My picks for the top 10 posts from 2007

One of the great things about keeping a blog is that there is a quick reference of the things that happen in our lives. Though it turned out to be quite time consuming (mental note, shorter posts) it was quite interesting to see the highs and lows of the year. A lot happened and it's always tough to say one post is better than another, but I tried my hardest.All you need to do is click on the title to relive each memory with me (and then the back button on your browser to continue on), here we go;

To Start we'll go with my pick for the worst post of 2007;

A Normal Post While it was actually a pretty special post, it was the first time I mentioned the imminent arrival of Ken, I also thought it would be funny to do up a picture in Photoshop combining elements or Ritsy's face and my face (and my nephew Mac's body). The end result was like Frankenstein's monster and probably severely traumatized some readers. So, it gets the worst of 2007 award.

Now the best picks;
10. A funny thing Fracturing your leg while playing basketball is not what many would consider good news to break (ouch! pun not intentional)- but this makes the list because of its relevance to my life. It was a pretty monumental happening!

9. A concert There was a few good party posts last year. A couple with Manami and Tet-chan's family and a couple at my student Josh's house. This one makes the list because it was quite a nice and unique musical show with a fantastic setting! Later Josh gave me a CD with the recording of the performance- a great touch.

8. Japanese Beauty At times I have been known to ramble. But every now and then a pearl of wisdom comes from this tendency. Japanese Beauty is very beautiful and speaks of the ways in which I appreciate Japanese culture- I can't believe that it was actually I that wrote it!

7. Princesses and Cherry Blossoms A nice post simply because of some beautiful pictures. 'nuff said.

6. Pete and Mari's wedding At the beginning of last year Pete and Mari had their wedding party locally. It was really interesting time and there was some nice pictures.

5. Lillooet This was my second Lillooet posting but I liked this one a little better as I took a little more of a humorous approach in recounting my story. Though some of the humour may be better understood if you read the first one too. And it really does look like the tv is eating him I think....

4. The Tokyo Series As there were a few series this year I tried to pick the best post from each group. The first was the trip to Tokyo. I picked this one because of the pictures of the old Kabuki theater in Ginza that apparently will be torn down. Beautiful looking building though.
3. Ise Another of my trips this year back in August. Man it was hot- and Ritsy was having a bit of the morning sickness still on the boat- but it was a great couple of days up there- and it's just great to explore Japan really. My choice had my favorite pictures from Ise, though I was actually torn between this one and the old shopping street.

2. Aunt and Mom's Visit Sorry ladies, you will have to settle for second place! It was awesome to show the ladies around Japan a bit, and selfishly I was able to see a lot of stuff I haven't seen before. There were actually a lot of great pictures from the series- but I'll go with my favorite location Todaiji- the home of the great Buddha in Nara. Honorable mentions go out to Kohfukuji and Hatasan in Fukuroi.
1. Ken Of course the arrival of your baby- especially your first is just a special moment- and I took a lot of time and recorded the events leading up to his birth quite nicely.

There it is the highlights of my blog world for 2007.

Now it's time to build a new year of memories.

Hap-gratulations!

Carrie was gracious enough to be our camerwoman at our wedding

Happy 2008 everyone!

I hope you all have a fantastic year that brings great health, fun and prosperity (however you wish to interpret that- mentally, financially).

I was contemplating changing up the look of the blog a bit, but I might let it stick for another year. I really like the colors in the template I used and even my profile picture is just too good to change. Sometimes no change is the best move, I think.

I actually spent most of today re-reading all my posts from last year, trying to pick my faves to make a top 10 list. I finished reading them all (and man it took some time!) and have a short list- but it's time to sleep- so I'll try to get it up tomorrow or the next day.

I stumbled across some news when I logged into Facebook the other day. My friend from the Whistler days- Carrie is engaged! Congratulations Carrie. I know that since she has started to date Carl there has been a very positive vibe and she has been so very happy- so I am really happy for her! I know they just came back from a holiday in Australia, so probably he popped the question out there. That's great!

Mobiles, thank yous and a vid

What?

Just a quiet day today. We went by Entetsu department store, we had received a few gift certificates to use there- we were able to find a cute mobile for hanging on his crib or maybe bouncer. Did I mention how incredibly generous have been since Ken's arrival?

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for coming to my blog in 2007! I really wanted to use this as a way to extend a branch of communication to my family and friends back home, but it has grown into something more with many students and just coincidental visitors (like Marc who happened across my blog topic about his buddy Warwick) and it has been greatly successful. I am a little disappointed that my writing dropped off in the last quarter of the year- but in the end I have about 131 posts so I don't think I did too bad. Well, thanks so much for reading- I hope to keep it interesting for 2008!

Here is a little video of Santa lying like the fool he is and Ken swinging his head around a bit.

What's going on?

What's going on indeed!

I guess part of the more quiet pace I have been on with my injury, some my energy for blogging has sapped. Must stay on track! This whole blogging thing was meant to be an exercise for me to practice day to day focus, so it has been largely successful, but there's been a big tailing off the last couple of months. But, when we fall off that horse, we get back up again!
Mac: According to pictures stolen from Facebook, my sister's, son- Mac (because he looked like a big Hamburger when he came out, I think... :-)) was recently spotted dressed up as a big chicken. Pretty Funny costume! If you are wondering what my brother-in-law is dressed up as- I believe that is just one of his regular hats! Just kidding Sean! Well, also, using my detective skills, not having heard the story, it looks like he may have won a prize for his costume. Good Job, little guy!
Music: Most people know I love Radiohead- so I was pretty excited when they gave us 10 days notice last month and they offered up their new album only as a download. Plus we could pick the price. Pretty interesting move, though an established artist has a better chance of pulling it off than a struggling band. The initial offering of 10 songs is pretty good and filled with the usual ear candy that makes for great ear-phone or in-car listening, so was a solid release indeed! They had another option of purchasing a CD packaged with 2 LP's and a bonus disk- but the price of 40 pounds was pretty crazy. I will probably hold out until they strike a record deal to get the other new music. Oh, how much did I choose to pay? I thought 6 pounds (about 13 bucks Canadian) was fair, considering I probably will buy it on CD to get the songs at a better quality later on.

My Leg: Went back to the doctor last week and he said that my leg was healing slowly. Indeed, looking at the previous X-rays and the new ones, I couldn't see any difference whatsoever! Hmmph. He made a new cast with a good rubber heal and said that I could walk a little bit, concentrating the pressure on the heel of my foot. I am definitely more mobile- but I have probably been walking too much, so I hope it doesn't further slow my healing. The new cast is also removable so we can pull it off and wash the foot. I don't much like looking at my swollen and bruised foot, to be honest though!

The Train: Taking the train a lot the last couple of weeks, I have seen a lot of my old favorite employees of the local train- Aka Den, I remember I had created some 'names' for them- there was Creepy Smiley Guy, The Guy With Big Lips for example, but sadly- Unusually Tall Girl has not been spotted yet. It's good to see them all again, it reminds me of a year and a half ago before I had my car! Nazukashi!

Baby: Not yet!

Yep, I'm a little dry for topics right now- tough to grab the camera and go to check out a temple or whatnot, but I will get my groove back in no time!

Over 860 Served

I call this "Phallic Sky"

I noticed on my hit counter that there has been over 1000 visit to this website. While I should point out that I have probably created about 140 of those hits, I still think that is far more amazing than I would have expected! Thanks so much to everyone that has visited this website and to Chris and Hisano for linking to me in their blogs!

I have been enjoying practicing writing for the last little while and when I came to another site that was pointed out to me, I saw a post about the Tooth Fairy and I had a streak of inspiration. So I wrote it and put it up at that site. But since it's a lot like some of my wacky blog posts I thought I might link to it here if you want to read it. It's about saying bless you (western tradition) and throwing beans at demons (Japanese tradition) -HERE.

Some are wondering how Ritsy now is lookingwith being pregnant and all, well, surprisingly skinny still. Though she seems to be hitting a point where she looks a little more pregnant every few days. This picture was taken on the night of Josh's concert...