My aunt just called several times from Japan, worried about where my mom was. My mom’s plan was to fly into Tokyo, spend the night, and then get on a train headed for my aunt’s place (at least 7-8 hours of train time). We talked about how hard it would be for my mom to call my aunt until she got on the train. The bad part about the ubiquity of cell phones in Japan is that it killed the pay phone industry and I’m guessing my mom’s having no luck finding a way to call my aunt. I had to call the hotel to make sure my mom checked in (and out) because my aunt was so worried. I figure there’s no reason to worry unless my mom doesn’t show up in Tokuyama, where they’re supposed to meet. I think that’s in an hour or so, about midnight my time. If things go poorly, I expect a panicked call around 2AM.

You know that $5000 ham radio I was talking about buying? It arrived on Monday and it’s kind of a kit. You really only need a screwdriver to put it together (they’ve done all the soldering for you) but it still took ten hours to assemble. Once I got it all together, I had to play with it. I’ve only talked to one guy on it so far (a guy from Calgary) because it’s taken me two days to figure out how to talk with the thing. I figured out how to send Morse code, and I heard Sweden, but Sweden didn’t hear me.

No news is sometimes good news, so let’s at least hope for that.