When I first moved to Japan fifteen years ago, I was living in this tiny little fishing village off the coast of the Japan Sea.

The town is, supposedly, quite famous for its fresh seafood. Or, at least, that’s what everyone told me as soon as I arrived. Conversations would go something like this: [...]

I never used to think of myself as the big crybaby type.

But, over the past couple years, I’ve changed.

Maybe being so far away from home for so long has made me more sentimental.

Or maybe I’ve just gotten soft-hearted with my old age. (This is the point in the blog post when [...]

I had high hopes for my summer.

Like so high it’s possible I was on drugs.

I was going to get tons of writing done. I was going to go running everyday and get in shape. I was going to blow you all away with a series of top ten blog posts like you’d [...]

You know that old saying about learning from your mistakes?

Yeah, well, that doesn’t apply to me so much.

I make a lot of mistakes. Like, a lot of them.

If to err is human, then I must be some kind of super-human because I’m, like, really super good at erring.

Of course, every [...]

You might have noticed things have been a bit quiet here on the old blog.

What’s that? You hadn’t noticed?

Well, umm…

Now, I feel awkward.

I understand.  I’m sure you’ve been busy. Maybe you’ve had a lot of stuff at work or have some family things going on right now or have one [...]