Blog On The Back Burner

Now that I am getting settled back into life here, I am starting to get busy again.

Tonight, I went to the Idaho Democratic caucus and I am happy to say that Barack Obama swamped Clinton and got 79% of the eight thousand some odd voters. I had never been to a caucus before so this was interesting. While I like politics, I usually don't get very involved in them but I feel strongly for Obama and this was a good way to make a meaningful difference in the whole campaign year.

I also started my new job today. While I can't say a ton about the people I work with due to privacy issues and laws, I can say that so far it is interesting work. At the end of the day you feel bad for some people because they have made some extremely stupid decisions in their lives that have mentally ruined what was a generally good person. I think the job will prove to be an eye opening one for me and I enjoyed my first day.

Yesterday, I went to Costco to print out some of the pictures I have taken of Japan and found that people really like some of my shots. One person liked one so much that she basically paid for all of my prints in return for letting her keep one large print of one pic I took in Kyoto. That was a good deal because all of my prints would have come to $30 or $40. They also suggested I enter my pics into a contest that takes place in a few months.

I got all of my car stuff squared away and now it is mine again. I like my car.

If you need a gadget to suck up your random free minutes during the day, get an iPhone. All I can say is that it is pretty much the best toy ever. And in suit with my past iPod buying history, within a week of buying it, a new model got released. Damned you Apple!

While at a coffee shop today a funny thing happened. I was sitting there and I heard Japanese. Out of the crowd I picked out Japanese being spoken. This was not your run-of-the-mill Japanese, this was fluent native Japanese. That could only mean one thing, real life Japanese people in Idaho. Low and behold there were two Japanese women in the coffee shop with a little girl. After saying a couple of things to the little kid, I asked her mom if she knew anyone that could give me Japanese lessons. I explained I had lived in Japan up until last week and I wanted to keep learning Japanese. Forgetting where I was, I said all of this is Japanese and found many coffee shop patrons ogling me. Luckily, I think I found a prospective Japanese tutor and this makes me happy.

Life in America is strange. I can say one thing, white women are extremely good looking now. Or I am getting more desperate which is also a possibility, I suppose. One thing I don't like is how dry Idaho is. I wake up almost every night stuffed up due to the lack of humidity. Japan was too humid and Idaho is too dry. I may need a humidifier at some point.

Thanks to all of the stressful fun of this last week, my hands are once again covered in micro-blisters. I feel like I am wearing gloves right now and some of the blisters are pretty big. Of all of the ways my body chooses to manifest stress, why did it have to pick this as my primary way? Anywho, I am tired now and there is a wicked snowstorm going on outside right now. Time for bed!