Christmas is over and the New Years just just around the corner.

I have had the last week off and its been really nice!! Christmas was good and fun. I think I gave some cool gifts this year. Ate a ton of food and watched some good football. Still watching some good football.

I have gone to 3 movies so far this past week. I saw Les Miserables yesterday. WOW!!! What a great movie. I have seen this on broadway in NY but the movie was excellent!!! I highly recommend this.

My mom called and we went to see together. My mom and I like theater and opera and musicals. So she has always taken me with her to these. So we decided to see the movie and so touching. I am going to see it again!!

It feels a little strange not being in Japan for New Years but its nice to be home with family.
Today I went shopping to IKEA and bought a few things for my house. Now just relaxing... Tomorrow more football and a movie. Its nice to just relax. Its cold and been snowing the past few days. I did go snowboarding a couple days ago and will go possibly on Monday. So a busy holiday!!!

I hope everyone has a nice and peaceful New Years. I also hope you can spend it with those who mean the most to you....

Still here...

Well...I guess we are all still here...let the party begin.

Good bye world.....

Just in case the world ends tomorrow..... I love you all!!!

Peace out and Gods Speed...

(If the world doesn't end.....see ya later!!)

My heart goes out to those in the US that were affected by that horrible shooting in Connecticut. I was leaving work early in the afternoon yesterday when I heard the news. My heart stopped for a moment when I heard they had confirmed a whole class if kindergarten was shot and killed. Some tears came to my eye. I can't even imagine or may I don't want to imagine what happened in that school yesterday. No matter where or who you are it just makes you want to go home and hug your kids and tell them you love them.

About 11 years ago I made the decision to put my son first in my life no matter what. I was in some difficult times and I decided none of my issues belonged to him. In fact, he was getting stress and heartbreak because of my personal issues. It hit me one day and I realized as my son, he is a part of me. If he isn't happy, I could never be happy. I changed everything I could to bring him with me in life and give him all my love and support I could as his father. I made it my goal to give him a hug everyday and tell him I love him. I have done that everyday. Today he is 16. He is a teenager and not a child anymore. In fact he is as big as me. But we still tell each other "I love you" and we still give each other a hug everyday. Its a smaller hug these days since he is a young man. But the love and respect is there. I wish all parents can make sure their kids know that they love them and they would do anything for them. I have learned that love is communicated many different ways in different countries. In Japan you don't necessarily say "I love you" so much. But you can support and can have open communication with your kids. Don't put your work before your kids. Spend time with them and help them understand life and the world and yes give them hugs. This is love... I am so thankful for the time and relationship I have with my son. I appreciate much more today after this tragic news...

Finally Back...

Its 5:30AM Saturday morning..... I have jet lag. I got back from my long trip to Japan. Very long and very very busy. I guess almost 3 weeks...

I was in Nagoya and Tsukuba most of the time. But had a chance to take a few days and go up to Hokkaido to relax and finally eat some good good. Hokkaido was warmer than I thought it would be at that time. I just missed a storm so that was good. But it was good. I just stayed in Sapporo and Otaru and did a little Christmas shopping and did a little relaxing and did a lot of eating...hehe. I love it up there!!

But its good to be back. Andy I think missed me and I hate leaving him when I have to go. He wanted to go with me this time but he can't miss school. So he had to stay with his grandparents.... BeeBee too. She missed me. She was so excited when she saw me she couldn't stop jumping on me. So nice to come back to that.

So that trip is done. I am here for a month and in January I will be doing it again... Crazy but I have no choice. I have to live here in the US now for Andy and get him finished with high school. He only has a year left and then he is off to University. I can't believe it. But once that happens I have to move back to Nagoya I guess. Its ok though. I kind of like living there.

So while in Sapporo I found this file maker online. I really liked his style and really liked this video called " In South America 2012". This is a trip him and his friends took all over South America this spring and summer. He put the whole trip together in just like 6 minutes... He did a fantasic job. I have been playing with video that past few years and have put together a couple of similar types of my own journeys. Maybe I will post sometime. But for now check his out.... This was all show with a Canon D7 and GoPro. He did a great job editing and mixing the music. I guess its just my style.



In South America - 2012 from Vincent Urban on Vimeo.

Well... maybe I will try to go lay back down in bed... I can't sleep but exhausted... Maybe its just better to go get a coke a 7-11 and take BeeBee for a very early morning walk... Cheers!!

Sunday afternoon... BeeBee and I are sitting here watching football (Broncos are kicking butt!!). Its snowing like crazy outside and we have over a foot now so its winter!! Merry Christmas!!!

So watching football and this commercial comes on TV.... loved it!!! I am a fan of Rush, I do drive a Volkswagen, and I love to air drum and sing in my car.... So while the car and face is a little different... this reminded me of me. Not only that but my sister just called and said the same thing.... She told me she saw this commercial and it reminded her of me....

Again different face, different car (same brand thought) but pretty much my geek rush coming out!!




I have been sick the last 4 days. I guess I got the flu. So just been in bed and resting. Tomorrow is another crazy Monday and I will travel to Japan so today I will just stay in my warm house and watch football. When you are sick you want to eat some good food... Unfortuantely I am a terrible cook... but I would pay someone to make me some good cream stew or clam chowder right now.... But for the next little while I will have some good food in Japan... I will even make a stop in Hokkaido for a few days to eat some good food and relax...

Halloween is over... now on to Thanksgiving and Christmas....

Well I had a good Halloween. Had a good time. My neighborhood is CRAZY during Halloween. We have a bunch of guys and play in a live band in my neighbors garage all night. We show the NBA Jazz basketball game that night live outside and cook hot dogs, scones, popcorn and don't forget the drinks....

The whole neighborhood gathers and we have one big party out in the street. Its a good time and the kids love it. Andy and BeeBee had a good time as usual.

This is my house. I left candy outside and took this picture of the kids as they came to take candy... Decorating the house for Halloween is kind of a pain. But everyone does it and its fun.

Andy and BeeBee outside enjoying Halloween.. (We were busy cutting pumpkins into these faces...)

Neighborhood garage band.... My friends and they were not too bad... Next year I will be playing with them... I had no time to practice this year...

Garage band and street party.

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So another Halloween over... now I can start to think about shopping for Christmas..... (I don't want to think about it....)

This is what it looked like on my street this morning. First snow in the mountains.... summer is really over.... It was beautiful with the fall colors and the new white snow....

After the hot summer I am loving this weather!!!!

In 2 months I will be ready for spring....

OCTOBER!! Possibly my favorite month of the year... I love autumn and I love the food and sports and weather in autumn. So I think October is the best month to be alive.....

The leafs in Utah have now changed and actually we are expecting our first snow storm next week...Here is what my area looks like now.

View of the mountain behind my house.

This a little drive about 10 minutes from my house. I live at the base of the mountains.

Utah is famous for its sunsets...!!

I love this weather and I really like being here in October.... However, I love being in Japan in October too. Maybe for me the best month in Japan is October....It looks like I won't bet there this month but next month in November I will be back. Its a little crazy but one of my favorite foods in Japan in the fall is Oden and my favorite place to get oden is...... 7-11.  Serious!! 7-11 has great oden!!!

Autumn is in the air!!! Utah is starting to feel a little better. Still hotter than hell but a little better...

Today I went to a gas station and there I saw a Japanese guy. He was getting a drink. We talked and I found out he has been in the US since June. He was riding his bicycle around the US. Actually he started in Alaska and was going to Arizona. I couldn't believe it. He has rode his bike over 4000 miles from Alaska and it has taken him 3 months to get to here to UTAH.... AMAZING!!

So we talked and I invited him to my house. I gave him some food and a little money and told him good luck. We talked and ate for a couple of hours and he left. I was kind of jealous of him. I would love to do that. But he is a little crazy... anyway here is where he has rode so far. He is going to Arizona which is just under Utah and then flying home....

Actually I was planning on driving my motorcycle from Utah to Alaska next year. Many people to that. It will take my a few days to do. But thats on a motorcycle not a bicycle!!

After hearing about everything he has seen,,,, I am really excited to do this next year. Just me and my motorcycle!!

Now its about midnight on a Saturday night... I have been doing work in my yard all day. My dog Beebee loves to dig in the dirt in my flowerbeds... So I have decided to completely change my yard around. I am taking out all the flower beds and putting rock beds in... Hopefully this will help keep her cleaner. Today I am also dog sitting my nephews dog. So I have two dogs here with me tonight.....kind of crazy but fun. They have played and played all day while I worked. Now they are both asleep and even snoring!!!

Another year older..... damn!!

I guess there is nothing I can do about it... we are all getting older. But hey... thats life right?? Well here I am in the big 40s... kind of crazy!! But I did have an ok day... I mean I got to work a long day and come home and sleep... pretty exciting Birthday... at least BeeBee gave me a kiss!! hehe.

I have had a lot of people at my work ask me what I liked to watch in the Olympics. I really enjoyed women's soccer. (Or football if you are outside the US). Women's soccer in the US is really popular. We usually have a strong team and hey some of the players are pretty cute!! It was nice to see them beat Japan. I watched the women's world cup a couple of years ago and watched Japan beat the US in penalty kicks. It sucked... So it was nice to see them win this time.

But Japan played a nice game and are really respected in the states. I was asked so many times if I was cheering for Japan or the US... OF COARSE THE US!!! I am American!! But there is a small place in my heart for the Japanese team... thats true.



Now the Olympics are over its time for American FOOTBALL!! I am so excited this year I can actually watch the full season in the states. The last 5 years I have had to watch in the middle of the night or early early morning because of the time change. So this year I am getting ready. Actually I am going down to get me a new TV to really enjoy it... 60 inches of pure joy!! I guess at my age being home thats basically my joy....hehe. But I am happy to have friends come over to party during the game...!!

Go Broncos!!

Here we go again....

Its July and Hot!!!

As usual I have been busy. I spent the last two week in June in Japan. A crazy busy business trip. I was in Nagoya and then Tsukuba and then Gunma (Ota city). I was with 2 members from my team here in Utah.

We had a lot of meetings in Japan with Toyota and Subaru. Toyota is like my old home in Japan but Subaru for me is new.

Although we were at Subaru.... we drove a Mitsubishi Delica to go there. I used to have an old Delica when I lived in Japan before. Its a big van. But I loved that van. It was 4WD and took me all over Hokkaido. Even parts of Honshu. Sadly I left Japan at that time. Anyway... a couple of other team members decided to point out we were driving a Mitsubishi inside the Subaru Headquarters....

It was a good trip and pretty busy. I did visit the sky tree in Tokyo. It was a good couple of days in Tokyo just to play, relax, and eat some good food. But it was a little hot and humid.....

I returned from Japan and was dead tired. This trip killed me. Just too busy. I think I went to bed at around 3am every morning.... just too much this time. So for about a week I was dead at work and dead when I came home. I decided to take a few days off and go to Yellowstone. (I never can take time off because of my damn cell phone these days but I tried....).

So here are some pictures I took in Yellowstone. It was just a road trip for me. I just wanted to go for a drive. So BeeBee and I jumped in my Volkswagen and started driving. Yellowstone is always a great place to see nature and just get away from everything. We did go to Jackson Holy Wyoming and there the town was having their 4th of July celebration. Kind of fun. Here's my pics below.

This is the parade in Jackson Hole Wyoming on the 4th of July. HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!!

You can see Jackson Hole Ski Resort on Mountain.

Here are some pics of Yellowstone....

Grand Teton National Park... lots of Buffalo!!

BeeBee didn't want to get in the water. She tried her best to walk across the  tree log. BeeBee is deaf. She can not hear so I was giving her my sign language of "good girl".

Grand Tetons...

After Yellowstone.... I drove to another little cowboy town called Cody Wyoming. It really is a cowboy town. Very interesting... there they have wild deer that live and walk all over the town. BeeBee was chased a couple of time by the deer. BeeBee was a little scared of them. But the town was really cool and really brings back kind of the Old West feeling that was in America.

Deer at someones front yard.

Then it was a long drive back to Utah... I drove a different road back.... long and nothing!! Here was the view...

I loved this. I stopped at a rest stop and saw this van. On the back they wrote, "Please be patient  we are from Norway". It must be their first time driving in crazy America....

It was a long drive back... Glad I had some music, coke, and an air conditioner or I would have died....

Now I am back to Utah and just busy...Its a hot summer here this year so I guess its good to be busy at work... Still.... I am ready for some more time off.... Lately I wonder if its really worth it to be this busy. I mean life goes pretty fast... I have spent the last 10 years seriously working hard. I guess its been like medicine for me. But some feelings will never change no matter how hard you work... When I die the the last thing I say won't be, "I wish I would have worked harder"... I hope I would say, "Man I completed my responsibilities and helped society but also played around a lot and it was a good ride....".

May May May.... wow May is here!!! Its been forever!! Sorry my friends. What can I say?? I have been busy working and playing and facebook has taken over. So its been difficult to get back on this blog. But I am back anyway. Its been a nice spring in Utah. I went to Moab Utah for the Annual Jeep Safari. I couldn't do it all the time when I lived in Japan. But now I am back to playing in my jeep. Here are some pictures from my trip.

My girl and I.... She did really good on the trail.

This is a real mans jeep!! My next project!!

Down the slickrock

Balancing Rock

Hiking to "Delicate Arch"

Here I am at Delicate Arch. Beautiful weather and a great hike!!

Summer starts tomorrow!!! Let's do it again..

Here we are near the end of Feburary. Wow unreal!! Its been really busy for me getting my house fixed from the wind storm we had. My roof has been replaced and now my siding is almost completed. After that I have a couple of windows that need to be replaced and finally I may be back to normal....

I forgot how windy Utah can get sometimes. Its not always windy but we will have wind storms that come once in a while and when the wind comes its pretty strong. Much like a typhoon or something. The winter has been very mild. We do not have much snow here where I live but up in the mountains we have a lot.

Well the Superbowl was played a couple of weeks ago and as usual there was some great TV commercials. Here are a couple of my favorites.... Check them out..

This one is a kind of a remake from one of my favorite movies "Ferris Buellers Day Off".




Here is another one that I thought was really funny. This kid thinks his parents bought him a new car for his gradutation. But they really bought him a refridgerator. At the end him and his friends are yelling "best gift ever... best gift ever.. "



Well those were a couple of my favorites. In other news... last week I took Bee-Bee my dog for a drive and to take some pictures. It was bad weather actually but was able to catch some pictures of some seagulls...

Finally getting the house fixed. Yesterday 5 Mexicans showed up to my house to start putting on my new roof. It was a very loud day for me as they were working up there. I decided to go for a walk and then a drive just to get away from the noise. But happy at least my new roof is almost completed. A snow storm is coming in the day after tomorrow and it will be completed by tomorrow morning. So just in time!!