About
Winter break is over; time to get back to work
I’m back in Nagareyama and after a very nice winter break. Work starts again for me tomorrow. My main job will be to wrap up my classes for this school year, which ends on January 16th. Then I’ll be free to work at home until April. I’ll be very busy with several projects, but I’ll have time to look ahead to that later on.
Looking back, I really enjoyed my time off with family. I was off from December 20th until today. Some of my highlights you can see in the photo above:
- A big road trip to Tokyo and Osaka with the family, including camping out in our small Nagareyama apartment, a day at Disney Sea, a long drive to Osaka, and then a fun day at Universal Studios.
- When we returned to Toyama, winter was in full force. We had a few big storms, and it was winter-wonderland time again.
- Luke & I went snowboarding only once, but it was an awesome day with perfect conditions. I’ll take one perfect day to five mediocre ones any time.
- Our neighbor’s daughter, who is in Max’s class at kindergarten, came over a lot to play.
- Lot’s of swimming. Lots!!! With long, exhausting sessions like this one. I trained with Luke for five days straight after we got back to Toyama, and by the last day I could barely move. I was smashed. Then we took six days off for Christmas and New Years. After that we did another 4 days. I felt tired but not smashed tired after the 2nd cycle. I’m encouraged by this progress.
- Christmas was very white and peaceful. It’s not the big deal here as it is in the States, but we had a nice time going to church on Christmas Eve (with Luke altar-boying and acting in a play at the party afterwards) and opening presents in the morning. We also went shopping at a Toys-R-Us later in the day, and the kids enjoyed that. Surprisingly they didn’t want anything big. That was interesting…
- Most days were spent at home doing year-end cleaning and working on updating this blog. We got the back storage room cleaned and organized, a new bookshelf for the kids made, and rearranged the living room to make space for Shinobu’s beloved kotatsu. We also all got haircuts at Shinobu’s parent’s barbershop, which was nice!
- Getting this blog moved from Wordpress over to Tumblr was a MAJOR job, but it was a total blast. I’ve really enjoyed the hard work and now look forward to staying in touch all the more this year with this new & improved set-up. I won’t go into details, but it’s safe to say I had fun geeking out!
- New Years was also peaceful. We did the typical routine, which I wrote about here.
- Finally, as if to cap things off, we had a lovely afternoon with my colleague and friend Theron and his family yesterday. Now I have the secret to awesome pizza and look forward to making it more! I’m especially excited that his six year old son Jonah has hit it off with my kids. I hope they will continue to be friends.
So that’s about it for winter break 2011-12. Time now to focus on wrapping up this school year. I’ve got a lot of work ahead in the next 10 days, but I’m also looking forward to it.
Favorite Family Photos: Our home in winter
This is my favorite shot of our home during my favorite part of the year: on a sunny day after huge snowstorm. We had way more snow in the winter of 2010-11 than usual, which created a lot of trouble in our western-Japan region (Hokuriku). But it also created a beautiful winter-wonderland atmosphere, one that I really really love.
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If something bad happened and you could only save a handful of your photo collection, which ones would choose? That’s the question guiding this series of blog posts I’m dubbing “Favorite Family Photos”. It’s a chance to look back at the past 10 years and revisit special moments in our family’s history. These are our best and most precious memories.
An afternoon with Theron’s family:
My colleague and friend Theron came over to our house yesterday with his family for an afternoon of pizza and playing in the snow. We had a great time making the pizza. Theron showed me how it’s really done. I learned a lot! The kids also helped out and had a blast. Luke’s pizza, the first one he’s ever made all by himself (I usually help him), featured a happy face made from ham and pineapple. Theron’s son Jonah also made a pie, and it was either all meat or all cheese. After lunch we went outside to play in the snow. The boys made forts for a snowball fight, and I made a little incline for Max to sled down. As we played, the moon rose over the Tateyama mountain range. Awesome sight! We had a great time and look forward to more such get-togethers once Theron’s family moves to Toyama this spring.
Favorite Family Photos: Max playing in the snow
Max loves playing in the snow during the winter. Here’s a lovely shot of her outside our house during the winter-for-the-ages 2010-11. She especially loved sledding on a little hill of snow I piled up and making snowmen. It took a lot of prep to get her ready to go outside, so we only did this a few times, when the conditions and weather permitted. Still, those were fun times!
Note: Color effects done with Colorsplash on my iPad.
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If something bad happened and you could only save a handful of your photo collection, which ones would choose? That’s the question guiding this series of blog posts I’m dubbing “Favorite Family Photos”. It’s a chance to look back at the past 10 years and revisit special moments in our family’s history. These are our best and most precious memories.
Favorite Family Photos: Luke relaxes in the snow
In the epic winter of 2010-11, I had fun playing with the kids outside. We made snowmen, snow angels, did some sledding, and had snowball fights. Here’s a nice shot of Luke as he relaxed in the snow before making a snow angel. I really like how this came out- Luke looks natural and un-posed, a big plus in my book.
Note: Color effects done with Colorsplash on my iPad.
__________
If something bad happened and you could only save a handful of your photo collection, which ones would choose? That’s the question guiding this series of blog posts I’m dubbing “Favorite Family Photos”. It’s a chance to look back at the past 10 years and revisit special moments in our family’s history. These are our best and most precious memories.
Favorite Family Photos: Max’s 1st time sledding
Here’s a favorite shot from the winter of 2010-11: our daughter Max sledding for the first time. The snow was so high that it reached nearly over her head. I piled it up to make a mini-slope and then dug out a pit for her to slide into. It was a total blast. Max had a great time, as you can see from this video. I grew up in upstate NY, and I have memories of playing in snow above my head. I hope Max will remember this experience as fondly as I remember my days of playing in the snow as a kid.
__________
If something bad happened and you could only save a handful of your photo collection, which ones would choose? That’s the question guiding this series of blog posts I’m dubbing “Favorite Family Photos”. It’s a chance to look back at the past 10 years and revisit special moments in our family’s history. These are our best and most precious memories.
Favorite Family Photos: Snowboarding 2011
This photo was taken in February 2011 while snowboarding at Raicho Valley in Toyama Prefecture. It’s rare that a shot taken by me with me in it actually comes out, but this one did. I really like it. Brings back a very good memory! Snowboarding on sunny days with tons of fresh powder snow is one of my biggest joys in life. The perfect confluence of conditions and weather is very rare, and to be savored. By this time, Luke was getting really good and could keep up and sometimes go faster than mama or papa. This made for unforgettable moments where the three of us would zoom and zig-zag down a slope together. Talk about perfect exhilaration!
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If something bad happened and you could only save a handful of your photo collection, which ones would choose? That’s the question guiding this series of blog posts I’m dubbing “Favorite Family Photos”. It’s a chance to look back at the past 10 years and revisit special moments in our family’s history. These are our best and most precious memories.
Favorite Family Photos: Yuki Oroshi
The winter of 2010-2011 was one for the record books. It snowed so heavily that we had to spend a week shoveling snow off of our roof, lest the heaviness of all that snow damage our house. It was a huge job that my wife and I managed. Here’s a favorite shot of me on the roof during a sunny moment. It was my first time up there, and the view was great! Felt like I was climbing a mountain, however.
I created a video of this effort, which you can see here.
__________
If something bad happened and you could only save a handful of your photo collection, which ones would choose? That’s the question guiding this series of blog posts I’m dubbing “Favorite Family Photos”. It’s a chance to look back at the past 10 years and revisit special moments in our family’s history. These are our best and most precious memories.
Surviving swim practice
Since my wife manages and coaches at a swimming pool and my 10 year old boy is a completive swimmer, it’s inevitable that during my breaks from work I’ll be in the pool a lot. This has certainly been the case for me this winter break. One thing I love doing is to train along side my son. There is something really joyful and satisfying about that on several levels. Trouble is, Luke is usually in the midst of whatever training regimen for his next meet while flabby me has not been in the pool for a long time. So the first week of training with Luke after a long time away from the water is an unusually harsh challenge. I’m up for challenges, however, so I do my best to keep up.
My secret for completing long workouts with Luke is to use fins as much as possible, at least to start. After a few weeks, as my strength and endurance return, I can wean myself off of them. But I’ve also thought they are a great tool for anyone wanting to increase their distance during training. With fins and occasional breaks, I can swim many more meters than if I just plod along non-stop by myself. I’ve learned a lot about swimming from my wife; perhaps I’ll write more about that in the future. For now, here is the workout I did yesterday, FYI:
Total distance: 4,550m
Total time: About 2 hours
1. Warm-up: Any stroke, slow pace (100m)
2. 4-strokes Swim: 100m x 16, 2:00 interval (no rest between sets) (1,600m)
This 1,600m block consists of repeating the following 400m block 4 times each:
- Individual medley (IM) x 100 (fly, back, breast, free)
- Backstroke x 100
- Breaststroke x 100
- Freestyle (Crawl) x 100
This part is pretty tough; there is no break between sets, so it’s almost a continuous pace for 1,600m. Without the fins there would be no way to keep up.
3. Kick: (50m x 8) x 4 sets; 1:00 interval, 1:00 rest between sets (1,600m)
This 1,600m block is similar to the 1st one, only focusing on the kicks of each stroke Fly, Back, Breast, Free). Using a kickboard and fins when appropriate, we swim each type of kick for 400m, resting a bit between teach set. Naturally we don’t use a kickboard for the backstroke kick or fins for the breaststroke kick. The fins make this portion of the workout go rather smoothly.
4. Drills: One-hand stroke practice (800m)
In this section of the workout, Coach Mama has us focus on a particular point. It could be anything, as there are various drills to practice or strengthen whatever. Today we worked on developing the form of our free and back strokes by swimming each stroke with only one hand. We used a paddle for the stroking hand and a figure-eight-shaped fulcrum gadget to keep the wrist straight on the forward arm.
(25 x 8) x 4 sets; 00:45 interval
- Backstroke (right hand)
- Backstroke (left hand)
- Crawl (right hand)
- Crawl (left hand)
5. Speed training (400m)
This is the killer ending of each workout, where you expend whatever little energy you have left for some final sprints. It’s positively inhumane!!! (Just joking, sort-of)
Swim (25m x 8) x 2 sets; 00:40 interval
- Backstroke
- Crawl
6. Cool-down: 50m, any stroke, very slow
So this was our workout yesterday. It was longer than most recent ones, but contains all the basic elements (warm-up, 4-stroke swim, kick, drills, speed, cool-down).
In writing this post up, I still can’t believe I could do all that, even with the fins. I’m pretty wiped this morning, but less wiped than I was last week. I know if I keep this up, I’m going to be in great shape. I’m feeling really blessed that I have such an amazing wife with such a cool set of skills. She is such a great coach. She can help people do more physically than they ever thought possible of themselves. She has a real gift for teaching swimming as well as other sports, such as aerobics, skiing, and snowboarding. That I’m not a total slob is very much because of her. Don’t think I’m not eternally grateful!
:-)
Our pool gets new flooring:
Went into swim practice yesterday at my wife’s pool for the first time in 2012 and was greeting with a new scene: bright yellow flooring had been installed over the New Years’ break. As you can see when compared to the previous blue/orange combo, it’s a much livelier atmosphere now. The color was my wife Shinobu’s choice; she persuaded her boss to go with yellow over his choice of gray. Judging by the new look, I’d say that choice was a good one.
