Well, I've done it. I've completed my Bachelor of Science in Information Technology. What's next? After talking it over my two most reliable academic and fiancial advisors (my dad and my wife), I've decided to enroll in a Masters program starting this Fall. I would start immediately if not for the severe jet lag and Japan's very uncomfortable hot and humid weather. I don't mind putting it off for a few more months as this short break will allow me to organize my thoughts, finances, career, and home life. 

On the way to work this morning, one on those 'take your dog crap home' signs caught my eye and got me thinking. Generally speaking, people are pretty good about taking their own dog crap home. And I am sure that the public awareness created by those signs helps a little. Immediately after that, I into a road of ash, cigarette butts, dried up puke and piss, empty drink bottles, cans, bento boxes, plastic bags, spit, and worst of all alegion of pretty nasty people all pushing their way to work, leaving a new layer of filth as they went. Ah yes, your typical street in Japan.

This got me thinking that we need signs to tell people to take their butts home. Then that got me thinking how many signs does it take just to get people to mind a few basic manners. Whaat other sighns are necessary? -No peeing on street -no droppimg butts -no groping young girls -no flashing -no jerking off in your car while its parked with the engine running -no puking on sidewalk or street -no dng oysters to prove your manhood -cover your mouth when you sneeze -no loud and obnoxious sniffing sounds -no staring at gaijins -no pushing, bumping, or otherwise being rude in public.

The list could go on. In order to fix all the manners that locals break on a daily basis you'd have to put up so many signs that it would create a fence along the street.

You know... just minutes after writing my rant about signs to teach people some basic manners, which included a note about street pee-ers, I come down the hill toward my building to see young guy hop off his motorcycle and make a run for the corner of my building. The first floor of my building has a little 99 shop and this guy was and his girlfriend were just making a pitstop at to pick up some snacks and as it appeard, to take a piss on the wall of the buidling. Actually, he ran over and was just about to unload his filth on the airconditions that led to the 99 shop. How disgusting is that?! I knew if I didn't intervene that little shop would be smelling like piss all summer.

Instead of taking the usual route around the front of the shop and to the doors of the building, I took the parking garage route which put me right behind him as he was about to start the waterworks. I yelled at him in my best oyaji japanese, "oi, omae. soko wa toire ja nai yo. koko wa hito no uchi dayo. oi!"

To that he zipped up and ran off before getting off a single drop. As he damn well should. If he hadn't budged at the sound of my words, I had a good mind to go into the shop with him and tell the staff that he just used their aircon as a loo and if they didn't want their shop smelling like pee, they'd better make him clean it off or call the cops to cite him for vandalism. Well, the filthy mutt ran away and probably found someone else's house to pee on, so no longer my problem.

Well, tomorrow I'm putting up one of these.

On the way to work this morning, one on those 'take your dog crap home' signs caught my eye and got me thinking. Generally speaking, people are pretty good about taking their own dog crap home. And I am sure that the public awareness created by those signs helps a little. Immediately after that, I stumbled into a road of ash, cigarette butts, dried up puke and piss, empty drink bottles, cans, bento boxes, plastic bags, spit, and worst of all a legion of nasty salarymen and women all pushing and shoving their way to work, leaving a new layer of filth as they went. Ah yes, your typical street in Japan.

This got me thinking that we need more signs to to instruct people on basic manners of society. Then that got me thinking how many signs it would take to get people to mind a few basic manners. What other sighns are necessary?

-No peeing on street

-Nno droppimg butts

-No groping young girls

-No flashing

-No jerking off in your car while its parked with the engine running

-No puking on sidewalk or street

-No oysters-pulling competitions

-No sneezing or coughing without covering your mouth

-No loud and obnoxious sniffing sounds

-No 'farmer john's'

-No staring at gaijins like they are criminals

-no pushing, bumping, or otherwise being rude in public.

The list could go on. In order to fix all the manners that locals break on a daily basis you'd have to put up so many signs that it would create a fence along the street.

The problem with this little blog is that I actually have too much to say. And what I have to say is so varying that I couldn't possibly keep things interesting for a wide audience.

Some days I want to talk about motorcyles, other days about babies, some days about computers, some days about nothing. But what interests one may not interest others, so the result is that I will have visitors lurking around until they realize that I rarely if ever write about something they are interested in.

I think the solution is that what I need is more blogs. One for each category I want to write about. So what I have decided to do is create a section of my existing web site, which most of you have never seen nor would want to, and dedicate it to my blogs. I'll write some HTML to allow easy navigation among the blogs and try to cover enough in each section to appeal to some kind of audience. Also this will allow me to track whose coming and going from my blog - as if it mattered.

So that's the plan.

It seems everyday I come home from work, my little Kian has learned a new trick. Everyday he gets bigger, stronger, and smarter. It's so amazing how quickly babies grow.

Last week Kian figured out how to hold onto objects placed in his hands and hold onto them. Now he is able to grab onto a number of objects on his own and manipulate them. He can grab his little 'rattle-bear', shake it around, stick it in his mouth, and hit me in the face with it. He can also grab a blanket and pull it up closer to his face so he can chew on it. As of last night, he can grab my hand with both of his hands and pull it up to his face so so he can drool all over my hand and give it back to me. He seems to take pleasure in sharing his drool.

Here is Kian playing with rattle-bear

Sorry to disappoint my huge audience of readers, but I just haven't had time to blog! I've spent that last several weeks buried in diapers and code. My little dude at home has successfully prevented me from having too much freetime. Which is good, because what would I do if I actually had time to sit down and collect myself? Well, in what little time I have had between being a daddy and working, I have been spending all my waking hours and then some writing code.

I started a C++ class last month. It's pretty good stuff. I've always considered C++ to be my final frontier in Programming and in IT. I've done just about everything else that I've wanted to do. There are plenty of other languages and technologies out there, but I think I've covered the ones that interest me. Java, Python, and Perl are cool, but not really interested. Novell, Citrix, and Check Point are cool as well, but I know enough about them already to know that I don't need to know anything else about them. C++, on the other hand, is something I've been wanting to pick up for a while. And pick up I have.

C++ is a pretty complex language. There are so many things you can do with it. It's really amazing. So far I am still fumbling through the basics, and I will be for a long time to come, but I think I like it and am doing pretty good so far. For me, the goal is not to be the best at programming. It's to be able to understand the language enough to write myself out of problems. In other words, if have a problem that can be software through software, I want to be able to look at the languages I know, choose one that will work the best, and write code to accomplish what I need. Now that I have C, Visual Basic, ASP, PHP, HTML, Windows Scripting, and some C++ under my belt, I feel well-prepared to handle most issues.

Now back to not having enough time to blog... I have been quite busy in the last several weeks with work, school, motorcycling, family, and other stuff, but just no time to write about it. But since there is no one out there reading this, that doesn't really matter now does it!