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...

175 I just finished watching day 12 of the Grand Sumo Tournament from Osaka. Coming into today's action, there were four rikishi tied at 11-0. The most interesting match of the day paired Ozeki Kaio with number twelve Maegashira Asasekiryu. I thought that Asasekiryu had no chance! I was shocked to see Asasekiryu get a pull down win against the bigger rikishi. I had no doubt in my mind that Kaio would win on day twelve. If I were in attendance, I would have been tempted to throw...

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...

173 Hey there friends. Well, the results' show is over. Matthew the football player was eliminated. He left in a pretty classy fashion. Even though I didn't really care for him, I was a bit sad to see him go. Weird, huh? Each week I am impressed at how the votes usually go toward eliminating the poorest singer of each individual night of the competition. This week's show is no exception. Camile and Matthew had two of the weaker songs. (Diana had the disadvantage of going on firs...

Hello there friends. I hope that you're having a happy day. I am not doing so well. I am under-the-weather. Over the last week or so, I have been putting extra-stress on myself. I have added new classes, I co-presented a speech with a colleague, and I had to take-on three (complete beginner) non-English speakers into my program. (I had to translate for their parents too.) Coming home from work last night, I felt chills and muscle aches. My body told me that it is time to "slow down...

171Hey there friends. I hope that you're all enjoying yourselves today. I am awfully tired. After another busy day at work (and they're only getting busier,) my friend Meagan and I gave a speech about ESL to a group of teachers in our district. I think that the speech went well. We had a lot to say. Tomorrow I will have three new non-English speakers starting at my school. I helped their mother sign-up for classes today. Since they are Russian-speakers, I was the designated transl...

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...

Hey there friends. It is finally the weekend! Yay! I am at home here in front of the computer. I have just watched my sumo for the day. It is now 10PM. I am just sleepy as all get-out. I usually like to spend my Friday evenings after everyone in my house goes to sleep watching TV, listening to the radio, and playing on my computer. I feel like I am "losing" if I go to bed early. I don't want to give up my Friday night because I am tired! I am thinking that I can "give it another...

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. ...

Hey there friends. The show has just finished. I will take a few minutes to write this here blog, and then do my nightly turn on the "Dance Dance Revolution" game. -I skipped a day yesterday. Had a meeting after work... Tonight's results show was fun. In the group song, we could really notice that women outnumber men in this year's competition by 2:1. That should be good news for the guys who will be able to grab more of the "I have a crush on..." that will be split among fewer guys. ...

Hey there friends. I hope that you've all had a happy day. My wife and I have just finished watching the twelve "Idol" finalists in the first elimination round. Tonight's theme was "soul music." After the first two songs I was worried that I wouldn't be able to recognize any of the songs during the evening, but fortunately the contestants started singing songs that I know. Once the "trifecta" of Fantasia, George, and Jennifer hit the stage, the show really hit its stride. In genera...

Over the past few days I have seen campaign ads for both Kerry and Bush. Up to this point I have been underwhelmed. All of the ads for both parties rate pretty high on an imagery scale, but really low on substance. Maybe this phase of the campaign is more about -alleged- principles than about solutions to issues. I suppose that the buzz-words in the image-laden campaign ads play well with focus groups. Advertising professionals are probably more savvy about that kind of stuff than I am....