Sunday, March 12, 2006
Hisashiburi
It's been quite a while since I've posted anything, but I've been thinking about posting again for a while now. It started when Mitsu came to visit, and I realized that it had been a long time since I'd read anyone's blogs or had posted on mine. Ever since then I've found myself thinking "I should post that on my blog" about a variety of things. So here I am.
A quick summary of my life since my last post:
I received a baseball cap (which says Samurai in both English and Kanji on it) and a keychain (which says both Dream and has the kanji "Yume" on it) from the Moritas for my birthday. These are the sort of "touristy" things that I never stooped low enough to buy while I was in Japan, but all the same I'm very happy to have them. After coming back I realized that I would have liked to have had things like these to wear, so that everyone could say, "Oh, have you been to Japan?" :)
Dan, a friend of mine since 4th grade, moved to Austin during the fall. We decided to make Thanksgiving dinner together, and it didn't turn out too badly. We made turkey divan (but used frozen chicken tenders instead of turkey), homemade stuffing, homemade mashed potatoes, and of course pumpkin pie. These are all things my mom has made on numerous occasions, so I'm fairly confident that I know what they should have tasted like. A bit later Dan and I created the same meal again, and it came out slightly better, but was still quite far below what I'm used to eating at home.
I went home for about 3 weeks for Christmas, since I hadn't used any of my vacation days for the year. It was fun to see snow, and good to spend time with my family once again. I had wanted to go sledding at least once (although I failed to convey that to anyone at home, so it's completely my fault), but when I got to Madison it was so cold that I decided to wait until it was a bit warmer. It did eventually warm up, but then all the snow "mysteriously" disappeared, so my sledding hopes were dashed.
I decided to renew my lease at my current place for another 6 months, so I'll have this place at least until June 14 (baring any unforeseen happenings). I probably would have signed a 12 month lease, but that was a more expensive option. One reason I decided to stay is that I still don't have a car. Unfortunately they decided to jack up my rent, so that gives me an incentive to move to a more worthy place once I have a car :(
In January I started my second rotation at work. I've decided that I'm going to try to write as little about work as possible, partly to keep me from writing anything that might get me in trouble, and partly because that'll force me to write about more interesting things. That said, my assignment for the next few months involves taking some software preparing it so that it can be made available to the public. This has involved creating a new build environment based on the GNU toolchain, which has been somewhat difficult because the current environment is complex and has been hard to figure out. Now that that's under control I have to use the GNU toolchain to build the software, and that has involved quite a bit more work than expected. It seems the GNU tools are much more picky about what you give them, which means I have to go through all the code and fix everything they don't like. In short, the process has been frustrating.
In February Mitsu decided to go to the Houston Auto Show with Nick, and they invited me to go along. I'm not really into cars, but I figured it would be fun to spend the weekend hanging out with them, and it seemed like a good chance to take a look at a bunch of cars, since I haven't bought one yet. After the car show, I don't think I want the 2006 Civic after all. I'm not sure anymore what all it was, but even though it has been getting great reviews and looked good on paper, it didn't really catch me. Luckily, they had a Honda Fit at the show as well. The Fit is supposed to be available starting April, and initially I had thought that I wouldn't really like it, but after seeing it at the show it's at the top of my list of choices. I haven't had a chance to test drive it yet, but as long as I like the way it drives that's almost certainly what I'll get. Finding out that I don't really like the Civic but will probably like the Fit alone made the Show worthwhile for me. Nick's "Maternal Unit" put up with us for the weekend, and both she and Nick were very good hosts. One of these days I'll find a way to repay them for their kindness. Oh, and even though all we talked about was cars and how fat Americans are, I really enjoyed spending some time with Nick and Mitsu again. I miss living in the Kaikan with everyone.
So, that's a quick summary of what I've been up to since I last reported.
One final comment: Half Price Books makes a poor substitute for Book-Off.
A quick summary of my life since my last post:
I received a baseball cap (which says Samurai in both English and Kanji on it) and a keychain (which says both Dream and has the kanji "Yume" on it) from the Moritas for my birthday. These are the sort of "touristy" things that I never stooped low enough to buy while I was in Japan, but all the same I'm very happy to have them. After coming back I realized that I would have liked to have had things like these to wear, so that everyone could say, "Oh, have you been to Japan?" :)
Dan, a friend of mine since 4th grade, moved to Austin during the fall. We decided to make Thanksgiving dinner together, and it didn't turn out too badly. We made turkey divan (but used frozen chicken tenders instead of turkey), homemade stuffing, homemade mashed potatoes, and of course pumpkin pie. These are all things my mom has made on numerous occasions, so I'm fairly confident that I know what they should have tasted like. A bit later Dan and I created the same meal again, and it came out slightly better, but was still quite far below what I'm used to eating at home.
I went home for about 3 weeks for Christmas, since I hadn't used any of my vacation days for the year. It was fun to see snow, and good to spend time with my family once again. I had wanted to go sledding at least once (although I failed to convey that to anyone at home, so it's completely my fault), but when I got to Madison it was so cold that I decided to wait until it was a bit warmer. It did eventually warm up, but then all the snow "mysteriously" disappeared, so my sledding hopes were dashed.
I decided to renew my lease at my current place for another 6 months, so I'll have this place at least until June 14 (baring any unforeseen happenings). I probably would have signed a 12 month lease, but that was a more expensive option. One reason I decided to stay is that I still don't have a car. Unfortunately they decided to jack up my rent, so that gives me an incentive to move to a more worthy place once I have a car :(
In January I started my second rotation at work. I've decided that I'm going to try to write as little about work as possible, partly to keep me from writing anything that might get me in trouble, and partly because that'll force me to write about more interesting things. That said, my assignment for the next few months involves taking some software preparing it so that it can be made available to the public. This has involved creating a new build environment based on the GNU toolchain, which has been somewhat difficult because the current environment is complex and has been hard to figure out. Now that that's under control I have to use the GNU toolchain to build the software, and that has involved quite a bit more work than expected. It seems the GNU tools are much more picky about what you give them, which means I have to go through all the code and fix everything they don't like. In short, the process has been frustrating.
In February Mitsu decided to go to the Houston Auto Show with Nick, and they invited me to go along. I'm not really into cars, but I figured it would be fun to spend the weekend hanging out with them, and it seemed like a good chance to take a look at a bunch of cars, since I haven't bought one yet. After the car show, I don't think I want the 2006 Civic after all. I'm not sure anymore what all it was, but even though it has been getting great reviews and looked good on paper, it didn't really catch me. Luckily, they had a Honda Fit at the show as well. The Fit is supposed to be available starting April, and initially I had thought that I wouldn't really like it, but after seeing it at the show it's at the top of my list of choices. I haven't had a chance to test drive it yet, but as long as I like the way it drives that's almost certainly what I'll get. Finding out that I don't really like the Civic but will probably like the Fit alone made the Show worthwhile for me. Nick's "Maternal Unit" put up with us for the weekend, and both she and Nick were very good hosts. One of these days I'll find a way to repay them for their kindness. Oh, and even though all we talked about was cars and how fat Americans are, I really enjoyed spending some time with Nick and Mitsu again. I miss living in the Kaikan with everyone.
So, that's a quick summary of what I've been up to since I last reported.
One final comment: Half Price Books makes a poor substitute for Book-Off.
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