Monthly Archives: April 2007

I do love TV, but I might do other things if I didn’t have it. Maybe I should just cut back to the network channels. I live in a neighborhood where we can’t get TV without cable and when I was a kid we just had the local networks on our cable TV. I suppose there are worse things I could do with my time and I’d rather not find out what those things are. For example, there’s a new ham radio I want, but the last time I was on the radio trying to talk any distance was 2003? It’s been so long that I’ve forgotten most of my … Continue reading →

It was a beautiful spring day in Portland. Couples were walking in the sunshine, eating at outdoor cafés. Every time I saw my next-door-neighbor, he was taking his kids to the park. So what was I doing? Reading comic books? Watching The Bourne Identity? Watching people burn their houses down? Drinking moonshine and shooting guns? You can probably guess. I probably should have seen The Bourne Supremacy sooner. I read all the Bourne-this, and the Bourne-that books by Robert Ludlum when I was in Japan. Either way, I kind of liked how the movie wasn’t as grim as the book. I also watched the orginal version of The Man Who … Continue reading →

Today I was going to either get to work late, or maybe just work from home. My mom had a call from SSA and I had to be around to translate. Unfortunately, that led to some questions about her green card and we had to go see la migra. It’s always a nice way to spend a day, panicked about having to go see INS. Even better, we also had to go through a metal detector and have our bags put through an x-ray machine. Twice, since we also had to go to the Social Security office. The federales also have a new way of scheduling appointments. Instead of just … Continue reading →

So I went to the dentist today with my teeth feeling fine. Of course they didn’t like that and they started picking at my teeth with a metal pick until I started feeling a pain that’s so odd that that I can still feel it. Ow ow ow ow ow. For some reason I also keep signing up for these 7AM appointments so I can get to work at a decent time and I’m not even sure I want to be there. We have yet another person bailing out of the group. Hooray. I really hope I’m not the last one left. Oh, and I think I have one month … Continue reading →

Traffic was kind of heavy on the way to work, and oddly quiet on the way home. The way to work can be explained by my own tardiness in leaving but I’m not sure how to explain the trip home. The gym was oddly empty as well. So I’m thinking of attending the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in June. I want to pretend that I’m still a programmer or something even though at work I’m a glorified tech writer. I take that back. Tech writing would be better than this. Anyway, I’m also thinking of taking a beginner’s golf class. It’s $525, but you get clubs. My mom thinks it’ll … Continue reading →

First day back to work and my stomach hurt. I was also tired because it’s the first time I got up that early in a week. But like my neighbor says, go to work, go home, go to work, go home. She thinks her Indian name should be, “Goes to work.” Other than work sucking, not much new today.

I drank some sort of weird energy drink yesterday but I’m not sure if that’s what kept me from sleeping well last night. I kept hearing how great it was, how it didn’t have any caffeine, and how awful it tasted, so I just had to try it. It had guarana, though, and that has caffeine in it. So today was a Sunday. Took some stuff to the post office, got my brother-in-law to haul my dad’s old Lay-Z-Boy to the dump (it was falling apart) and mowed the lawn. It’s finally nice enough that the neighbors are walking around and the lawn mowing took a lot longer than it … Continue reading →

I was asked to say something at my father’s funeral and I came up with this as a first draft. I just went with it and the only bad thing is that people thought my sister wrote it. Harrumph. Thank you for coming to the memorial service of my father, Tatsuo George Fujinaka. We appreciate that you took time to come remember him. My father was a complicated man. He hated gatherings, but would have fun after he arrived. He was a bit shy in that respect. He would have hated having too many people here tonight, but would have been mad if no one showed up. He loved plants. … Continue reading →

Who knew that Kinko’s wasn’t open all night and closed at 9PM? They sent the proofs for the memorial service and they couldn’t even spell Friday right. I forwarded it to my sister and kept badgering her, but she was out with some silly knit blogger and by the time I called Kinko’s, they were closed. I thought they were all open until at least midnight, but all the ones on the list I saw closed at 9PM. So, maybe we’re going to make the programs with crayon or a ‘ditto’ machine. Ah, well. I’m also supposed to say something about my father. I had lots of ideas, but as … Continue reading →

Today we were out running errands half of the day and I even went through an ordeal trying to get acupuncture. While we were gone, people had left food and flowers. I feel kind of guilty for being gone, but most of the things (besides the acupuncture and dinner) were related to funeral arrangements. I made an appointment with my usual acupuncturist at the Clown CollegeOregon College of Oriental Medicine because of pains in my lower back. After sitting in their waiting room for half-an-hour, they finally told me that the guy had already missed one appointment and his phone was disconnected. Fortunately they got ahold of him and I … Continue reading →

I made it to the gym today but as soon as I got there my back started to hurt. It has been getting a bit worse since then. I felt a twinge as I performed my pallbearer duties yesterday, but I thought it would go away. I guess lifting a weight with one hand while trying to maintain footing down a wet grassy slope isn’t the way to help your back. I think I’ll call the acupuncturist tomorrow. I started clearing out some of the junk in my dad’s room today to try to get a path to his closet. We haven’t seen the inside of the closet in years. … Continue reading →

The first major thing I did today was to be a pallbearer at my friend’s mom’s funeral. I hate seeing sad people, and funerals are not a place to be if you don’t want to see sad people. I did like meeting my buddy’s relatives and finally seeing his nieces and nephews. But then I had to go with my mom and sister to the funeral home to arrange my father’s disposition. It was more tiring than I was expecting, even though everything went quite quickly and we had no major disagreements. An example of a disagreement: my mom wanted me to tell my 90-something Uncle Leo to not come … Continue reading →