March 21st, 2008

Yikes!!! Now we've got two grandsons!

Shion was born on March 21st, and as you can see from the pic above, Shiryu is already acting like the loving and caring older brother ... even at only 17 months!  Mama, papa, and both kids are home and doing well.

Looks like I'll be heading off to Bangkok again from May 11-17.  I've had a pretty heavy travel schedule this year, but I don't mind too much.  Besides, I always like Bangkok!  I'll also get the chance to go out with a few old friends from my Air Force days that live there.

Emy will be going to Shiga to stay with the family while I'm gone.

February 18th, 2008

Well, here it is the Presidents Day weekend, and I figure today would be a great day to update the ole website!

Emy and I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and wish you the Happiest of New Years in 2008!

We didn't do anything special for Christmas, but we did spend the week of the New Year holiday at our home in Shiga.  Shiryu has started walking and getting into everything, and he was quite the screaming monster over the holidays!  But when we went back over the Martin Luther King Birthday holiday weekend, he was behaving like a pretty good boy.  It's amazing how fast babies grow up and mature in such a relative short span of time!

Our second grandson is due to be born in early April.  Hiromi wants Emy to come to the house to watch Shiryu while she's in the hospital, but Emy is a bit nervous about it.  I should have enough leave saved up, so I might go with her and help her out for the week; otherwise, she probaby won't be able to handle watching him by herself.

I spent 11 days on the road on business in India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh.  Quite frankly, I can't stand India.  I have been there three times now, and each time I have gotten terribly sick and had other bad experiences as well.  This time it happened on my last day there (come to think of it, I always seem to get sick on the last day!).  I think it might've been something I ate for lunch at the hotel before leaving for the airport, but I'm not really sure.  Anyway, I had to pull the cab over to the side of the road on the way to the airport, and then I couldn't hold any food down for the next two days.  And to top that off, that led to another very severe problem that just ruined the entire rest of my trip.  I HATE INDIA!!!

Sri Lanka was nice, but the city of Colombo as well as the road between Colombo and the airport were under heavy military guard due to the insurgent problem there.  It felt a little weird walking around with armed soldiers in bunkers every 100 yards or so, plus many of the streets were blocked off as well.

Bangladesh totally blew me away.  I just was not expecting the city of Dhaka to be as big, bustling, and busy as it was!  The poverty and squalor are significantly worse than in New Delhi (as you can probably imagine), yet the people were very friendly and seemed to be happy.  I actually liked Dhaka, and wouldn't mind going back again sometime.

Still, it was nice to be back home again.  Home is always best!