Now if you'll excuse me I need to start lifting weights and get a shotgun, its only 16 years till shes 16!!!
And for future reference here is how the poll ended.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Girl
Well the internet spoke and the baby listened, its a girl (the hospital is about 90% sure). The poll was right, with over 50% voting for girl. I am going to put up a new poll about how I should win the lottery, please vote in favor of me winning the lottery for my unborn baby girl.
Now if you'll excuse me I need to start lifting weights and get a shotgun, its only 16 years till shes 16!!!
And for future reference here is how the poll ended.
Now if you'll excuse me I need to start lifting weights and get a shotgun, its only 16 years till shes 16!!!
And for future reference here is how the poll ended.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Dig It
A poll has been added to allow you to guess if the baby is a boy or girl. It should show up directly to the right.
*** Well we are really happy that everyone voted. If you would take the time to put in the comments who you are and who you voted for we would appreciate it, Christine is really curious who voted for what. Of course you can wait a few days and just put who you are and if you were right or wrong....
*** Well we are really happy that everyone voted. If you would take the time to put in the comments who you are and who you voted for we would appreciate it, Christine is really curious who voted for what. Of course you can wait a few days and just put who you are and if you were right or wrong....
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Here, There and Everywhere
Here are some odds and ends we had laying around. Enjoy..
There are quite a few (disturbingly so) roads that apparently intersect themselves.
Christine has been decorating our front yard. She put in the black fence above and the yard pokes and wind chimes below.
We had driven by this store quite a few times and always wanted to go in. We were thinking it was furniture or something like that, after all it is "The Wind from America for you!". Well apparently that wind is misspelled T-shirt slogans. It was a "trendy" clothing store. Note the life size statues of Elvis and Marlyn below.
In America they put up old chain link fences or plain brown wood boards to hide construction. Here in Japan you get a nice little storyboard about the adventures of a cow that may or may not be flying.
These are some pictures Christine took from the plane as we left Okinawa to come home last month.
Here is one of the awesome things about Japan. You can get a Belgian waffle from a vending machine!
Here is Christine modeling the ingenuity of preservatives and syrup. Its not everywhere that you can get pastries out of a vending machine. It was actually quite good and still very soft.
This is Oscar Outlook. Oscar's outfit changes depending on the weather outside to let you know what its like outside. This helps Christine get a sense of the outside world while she stays inside, in the air conditioning incubating our child. The right side is outside, the left side is inside. RH stands for Relative Humidity, as you can see its 91% humidity outside.
And here is what 91% humidity does to your windows.
We tried some Kobe beef from the Commissary. Now this isn't the true Kobe beef, I think at the store they call it Kobe "style" beef. And surprisingly it wasn't all that good. We had a rib eye a few days later that was much better.
This is just to remind you that KFC is boneless, or has boneless. Either way this means there is no Japanese word for boneless.
This is one of Christine's adventure meals. She goes out with some of the other wives and tries food I probably wouldn't even look at. She says its called Foam, and it looks like it might have tasted like it. I will let Christine tell you more about it.
And finally, another Christine Cake creation. This one is a watermelon, with chocolate chip seeds and green m&m accoutrement's.
There are quite a few (disturbingly so) roads that apparently intersect themselves.
Christine has been decorating our front yard. She put in the black fence above and the yard pokes and wind chimes below.
We had driven by this store quite a few times and always wanted to go in. We were thinking it was furniture or something like that, after all it is "The Wind from America for you!". Well apparently that wind is misspelled T-shirt slogans. It was a "trendy" clothing store. Note the life size statues of Elvis and Marlyn below.
In America they put up old chain link fences or plain brown wood boards to hide construction. Here in Japan you get a nice little storyboard about the adventures of a cow that may or may not be flying.
These are some pictures Christine took from the plane as we left Okinawa to come home last month. 
Here is one of the awesome things about Japan. You can get a Belgian waffle from a vending machine!
Here is Christine modeling the ingenuity of preservatives and syrup. Its not everywhere that you can get pastries out of a vending machine. It was actually quite good and still very soft.
This is Oscar Outlook. Oscar's outfit changes depending on the weather outside to let you know what its like outside. This helps Christine get a sense of the outside world while she stays inside, in the air conditioning incubating our child. The right side is outside, the left side is inside. RH stands for Relative Humidity, as you can see its 91% humidity outside.
And here is what 91% humidity does to your windows.
We tried some Kobe beef from the Commissary. Now this isn't the true Kobe beef, I think at the store they call it Kobe "style" beef. And surprisingly it wasn't all that good. We had a rib eye a few days later that was much better.
This is just to remind you that KFC is boneless, or has boneless. Either way this means there is no Japanese word for boneless.
This is one of Christine's adventure meals. She goes out with some of the other wives and tries food I probably wouldn't even look at. She says its called Foam, and it looks like it might have tasted like it. I will let Christine tell you more about it.
And finally, another Christine Cake creation. This one is a watermelon, with chocolate chip seeds and green m&m accoutrement's.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Drive My Car
Here is my transforming car. The backseat converts from a seat to a picnic table.
Lets start the transformation.
Here you can see the front seat, take note of the direction of the passenger seat.
Here is the backseat. The row of seats you are looking at is the transforming seat. (I know, your looking at it and wondering where the legroom is, but this entire seat comes out and increases the legroom for the row of seats behind it. I think this seat is only meant for small children, carseats, and the picnic table).
Here you can see the seats fold up to allow for a small amount of legroom, if your legs are tiny like a childs (hey we will have a childs soon, so that works out).
This is how the entire seat folds up so you can remove it.
And here it is folded down to become a picnic table, notice the built in cupholders. Now you can see the 3rd row of seats behind it, where you would sit for the picnic. But what about the front seat you ask? Keep going.
Here is the view from the 3rd row. Now look at that passenger seat. This comes in handy for two reasons. One, you can join the picnic from the front seat. Two, later in life, when the kid(s) are in the backseat, Christine doesn't ever have to threat "Don't make me come back there", she will already be back there. Thus happy Okinawa road trips will ensue.
And here are a few shots of my dash.
Notice the myriad of gauges I have at my disposal. Basically I can tell how fast I am going and how much (approximately) gas I have, other than that the car just runs itself. Why concern myself with RPM's or temperature or oil levels. These Japanese cars just run forever on happiness and rainbows.
A few nights after we got back from our trip home, we were outside talking to a neighbor and this thing buzzed by us. Its a fruit bat, which we didn't find out till after we took the pictures. So if you could have been there while we were taking these you would have seen me taking the picture and running away in case the bat wasn't happy about it.
It looks like a cross between a rat and a monkey.
Here is an old one I forgot to put up. Its a teriyaki boat.
And here is a fly I found in our backyard. It was huge, about the size of a quarter. Not quite sure what type of fly it is.
And here is a re-do of a previous shot from our trip home.
Here is a (retouched) picture of our kitchen sink. Now since we are kind of strapped for room in the kitchen I will explain some of our space saving gadgets. You can see the drying rack which hangs over half of our sink. That helps keep things off the counter. Next to that (on the right) you can see two of three blue poles sticking out. Its a stake that allows you to place bottles and cans on it upside down so they drain. We have to do this because they require us to separate our trash (burnable, non burnable, cans, bottles, and glass), and they require all bottles, cans, glass to be label free and washed out. Next, behind our drying rack is a smaller rack for our soap and sponges. Now what used to take up all our counter space is self contained in the sink. Japanese ingenuity at its finest.
Now I am guessing here but based on my tour of about ten houses, I would say 99.9% of houses do not have a garbage disposal. They have these things. This is the one drain you have in the sink and it is actually about six inches deep before it disapears into a pipe and wherever water down the drain goes when it goes down the drain. Once you remove the top cover you are greeted by a metal strainer, below that is what can best be described as a soup can with a pipe in the center . The water and crud go down the drain, the crud gets trapped in the strainer, and the water fills the can till it reaches the level of the pipe and then goes down the drain. Why you ask? Who knows, but it sure helps encourage mold to build up. 
If you look closely at the photo above you can see we also have a net that goes around the metal strainer, shown below. This is much more convenient as you can just throw it away, instead of scrubbing and scrubbing that metal strainer to get the hunks of crud out of it. They are also sold at the 100 yen store, about 20 or 30 for a dollar.
This is our hot water meter for the entire house. The bars in the center represent how much hot water we have available. I don't think we have ever used more than two bars. Usually in the morning after our showers we are down one bar, and cooking/cleaning/laundry throughout the day will use up another one. The way it works here is electricity is so expensive they have the hot water heater set to only heat the water once a day at about midnight. That way you get the discounted electricity rate for using the water off peak hours and you are not constantly using electricity to keep unused water hot. You can also hit a boil button that will refill the tank if you happen to use all the hot water in one day.
This is our Wall O' Switches. You would think this would control every light in the house, and you would be wrong, in actuality it only controls 3 lights that are inside the house, the rest are all outside. Yes every outdoor light has its own switch, because there are times I want the mailbox lit but not the entryway. It tells the world I want mail, but no visitors.
And here is a close up. No they did not come labeled either, so Christine and I had to relay the info to each other to label them.
And here is one of five remotes for our air conditioners. Like the hot water heater, another way they try to save money/electricity is by having an air conditioner in each room, that way you only have to cool the room you are in and not waste energy. Its a multi purpose unit, as it heats, cools, removes odors (? its a setting), and dehumidifies. Now I still don't know how to read Japanese but I know I hit the big orange button and air gets cold, I hit it again air gets hot. Seems to be about all I need to know until winter. (They actually photocopied the remote panel and wrote little helpful notes on it so we can change settings and modes, its not that complicated really).
I actually went scuba diving for the first time on Okinawa. While I was parked waiting for the other people I saw this. Now I am no English teacher but I believe the rule is Naval = Water/Ocean, Navel = Belly Button.
The visibility wasn't the greatest that day but I did get this shot of two sea snakes. You would think this would be really scary (right up there with sharks) but they pretty much keep to themselves.
Lets start the transformation.
Here you can see the front seat, take note of the direction of the passenger seat.
Here is the backseat. The row of seats you are looking at is the transforming seat. (I know, your looking at it and wondering where the legroom is, but this entire seat comes out and increases the legroom for the row of seats behind it. I think this seat is only meant for small children, carseats, and the picnic table).
Here you can see the seats fold up to allow for a small amount of legroom, if your legs are tiny like a childs (hey we will have a childs soon, so that works out).
This is how the entire seat folds up so you can remove it.
And here it is folded down to become a picnic table, notice the built in cupholders. Now you can see the 3rd row of seats behind it, where you would sit for the picnic. But what about the front seat you ask? Keep going.
Here is the view from the 3rd row. Now look at that passenger seat. This comes in handy for two reasons. One, you can join the picnic from the front seat. Two, later in life, when the kid(s) are in the backseat, Christine doesn't ever have to threat "Don't make me come back there", she will already be back there. Thus happy Okinawa road trips will ensue.
And here are a few shots of my dash.
Notice the myriad of gauges I have at my disposal. Basically I can tell how fast I am going and how much (approximately) gas I have, other than that the car just runs itself. Why concern myself with RPM's or temperature or oil levels. These Japanese cars just run forever on happiness and rainbows.
A few nights after we got back from our trip home, we were outside talking to a neighbor and this thing buzzed by us. Its a fruit bat, which we didn't find out till after we took the pictures. So if you could have been there while we were taking these you would have seen me taking the picture and running away in case the bat wasn't happy about it.
It looks like a cross between a rat and a monkey.
Here is an old one I forgot to put up. Its a teriyaki boat.
And here is a fly I found in our backyard. It was huge, about the size of a quarter. Not quite sure what type of fly it is.
And here is a re-do of a previous shot from our trip home.
Here is a (retouched) picture of our kitchen sink. Now since we are kind of strapped for room in the kitchen I will explain some of our space saving gadgets. You can see the drying rack which hangs over half of our sink. That helps keep things off the counter. Next to that (on the right) you can see two of three blue poles sticking out. Its a stake that allows you to place bottles and cans on it upside down so they drain. We have to do this because they require us to separate our trash (burnable, non burnable, cans, bottles, and glass), and they require all bottles, cans, glass to be label free and washed out. Next, behind our drying rack is a smaller rack for our soap and sponges. Now what used to take up all our counter space is self contained in the sink. Japanese ingenuity at its finest.
Now I am guessing here but based on my tour of about ten houses, I would say 99.9% of houses do not have a garbage disposal. They have these things. This is the one drain you have in the sink and it is actually about six inches deep before it disapears into a pipe and wherever water down the drain goes when it goes down the drain. Once you remove the top cover you are greeted by a metal strainer, below that is what can best be described as a soup can with a pipe in the center . The water and crud go down the drain, the crud gets trapped in the strainer, and the water fills the can till it reaches the level of the pipe and then goes down the drain. Why you ask? Who knows, but it sure helps encourage mold to build up. 
If you look closely at the photo above you can see we also have a net that goes around the metal strainer, shown below. This is much more convenient as you can just throw it away, instead of scrubbing and scrubbing that metal strainer to get the hunks of crud out of it. They are also sold at the 100 yen store, about 20 or 30 for a dollar.
This is our hot water meter for the entire house. The bars in the center represent how much hot water we have available. I don't think we have ever used more than two bars. Usually in the morning after our showers we are down one bar, and cooking/cleaning/laundry throughout the day will use up another one. The way it works here is electricity is so expensive they have the hot water heater set to only heat the water once a day at about midnight. That way you get the discounted electricity rate for using the water off peak hours and you are not constantly using electricity to keep unused water hot. You can also hit a boil button that will refill the tank if you happen to use all the hot water in one day.
This is our Wall O' Switches. You would think this would control every light in the house, and you would be wrong, in actuality it only controls 3 lights that are inside the house, the rest are all outside. Yes every outdoor light has its own switch, because there are times I want the mailbox lit but not the entryway. It tells the world I want mail, but no visitors.
And here is a close up. No they did not come labeled either, so Christine and I had to relay the info to each other to label them.
And here is one of five remotes for our air conditioners. Like the hot water heater, another way they try to save money/electricity is by having an air conditioner in each room, that way you only have to cool the room you are in and not waste energy. Its a multi purpose unit, as it heats, cools, removes odors (? its a setting), and dehumidifies. Now I still don't know how to read Japanese but I know I hit the big orange button and air gets cold, I hit it again air gets hot. Seems to be about all I need to know until winter. (They actually photocopied the remote panel and wrote little helpful notes on it so we can change settings and modes, its not that complicated really).
I actually went scuba diving for the first time on Okinawa. While I was parked waiting for the other people I saw this. Now I am no English teacher but I believe the rule is Naval = Water/Ocean, Navel = Belly Button.
The visibility wasn't the greatest that day but I did get this shot of two sea snakes. You would think this would be really scary (right up there with sharks) but they pretty much keep to themselves.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Fool On The Hill
Tonight the Air Force base had their annual (?) 4th of July fireworks show. They had festivities all day but the fireworks were scheduled to go off from 8:45PM till 8:55PM, yup, ten whole minutes of Americana Extravaganza! Well that is ten more minutes than we got in Guam last year.
We had dinner at a friends house first ( the pictures of the ocean and surrounding land are from his balcony) then went down to the Air Force base about an hour before the scheduled go time. There were a ton of people already driving around and we just followed the crowd. The fireworks were supposed to be launched from the airfield and people were already parking all around the perimeter of the airfield. Well we follow the crowd like lemmings and park along the airfield and wait. And wait, and wait and wait. Then boom, the fireworks start (almost 20 minutes late) and to our right, about 1000 yards away, behind trees and buildings. Then the lemmings dash (including us). We put our lawnchairs back in the car and lock it up and start walking towards the fireworks. We walked about 100 yards and just found a decent spot to see them, over some peoples heads and through lightpoles.
Christine then found a better place off to the side where our only obstacle was a chainlink fence, which you really can't see in the pictures.
Well that was our 4th of July. There is supposed to be some more fireworks tomorrow but we may just find a big hill or balcony to watch them from.
And finally a new feature for the blog, GeoTagged photos. I have a little GPS device that puts the location I took the photo within the photo. I am still experimenting with it and will hopefully refine it in the future (you know with all that spare time I will have when the baby comes).
You might have to zoom in a bit to see the points of interest. Zoom in till you see all four blue dots/markers, and click on each one for info.
View Larger Map
We had dinner at a friends house first ( the pictures of the ocean and surrounding land are from his balcony) then went down to the Air Force base about an hour before the scheduled go time. There were a ton of people already driving around and we just followed the crowd. The fireworks were supposed to be launched from the airfield and people were already parking all around the perimeter of the airfield. Well we follow the crowd like lemmings and park along the airfield and wait. And wait, and wait and wait. Then boom, the fireworks start (almost 20 minutes late) and to our right, about 1000 yards away, behind trees and buildings. Then the lemmings dash (including us). We put our lawnchairs back in the car and lock it up and start walking towards the fireworks. We walked about 100 yards and just found a decent spot to see them, over some peoples heads and through lightpoles.
Christine then found a better place off to the side where our only obstacle was a chainlink fence, which you really can't see in the pictures.
Well that was our 4th of July. There is supposed to be some more fireworks tomorrow but we may just find a big hill or balcony to watch them from.
And finally a new feature for the blog, GeoTagged photos. I have a little GPS device that puts the location I took the photo within the photo. I am still experimenting with it and will hopefully refine it in the future (you know with all that spare time I will have when the baby comes).
You might have to zoom in a bit to see the points of interest. Zoom in till you see all four blue dots/markers, and click on each one for info.
View Larger Map