Anthony has been wanting to go skiing ever since last year's YMCA ski experience, and finally yesterday the schedule allowed for it. Anthony and I took off early in the morning for the almost-two-hour drive north to the Makino Highlands, to the Makino Ski Area.

I didn't intend to pull my camera out much, wanting to concentrate on actually being a parent and helping him with the confidence-building experience that learning to ski could be. But it turns out that the 20 seconds of total ski time he had during last year's YMCA event was enough, and yesterday he basically [...]

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Someone asked today whether the Japanese economy has been hit hard like the US economy has been for the last few years. My answer is that I suppose it has, but I don't think the recent global turmoil has had as big an impact in Japan as it has in The States, in the same way that I don't think taking a hammer to a corpse causes it all that much pain.

I first came to Japan in June '89, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average was about $2,500. It's now $10,000.

The Japanese equivalent stock index was ¥33,000 when [...]
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This looks like a misty-white snow-covered mountain, but it's not.

There's no mist; the fuzzy white areas that seem to be blurry turn out to show clear detail of every snow-covered branch and twig when you look at the full-sized version. (However, most web browsers will downscale the huge image at first, so you'll likely have to click once on the link to bring up the larger version, then again on that larger version to see it in its full-resolution glory).

Also, I like how the snippet of less-snowy foreground mountain in the bottom-right corner adds an odd sense of [...]

Anthony received his First Communion at Mass today, along with his friend Joe. They'd been meeting with Fr. Graham McDonnell (an American priest who has been in Kyoto for more than 50 years) on Saturdays for the past few months, and he thought they were ready. He suggested that they serve Mass, so that with their street clothes covered by their cassock, they'd not have to bother about getting dressing up. 🙂

Anthony has been serving Mass on and off for about two years, while Joe's been doing it for two and a half years.

Joe's little sister Kyoko (seen [...]