Wow! It’s been over one month since my last blog post! Ouch! Same old story- busy busy busy. My excuse this time is a PhD proposal I’m trying to write over the summer break. Anyway, a lot has happened in the past weeks, so I’ll redouble my efforts at getting you all caught up.

First, lets go back to early May- Luke has just started elementary school, and one of the first big events in the school calendar was soon upon him: Sports Day. What is Sports Day? Well, imagine the Olympics, only held within one school. The student body divides into 3 or 4 teams, each of a different color. They paint this elaborate mural of a team mascot, usually of some ferocious animal. Then, everyone practices practices practices for weeks leading up to the big day. There are “real” sports like relay sprints, and more game-like events such as chicken fights, an obstacle course, and tossing bean bags into a basket. It’s all rather surreal to my eyes. I managed to capture a bit of this experience and have edited together in a rather cheeky way. I hope you like it!

I have some more video projects nearing completion, so I hope it won’t be another month before I can post them! I also want to get you all caught up with family news, so I’ll be posting about that soon.

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Hey, instead of a video clip, I have something new this time: a “Voicethread” featuring photos and commentary from a typical morning at our home. Voicethreads (from Voicethread.com) are a new and cool way of sharing photos. Not only can you hear (or see, if I had used a video camera) me, but you can also leave text, audio, or even video comments (if you have a camera attached to your computer). So, have at it, folks! Click the big triangle play button below and check out how I spend my busy mornings. Click the Comment button to leave your own words or voice. Lets see if we can get a bit of a dialog going!

By the way, I’ve been using this service with my Video Production students lately. To see some of the Voicethreads they’ve produced, just click here. This was our class’ first go at making Voicethreads. On a fine day in May I gave them cameras and told them to go out and take at least 50 pictures. As a result, each thread is kind of the same, but at least you’ll be well acquainted with the neighborhood around our school! We are currently working on another Voicethread project- students have to introduce some aspect of traditional Japanese culture in English. This one will be good!

Finally, we’ve had some good family news of late, and I’ll be blogging about that shortly…

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Summer is here in Toyama, and it’s time to go into reruns! I’m really busy these days, so I thought I’d post an old video of a trip we made to Tokyo Disneyland in March 2006, before Max was born and only a few months after Shinobu was released from the hospital following her heart operation. I hope to get back with some more current video clips soon, but until I can manage that, I hope you enjoy watching some of our old stuff. This trip was the result of a promise Shinobu and I made to each other as she recovered in the hospital after her heart attack in the summer of 2005. We thought then, “boy, won’t it be great if we can take Luke to Tokyo Disneyland?” It was a happy thought that helped get us through a tough time. So, when the trip finally came to pass, it was extra special. Just seeing the excitement on Luke’s face brings back great memories!

OH! One error to correct: Shinobu’s birthday is March 12th, not the 11th. Opps!

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It’s 10am now, Sunday morning, and we’re watching on the news that a major earthquake has hit the Iwate region of Japan (clear on the other side of the country from us). We didn’t feel a thing and are perfectly fine. More later as I learn about it…

Update: 10:48am
I’ve just found an English news report about the earthquake. Here it is:

Strong earthquake hits Japan
1 hour ago

TOKYO (AFP) — A powerful earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale struck northern Japan Saturday, the meteorological agency said.

The earthquake hit in Iwate prefecture, some 500 kilometres (300 miles) north of Tokyo, and rattled buildings in the capital.

Television footage showed buildings also shaking in northern cities of Japan. Bullet trains were automatically shut down as a precaution.

The quake had a depth of 10 kilometres (six miles), the agency said.

There was no immediate word on potential damage or casualties, and the agency did not issue a tsunami warning.

A new earthquake warning system kicked in for the quake, with public broadcaster NHK flashing an alert moments before it struck.

Japan endures some 20 percent of the world’s powerful earthquakes. It has built an infrastructure intended to withstand tremors.

So that about tells the story so far. Here is a map of the Iwate area. You can see we are VERY FAR AWAY, so DON’T WORRY!

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For our next family video clip, this time we focus on our house, especially with our recent landscaping efforts. This spring Shinobu’s dad (a champion bonsai grower), has been helping us plant new shrubbery. We’ve been working hard each weekend on various little things, and the place is really beginning to shape up!

During the beginning of May we were browsing around a local garden store and happened on a great deal- a huge (4m) Japanese Maple tree for only about $400. We took one look and just knew, “that tree belongs in our front yard!” We hurried up and bought it before we could change our minds, and a few days later, on May 9th, the tree was delivered to our home and planted. I didn’t have to work that morning and captured the entire event on video. I hope you enjoy this little clip. It’s kind of cool to watch the guy plant the tree.

If you’d like to see a higher quality QuickTime version of this clip, just click here. If you right click on this link and choose “Save As”, you can download the file and watch it on your computer. Finally, all of our videos can be seen on the newly updated Videos page.

Don’t forget to leave a comment! Thanks.

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