Hi there friends!  Have you ever heard of Culver's? Culver's is a chain of hamburger restaurants that originated in Wisconsin.  Their specialties are things called "Butterburgers," and their milkshakes.  Currently, Culver's is only located in the Midwest (they've only recently come into Minnesota.)  The food at Culver's is awfully good.  I recommend it for any of you who live up here, or are traveling through. Over the past month or two, I have had frequent craving...

214 Hello there everybody!  The weekend is almost over.  I hope that everyone enjoyed it, wherever they were. This weekend was a fun one for me.  My parents drove here from Duluth, Minnesota to enjoy Mothers' Day Weekend.  On Saturday we went to a few garage sales, followed by a nice dinner at a Korean restaurant (my wife's favorite.)  Today, we met grandma for lunch at Cattle Company (steak restaurant.) On the way home from lunch, my family stopped by Wal-Mart ...

203 The other day as I was changing our baby's diapers, I had a thought. Our five month-old baby's diapers are decorated with images of Sesame Street characters, Barney, Mickey Mouse, and like that. I wonder whose benefit those pictures are for, the babies or the parents? Of course, the pictures are for the parents' benefit. My brilliant marketing idea would be to put jokes, classified ads, household hints, racing forums, stock tips, rock stars, whatever on the diapers...

Well, just got the news that the President is doing a news conference tonight. That stinks. I was looking forward to watching my favorite television program tonight. Of course the broadcast networks are going wall-to-wall with it. I wonder whether the President on television draws better ratings than regular programming. With cable and public television, the general public could have access to whatever the President will try to do to untarnish his image in order to get himself re-elect...

Hey there. I hope that you're all having a nice day! I have been enjoying myself today. The thermometer on my garage reads 70-degrees (~21C.) It was a nice day for a walk. My wife, the baby, and I strolled down to K-mart (department store) and Cub Foods (grocery store) to do a bit of shopping. I was a bad boy today. I didn't get any yardwork done today. That'll wait until tomorrow. My biggest accomplishment of the day was renewing my driver's license at the county office while m...

Hey there friends! I hope that you've had a happy Saturday. Kazuko and I had a good day. After sleeping in, Kazuko, Kenny and I went to have lunch at the Hong Kong Buffet in Elk River. After lunch, we bought the materials that we will be needing to install the pole that we will use to install our Koinobori (Japanese fish streamers.) I bought some cement and a mounting tube to put the pole into the ground. In about three days (once the cement has finished setting) I will post a p...

Last night while we were sleeping, little Kentaro ran off to India. Apparently while he was gone, he converted to Sikhism. All day long, he has been insisting that we call him Ikhtiar Singh , as that is his new name. My wife and I are thinking that this is "just a phase," and it will simply pass with patience. If it isn't just a phase, I think that we'll just call him "Ikky" from now on. Here is Kenny's -I mean Ikhtiar's- new look: Just kidding... as I was undressing...

177 Hello there friends. I hope that all of you had a happy weekend. My wife, my son, and I spent the weekend in Duluth, Minnesota. We were up there to visit my parents on my Mom's birthday, as well as meet some of my friends to play some paintball in Superior, Wisconsin. Here in Monticello (where we live,) the temperature is warm, the snow is gone, the birds are back, and the grass is turning green. Three hours away, by the shores of Lake Superior, it was cold and sleeting. Ther...

176 As I was responding to another article about America's un-culture, I began to go off on a train of thought about how people behave when they're abroad. I was thinking that there are some pretty safe ways to tell where a group of people are from when they're abroad. Now since these are stereotypes, they are not necessarily the rules. My "rules of thumb" on how to determine where the tour groups are from: Germans often wear black and have smallish eyeglasses. Americans speak...

174 Last week about Wednesday, I had that "...like a cake out in the rain" song stuck in my head. I thought that was a little weird, as I hadn't heard the song for a few years. Then about Friday, the radio program that I listen to in the morning (Bob Yates on WMGT AM 1220 Twin Cities) used that song for bumper music. Finally, Homer sang that song on last Sunday's episode of "The Simpsons." It must be some kind of serendipity, but I was forced to live the life of a cake in the rai...

170 Hey there friends! I hope that you all had a happy weekend. Now it is back to work. Let's hope that this week goes by just as fast as all the rest seem to. Last night as I was watching television before bed, I drank a cup of coffee. I figued that it wouldn't really affect my sleep that much. Wow, was I wrong. My mind was racing, I had lots of vivid dreams, and it seemed like I woke up every hour or so. Crazy. I will have to file this in my "memory bank." No coffee bef...

Yesterday (Friday) I decided to get myself a new jean jacket. Spring is coming, and before long it will be too warm for me to wear my winter jacket. I got my last jean jacket in 1997. I collected enough Pepsi points to earn a Pepsi jean jacket. That jacket served me well. I wore that jacket every Spring and Fall (and most of each winter -a jean jacket was good enough when I lived in Japan-) since 1997. The jacket is very worn now. There are holes in all of the pockets, and each of th...

We'll start this one off with a cute picture of baby Kenny. He is a little over four months old right now. I hope that all of you had a happy Thursday. There is only one day left until the weekend, and only about two weeks left until Spring Break. Yay! Spring Break can't come soon enough. My plants in my seedling box are about ready to be planted. My corn, daikon, cucumbers, shiso, and tomatoes are getting pretty big. We also have a tree coming by the end of the month. ...

As I was looking at my e-mail this afternoon, I saw that MSN was featuring an article on William Hung. (Mr. Hung is that funny Chinese guy who sang "She Bangs" at his "American Idol" audition.) Since his Idol appearance, William has done the talk show circuit, and has made an album, and a music video. He is quickly becoming sort of a pop-culture phenomenon. He is really using the Cheese-factor to his benefit. (I may even be tempted to get his record.) I visited his website at: h...

Before going to bed at night, I like to read something. Until recently I had been reading the "Harry Potter" series. Reading Harry Potter was great from the beginning. Since I had started reading the series after the fifth book had been published, I had the luxury of being able to start reading a new book in the series in succession as I had finished reading each one. Finishing Harry Potter left a bit of a void in my life. I needed something else to read. I decided that I would re-...