Snipshot lets you crop, resize, and rotate pictures (among other things) on your browser!

There have been times where I have felt betrayed, victimized, and wronged. Sometimes life is like that, and there is nothing to do but to move on because things are just so messed up. There’s no use in getting angry for a prolonged period, though knowledge of this doesn’t always help. Dwelling on these matters does no one any good and can make you a wretched person to be around.
If you can live through the euphoric ups and gut-wrenching downs of life, suffer harm from those close to you, and move on bearing no ill will towards anybody or anything then life will be a lot easier to deal with. Like a pent up river, break down the dam, release the pressure, and the balance will return.
When I am feeling down, the water has always been there to console me. After bad days at the office, nothing would melt away the stress like taking a walk next to the natural mountain springs that I lived next to. Just being near a mountain stream, roaring river, or the ever-changing sea invigorates me like nothing else.

This place is known as Kikuchi gorge. It is one of my favorite places in Kumamoto, and often I have come here with friends and family to suck in all that this intact forest (a rare thing in most of Japan) has to offer. Jumping off boulders into icy blue pools of water, riding down a sled made from the basalt that came from the explosion that formed the Aso caldera, eating picnics in the shade of an aincent cryptomeria tree on a hot day, driving the windy roads on a foggy night, and bringing Yoda the cat out for an adventure are all fond memories I have of this place.
I’m going rafting from tomorrow on the American River with my sisters and some friends. I’m looking forward to getting back into nature, and enjoying this wonderful California summer. And after that, I’ll be teaching sailing in Newport for a while. Life is good.

I remember enjoying this on Japanese TV, which says something since I generally won’t watch Japanese TV programs.
Fish are set out in a park with the objective of seeing how heavy of a fish one of the many feral cats can carry away. Cats are disqualified if they start eating the fish without carrying it away. It’s kind of painful to watch now, since all of that fish is of superior quality and fresher than any of the stuff I can get here in the States. I guess I’ll just have to catch my own.

How did I not hear about this? Awesome.

Think of some things that don’t belong on pizza. It has been done in Japan. Now see if any of the ingredients that you picked match up with any of these ice cream flavors.

Paul Fusco gives an account of the legacy of Chernobyl through a narrated slideshow.

I guess that “cacahuate” means “peanut”. Cool.

Last week, Kohei invited Chris and I to go fishing off of the coast of Avila for 3 days. The conditions are very different from Southern California, as the winds and waves make anything other than fishing in the morning prohibitive.
The place is an ecological gem off the coast of California, and the fishing is unrivaled in terms of size and number of rockfish that you can catch. A professor at UCSB told me of the phenomenal fishing to be found here when I was an undergrad, and I finally got to check it out for myself.
The first day, we used nothing other than Sabiki rigs, and used the smaller fish that we caught for bait with quick results. We released all of the other fish that we caught that day.
The second day, we caught 2 ling cod and over 30 rock fish between the three of us, off the coast of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. You aren’t allowed to get within a mile of the facility, so with this in mind we fished its perimeter with great results. The lingcod and many of our larger rockfish were caught by yo-yo’ing blue and white candybar jigs off of the rocky bottom. The rest of the rockfish, and a Cabazon, were caught by using bait that was, itself, caught off of Sabiki rigs.

This is the first Ling Cod we got. It was too small, so we tossed it back.
Ling Cods look like giant mutsugoro, but taste much better!

This is Kohei’s Ling, which required the use of a gaff to land. It was not so lucky as the first one, and made for a delicious dinner along with the other rockfish that we kept. It had a nasty chomp mark on its flank, likely left by a bigger one. This is one fish whose mouth you don’t want to stick your fingers in.

This is Chris’ ferocious trout from Lake Lopez, on a trip we took the following day. Sweet!

Kohei filleted these suckers in record time, and attracted a medium size crowd in the process. The de-filleted carcasses were quickly snatched up by rival flocks of gulls and pelicans, as well as a sea lion. They started out noisy as all heck, and by the end they were silent, each animal content with their abundance of good fortune. We ended up with well over 20 pounds of fillets!

A view down the mouths of the Ling and a Rock Cod. The rock cods seemed to be eating a lot of juvenile decorator crabs, judging from the stuff that they regurgitated onto the deck.