Entries this day: Ami_train_race Itterashai_PB60 Lunch_at_Shakey's Zzzz

Ami train race

10:45am JST Saturday 12 January 2008 (day 13807)

Ami and I are going to Nihon-Oodori to watch Topaz set sail. I think it will be faster to take the supa-express (on which I am now) than to wait for the local. This is due to the supa express will stop at the *next* station after Nihon-Oodori, and I can just walk across the platform and take the local train back 1 station, but Ami will wait four (4) minutes, and then have to stop at four (4) extra stations.

Lunch is on the line.

This is good; I've had this question for a while. Arriving already at the end.

10:49am JST Saturday 12 January 2008 (day 13807)

Shit. The train I will take back doesn't leave for another 2 minutes. Dang. This will be close.

- - - -

Ami won by about 30 seconds.

Itterashai PB60

12:58pm JST Saturday 12 January 2008 (day 13807)

Ami and I are on the train headed back after waving bye to Topaz embarking on the 60th PB voyage in the chilly nasty wet weather. On the ship I saw Greg from 49th on his second voyage, but no one else that I recognized, except I think 52nd cruise director Yuki gave the departure speech and 52nd Ai did the translation. Not sure though; I was too far away.

Took pics of signs blowing in the wind; I may have gotten a good shot or two.

Helped a guy on our side hold a sign as it slowly blew apart in the wind and rain.

After the ship was about 80 or 100 meters from the port, I heard a woman behind me saying "I can't see," to her husband, so I backed up and pulled her in. I talked to her husband, "who is riding the ship?" He didn't say much, but did a gesture that I knew meant his child.

I was like, "your kid?"

He nodded.

I was like, "life changing" in English and then in messed up Japanese, "a different person will come back."

I wanted to say "you're a good father," but I was about to cry and I'm guessing he was too.

- - - -

Rie from 49th and 52nd voyage saw me and said HI, along with her new husband Naoki (I think she said); they got married on Sunday! I couldn't remember her name for sure, but she was on both voyages I was on and I chatted with her several several times during the voyages.

Saw a tall non Japanese guy next to two other non Japanese; I assumed they were previous teachers, and I was 1/3rd right. Jamie was on 58th voyage and his two friends were Gabe and Natasha. Then two others came up who knew him, but I could only pronounce their unusual-to-me names; didn't have time to lock them to anything in my visually oriented brain.

Saw Jen and Taka outside in the cold; we headed in and met up with Ami who had already gone in. Chatted a bit and then they went toward the exit and we caught up with them talking to Levi and his um-friend Natsa, whose name either I mispronounced and she agreed twice, or it's not actually a name that can be made with Japanese characters.

Natsa was on 47th voyage (with Auds, Kris, Natalie, and Angie), and then on part of 56th I think with Natalie and Levi, but it may have been 58th.

I saw Chief from 52nd voyage, and said HI to him on behalf of Petra, but I just remembered his nickname now and why he got it; I was his chiefly representative when we did the GET exchange in Paupa New Guinea! Dang that was awesome. We drank so much of that semi-bitter semi-gritty drink... wow wow wow. Good times. That's where Tomoe did a cool Okinawan dance in her Okinawan pants and cool hat. I was well-impressed with that.

Jen and Taka were all chatting with paying passengers from previous voyages and Levi was talking to a few such passengers but indicated he didn't know as many as before (after I said, "you'll know more than I do,")... but Ami and I were getting hungry, so we headed out: we're going to Shakey's for pizza buffet!

Lunch at Shakey's

3:27pm JST Saturday 12 January 2008 (day 13807)

Had to wait a few minutes to get inside, but we chowed at Shakey's; I wish they had an ice cream bar and it would be perfect.

Zzzz all the way home; I am certain I would have missed Motosumiyoshi except that Ami woke me up. i was like, "already???"

Which is funny because when we had gone just a few stations, I thought we had been going for a long time. I woke up at Toritsudaigaku thinking we should have arrived by now.

Zzzz

1:59am JST Sunday 13 January 2008 (day 13808)

Helped Juergen for about an hour getting his self-written letter of recommendation. Interesting that he characterized German as focusing so much on nouns and English on verbs. I guess that's why German capitalizes nouns and we have E-prime.

Found some issues with my myPhoto setup, worst of which is getting it to synchronize with my website; I can use rsync or some such, but I don't want to keep the files here locally; I want to offload them to my site and delete them locally.

Trying run FPA (free perl album), but getting a 500 Internal Error even when I cull the entire program down to nothing. The permissions are set as best I can tell; I have the problem with many new perl programs, but for some reason I can't find/remember a consistent solution.

Bedtime now; going to meet Jo Sato tomorrow for a neurofeedback session.