This past Fourth of July weekend, Greg and I rode our motorcycles up to Crater Lake in Oregon. The weather and roads were perfect and the scenery was majestic - overall it was a great way to spend a holiday weekend. You’ll notice in the pictures, I got a scratch in my lens about halfway through. I tried to crop or edit some out, but it’s still noticeable. It most likely happened during my experiment in mounting the camera on the handlebars. Those pictures came out kind of jittery, but I’m still going to try it again sometime, if I can find something to stabilize the camera better..

Went fishing with Jer on Sundee. I had never caught a fish before. Well, actually, I think I vaguely remember catching a trout at Sea World when I was, I think, seven. So, twenty-eight years or whatever. We got out to the first spot at about seven, and we had our limits before 10am. I caught two gigantic fish. No kidding. Jer caught four gigantic fish. But he’s good. I still can’t believe I actually caught something. It’s just starting to sink in now. Anyway, pictured is a filet from one of the fishes I caught. This represents 1/4 of the salmon meat I obtained. I’ve given some away to a few friends, but if there’s anyone else who wants some, let me know.

Yesterday I went to San Jose to see the San Jose Giants play the Lancaster Jethawks. It was a perfect day for baseball, and a nice, relaxing time. Like I need another day like that. Anywho, you can see the photos here.

Today, instead of doing something constructive, I pedaled my bike down through Fisherman’s Wharf and to the Marina and Crissy Field. The weather was gorgeous, as it is every single freakin’ day here. I swear, I’m almost getting tired of it. Not yet, though. Anyway, here are some photos I took while enjoying said weather.

You (when I say you, I mean the two people who look at this site) may have noticed that I’ve changed the reviews link to be red. This is mainly to highlight that I pretty much update that part of the site about 90% more often than this part. So look at my reviews, blah blah blah. My only other thing to say is that my sleep cycle is all messed up, so I’m staying up late, and sleeping in until like 10 or 11, because I really don’t need to do otherwise. It’s not like I don’t do anything during the day - I do, it’s just that I think that naturally, I’m a late night person who likes to sleep in late. So there.

The only other thing I want to mention is that Masamania has started to update his superb site again of late, after what seemed about a month-long hiatus. I especially like his post about the yatai, or the little temporary concession stands found at the multitude of festivals in Japan.

So I was in Nijiya Market yesterday, as I am so very often. This guy in front of me was this tall, dark haired Italian-looking guy who looked like he was probably obnoxious. In this case, the looks weren’t deceiving. So as he’s leaving he spews out this well-practiced spiel to his cashier saying good bye and I’ll be back again, etc. in Japanese, looking all smug, and making sure others could see that here was this white guy who could speak Japanese. The cashier, of course, just laughed at him. Not because there was anything wrong with his Japanese, but because she doesn’t speak Japanese - she speaks Cantonese. He was, of course, making the assumption that any Asian who works in a store in Japantown must be a native Japanese speaker. Which might sound right, but in reality, that’s just an incorrect assumption to make. I’ve been to a few restaurants already where a Japanese family comes into a restaurant and they have to go find the one Japanese speaker working at that time to serve them. Anyway, basically I don’t want to be like that guy at the market, so I usually speak English until I can be sure I’m not being a jerkstore.

This is just an honest example of the (granted, not that substantial) only remaining stress in my life. Today I went to the local produce place (I won’t name it explicitly, just point out that you can get a gallon (yes, a gallon) of Odwalla orange juice for $6.50).

Anyway, there was just a really attractive woman there. Perfect, really. She was about five feet three wearing a black hoodie and green pockets pants. If you know me well enough you can fill in the rest. If not, you’ll just have to guess. Anyway, I never thought I could go up and talk to her, but one of the characteristics of this place is that if there are more than two people in the store, the aisles are so narrow that you’re constantly in everyone’s way. So as I was making my way towards the register queue, she asked “I’m sorry, are you in line already?”. I think most single guys would see this as an opportunity to say something really clever and maybe (gasp!) start a conversation. But of course, I could only think of a mumbly “Not quite yet” and was on my way. Just another in a long series of “what could have been”s. Even if I see this woman again, I still wouldn’t know the right thing to say in the same situation.

And I can’t imagine it getting any better when I get to Japan, when I don’t even have confidence in the language I’ll be speaking. Perhaps this is why becoming a Zen monk and holing myself up in a monastery once I get there doesn’t seem like such a far-fetched idea.

Recently I’m having a real problem getting enough motivation to do anything. I have all of this free time staring me in the face, and I just can’t seem to find the best thing to put into it. I’ve been putting off starting some sort of motorcycle trip for the last three days. I need to wake up super early tomorrow morning and just do it. Man.

I just had a conversation with myself from 1985. I told him about the internet. I said “In the future, there will be this thing called the internet. Also, your buddy Reagan will still have many of his friends in office, like Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz.”

1985 me: Wow, that sounds great! What’s this internet thing like?

Now me: Well, you can download wallpapers for your phone, and there are community sites for dogs!

1985 me: I don’t understand what all that means, but obviously, if that’s the kind of stuff they’re talking about then, world peace and hunger must have been solved long ago, huh?

now me: Umm.

If you’ll look on the side, you’ll see a new section of the site in which I review things. So I don’t forget what things are like. Because, someday, I’ll start getting old and forget what things were like.