So it's been a little while since I wrote last. I've been dealing with a bit of illness that has caused me to drop some serious weight lately and have been having trouble putting it back on. I've not felt perfect most recently but not miserable either. Just kind of HERE. Anyway this will be a short post tonight I just witnessed something that I had to share though. Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows that I'm a voracious reader. I read just about anything i can get my hands on. I've pretty much always been this way ever since I could read. When I was a child I used to sneak and sit in front of the night light and read until I was caught or I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. That habit has kind of stayed with me into adulthood.... Not getting caught, but the reading late into the night until my eyes burn. I'm to the point that I find it nearly impossible to go to sleep without reading a chapter of SOMETHING. Even if it's from the 30 or so books I've got piled up on my nightstand that I've read each at least three times. I bring this up because of my oldest daughter. You see she has learned to read last year and may even be a better reader at her age than I was. So this evening I tuck them in bed and tell them to go to sleep. Almost every night I end up hearing pages turn and I'll growl into the bedroom "Go to Sleeep... Stop Reading!!!" This evening as in many others as I put No. 1 daughter in her bed I told her to give me the book I could see lying next to her pillow. She meekly "yes, daddy'ed" me and handed it over when No. 2 daughter pipes up from her bottom bunk. "she has lots of books hidden in her bed daddy!!!", she says. Ok No. 1 hand 'em over. This is what she gave me.....

The Pile as I shall call it is just a touch over 6" tall. Consists of both English and Japanese books and on top is a bound deck of quiz cards. I am very proud of my childs reading ability and her desire to read but WTF? I'll have to ask my dad if I ever went to this extreme. I don't know how she even put her legs under the covers, the books were everywhere!! Hope everyone is doing well. I'll post again soon.

B

Heavy Thoughts

So, I know I promised to tell the story of how Mrs BG and I met in my next post but there's something that's been rattling around in my head for a few weeks and I really feel the urge to put it out on paper so to speak. More lighthearted fare next time.

A few weeks ago it was my Mom's birthday. She was 52 when she died early this year. That was actually only a few days before my own birthday. I mention this because of the emotions that I felt leading up to her birthday this year and after are a huge part of what is rattling around in my head. As you know, a little over a year ago I received a heart transplant. I was and am grateful beyond words for the gift of continued life it gave me but it has also been a source of conflict in my mind. See, once I'd gotten the heart and had gotten past the immediacies of a new transplant I felt elated and horrible in bursts. I was/am alive and this other person is not. It caused me quite a bit of mental turmoil and one evening I sat down and wrote about it all. It was basically a stream of consciousness, raw emotion and it was immensely cathartic for me to write. Only a few people in the world have seen this document and although I have it somewhere I'm not sure I could bear to go back and re-read it now. It was a time when I should have been incredibly happy and I was, but I also felt alot of guilt. Probably the best friend in my life told me something that was echoed by my father. A general question on a transplant support website that I frequent called www.transplantbuddies.com also produced alot of responses that matched what they said. It was difficult then though to accept.
Here is what he said: "yes, that other family is hurting right now, and yes they are still coming to grips with the loss of their loved one. But underneath that there MUST be a wild hope, a hope that somehow there is someone elses family who is experiencing incredible joy. They must be somewhat happy that some good can come of their grief." I listened to what he and my Father had to say and tried to move on beyond those feelings. Recently, as my mother's birthday rolled around, I had a unique perspective to reflect again on the wisdom of their words.
You see, when my mother passed away she died of the after-effects of a large aneurysm bursting in her head. It rendered her effectively brain dead within minutes. She was rushed to the hospital and they were able to bring her back before they determined the extent of the damage she'd incurred. When my family and I got her bedside I had a frank discussion with the neurosurgeon and had to recall alot of medical knowledge from my time as an EMT. The end result was that the prognosis for her was grave. The doctor very tentatively brought up the idea of organ donation to my family and I and we discussed it. Everyone was weeping, everyone was upset but there was zero dissent. Everyone agreed that there was no way that my Mom would NOT want to donate if that were possible. How could she not after what I'd been through myself? So, my mother donated. Her corneas have helped two people to have sight again and her liver works and sustains life for a woman in the mid-west.
You know what? My friend and my Dad were right..... There IS a huge unbridled hope that simply cannot be put down, that maybe in the midst of all our pain someone else could experience a life changing event. As time went on and we learned that my mother had saved the life of another person and changed the lives of two others there was a tempering effect to our sadness. I realize now that my pain and conflict shortly after the transplant weren't necessary. DESPITE my sense of loss, I do want the person who is living with my mother's liver to be happy, I really DON'T want them to feel guilt or sadness in that regard. I DO grieve for mother and to some extent I always will especially around those times that were special to her. But with the grief is a happiness as well. Someone else is LIVING because of my mother. That thought brings a smile to my face every time. I'll close this post simply.
To my donors family: Thank you. Thank you for giving me a gift that allows me to Live, Love and be Loved.
To the recipient of my Mom's liver: I sincerely hope that you too are Living, Loving, and being Loved.
To everyone else: EVERY day is a day to Live, Love and Be Loved.

Where's the beef?

So, one or two people (of the maybe 6) people that were reading this blog had recently asked me where the beef is. Meaning, i started posting on the blog, why hasn't there been anything new lately? Wellll.....I just haven't thought that i had a whole lot to say recently. So what's been happening lately in the land of the BG? The wife and kids are in Japan still for another couple weeks. When i first came back on my own i was pretty excited. I was going to have time to work on my electric bike retrofit (more on that later), surf the internet as long as I wanted, eat junk food, and play video games until my arms fell off and my eyeballs burned. I did all of these things and it was GREAT!!! For about 3 days, or more precisely, for the time that it took me to get back on a normal sleep schedule.

Now, I just miss my family. I miss my kids running over to hug me when i come home. I miss smelling whatever Mrs. BG happens to be brewing up for dinner and the smell of the house when people are actually living in it. A house, this one at least, literally has a different smell in it when I come home now. Now I can hear you out there in internet land saying "Brian, that smell is your moldering socks and stuff!" And i say to you, au contraire!!! I have safely sealed the dirty laundry pile in the hamper, which is in the closet with the door shut in the bedroom. I assure you, no smell is escaping that area. Speaking of which, i suppose that I'll have to do laundry again this weekend. The problem with that is that it means I'll have to take the clean clothes out of the dryer where they are perfectly happy and fold them. This is far more tedious than just turning the dryer on for 20 min each morning when i get up and pulling something out fresh for wear that day.

Moving on, a few of my friends have most graciously provided me with victuals during this enforced bachelorhood. I've been to eat at Mr. and Mrs. Engineers house twice since I've come home and enjoyed the meal immensely both times. Here is a sampling of my last dinner there.


Yep, that's some steaks, freshly boiled farmer's market corn and some zucchini and potatoes. A great dinner. For dessert we had some Ghirardelli's brownies. I brought the box and bade Mrs. Engineer's wife to bake them. I had a bum arm you see and that made it difficult for me to make them. I ended up leaving half there and taking half home, and my half did not make it through the following day.

Why you may ask was my arm hurt and how? I really wish I knew. I simply woke up last Wed. with an incredible pain in my right shoulder.
I'd completely lost the ability to move the arm more than an inch or two from my side. I literally could not raise my arm to be level with my shoulder without excruciating pain. I medicated and iced and arranged to see my primary doctor. The conversation at the primary doctor went something like this:

Me: I can't move my arm and it hurts like the dickens. I think i need to go see an orthopedist can you write me a referral?
Her: Hmmm. Are you sure you can't move it? Did you do anything to hurt it?
Me: yep, I'm sure and no I didn't do anything unless sleeping is bad for your health.
Her: (examining me) Does it hurt when i push here? (ow) How about here? (OWW). How about if i put more pressure here? (OWWWWWW) Hmmm. I'm really just an Internal Medicine doc and not so great with bones and joints. I think you should see an orthopedist.
Me: (Almost sobbing) Thank you.

I love my doc by the way, she's been great the few times I've had to go see her since i moved to the Pacific NW and she left the room for a little while to get me an Orthopedic consult. She went above and beyond and found a doctor that accepted Tricare and verified that they had an appointment they could see me at within a few days and assured me she would put the referral in. Fast Forward to today.
Off I go to see the orthopedist, my arm is quite a bit better but still definitely not up to par. Aches, can't really drive with it etc.... I show up at the doctor's office this morning and the receptionist asks me for the hard copy of my referral. I politely tell her that Tricare usually faxes that directly to the doc and could she please take a look for it? She looks around and says it's not there and we'll need to call Tricare because if i see the doctor without a referral it's going to cost me the arm I'm trying to get fixed. So I sat down and eavesdropped into the conversation she had with Tricare. The gist of which was that Tricare had denied the referral to her doctor. Why? Because he was "in Network" but not "preferred" whatever that means. Tricare had instead changed the referral to have me go to some other guy. They did NOT inform the referring doctor, the referred to doctor or the referee (myself). Now these folks have my email address, my phone number, my work number, my work email and I wouldn't be surprised if they had the ability to speak directly inside my head. No contact was initiated though and so there I stood. Luckily the doc that Tricare wanted me to see had a spot open at 1400. So what did all of this turn up? The doc thinks I've made a labral tear or lesion. See:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slap_lesion
I really hope that he's wrong but he was able to describe my symptoms very very well. So, an MRI of the shoulder is next for final diagnoses. I had really hoped it would be just a pinched nerve as it's much better today than it was on Wed-Fri, but the doc is not optimistic.
So that's all I've really got. Momo is currently in the bedroom curled up on Mrs. BG's side of the bed. Every now and then she lets out a "woof" to make sure some passing squirrel knows that death awaits it inside the house. It can actually be pretty annoying. But she's a good dog and comes over every now and then to check on me and see what I'm doing. One of the coolest things she does is every night when i come home she runs around the house with a stuffed animal in her mouth, one of my eldest daughter's discarded ones, and runs to each room whimpering. She then comes back to me and looks at me very expectantly as if she is asking, "OK, where's my girls?" I tell her again that they aren't here and she goes and flops down with this weary sigh. I imagine she is thinking, "so I'm stuck with you AGAIN?" Ever hear the story of how Mrs. BG and I met? No? Yes, but want to hear it again? Next post.

Disneyland and DisneySea

Well the last two days have been very very busy. I'd wanted to take my compter so I could blog about each day as they happened but as it turned out by the end of the day ALL I wanted to do was put my feet up, lay down, and drift off into oblivion. I don't remember being this tired after Disneyland when I was a kid but that was admittedly some time ago. Disneyland was of course alot of fun and it was great to see the faces of my kids now that they are at an age to enjoy seeing all the characters and the rides. Hanna even rode on a rollercoaster several times and enjoyed herself. Yuki wasn't so much about riding roller coasters but the more kiddie rides were all great for her. It was hot as crap, about 32 Celsius and humidity you wouldn't beleive. But we managed to have a good time anyway. I walked more in the last two days at one time than I have since transplant and felt great. Tired of course but nothing like the energy sapping illness I had before transplant. A bunch of pictures below from Disneyland which other than the usual had nothing SO important for me to blog about. Stay tuned though because after the pictures I want to tell you about one of the coolest things I saw at Disneysea. Branden especially with his interest in robotics and autonomous control will enjoy that portion. Pictures below:

At the Disney Ambassador hotel.

Breakfast at Chef Mickey's restaraunt.

I was yelling for Daffy to look at the infidelity Daisy was displaying but my Japanese was lacking and he didn't understand what I was yelling.

Molesting the duck.

Everyone with Pluto.

From this point on we'll talk about our day at Disneysea. Actually, to be clear, the pictures above where we are in the restaraunt with the characters, were all taken on the morning of our second day there at breakfast before heading out for the day to Disneysea. I saw several very cool things at Disneysea, (which is the only one in the world by the way) which I'm pretty excited to talk about. The first was a thing near the entrance called the Picture of a Million Smiles and what is so cool about it is that it's a large mural of a Disney scene and the pixels of the picture are actually small photographs of people having fun at Disneyland. Very cool. There were two of them, one at each entrance. Check it out:

The whole Mural.

A close up of i forget where on the mural.

The other large mural. The close up below is of Mickey's eyes.

Disneysea had lots of cool rides as well and was actually I thought a little cooler than Disneyland. That opinion probably had alot to do with the fact that the day was several degrees cooler and the lines for rides were MUCH shorter. Hanna went on the "Journey to the Center of the Earth" ride three times!! This was a magnetically driven ride and included a couple of fast roller coaster style drops and rises. The really cool thing about it is that with the magnetic drive we could actually accelerate like the dickens UPHILL! After the third time around we decided to go over to the Indiana Jones ride but it was closed for maintenance. Alli and I then went on the Indian Jones rollercoaster rather than theme ride and it had a loop and everything but as a rollercoaster was a bit disappointing. Luckily we only waited about 20-30 min for that one. I would have been really upset if we'd waited an hour for it though. We then went back to the Indiana Jones theme ride but it was still closed. After looking at the map we decided to head towards the Future Land or something and see what was there. Earlier when we'd come to the Indian Jones section via boat we'd passed by this area and saw what I assumed was a bumper boat ride. I thought the kids would enjoy that so we headed that way. It wasn't until we were actually in the line for this ride that I realized we wouldn't be controlling anything we were only along for the ride on what I assumed was a track. Standing in line I was watching all the boats go by in line in the loading area and then as they exited I noticed that they weren't all leaving on the same path which I thought was pretty interesting but not all that important yet. THEN as Hanna and I got into the car and we exited the loading queue did I finally notice what was really happening. Almost instantly a mental image of a video that Branden had once shown me of a robot swarm moving through a room rushed through my head. Sachi, Yuki and Alli were in the car in front of us and they peeled off to the left while we went about 20 degrees farther to the right. I looked down and saw under the surface of the water, some blue stripes painted onto the floor of the pool. NOT tracks, painted stripes and large boxes and circles. About as big as the car itself actually. As Sachi and my path's diverged I took a good look around and realized that NOONE was on tracks. And everyone seemed to be moving randomly. Rather than looking up and around at people I started looking down at the surface of the water and the blue stripes that were just visible a few inches below and came to the conclusion that these cars were actually partially autonomous. They follow the path they are on until the reach a decision point (which i determined was a square) at which point they seem to look around and determine best course of action. If that involves waiting for someone else's car to get out of the way, they spin place really fast until a lane opens up and then proceed. As I'm noticing this, I forgot to pay attention to surroundings though and got a jet of water directly in the chest and face. Frickin' robot must have been upset at me for figuring out it's secret! Anyway, no two sequential cars followed the same path although they would come close to each other several times. The actual ride lasted for about 3-4 minutes and once I'd grasped what was happening was very very interesting. All of the movments each car did brought it closer and closer to the end point. There were several squares around the end point and as each car got there it would wait until it was clear and then move into line to load back into the conveyor for the loading queue.

After we'd gotten off the ride I took a couple pictures trying to show the blue guides under the water and they are included below but they aren't very clear. I also took a couple minutes worth of video with my excellent narration of what was happening. All is included below.

Blue pathways

Cars backing into the exit queue

Decision Points

And finally, the video that I took. I apologize if it's a bit shakey, but well, I'M shakey nowadays. I still say it's better than being dead, bad videos or not.

I'll be back next week. Looking forward to seeing everyone again.

A fun day

Today was a day of just hanging out with friends and enjoying company. One of the very cool things we saw today was at this parking are for the apartments that our friends Reiko and Tomoko have. Japan is very limited on space obviously and they've made a fine art of building up and not out like we do. I had to get video of this puzzle parking garage in action. I've got a much longer one that's around 2 minutes long but this one shows it pretty well how everything moves around. The next videos below are of Sachi and Ai playing around on our friends Marimba. The last video is of Reiko doing that bumblebee piece that some composer is famous for. I'm sure you'll recognize it. Reiko by the way is a world class marimba player and travels around japan with a group that does concerts at schools and halls etc to get kids interested in music. S also used to play with this group and I went to one of their performances when it was near the base one year. Truly impressive.

The driving for the first time in Japan in a long time went very well and I only made Sachi squeal once or twice. Sachi is blind as a bat though even with her contacts now so there was an occasion or two where she was reading the kanji street signs and yelling "turn here" at me in Japanese when I was already half a car-length into the intersection.... Had lunch at a restaurant called Heartland and then to Reiko's house where the parking video was taken. Some pictures of the "Somen" we had for dinner. Somen is a combination of two words. Soba, which is cold, thick noodles in a cold broth and Ramen which most of you will recognize as being hot skinny noodles in soup. So, wait for it...........Somen is skinny noodles in cold broth.

Today we are going to go out to a Japanese Manga store for my sister who wants to pick up a few authentic comics from Japan. We're also planning on a quick trip to the local temple for sister to see that. My brother in law is coming over later and bringing his 3 week old son. My nephew. That's it for today. Tomorrow is Disneyland and we are all looking forward to that. I never got the chance to go when i was stationed here and it should be fun. I've always wondered what Mickey or Minnie or Goofy would look like with slanted eyes.... I guess tomorrow I'll find out.

Crap, I almost forgot. Here are a couple pictures of me talking with my friend Shuji on his wife's VIDEO CELLPHONE. Let me say that again. video cellphone. Live. I spoke with him for nearly fifteen minutes and while the picture was sometimes choppy, it was truly amazing. Check it out:

The day after Harajuku

We made it to Harajuku and back in one piece. The crowds in the train on the way back were truly impressive. I'd intended to take lots of pictures of the people walking around the street but ended up having to curtail that. EVERYWHERE on the Takeshita Dorii at nearly every shop was a sign that said "no photos Fuck OFF!!!" We were of course all curious about this so I made the wife ask onn of the shop keepers who was dressed like a Victorian maiden why. The answer was that apparently many many foreigners show up to Harajuku and would take pictures of people while they were shopping in these shop's. Customers had started to complain and so the shop owner's responded in that manner. In fact when my sister asked one garishly dressed girl if she could take her picture, she declined. So we only got two impressively dressed girls to agree to pictures with the sis. The rest of our time was spent simply wandering and allowing my sister to do shopping. She is a fan of punk culture and was very impressed by what she saw and has stated her intention of sewing some of the things she saw as it's just available in the states.

Notice the girl in the background of the picture above. red tutu thingie on. strutting like a peacock on parade and you DONT want people to take your picture? Come on!! This picture is of Takeshita street as walk back toward the train station. Family is directly in front of me. My girls got lots of attention from the japanese girls if i do say so myself and i heard alot of people exclaiming "kawaiiiiiiii" which means "cute" in Japanese. I may not be the best looking guy in the world, but apparently i've got pretty genes.....
This was taken from the doorway of one of the shops. This is the clothes worn by the girls trying to be "living angel" or "lolita" style. That's what the signs said anyway. It was so pink it was painful to the eyes. I wish I'd been able to get the proprietor to agree to let us take her picture she was something to see. And now for the bad news. The only picture we got of my sister with some really impressive looking Lolita girls is on the camera she borrowed from my dad. Who met her at the airport with it, the charger and no connection cord for hooking it up to the computer. The camera is a bit old and so the memory card on the dang thing is a huge compactflash card. Compact my ass. It's almost as big as my palm!!! So, I'm going to post some pictures downloaded from the internet. They are very similar to what we saw though.

and this one, i think we saw her sister.

these girls are just out there. Several of them walked by us.

All in All a very fun day. We'd intended to go to a shrine as well and let the sister see that but after 6 hours in Harajuku we were all just beat. On top of that S and I had to go and see the brand new baby of her best friend who was still in the hospital. The baby is fine, nearly 4 days old but in Japan even if you had an uncomplicated birth you stay in the hospital for about a week. The kids got back to house and Y ate and crawled into the bed while we weren't looking. One minute she was there, the next grandpa was pointing her out curled up in the bed refusing to get out and take a shower. Very cute. So today, I'll be driving in Japan for the first time in several years. We're heading over to see 2 of S's other very good friends who've not seen us in years. A is doing good and enjoying herself. Currently sitting next to me reading Cory Doctorow's Little Brother, which is a hell of a book and was recommended to me by a friend. The kids are sitting at the table eating breakfast and S is having fish eggs and rice. Ughh. Today is not likely to be a big day for blogging but if anything interesting comes up I'll post it.

Arrived in Japan for the first time since transplant

Well, we've arrived. My sister is staring around with wide eyes. This was her first ever train ride from the airport to my in-laws house. The girls are busily trying to teach her japanese for everything they can think of or see. She was amazed at the size of the apartment and how small it is. She was even more amazed at how much was paid for it nearly twenty years ago. Our bags are being delivered from the airport today between 9 and noon. Once they get here our plan is to go to Harajuku. This is where some of the cutting edge (by which i mean WEIRD AS HELL) fashions are displayed by the girls of Tokyo. I plan on getting lots of pictures and will post when i do. That's all for now. I'll post pictures today hopefully. A special shout out to my friends at FLOW. Stay tuned.