Which Tarot Card Are You?

You are The Empress

Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.

The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents,
beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home
decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.

The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.

What Tarot Card are You?
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Yet Another Earthquake

Yeah, 12:59:58am, I am sitting at my desk at work. Working through another mid, when I feel the earth start to shake beneath my feet. I'm thinking, nah, its my imagination. Then my monitor starts to shake, and the whiteboard behind me was shaking... and someone shouts, YEAH! I suddenly realized, nope, not my imagination, this was an earthquake. And a pretty strong one at that. The strongest I've felt since arriving. It was centered about 65 miles North East of Misawa and a 5.5 magnitude.
Now, here is the other thing. This is like the 4th or 5th earthquake I've felt in the last two weeks. The last one was on Wednesday morning around 530am. It was centered at about the same place. 75 miles North East of Misawa.. about a 4.4 magnitude.
I am just thinking a big one is about to hit. So many earthquakes centered near the same spot... I am getting nervous.

My 30th!

Last night, my work section had a party. It just happened to fall on my Birthday. Well, here are a few pictures from then.

First Beer...








They thought it would be funny to put "40" on my cake...


I find it hilarious!


Still laughing...


Feeling good...


Beer #2.


About time to go...

The Big Three-Oh!

I was awake at midnight to usher in the end to my 20's and the beginning of the rest of my life. :D I had a moment (a big moment) to ponder my life thus far. When my mother was my age, she was divorcing my father and looking at single motherhood with two kids. She had an education, but nothing that would enable her to support her family. I have a happy marriage; two wonderful fur-kids; a house in Hawaii; two working, if old, Japanese cars; a burgeoning career; great co-workers; a college education; visited China; lived in Japan, Hawaii, California; Texas, D.C., Florida (ok, so only for 5 weeks there in the Sunshine State).... I have a lot to be thankful for, and I am. I am going to include some photos of birthdays past as a sort of montage to the big day.

My 25th B-day in 2002. Zaar was only 4 months old!


More of my 25th b-day, heading in to my bro, Christian's b-day, which is the 12th. He is singing his lungs out in this pic. He is getting ready to PCS to Officer Training School in this picture. Then off to Korea and Germany, amongst other places.


11-12 May 2002. Later on that night/morning. All of us at AnnaBanana's. From L-R: Ed, Ant, Me, Christian, Mike; (back row, L-R) Jimmy, Other Guy, and Ken.


My 26th B-day, 11 May 2003. We now had a 16-month old Zaar and a 11-month old D. J.


Well, there you have it. Some of my 20s captured on camera for all to see.

The Cherry Blossoms Come to Misawa!!!

OK, it is spring in Japan. And although this time a year comes around about a month later than Tokyo, 400 miles to our south, it does visit, nonetheless. And with spring in Japan comes the beauty of Cherry Blossoms! Here are some pictures, though they do not capture the full effect, they do give you an idea.




Across the street in front of the City Hall.

Right out the base.

The park. They put up these pink lanterns which reflect the pink from the cherry blossoms and vice-versa.

OOOPS!

One of the sucky things about working shift is you tend to get your days/dates/times mixed up. I am perpetually either a day ahead or a day behind, depending on my mood and the day. Well, today, I was a day behind. And this is bad. Bad because I had an eye appointment, and appointment I desperately need, scheduled for 8 May at 1345 (that is 1:45pm for you non-military types). I, somehow, thought that 8 May was Wednesday, ie, tomorrow. Then, as I thought about it at 1600 (4pm) that, hey, wait, 11 May was Friday, 10 May is Thursday.... that means TODAY is 8 May. Sh!t. OK, well, I'll just go in tomorrow and try and reschedule. Did I mention how badly I needed this appointment and how hard it is to actually get scheduled for one??? It isn't like I can go to the local Walmart or a Pearlvision or something like that and get an appointment next week. I am pretty much stuck.

Wasaaaaabi!

After seeing Spiderman 3, Anthony and I went the the Universe Store (sort of like a Super Walmart) to buy dinner. We like going there. You can get Sushi, various teryakied meats-on-a-stick, some interesting deserts. I decided I wanted some Wasabi. I figured, Wasabi, a sort of condiment, right? Must be in the condiment aisle. I'll just find that aisle and wander down it until I see something that looks like Wasabi. Wait, what does Wasabi look like? I've never bought it in the U.S., so how can I pick it out in a foreign country?
I found the condiment aisle and began walking up and down the aisle. Now, I have been teaching myself how to read Hiragana, one of the three Japanese alphabets. So I tried to pick out some characters (is that what you call a Japanese letter?). Finally, I found something that could have been Wasabi. YES, the character for "bi" and I see the "wa." Wait, that isn't "sa." I look next to that, AH! "wa" "sa" "bi"!!! Now the real test... I get it home, start to eat my sushi, put the condiment on my sushi, put it in my mouth. YES!!! The familiar sinus-opening sensation of Wasabi! I found it! I actually feel like all my time the past week or so trying to teach myself how to read Japanese has been fruitful. I am quite pleased with myself!

Japanese Cinema

We decided to take advantage of the fact that Spiderman 3 was being released in Japan 4 days earlier than in the States. We decided that since I had the day off, we would go to Shimoda Mall and finally experience a Japanese movie theater. $17/ticket later, we are shown a mock-up of the theater. "Which seat?" the cashier asked. "Huh?" We had ASSIGNED seats. The movie was in English, with Japanese sub-titles. It was a little long, it didn't get good until the last 20 minutes or so.