Stranger things have happened, but not lately! lol

Sean is recovering ok. Been to the doctor today and has orders to wear the back brace continually for the next two months. His arm is in a new splint that allows movement, and he's starting physical therapy this week. Slow but sure progress.

Carolyn & Joe will be in Chicago from 3/24 - 3/28 for Mary Dwyer's wedding.

Jay is in Korea for training in mountain maneuvers, and has no internet or phone contact. He'll be there until about April 7th, then back to Okinawa. He was supposed to stop over on Japan's mainland, but we didn't hear where exactly, or whether he was able to get off the ship there for liberty. We'll have to wait till next month for a report. He did say he was taking his camera, so maybe we'll get pics.

That's all I know, now it's your turn.

There's No Place Like Home

We're not in Kansas anymore, that's for sure. I couldn't wait to get home again after having surgery at Palms West Hospital. The surgery wasn't so bad, but the migraines that followed have been miserable. I'm hoping they're overwith, but one never knows whether they will try to come back. So whenever I give myself a shot of medicine, then I take advantage and do a little housework. At the moment, I'm FEELING GOOD!

Sean is recovering from his injuries, and he's scheduled for some more surgery on his arm on Wednesday morning (7:30 am) at Delray Hospital. Auntie Jean has lined up the finest physicians and OR teams in the county for him. He hopes to start moving his arm around shortly after he gets some more titanium inserted into his bones.

All in all, we're slogging along here in South Florida. Trying to stay healthy, but it's all we can do to get out of bed in the morning. Sheesh!

Is The Blog Broken

Sometimes I get asked: "IS the blog broken?"

I have had a couple of occations when Blogger has notified me that they are planning on performing some mantainance on the system. This is usually done late on Sunday night, when traffic is low. They are located in California, so what is late Sunday for them may be Monday for those in the Orient or really late for those of us further east in the USA.

But the real answer to this question is that there has been little action here at all lately. Many of us lead boring lives in places like the Midwest or faily life and strife in Florida. When there is a tale of intrigue in Japan we all love the story. And Jennell spins her tales so well. And she annotates them with pictures of far away and exotic places. Then there is the problem with people getting put in hospitals and having operations. Thay distracts them and takes their time away from blogging.

I encourage all the readers: Have interesting lives, post those tales here. Tell us your thoughts even if your life is mundane. We can commiserate.

Flickr Photos

Okay...Flickr is driving me crazy because I can't get the pictures in the middle of the page to be in the right order. So the best way to look at the pictures and see the descriptions is to use the collections on the left side of the page. Click on the set you want to look at, next click on the first picture in the set, and then click the next little picture on the right side of the screen. You can easily add comments that way too....and I love comments! :)

PS - Clicking on the title of the post will take you to the site.

Way too quiet around here lately, so I'll post about my latest adventure and hope that you will all do the same...

Last Saturday I woke up and found that the sun was shining. That has been pretty rare lately, so I decided I had to go out and play. Josh and I went to Yokohama (the second largest city in Japan) to visit Landmark Tower (the tallest building in Japan with the fastest elevator in Japan) and ride the largest Ferris wheel in the world. We ate in an “American” diner which served a somewhat decent hamburger – hamburgers here generally are more like meatloaf and are served with some kind of weird sauce on them. Then, we watched a guy on a really tall unicycle juggling an apple, a cleaver, and a flaming baton. It was pretty cool, but we were sad to have missed seeing him get up onto the unicycle because we couldn’t imagine how he did it. As we were leaving, we found a bookstore and it had a pretty big foreign section. I found a few things, one of which provided my adventure yesterday. (I did put pictures of that trip on my Flickr site, but never got around to blogging about the adventure – so you can go check those out.)

Day Walks Near Tokyo seemed like a bargain. It was in English and told about interesting places to visit. There are three levels of walks, they are all relatively close, there were detailed directions about how to get to the starting point on public transportation, and best of all, it seemed to tell about some of the signs along the trails and what they said (it drives me CRAZY not to be able to read the signs at the touristy places we visit). Since it was another bright, sunny day (my lesson plans are done and papers are graded – woohoo!!!), I decided I was going to pick one and go. Josh had put off his work so we had to do some math in the morning. That made for a later start than I had hoped, so I chose to take the walk closest to home.

The book promised “rugged coastline and sea views, Cape Tsurugi Lighthouse, caves, and seaweed cultivation.” It also said that it was an easy walk that could be done in about 3 hours. So after dropping Josh and my car off at the Auto Hobby Shop (he was going to change my oil and hoped to con some other people into paying him to do stuff for them), I walked to the train station. After about 20 minutes, I arrived at the Muira-kaigan stop. Leaving the train station, I saw some beautiful cherry trees in bloom.

My handy-dandy guide book told me exactly which bus to take and it was sitting there, waiting to whisk me away. I had never ridden a Japanese bus before but that was addressed in the book too…get on in the middle, take a little ticket thingy, listen carefully for your stop, get off in the front after paying for your fare. I got on, saw the machine that was supposed to give me a ticket, and couldn’t figure out how to make it spit one out. I stepped aside to watch what the lady behind me did, but she was no help because she just slid her bus pass through the machine. No one else got on, so I was out of luck. Ticketless, I found a seat and the bus took off.

After a short drive through town, we passed by what appeared to be an actual beach! People were out there with their dogs, playing Frisbee, throwing baseballs, and one crazy guy was out in the water windsurfing (it was about 50° F yesterday). My handy dandy book said that I should get off at Togari and walk along the road until I got to the next bus stop. That didn’t sound too interesting to me, so I decided to just stay on the bus until I got to the next stop and then continue from there. That’s where it all started to go wrong…

At the next stop I got up to pay and slid my money into the machine. I put in a 1000 yen bill (about $10) figuring that it would spit out my change and I could be on my way. It spit out 1000 yen in coins. Hmmm…okay. I looked at the little electronic fare board and decided that since I got on at the beginning I would pay the largest amount it listed. Dropping in 250 yen, I asked the driver if this was the Kobama stop. He replied with several sentences of Japanese – none of which I understood. I tried again…pointing to the sign which was in Japanese and asked “Kobama?” More Japanese – but I gathered that this was not Kobama. Oh well…I had already paid and figured I could at least walk back to the last stop and walk along the beach because the book said I could take the road or walk on the sand (the road didn’t seem to lead to Kobama like the book said, and I figured it would be easiest to find a lighthouse by walking along the beach). After stopping to take a picture of the pretty countryside, I headed back to the other stop.

Weeeeelllll…the beach pretty much ended right past the other stop and became rocky coastline. I was supposed to walk for 10 minutes and see seaweed cultivators and what not. After noticing other people walking along the rocks, I decided that was legal and that I would try it. I figured that around the corner, there would be the path that the book mentioned. Nope…more rocks and then more beach and more rocks. I couldn’t decide if I was on the right track or not, but I walked for about 25 minutes along the rocks/beaches never seeing any seaweed cultivators. Since there were people around on the rocks and beaches, I wasn’t too worried about not being on the right track. The weird thing was that there was no roads or pathways down to any of these beaches…I know because I was intently looking for one so I could stop climbing rocks! So all of those people must have gotten there the same way - a nice “easy” climb over the rocks. Whatever…it was a beautiful day and I was feeling rather adventurous. Besides, I had my cell phone…not that I could have told anyone how to find me.

At several points it seemed I would have to turn around and go back, but there would always be some way to continue. Once there was a rope tied to the top of a hill and that helped me climb to the next section. Another time, I was having trouble and had to throw my backpack up so I could climb better. Still having trouble, I probably would have turned back, but I couldn’t reach my backpack so I had to get up there. It was all pretty comical!

After about an hour and a half of rock climbing and beach walking, I was getting pretty sick of it, but the alternative to forging ahead was going back across all those darn rocks…not a pleasant thought. Suddenly there was a little sign with an arrow. I have no idea what it said, but it cracked me up because it was so out of place in the middle of nowhere. Apparently it said that I was almost to some sort of civilization because after rounding that corner there was a little cove with houses and STAIRS up to a road!!! I was so happy, I had to stop and take a picture of my accomplishments.

The path led through a little town with some stereotypical Japanese houses…the kind I always imagined were everywhere in Japan. There were actual paths and roads, for which I was grateful, and after another half hour of walking through fields and woods, wondering if I was trespassing on private property, I came out into a clearing and saw the lighthouse. The view from up there was beautiful – well worth the climb!

So basically, I didn’t follow the path in the book at all, but I started and ended in the same place as they did. It was worth it, but after all of that, I’m kind of hoping that it is rainy next weekend so I can just stay home in my pjs. :)