Japan!

My brother and I are in Japan for the holidays.

It was an interesting trip to get here, starting from when San Angelo's small, one-horse airport made us stand out in 25-30 degree weather to when my laptop's battery ran low on the 13 hour flight from Dallas to Tokyo. Do you know what happens when it does that?

It goes:

"Beeeep! Beeeep! Beeeep!"










Also, btw, Japanese pilots are a little slow on takeoffs and abrupt on their landings.

Anyhow, my older bro and I made it.

Our family was all together for New Years, which was cool since we weren't for Christmas.

We've enjoyed seeing a big Bhudda, getting pictures in Japanese garb, and a bunch of other stuff around here on top of board games and just chilling with the family.











Speaking of chilling, the wheather has been something else around here. It snows about everyday, but it doesn't stick.

A lot of the fun is being able to see another culture upclose. I've been making efforts to learn Japanese, so I bumble my way through a shallow conversation with someone now.

One thing that strikes me is how they are so much more consciunces of other people than Americans. For instance, when Cy and I got on a shuttle from the Tokyo airport to our hotel, the speaker asked that we silence our cell phones because they would disturb the neighborhoods we were going through.

They are a civilized culture, but less than 1% of this country is Christian. Let that sink in. It might explain why they have such a high suicide rate.

On a lighter topic, I've decided to do more writing this year than I did in the last one. My goal is to publish as much as I can and finish adding a bunch of stuff to my second book. The characters need more depth, depth I believe I didn't know how to develop till this past year.

My goal is to have a book published by the time I'm 25. It doesn't have to be fiction. As a matter of fact, I have my eyes on a non fiction book I'd really like to write.

I'm still considering an animal science degree, but we will see. My thinking with wanting to pursue some type of degree besides just Intercultural Ministry is that I want to be able to have some way of supporting myself besides ministry.

Also, I just feel better about the idea of having some job in the "real world" so I know what it's like, so people don't look at my background and think, "This guy has never had a job outside of ministry. How is he supposed to know what I'm going through?"

Even Apostle Paul was a tent maker, Peter was a fisherman and the list goes on and on.

I'm not saying being able to do ministry plus something is the only way and all the rest are bad. I'm saying that right now it looks like the best way to me.

Anyhow, I'll try to keep yall more posted about my adventures in Japan!

The Media, Trip Home, Plasma

I'm not sure if I said this in my last post, but we got the van back. And among the things the thieves took was a camera with a picture of me riding a pig in Seattle with my cowboy hat and everything. That guy who took the van just made it personal :)

Cy and I made it back to Texas alright after we said bye to the family...wait. Let me talk about the media in Seattle real quick.

As a reporter, I'm not used to being the one interviewed. THAT was kinda different. It annoyed me to no end when I heard one of the reporters walked into a room where Jared and the younger ones were and said the equivalent of, "Alright, now that your parents aren't here, what would you like to say?"

BIG red flag on the play! A reporter never sidesteps the parents of minors, or jokes about doing it. Some kids don't talk as well when parents are around, true, but it's better to avoid that whole issue and a bad reputation than...oh well. I didn't really like that TV station anyway. lol

Also, and this is just funny, a lady from a radio station interviewed us. I could tell she was from the school of thought that says when you're interviewing someone, you make eye contact and NEVER break it. THAT was scary! Her eyes grew, her cheeks sucked in, and she jabbed the microphone into my face whenever I said a word. Has a salmon interviewed you before? Because she looked like one a few times.

The trip home was pretty cool. For the sake of brevity, I'll say cops are aggresive about establishing their turf when they've been gone, and sticking your head out the window for a picture isn't the best way to put the driver at ease.

More recently, I gave plasma yesterday. It wasn't real scary or anything, and the process was relatively painless. Albeit, it was kinda weird having a needle in my arm for an hour and a half.

Let me tell you a quick story of when I was getting my physical, and then I'd better run. Let me state here and now that I have pretty good reflexes...

You know how doctors check your reflexes by hitting your knee with a mallet? She hit me in the left knee. My leg kicked without my permission (am I the only one who tries to be a rebel in the doc's office by trying to stay awake under drugs or refusing to kick when they test your reflexes?)

She moved over to the right knee. She drew back and tapped the right knee and...my left knee kicked again while the right one stayed home! I just try to give the docs something they don't expect every now and then to liven up their routine, honest. :)

Congratulations if you've read all the way to this point. You made it! lol

Vanishing Van!

Right now my family should be in Japan. After all, that's why my brother and I drove 1900 miles in 2 days. We wanted to see them before they boarded a plane and flew away.

They haven't left yet.

Reason why:

Someone stole the van. SERIOUSLY, who thinks it's a good idea to steal a red, 15-passenger van with Alaskan licence plates? But I guess we're in the northwest.

Here are some things we lost:

My older sister lost her credit card and the person has charged several things already.

Stacia's (youngest sister) little teddy bear :(

Jared's and I's portfolios for school, proofing we'd done a year the past year of work. We're working that out pretty well with the charter school.

And last and most important, the passports and birth certificates for those of us leaving for Japan.

Those last items are the most crippling. Without mentioning identity theft, it will give the family a lot of headaches because it takes about 3-12 weeks to get new birth certificates, which are required for passports.

It's looking like my dad will leave for Japan (he is required to report at his new station by a certain date) and my mom and younger siblings will be stuck state-side waiting for certificates and passports.

MEAN WHILE, my older brother and I will have to go back to Texas. There's no way in the world we can stay with them, nor could we do anything if we did...except form a posse and go after the dude who stole the van.

So right now we're pretty much Sleepless in Seattle.

We've gotten a lot of attention from the media in Seattle, but I'll talk about that in my next post.

Traveling Part II

A bit later in the day I was driving throw an Indian reservation...and padding the speed limit a bit. Like any law-abiding Texan, I slowed down as soon as I saw a cop on the side of the road.

I groaned inwardly as the guy started following me, wondering if my older brother and I were going to pay half for speeding tickets since we split the cost of gas money.

Finally, after a few tense miles, the guy passed me and I saw the side of his car: Police of the Nation of Navajo.

Yikes! So a Navajo had been trailing me for a couple miles? Glad he didn't give me a ticket...he would probably step out of the car completely painted with war paint and a feather. Then he'd dance around my vehicle and dent up the exterior with a tomahawk.

We arrived in Eugene, OR, the next day after driving over 1000 miles (talk about being delusional. we nearly fit in among northerners). By the way, the speed limit in Oregon is 55 mph. And if anyone asks, no, I did not go 30 over the limit down a circuitous road...29, 29.5, 29.51, etc., but NEVER 30.

I'll load pictures later.

Those aren't the highlights of this trip, though. TBC!

Cows, Mormons, and Najaho Cops

My brother and I left San Angelo to reach our destination pretty early on Sunday...maybe we should've spent time at a church or something. Bad luck skipping church to do something. Last time someone threw me out of a plane when I didn't show at a church.

Anyway, the day started bright and early and my brother let me drive his car till noon. That was...interesting. The clutch on his car springs up like a catapult whenever I took my foot off it. My brother probably uses it as a weapon against other drivers.

With my hands on the steering wheel and as America slid past me in a blur, I spotted a herd of cows in a green field. I'm sure there are lots of people who would do what I did next.

I rolled down my window, leaned out the window, and yelled at the top of my lungs, "Hey cow!"

The idea of the game is to see how many cows look up when you yell. I think a lot of them looked up because I nearly swerved off the road on accident and rammed them.

My brother relieved me of the steering wheel after a while, and we stopped at a nice little town called Moab in Idaho...Moab, the place with the FDZ's. Everywhere we go we seem to run into those people!

The next day we were driving through a reservation when...I'll finish writing this later. To be continued :)