Japan!

I'm here. Google can sense that I'm connecting here and puts all of its buttons and text in Japanese, so it's taking me a while to figure out how to post things properly. For now, this sign on a cafe in Osaka nat'l airport will have to do.

For Jim

Welcome to Hill House

I’m staying at the lovely Brady Beckham’s house for the time leading up to my departure. On top of being a really sweet deal for me financially, it happens to be the coolest house I’ve ever stayed in. Please, allow me to show you around.

8B Clarkson from the front. Note the 25 degree angle of the driveway, which makes the walk from your car to the door an actual workout, and as my bedroom is on the very top floor begins the 20 foot vertical rise between my car and my bed. That’s not my car. On the descent, the angle of the driveway makes you fling your feet out in front of you and lean wayyyy back in some comical swaggering sillywalk or else risk cartwheeling down the hill with only concrete to pad your fall. So the driveway is neat, but most of the houses on this street have something similar, so we have to go inside to see what really distinguishes it from the rest.

Following the stairs all the way up, we come eventually to the master bedroom. As befitting the master of the house, the master bedroom comes with its own private balcony, upon which you can sip scotch and smoke fine Cuban cigars while perusing the morning’s stock reports.

Right now there’s a mattress and crappy plastic shelving on it, so unfortunately I have yet to use it to its fullest.

Aside from the balcony, the bathroom is what makes this the master bedroom. Each bedroom effectively has its own bathroom, but mine is the only one where you don’t have to peek your bare ass into the hall before getting in the shower, and as far as I know is the only one with a sweet red mood light to get you ready to shit. I’m guessing it’s there because reds and blues aren’t perceived as well at night, and the red light lets you read Harry Potter with reasonable clarity while your hairy pooter (woo!) goes to work, free of any worry of the light waking your sleeping partner.

Down the stairs once more, you’ll see the weird half-door hiding a closet. A moist, vaguely assy smell seeps out from under this one, so I haven’t opened it yet.

Rounding the corner again, you’ll see the bar bearing a mural of all the former residents (from left to right: Greg, Sam, and Brady. I don’t know who the girl is) and proudly displaying the name of the manor. The Beta Sade, I guess.

More ghostly evidence of the former residents is found in the portrait over the fireplace.

The portrait is my second favorite piece of art here. The best is this cardboard cutout of a Hawkeyes coach. I don’t know his name, but he answers to Coach as well as to anything else, so Coach he is called.

You can see him here casting a watchful eye over the living room. The view from the outside is best, because he makes a creepy silhouette that looks like someone is watching you as you walk up to the driveway.

The garage is pretty neat. The residents before included two cyclists, and at least one of them left a few things behind. Add then me and my bikes, and steve and his bikes, and we’ve got a total of 11 fully functional bikes in the house, and 3 more in various stages of disassembly.

Much cooler, though, is what I can only assume is the other half of that door from upstairs, hiding a scary crawl space. With this picture you’re getting the first look in the room at the same time as me. I’ve never gone in with a flashlight for the reason that I would probably be killed by some To Kill A Mockingbird-esque freak man the second I stuck my head past the door frame.

There are other things that make this house cool. There’s never a shortage of chairs, for instance. There are four refrigerators that I'm aware of. And as my roommates are either gone all the time or hide out in their rooms all day, for all intents and purposes, I have this sweet pad to myself. Thanks to Brady, I have a room to sleep in, a driveway to stagger down, and some guy in the living room to keep me safe. Here’s to you, Brady, and your kickass house.

Ignore this post

I want a pet robot

They sing

I made a quick mix of around 50 minutes. It's kind of deep housey and chill, for the most part. There were a few other tracks I wanted to get in, when I got what's linked together it sounded complete. It has Michael Jackson, Cut Copy, and Grand Master Flash. I hope you enjoy it

I also got a chance to listen to that last one casually. Sometimes they're tricky; you have to listen to tiny pieces of the song scores of times to get each part right, and after a while you get so used to looking for tiny things that you forget the big ones. Like one song going from the 4th beat to the 3rd of the next rather than the 1st. Heh. I'll fix it some day.

Hopefully I'll be playing music from time to time on KCOU soon. I'll note here when I have a regular slot and am planning on putting the track lists from each show here.

Here’s a mix (link). After taking far longer than I’m prepared to admit, I decided to just throw a couple more songs on to make it close to CD length and call it good. As such the last couple and first couple of songs are not mixed in as smoothly as I’d like, and there are a few places where the Acid put in a minor (very minor) stutter that I won’t be able to fix without spending more time than I’m willing. I also don’t know who the original artist for the Trouble and Bass song is. Whatever.

In other news, I think making 5 gallons of mead was a mistake. A delicious mistake, yes, but still a mistake. It’s equivalent to wine in strength and less than $2 per bottle, but the stuff is so cloyingly sweet it’s hard to get through it. It tastes like honey and alcohol, not surprisingly, so I think it would make a really good mixer for cocktails. Maybe with some pinot grigio and a couple chunklets of watermelon it could make a good sippy drink. Anyway, I’m looking for ideas to make it a little less of a chore to drink – so if anyone has one then let me know.

Lake Lifestyle

I've spent the last couple of days at my parents' place at Lake Lotowana, right between Blue Springs and Lee's Summit in the burbs of KC. A picture my little sister took pretty much encapsulates every visit I have back here.



It's the most utterly relaxing time you could possibly spend anywhere. The biggest decision of the day is whether you'd rather sun yourself up by the house or down at the dock. Showers are completely optional, because the frequent dips in the lake mean that my sweat is replaced with lakewater residue every couple of hours, which is replaced in turn by new sweat residue as I strategize my time spent on the front porch and the hammock in the back yard to maximize my exposure to the sun. Every time I visit, I regain my old skills on the wakeboard for a few days at a time, then I leave for Columbia for another 3-4 months and lose them again. I really, really like it.

The real purpose of going back to KC was to get organized for a day trip down to Arkansas for some freeriding, and then to spend some face time with Mom and Dad to remind them that I’m a real person, and not just an occasional email. I accomplished both of those, and so today I regretfully packed up my shit and drove back to Columbia. I’m glad that I left when I did, though, because on the drive home I saw a dead armadillo by the roadside and a bird shitting mid-flight across the highway. I’m pretty sure that the bird was hoping to hit a car as he went by. When you fly miles and miles each day in search of whatever it is birds look for, you don’t just happen to shit on a 20 ft-wide band of concrete. Though it might be that what the birds are flying miles and miles for every day is a suitable target towards which they can fling their poo. I think that’s why we envy birds.

The purpose of this blog will be eventually to record images and experiences in Japan, beginning when I arrive in the tail end of September. Until then it will be about as exciting as any other blog you find on the internet.