Odds and Ends...Again

Well, not a big week this week, so I'm going to take the time to share some odd ball and off the wall type stuff.

I thought about typing up an "Ode to my Bike", but I later realized I'm not that creative, so I'll just share my appreciation of my bike with you. Over the past 6 months, my bike has served as my main mode of transportation, Avery's chariot hauler, my weekend get away vehicle, and most recently, my work truck. Yup, I found myself at the local hardware store buying two 12 foot 2x4's just knowing that those bad boys were going to fit on my bike just fine. I took a friend for back up and below is what we've got. No problem at all! I've now carried pipe, a 13 gallon kitchen trash can, a 19" computer monitor, groceries and scores of other items across town in my vehicle. The odometer has just over 920 miles - all since Thanksgiving. I love my bike.



I came across an e-mail this week that I want to share. It was a "You know you have been in Japan too long when..." e-mail. There were 5 pages of one liners that for the most part, were spot on. I'm pasting some below that either fully or partially apply to me and or Deana. Enjoy.

You've been in Japan too long when:
You notice you’ve forgotten to tie shoelaces.
You rush onto an escalator, and just stand there.
You find your self bowing on the telephone.
You don’t hesitate to put a $10 note in a vending machine.
You see a foreigner on the train and think “Wow! A foreigner!”
You have trouble figuring out how many syllables there really are in words like ‘building’.
You don’t think it’s unusual for a truck to play “It’s a Small World” when backing up.
You have mastered the act of simultaneous bowing and hand shaking.
You no longer find anything unusual in the concept of “Vermont Curry”.
You have run out of snappy comebacks to compliments on your chopstick skills.
When in the middle of nowhere, totally surrounded by rice fields and abundant nature, you aren’t surprised to find a drink vending machine with no visible means of a power supply.
And you think nothing of it when that lonely vending machine says ‘thank you’ after buying a coke.
When you are arguing with someone about the color of the traffic light being blue or green…and you think it’s blue.
You see a road with two lanes going in the same direction and assume the lane on the left is meant for parking.
You believe that the perfect side dish to eat with a juicy, deep fried pork chop is a pile of raw, tasteless, shredded cabbage.
You run down the platform, pushing people left and right to jump onto the train because you know there won’t be another one for a good 2 or 3 minutes.
You accompany your ‘no’ with the famous hand waving in front of the nose.
You think sushi at a baseball game is perfectly normal.