Hello there friends! I hope that all of you had a nice Tuesday. My day went by really quickly. The kids at school were good. They got a lot of work done, the seemed to have learned a few things, and I went home happy. They're such angels (in general...) Coming home, I took a few pictures with Kenny. After all of that, I did a quick shovel of my driveway. (I don't have to take a running start to get my car into and out of my driveway like I did this morning and this afternoon.) After...

Hello there friends. I hope that you're surviving your work week. I seem to be doing okay here. It is awfully cold and snowy here! I have to shovel my driveway again when I get home. Like my title says, tonight is the first episode of the post-audition "American Idol." I am really looking forward to getting to know the "characters." Once we know the contestants, we can choose favorites and know whom to root for. There were four audition episodes leading up to the competition. The au...

About two weeks ago I wrote a weblog entry about the Guy Ritchie gangster movies. In a nutshell, I said that I would put up Guy Ritchie's two gangster movies against Tarantino's two gangster movies. Not to say that I don't enjoy all four movies, it is just that I liked "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels," and "Snatch" better than "Pulp Fiction," and "Reservior Dogs." Not much better, just better. On a similar note, I decided to visit the video store this morning to rent the movie "Jacki...

Hey there friends! I hope that all of you are having a happy weekend. Today was an ordinary Saturday. I slept in, and then I woke up and thought about what to do next. I decided that I wanted to look back at some of my videotapes from the second season of "American Idol." (After watching the first few episodes of AI3, I seem to have "caught the bug" again.) On the second floor of our house we have three bedrooms. One room is for guests/ our summer bedroom, another room is being groome...

Hi there friends. I hope that you're having a happy day. I enjoyed my day. I was able to go into work late this morning. We had a two-hour delay because of the weather. The even better news is that we will have the same delay tomorrow. It is nice to end the week with two grueling six-hour workdays. I wish that my high school would have closed down this often. Snowdays were an awesome break from life on a cold winter day. Now they're time to clear away snow and stay warm. Just bet...

Hello there. I hope that everyone's week is going well. I am coming off of the thrill of watching two consecutive days of "American Idol." Next week there will be three days in-a-row of episodes. I am really looking forward to watching Monday's episode where they show only the good auditions. Then after that, weeding occurs. It didn't seem that there were that many impressive singers in the Hawaii auditions. We'll have to see how they do in the later rounds. In other entertainment ev...

Hello there. I hope that it is going fine for all of you. Not much to say today. Everything went as expected. I went to work, I came home, I shoveled snow. Kazuko and I watched American Idol, we went grocery shopping, we danced, and we watched "Seinfeld." Actually come to think of it, it was a pretty good night! I really enjoyed the last guy on "American Idol" tonight. If you don't remember, he was that Chinese civil engineering student who sang "She Bangs." He was pretty funny. Ev...

Hell there my friends. Overnight Sunday and during the day Monday, Minnesota was covered in snow. (In Duluth, they had over 20 inches ~53cm of snow!) -If I get home early enough tonight, I will take a picture of the "aftermath." The good news about all of this is that my dad gave me a two-cycle motor power shovel to deal with the snow. It was pretty easy to clear off my driveway and walkways after the heavy snow. I will have to go out again tonight to deal with drifts and with what the...

Hi friends! When my wife and I moved into our house last summer we were greeted with a shower that had a very nice flow of water. By the time we were finished with our shower, we knew that we were clean. The only drawback of our shower head was that it was quite old and it had accumulated some minerals over the years. Kazuko and I decided to buy a new shower head. When I installed the new shower head, I unknowingly threw away the old one. What I didn't know was that I had doomed my fam...

Hi friends! When my wife and I moved into our house last summer we were greeted with a shower that had a very nice flow of water. By the time we were finished with our shower, we knew that we were clean. The only drawback of our shower head was that it was quite old and it had accumulated some minerals over the years. Kazuko and I decided to buy a new shower head. When I installed the new shower head, I unknowingly threw away the old one. What I didn't know was that I had doomed my fam...

Hey all! I hope that your weekend has been going well. Kazuko and I are enjoying the weekend with my parents. Tonight we'll have sushi for dinner. That should be good, I always enjoy eating sushi! Another piece of big news in our house is that I bought a second dance mat for "Dance Dance Revolution." Last night my wife and I had a happy time dancing together to our favorite songs. It is good exercize for the both of us. Finally, I direct your attention to the picture at the bottom ...

Hey there friends! I hope that you're having a nice day, and that you're all ready for that much-anticipated weekend. According to the title, I intend to write about a few things that have been going on lately. Most of the time I write my weblog entries for public-consumption. I also use this as kind of a daybook that I will be able to look back on in the future. To the latter end I give you: Odds and Ends. (Written in a semi-Larry King style...) -Man is it ever cold here in Minnesota...

Hi friends! I hope that your finding yourselves in warm temperatures. It is awfully cold and windy here in Minnesota. Since it is cold and I don't want to venture out these days, I have really been enjoying watching the New Year's sumo tournament on television when I come home from work. I really enjoy sumo. I would say that besides baseball, sumo is my favorite sport. One of the best things about sumo is that it is played in a series of six two-week tournaments throughout each calenda...

Hi there. My wife and I finished watching the second audition show on American Idol about one hour ago. I am trying to think about who I remember from tonight's episode. I liked the girl with the red hair. She seemed pretty cool. I remember the Elvis guy. Liked him. I also remembered the girl with the dad. She'll be okay. She talks a little like Dolly Parton, and she'll look like Julia Damato as soon as she does what Paula said about dying her hair. I thought that the blonde guy...

Hi there friends! I hope that all of you had a fun and productive holiday weekend. I had a really happy time relaxing with friends and family. On Saturday and Sunday we enjoyed ourselves with the Mattson family at their cabin on Lake Mille Lacs. It was awfully cold outside, but we enjoyed visiting and playing a number of board games. We got in some Risk, UNO, and a game of Monopoly. Yay! Coming home on Sunday, we spend our Monday running errands and catching up on sumo matches that we...