Surprisingly, here is a new day

What is there to do while surfing the internet? I have pondered this question every time I sit at my desk. When we figure the internet is basically filled with pornography, spam about pornography or pop up windows about pornography, what do we have left? I guess I could browse the news websites, but that only takes about five minutes to browse the craziness around the world. I cannot think about spending money on useless gambling sites, but mainly I am not a gambler. I do not have the money to be shopping on the internet. Most of the time I find myself browsing viral videos and trying to find new funny things. If anyone has a suggestion on what to waste my time on the internet with, please let me know.

I could not bring myself to mention everything that happened in my life on my last blog, so today I can make time for story time. This snowboarding bug has bitten me so hard it is crazy. I decided to take a short trip to a local park. Since it was late in the day, I figured that I had to keep it close. Plus, I was told that this particular park had night skiing. I left Misawa on my search for Shichinohe Kogen. I had to Google the directions about fourteen times before I felt completely comfortable. Normally, I would not be the person to get lost trying to find my way around, but this trip was well off the main road and had me a little nervous. The trip took me through many twisty roads while passing various elevations in the terrain. Although for the most post, there were farm fields filling the scenery.

I arrived to Shichinohe around 3:30 PM expecting the same night session hours as most of the other parks in Japan. Normally, parks open around 4:00 for the night session and skiers can tear up the mountain until 10:00 PM. The first thing I noticed once I walked into the ski area was the complete lack of snow. It looked as though the mountain had not received snow in a few days and most of the trails were ice. I searched for the ticket booth and finally found the window only to find it was closed. Due to my lack of complete understanding of the Japanese language I had to decipher what I could. According to the window it appeared the park was closing at 4:00 PM on this particular day. After stumbling through my abuse of the Japanese language I was able to learn that the park always closed on Sundays. The night skiing was only available Friday and Saturday.

Getting to the park was fairly easy, so I figured I should have no problem returning to the base. Unfortunately I made one wrong turn, which I quickly corrected and found the correct route. Being lost in the United States is far less of a challenger compared to being lost in Japan. The hardest part of finding myself unlost is my lack of Japanese. Fortunately, I have yet to find myself lost in the country. The return home was going so nicely until I reach Rokunohe Town. Approaching a blind corner, I immediately saw a local delivery truck, but the problem was that it was in my lane. With the ice on the road and the narrowness of the local routes, my options were fairly limited as to what I could do. I could smash into the truck head on, or drive off the side of the road. In most corners, the sides of the roads are lined with a foot-and-a-half tall concrete barrier. My poor little Civic valiantly tackled the corner but the force of the impact managed to mangle the front tire into an very oblong shape.

As I opened my car door I heard the Japanese driver saying many things in a sincere tone, and again my lack of Japanese hindered my conversation. Upon realizing my lack of Japanese, the driver began to speak very slow broken English asking if I was OK. I responded in my best Japanese tone, "Daijobu" which basically means "OK." I looked until my car and only noticed the melting ice dripping from various locations and determined only the tire suffered damage. I hobbled my car back to base without any further incident. After I pulled into my parking spot I noticed that hood was slightly raised. I searched deeper into the matter and found that the concrete curb moved my radiator support back a few inches which threw off the rest of the alignment. No big deal, I paid $500 for the car and I just need a new rim. Hopefully the annual inspection will pass in a few months.

To add to the excitement of the weekend, my favorite NFL team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers faced off in the playoffs for the first time since 2005. Although I have had very little faith in the team this season, I still had hopes for at least one more playoff game. The typical Jon Gruden era Bucs showed up and turned the ball over 3 times. The worst part of the game was when I was called into work to shovel snow, and I missed the entire fourth quarter of the game. Missing the fourth quarter did not bother me too much as I had already watched the last miserable two. In the end, the Buccaneers lost 24-14 at home. My hopes were already low for the Buccaneers, and the lost just solidified my thoughts. Maybe next year we will perform better, but until we get rid of Jon Gruden, I will always have my doubts.

I promise my life is not filled with all depressing moments. The next blog I will try to keep upbeat and happy. I feel I cannot write everything I am thinking at one time because then I would not have anything to write tomorrow.