Author: admin

I don’t know what time it is anywhere else in the world, but it is 9 AM in Taito City. I am ready to embark on my last official family day trip of this adventure–a short jaunt to Kawagoe to see thatched roofs and edo-style candy. The trip, while far from over, is entering a new phase. We are going to have more ‘us’ time as the kids go back to school. It has been a really solid trip for me in terms of growth both as a partner and a father. I am learning the different ways these boys process my input and how to be effective as a support system for them without making it about me or the Lady Talis. I am also learning exactly how good she and I are as a team. I never had that before. I didn’t quite experience partnership in this way. Before I was a part of a family but I was a solo entity with a function and an independent life. Here we are what I am told is a ‘we’ and that is a new one for me. I’m here for it.

In other life news: Nothing. No, seriously. The beat goes on. I am still writing (slower here on the journey) and still learning what works for me in terms of how and where to do such things. I am still prepping for Project 50 (up to 8 miles a day here on foot!) and learning how to take some of the good habits being formed on vacations (every vacation) and bring them back to the desert intact. That is the hardest part. I realize that where I live is a hinderance to being healthy, but I am also beginning to recognize it doesn’t need to be. I ought to be out throwing the ball with the kids and taking more long walks with the lady. I need to devote time and energy to these parts of the life the way I attempt to devote it to the words and used to devote it to the gaming.

That light continues to fade. I don’t know what the issue is entirely. I cannot get myself to play longer RPGs and I am no longer satisfied by NCAA or Madden. I don’t have a go to right now, and this means I hardly play games outside of a senseless hour plus binge every now and again when I try to force myself to tell the story within the game. Starfield used to carry me through that but now it doesn’t.

Years ago my brother pitched the idea of a bathroom book to me. He wanted to take pictures of various bathrooms across America. At the time I’d never been out of the country and found his idea to be, well, gross. Who wants a picture of a nasty roadside latrine in an overworked and understaffed QT? Over time I have visited many countries and each visit relights his fiery thoughts. Bathrooms are strange experiences. The toilets in the USA are very different from those in Italy which in turn are very different from those in Japan. I keep going to these different places and needing to use the ‘loo’ and discovering that the experience truly shapes an impression of the culture. Maybe it should not. It does.

In retrospect, he should have taken the pictures. I should have done the words. Maybe it is too late in our lives now to make it happen, but it is something that ought be noted by someone at sometime. The Bathroom Book (Poop Talk) is a wonderful idea for travelers and an actually silly but fun idea to keep in your own bathroom space. Beside photos of luxurious or high tech facilities there would be the average American flare of slightly below nasty. Words could include discussions on how to know if the space (especially in hotels) is really clean or merely surface clean. Call it a Zaggats guide for your tushie.

Some Thoughts:

1. It is, amazingly, in moments like these that I realize that I still have an ounce of creativity in me and a few stories left to tell. I do want to write the bathroom book or at least delve into a story where the character is writing that book. What an unconventional tale that would be!
2. In case you are wondering, Japanese bathrooms are on a different level. The technology here is very cool and distinct. Some even provide warmed seats. I have stayed in three different locations in Japan over two visits. This bathroom is the worst of the bunch. Clean? On the surface at least…

I must be addicted to naming things. It makes it cool and gives it a space of its own to hold. It also could serve as an excuse to dance around the problem as I focus on the aesthetic. I don’t expect I will do that with Project 50, but you’ll all know in a year or so. Project 50 is my life reset. Building off the argument of life hacking yesterday, I am trying to understand, measure, and improve the life I have left. I spent nearly 50 years putting stress on this body. Project 50 is a year long (and mapped) experience to take back my body and soul.

I will be using chatGpt as an organizational tool for the effort. It will help me collate all the data I have gathered and hopefully pull down some more from the web that can help me design a plan that I can stick to over the year to get the physical right. I will merge that with plans to get the mental and spiritual under control, leading to a better me by the end of year 50. I want to be stronger and faster than I am now. I haven’t run in years and that is problematic. I haven’t been able to play a game of basketball in years and that too sucks. I want to be in better shape. I want to sleep better and longer with less troubling dreams. I want to make love longer. I want to write better. I truly want to be a better person. It takes time. Project 50 is designed to be that starting point to give myself time to develop.

The numbering of the post seems as ominous as the cultural context of the year–at least to those living in North America. Snakes are, according to some relogious systems, evil things. However, I often find that evil is commonly entwined with trickery and intelligence. It seems that to be smart and to use that knowledge to manipulate rules or systems to your advantage is perceived as ‘evil’ depending on who is writing the narrative. In this particular phenomenon it is often those who were tricked or otherwise taken advantage of who wind up writing the narrative and thus feeling aggrieved. All of this is to say that this is definitely going to be my snake year.

I’ve been aggrieved for a long time. I’ve felt the victim and often allowed the system to disadvantage me, but now I feel it is time to take control of my future and take charge of my present. I intend to find all the tricks and all of the ways that can be used to my advantage both professionally and financially–even physically. I’m going to hack my own life. It is long past time to take control and be that person who is winning vs losing. It is more than a mentality. It is about forward-thinking actions.

So, I suppose I do have one of those pithy resolutions I spent the previous decade and a half complaining about. I resolve to hack my life and get rid of the extraneous code slowing down the vital processes. I’m going to replace those things with streamlined upgrades. I’m going to have a better self and a better life, because I finally realize that I absolutely deserve it.

I got a Bad fortune today. The worst part is that I felt it coming. I knew it was happening and tried to avoid it by skiping out on grabbing one every time it felt wrong. Finally I trusted my gut and my gut got me. In many Shinto shrines throughout Japan you can offer coin to receive a fortune. These range from Very good luck to very bad luck with stops in between. I got bad luck, which is not intended to be the worst. It was the worst though. It basically said that I shoudn’t get married and I was going to die. Hey, thanks. What would very bad be in comparison?

Well, I didn’t die, but I lost a bit of my heart in realizing how little respect my sons have for me. I don’t really know to what extent I am responsible for that disrespect, but I see it and feel it. I know it to be there and real and depressing.

But this blog is not about that untapped well of madness. This is about good and bad luck. The bad continued. I lost my bet on Boise State. If the luck holds then ASU will beat Texas and I will never hear the end of it. Quite the way to kick off the new year.

There have been two moments on this trip that have defined where I am at physically. Both are bad. The first was playing air hockey with my kid and realizing I lacked that zip to block shots. My mind followed with a brief but crippling depression as the Japanese version of the game flooded the field with a dozen pucks and I could not keep track of it all. He could. He won. He’s a lot younger than me. I felt that. I felt the body failing in the moment and it made me think I was impotent as a physical person. I didn’t and still don’t know what to think about that, which is why the second moment struck harder. We haven’t been here for long at all and in the second day of walking around the city I found that I was wiped out 7 miles into the day–at 5:30. I was done and ready to go home to a tiny hotel at 5:30.

This is certainly not who I planned to be and not who I intend to be. This is who I am. I need to acknowledge the truth of it and the lack of energy if I am going to address the problem in a meaningful way. Which brings me to the New Year. I didn’t win the lotto. I didn’t come up with a way to make much more money. I didn’t succeed at the rate I wanted to I did worse and I let myself really go physically. So, lose lose. I need a win.

This is my plan moving forward. I am going to slowly build my activity level and set a positive example through action. It is high time I got right.

The blog situation is a bit out of whack with the time shift. I moved forward a day when we went to Japan and that has me feeling a bit like I ought to stay on a USA schedule. I don’t quite get how to do that, so you may see an extra blog pop up. Ten minutes a day is great, but time can be a tricky thing. What is a day really? 24 hours, of course, but when you move through the globe you can effectively time travel forward and back in relative time. For example, going back it will be a flight that leaves one day and gets back essentially the time it left. Odd trick, that.

Time here is great. We are doing a lot with the kids and I am doing more physically than I have in a long while. It shows in my fatigue levels. Today left me wiped out and sore. I’ll be headed for sleep land very shortly.

Once I manage to get past the tiny room situation it will be easier to gather a sense of how much I do like it here in this season. It is winter in Tokyo, which means 38 degrees with a +/- of 8. Good basic temperature if you have the right gear. I’m not sure I do. I am also not sure if this trip is going to focus on the parts of the culture I like or the rest that I really cannot get behind. It is the American anime culture that largely pushed me away from anime. That culture focuses on a few things (like high school drama and screaming high-pitched girls) that I tend to avoid at all costs. Still, we will see how this unfolds.

Back in the States football is still unfolding. I missed the slate of games. I missed the end of the Sanders family era in an Alamo Bowl loss. I am quite curious about what things will look like for coach Prime moving forward. He doesn’t have that same star power around him in terms of players, so what will happen in terms of wins and losses? 2026 is the first time my son will get to face a Prime offense. He will be playing at Boulder, and I will do everything in my power to be there and watch him cook.

My two Tokyo-resident kids are cooking right now. They are doing extremely well out here. We saw one of the pair last night and intend to see both at the conclusion of this here blog. I am happy about how things are going here and I am really looking forward to what the future brings for everyone. The hotel? I am still less than happy about that one.

Some Thoughts:

1. It was and remains a big deal for me to get out and write somewhere here in the city. I don’t know where that would possibly be though. I’ll keep considering…

This one is going to feel a bit out of time, because the blog is happening in a 24 hour window of travel. We are in Tokyo visiting kids and that means a series fo flights and waits between flights–the longest flight being 12 hours. I have been using that time “effectively.” I binged the entire Acolyte run and I have questions. Firs, when does this happen? This is billed as being a hundred years before the rise of the empire but a lot of that does not track. Moreover, they are doing things the way Star Wars always does things which is to tell a different version of the same darn story. I am not pleased by that at all, because I was truly hoping for a new narrative in the world/universe. It is a huge universe and there must be stories that are less connected to the main storyline that are worth telling. I certainly expect there to be. Yet, here we are.

Speaking of being here, the hotel is a very very very small space. We we last stayed here we were in a hotel that was likely three times as large. This is a closet with a bathroom… that still costs a fortune. I have little positive to say about it so far. Little positive to say about the travel or anything in regards to this incredible adventure we are on save for that we are close to the train station–really close. That has to count for something.

Some Thoughts:

1. I expect I’ll drop a few hundred bucks to rent a larger space for a day or few. I don’t think this place really is for me in the long run. I value space more than I thought I did.

I was even dodging the blog this morning.

Some days writing feels like the last thing I want to be doing. Instead I want to sit and do nothing–not even watch shows. I want to decompress and let the mind wander. This is how some people recharge. It might be how I recharge. I would not know, because I cannot remember ever thinking through the idea of how I recharge other than accepting that I need a break. However, accepting that I need a break is a difficult thing to do to begin with.

This short period right now is my break. I have one due date (feb 1) and nothing else that kicks in until early January (prepping for classes that begin January 11th). The plan has been to get going for all that on January 9th leaving me with a break over the next fourteen days. That’s two weeks of purely having just one thing to do. Quite the break and possible recharge.

Some Thoughts:

1. Been sick for weeks now. I am doing better, but this has dragged on me and the Lady Talis for a while now. We are getting better, but dang.. over the break?