Windmill Birthday-Boy

[Bob S]

Happy Birthday to Eric!

Tanjobi Omedeto gozaimasu.

I bet this birthday is extra special, eh?  Have a great weekend!

Bob
(-8

[Windmill Boy]

... in response to Windmill Birthday-Boy, posted by Bob S on May 7, 2005

Hello Bob and Akiko and Jeff.

Thank you  for  Recognizing my  Birthday  today.  Yes  I have now reached 40  today -- is that middle age -- gosh I do not feel that old   ha ha ha.

Well  as  luck would have it my Birthday  obviously falls  on mothers day this year (the busiest day of the year in my industry) and I have been working long hours this weekend to prepare for it. Sunday Morning I will go into work at  8:30 am  and  probably work until around  7 pm.  So  it will not be too much fun.  So  I think we will postpone any celebration until monday  when I am off and the weather is supposed to be nice actually.  I recall when I turned 30 I was living in colorado springs  and I worked 18 hours between my 2 jobs,  and on my 40 th  I am of course working.  I hope that by my 50 th  I will at least have  my own bakery business started by then and I can take the day off to enjoy  ha ha ha.

Jeff  I received  your  e-mail a few days ago  but I have not had time to respond.  Kat and I are obviously frustrated  trying to continue to get all of our paper work finished and filed  so that she will be able to look for work ASAP.  For the most part things are going  well between us,  but we have some daily  bumps here and there to deal with.  It is difficult for her to stay at home not really able to go any where  easily while I am at work.  but she is a Trooper.

I  enjoyed looking at  your pictures of your  recent trip to Japan very much.  Just a suggestion  here  but you might  want to post the web address so others  can view the pictures and learn more about Japan.  I thought there were  many cool things to see.

Thank you guys For remembering  my Birthday.  I am very happy that Kathryn is here to help me enjoy it with me.

ERIC

[Jeff S]

... in response to Windmill Birthday-Boy, posted by Bob S on May 7, 2005

BTW, Bob. Have you gotten my e-mail?
- Jeff

[Bob S]

... in response to Happy Birthday Eric!, posted by Jeff S on May 7, 2005

You mean the "Back from Japan" e-mail with the photo page link?  Very nice!  Great view of Tokyo from your hotel.

[Jeff S]

... in response to Photo page?, posted by Bob S on May 9, 2005

That's the ticket. Did it bring back any memories for you? Where was it you lived and taught again? I was thinking of an abbreviated version of the photos for public comsumption.

- Jeff

[Bob S]

... in response to Re: Photo page?, posted by Jeff S on May 9, 2005

I was up in the 'burbs of Saitama.  I'd make it down to Tokyo about once or twice a month on weekend daytrips.  The Asakusa pic sure looks familiar (eh, Eric?).  The little shops look like the old town section of many towns I visited including where I lived.
Can't wait to go back.  Though expecting it to change a bit whenever we do finally make it.  We're sending the mother-in-law some California Poppy seed packets.  As they are wild flowers, they don't need much help to spread, so maybe in a few years we'll have changed the color of Yamaguchi-ken!  Sakura pink? No, wild flower orange!

[Jeff S]

... in response to Mem'ries, posted by Bob S on May 11, 2005

Yes, California poppies should do great in Yamaguchi. That would be something to see. Took a drive through the hiway 54 pass behind Santa Barbara, (past Lake Cachuma) about a month ago and it was solid orange. I can imagine the Japanese countryside after the March rains. Does your wife's family live anywhere near Ube-shi?
- Jeff

[Bob S]

... in response to Re: Mem'ries, posted by Jeff S on May 11, 2005

Isn't there an onsen resort around Ube?  But that's further west from Ako-chan's home.
The wife's hometown is a dinky port town called "Hirao" about midway between the industrial port city of Tokuyama and Iwakuni (famous for the Kintaikyo bridge and also home to a U.S. military base).  To get there, we take the shinkansen to either Hiroshima or Tokuyama and then hop onto a local train for another hour-long trip along the coast.
One interesting note about Hirao, during the war it was used as a training base for kamikaze manned-torpedoes.  There's a small museum about it there now, built within the past few years.

[Jeff S]

... in response to Yamaguchi ken, posted by Bob S on May 12, 2005

I remember those two stations on the shinkansen. One more after Tokuyama is Ogori - the one you take to get to Ube-shi, after transferring to a three car local train.

Back in my shipyard days, I met a old guy named Kuroishi (I called him Mr. Blackstone - usually eliciting lots of giggles from the people I was working with) who was an inspector for Lloyds Register of Shipping. In 1945 he was training in Kobe on those manned kamakaze torpedos for the upcoming US invasion of mainland Japan. At that same time, my father was a Seabee training in Manila for the mainland Japan invasion. It was kind of eerie thinking about the "what if" scenarios. I visited a museum in Kyoto with a zero and one of those torpedos on display back in the mid 80s. Pretty chilling.

- Jeff

[Bob S]

... in response to Re: Yamaguchi ken, posted by Jeff S on May 12, 2005

The other day I caught the last half of an interesting documentary on PBS from their "American Experience" series about the war in the Pacific.  It showed the build-up for a planned invasion of Kyushu in November if Japan hadn't surrendered after bombing Nagasaki in August.

See here for the web site:  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pacific/index.html

I was thinking about getting the DVD for it.  Fascinating stuff.