Reconnection

I think I mentioned in my gushing before about our new house that I have a room here devoted to nothing more than my guitars and me, and that is where I am writing this from. A few years ago I bought a little device that tells me both the temperature and the humidity of the surrounding area, and right now it reads a very guitar-friendly 56% humidity, and very human unfriendly temperature of 30 degrees Celcius.

A while after I bought the temperature/humidity gauge, Chieko and I bought a dehumidifier, since our previous apartment was all sorts of wet. The new house seems to be doing OK in terms of mold and mildew, but when we got back from America the humidity, according to my marvelous measurer, was a whopping 80%. I read a lot of acoustic guitar chat websites where they are always getting their panties in a bunch about lack of or excess humidity, and while I've never really given it much thought, I figure it was a good time to fire up the dehumidifier in my own special room here, and dry out these guitars, just to see if it makes a difference. The result so are is that my guitars sound moderately better and I'm sweating my ass off.

The other factor here is that our wireless modem seems to have melted while we were gone. And while I'm grateful that our new house didn't burn down as well, and that we finally have an internet connection, the fact remains that if I want to use the Internet, it means sitting here in the heat (strumming a nice dry guitar now and then).

But I don't think anyone really cares about anything I've said so far, unless you play a guitar and worry about it falling to pieces. The point is I'm sitting here in a very hot and dry room, whacking away on a keyboard. Let's continue.

The last time I posted I had just arrived in America, and I posted some pictures of Japan. This time, I have just (a week ago) arrived in Japan, and I'll post some pictures of America.

America was wonderful. Cape Cod, as usual, was wonderful. I count myself as lucky every time I go back there, both for the beauty of the place, and the quality of the people there that I count as friends and family. It's home.

I had a nice two weeks of relaxation before Chieko and her family arrived. We did a lot while they were there: whale watching, mall shopping, Cape Cod driving, enjoying the beach, a pig roasting wedding celebration, and lounging around in general.

It's never easy to come back to Japan after being home, but it was little harder this time, since in tow I had a bunch of people who had been blown away by the beauty of the place, and the quality of people there that I count as friends and family. As much I know how special all that is, they made me realize it a little more. As proud as I am about where and who I come from, they made me even prouder. And as much as I love living here in Japan, it really drove home the point that coming back here was, once again, leaving home.

Nevertheless, it is nice to be back, where at least I have my guitars! In a superb demonstration of shitty planning, we arranged to arrive here the day before we started work. Miraculously, the jet lag hasn't been as bad as it was going the other way. I suppose having to get up for work plays a part, but the effects have been manageable. We're slowly settling in to the fact that we now live in a big house, in a completely different place, with all sorts of new people around us. Nothing but time will make this more normal.

The first order of business, for me at least, is to tame the yard that, while a bit overgrown when we left, has blossomed into a spider infested jungle featuring weeds far taller than me. There will be further blog posts regarding this project. The major hurdle is our need for a weed-wacker. I don't want to buy one since we'll turn the yard into a garden, and need one basically to hack down all the crap that's in there now. So I need to either rent one, or find something else cheap and suitable for slaying vegetation. Tomorrow, the home center awaits. For now, I'm damn tired of typing, so here are some pics of all the stuff I mentioned above, plus a pretty rainbow from tonight. Talk to you soon.