Yesterday, Global Warming struck again. This time, it forced me to scrape frost off the windshield of the car.
I left my coat and an artic-capable sleeping bag in the car. I’ll probably stop carrying them in July, which I hope will not be too early!
Archive for the ‘Asia/Pacific’ Category
Global Warming, Local Effects
Wednesday, April 18th, 2007Global Something
Monday, April 16th, 2007It’s fairly early Sunday morning, the rain-mixed-with-snow is finally just rain only now, and seems to have washed away the slush that was forming on the road and patio.
Normally I’m told the cherry blossoms are blooming and the snow in the mountains should almost be gone. Instead, we’re getting snow on 15 Apr.
If snow in mid-April is what I can expect from global warming, I recommend we do everything we can to reverse this trend before I go to work one spring morning without a coat and die of hypothermia. We must reverse global warming before I freeze to death!
Return to Okunakayama
Saturday, February 17th, 2007Christina and I hit the slopes for our anniversary today. Christina taught a couple kids the basics of skiing while I warmed up. I’m getting better at the black slopes, and I even got to try some powder today. I felt like I was doing pretty well.
Christina finished her class and we broke for lunch together. Christina usually gets some sort of Japanese soup with noodles. I always end up eating curry and rice (with some sort of meat, usually pork cutlet). I can see us whiling away our future on slopes in Austria or Colorado, and I’ll end up missing curry. I wonder if there are any Indian restaurants in Telluride?
After lunch, we hit the slopes together. After falling down a total of once all morning, I counted at least five falls in the afternoon. I was starting to get really frustrated, but after about six runs I finally got my feet back and quit falling. Christina didn’t want to try powder or moguls today, which was a bit disappointing, but she watched me on two runs and reminded me to face down-slope (I guess with moguls I was tending to face the oncoming hill). Other than the early afternoon tumbling spells, today worked out pretty well.
I think I’m almost ready to buy my first set of skis ever! I’m just waiting until the season is over so I can get a $900 set for 75% off.
Ski Okunakayama (or as I Say, “Not Appi”)
Saturday, January 13th, 2007Christina and I took the day off and went skiing again. Christina is going to try to become a skiing instructor, and the instructor course starts soon, so she wanted to get in a day of good practice with her favorite student, me!
Okunakayama was a little closer than Appi resort, and it had half as many runs. Three of those runs had near-black-diamond equivalent slopes.
One new thing I learned on my own while Christina was chiding me for not facing down the mountain and putting too much weight on my uphill ski was that as humiliating as it is, I still have to do a warm-up run on a green slope. Otherwise, something interesting will happen. I might get onto a narrow path that’s too steep to snow-plow and I’ll have to face a choice of going too fast off a ledge or into a snow-bank/side of hill (I wisely chose the hillside, following the old maxim that if you must crash, make sure you hit the softest thing you can as slowly as you can). In any case, I can’t quite just hop off the lift and ski a black slope. Not yet, anyway.
Another thing I learned is that enough snowboarders sliding down the mountainside will uncover roots. Don’t try to cross over the roots on your skis. Roots bring pain.
Otherwise, the snow first thing in the morning was pretty good. It kept snowing off and on all day, which led to the hiding of ruts, bumps, areas of powder, etc. It was a little challenging for me, but I managed to get down two of the black slopes without falling (out of about twelve attempts). There were two wild-card falls on blue slopes.
Overall it was a good day. I can’t wait to get back to Kitzbuehl someday now that I really feel like I know what I’m doing.
Since when, though, did I consider skiing on a Saturday "Taking the day off?"
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16 Jan 2007 Update: It turns out there was an earthquake north of here on Saturday, it measured 8.2 on the Richter scale. I’ve chosen to lay the blame for all my falls on the earthquake (except the root, that was the snowboarders’ fault).
Ski Appi
Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007Christina and I took a day off (finally) and went to the Appi ski resort. Christina has been skiing most of her life, and she’s pretty good at it. I ski once every three years on average, often enough only for me to quickly get my confidence back and wear myself down so I’m tired when I try the more challenging slopes. Christina followed behind me and offered helpful tips to get me started again. By the early afternoon, I felt ready to try my first black (easy black-diamond equivalent) slope.
I only slid a quarter of the way down on my back. The rest of it I managed to stay up. Unfazed, we tried another one, which I slid halfway down on my side.
We went back to the blue slope, skiied down the hill, and called it a day after that!
Circumnavigation
Thursday, September 21st, 2006Yesterday marked yet another sort of "first" for me. I flew from Tokyo to Frankfurt. Since that flight goes over Russia, that means I’ve finally at least been a passenger across the entire globe.
I know my Father-in-law has done that more than once. As a matter of fact, his circumnavigation has included stops in Australia (and possibly South America). I still have never been to the Southern Hemisphere. I hope to correct that travel deficiency in the next three years or so.
Anyway, it was another small milestone to celebrate, and that’s always nice.
Fiber-Optic Internet
Monday, September 4th, 2006I keep mentioning ‘firsts,’ since this is my first time living in Japan, it just seems to be the thing to do. That, and being in my mid-30s doesn’t leave a whole lot of new experiences, so perhaps I cherish them a bit more than normal. Today my wife and I got an Internet connection. It’s a fiber-optic line (hence the title). I’ve never had fiber-optic anything before.
I can’t tell whether FO is a whole lot faster than normal DSL, but then, the real test will occur when I try to download lectures from school!
For right now, I’m just happy to be connected to the rest of the world. My next feat of skill and daring will be to figure out how to re-install my LinkSys wireless router without the installation CD-ROM. My guess is that the CD is in a storage facility on the East Coast, and I won’t see it for another three years.
New Home
Wednesday, August 9th, 2006Tomorrow I’ll be moving into my new house. It’s a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom, single garage, single story house. Aside from the single story, it’ll be a lot like the house in Germany I just vacated.
I’ll have to wait over a week for the phone and Internet to get hooked up. I wouldn’t anticipate seeing many new posts until after 18 Aug.
I’ll have plenty to write about. I wonder if I’ll have the time to write?
It’s Not Easy Being “Homeless”
Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006I’ve been trying to get settled in a new country, state, city, base. I haven’t been ignoring Weltanschauung intentionally, I promise.
I should have a place to live within a week or so. Hopefully I’ll also have Internet access, that way I can blog in whatever little free time I can scare up for myself!
Tropical Paradise
Friday, July 21st, 2006The past few days have been somewhat relaxing. I’m on the island of Okinawa. I wish I could say I was relaxing and enjoying myself. I brought plenty of work with me, so I’m working and enjoying myself, as it were.
The other great thing is my old deputy "Tank" is stationed over here. He and I have managed to get together and have dinner twice thus far.
Hopefully my compatriots and I will be able to blast off out of here and get back to my new home.