The soothing bubble of the calming Yasugawa, lifegiver to us all.

The mighty rush of the Yasugawa!!! That's Shiroyama off to the left there.

Another picture of the "party."

The Wife went out scenery hunting near the Yasugawa again. This is a picture of Shiroyama from a bit beyond the banks of the river.

I have a here a couple of pictures of a get together we had. I labled the photos "party x," but it really wasn't a party, more like a social event. It was a very pleasant evening, at least for me.

Well,
It has been a while. I've been busy with school and work. I'm now hacking a piece of software to its atomic level and we should soon be able to do nifty things with it. I'm tired, going to bed. Listen to Rachel's, such yummy music.

Apparently, The Wife is taking nude photos of me while I sleep. This is not one of them, it is a picture of the mountains out past Kibukawa taken from a rice field near the Yasugawa.

The Wife and I wandered around Minakuchi for a while and took pictures of the scenery. This is down by the banks of the Yasugawa.

BIG NEWS!!!!

Well, the news is in!!! I AM AN AUNT!!!

I doubt anything could prepare me for the sight of my own little brother standing around with his own baby, but I suppose stranger things have happened.

I guess this makes us together an Aunt and Uncle, which is an entirely odd feeling. I could ramble on incoherently for a lot longer, but instead I will post a picture of the newest member of the clan: Elijah Alexander. Congratulations, everybody!!!

repost: oof! that picture was big and messing things up rather considerably... I will take it down for now!!!

People have strong opinions about the newly announced, possible terrorist attack.

Shiroyama from our apartment, taken in mid-Feburary I believe.

Yet More Letters From Hikone

I got several more postcards from ex-students. The Wife read them to me and I just had to add them.

How do you do? I am be absent from school. Mr. Tim teacher no meet. If it's all right Mr. Tim teacher please tall me the way. I may realy on your support. I'm looking forward to again.

ACK! My name has been mentioned, whatever shall I do!?

Hello, my name is Mika Tokuda I haven't seen you for a long time. By the way, do you have any hobbies? I like to read comic book, besides, I like cat and dog. I'm looking forward to your reaply.

One of the things I like about these postcards is they highlight one of the major differences between English and Japanese: Japanese has no plurals. The sad thing is, I find myself dropping plural all the time.

Hello! "How have you been?" The rast school even too a little. Enjoy school life. I'm looking for ward to your reaply.

I don't know what to say, except to write what is on my shirt as a comparisson.

individuality
IT BELIEVES THAT IT IS HARNESSED
construct
A SMALL THING IS ALSO TAKEN CARE OF
reverse
IT WILL NOT STOP, IF IT BEGINS TO PROGRESS
successe
IT IS A PROBLEM WHETHER IT HAS OR NOT
twisted
IT IS RECOGNITION OF THE IMPORTANCE OF A WORD
eccentricity
PEOPLE WITH A THING CALLED ITSELF

Yep, cleared everything up. I love getting postcards from students, it is difficult to write all the reply though.
Later

Today and yesterday were days of commercialism pure and simple, though motivated by outside forces, like the beginning of my computer ethics and law class. I ordered six CDs from Amazon, two from each of, Rachel's, A Minor Forest, and God Speed you Black Emperor!
The other thing I purchased was a DVD-RAM/R/RW. The CD-R/RW I have in my laptop has about a 1/50 functionality these days, which is definitely a problem since my class materials are all on a CD. I happened to run into Shoji, a guy we met at K's party a couple of Saturdays previous. He was taking his TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication), or maybe it was his English for University exam, I forget. He happened to work at the Midori where I was shopping and used his employee discount to knock the price from 3万 to ２万２千円。 I was quite pleased. After running through all the tests, and wading through the manuals, I am pleased to say, "We have a working CD/DVD drive again."
I am very much looking forward to this class, perhaps more than any other class so far, perhaps with the exception of the Formal Methods class. I believe it may be a toss up. It looks challenging but interesting, which I have no problem with. That, combined with the research project、promises that June will be　とっても忙しい。 I am pleased that it is such. Now I am off to read more of the T.J. Hooper case.