Tonight I went over to my good friend Mikey’s house for “Idol Nite 3”. Idol refers to Japanese 🇯🇵 who are popular for singing, dancing, and/or acting. As two otaku guys, our favorites are pretty much all the girl groups but there are a ton of popular boy bands as well and we did watch and episode of Vs Arashi so it wasn’t all about the girls! Well, actually it was, since Arashi was competing against Momoiro Clover Z!
Most of the other musical groups we watched were from Hello! Project but we also watched some AKB48 shows and also Scandal. With YouTube, it’s so easy to make playlists of videos to watch. We simply picked from a playlist of the most popular videos of the idols/groups we were interested in. It was a ton of fun (as usual), and I enjoyed spending time catching up with my friend.
And we still haven’t answered the question, “What ever happened to Sayumi?”. Hopefully the answer will become clear in the future.
Of course we had to have some refreshments too so I brought over some saké 🍶, beer 🍺, and snacks, and my friend bought some sushi 🍣 and more saké. Add some glow sticks and we were all set! 🎉
There are so many aspects to Japanese culture and I am happy to have the opportunity to get up-to-date with the pop J-idol world. It’s always so interesting and fun. 🎶 It gets me excited to move back to Japan in the future.
Photo info: SONY SLT-A77V, 35mm, f/2.8, 1/30 sec, ISO800 “USB Charging” Cedar Park, 2016
One of the top features of my Fujifilm X100T 📷 is the ability to charge the battery via USB. Just like a smartphone, I can plug in a simple micro-USB cable and the battery charges.
This simple feature is wonderful. It fits into my daily workflow seamlessly – so much so that I rarely even think about charging anymore!
In the evening, I’ll connect the camera to my computer using the USB cable so I can import the photos into Lightroom. I then do my editing, and after that, I flip the power button on the camera to Off. If the charging light stays lit, I will leave it plugged in to charge. 90% of the time, though, the battery will have topped off during the time I imported and post-processed my daily photo. Convenient, isn’t it?
FYI, the camera did come with an external battery charger, but I haven’t used it in months. It’s so nice to not have to keep a charger around, or pop out the battery to charge it. Anything to simplify processes is a good thing! 😄
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/100 sec, ISO1600 “Colorful Motorbike” Cedar Park, 2016
こんばんは！How’s it going?
Today’s photo is of my motorcycle, which is set up as a long-distance mile-eater. If you want to read more about it, you can check out my other blog. But after I took the photo, I started thinking about what kind of vehicles I like, and why.
As someone who loves to travel, I love vehicles that have a go-anywhere, self-contained feeling.
For instance, one of my dream cars when I was younger was a Toyota Townace 4×4 Van. They were so bizarre but I thought they were really cool. Plus, it would make an awesome camper. Pair that with Toyota dependability and it seemed like a perfect vehicle.
I still want something like that to go camping in! Long road-trips are so fun. I love them.
Right now, I drive a Honda Minivan, which is excellent. It is so versatile and can hold a ton of stuff, so it is great for camping. But it doesn’t have that walk-in feeling like a VW camper or full-size van. It’s kind of just a big car. Also, it only gets 20mpg. 😒
In the ’90s I had a really fun vehicle – a Toyota 4×4 truck. That was an awesome vehicle for camping and getting to those primitive sites. We’d take it off-road on some fairly gnarly trails, with the bed filled with camping gear. That’s another vehicle I’d consider buying again, but the fuel economy just sucks… even worse than the van.
Anyways, back to my motorcycle… it sort of fits the bill because it’s set up to go off-road (although it’s pretty heavy), can travel long-distances (I’ve traveled out of Texas on it), and gets great gas mileage. On the downside, the comfort level is lacking… especially in the Texas heat.
I guess there isn’t a perfect vehicle out there for me at the moment, so I’ll stick with the two extremes… a large car and a small motorbike. Maybe one day a hybrid 4×4 van will come along. Until then, though, I’ll just have to dream about it. 😄
If you’re a regular reader, you know that I’ve been on a fishing kick for the past few days. 🎣 Well, today was no different!
I’ve been doing some research about where to go fishing around my neighborhood, and in a couple of the forums, I’ve come across the term “C&R Pond”. I was wondering, where is the C&R Pond that people seem to be catching fish at? It turns out that C&R means “Catch and Release” and that these ponds are kind of secret locations. Sounds intriguing, doesn’t it?
I guess that if you find a nice pond, you don’t want to share the location with the world because it might get over-fished, so you keep it to yourself and your fishing buddies.
Today I actually stumbled upon one of these secret spots! There were a couple other anglers there, and they caught a nice bass, so that was super-encouraging! I didn’t catch any bass, but I caught some bluegill which was still fun. I can’t wait to go back to this spot. 😀
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/125 sec, ISO1600 “Morning Light” Cedar Park, 2016
こんばんは！How’s it going?
This morning Koa and I went out fishing at a couple locations nearby our house. The first location was a small lake that has a lot of bank fishing, but not very much action. When we started, we were one of the only people fishing but after just a few minutes people started arriving and joined us.
Koa and I both had bass setups on our poles, and I knew our chances were pretty low of catching anything, but it was fun anyways, and Koa really improved his casting skills. It is maybe two years since he has gone fishing, so he has grown quite a bit and his motor skills have definitely grown! He has a lot more control and power too, casting out consistently farther than before.
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/9, 1/340 sec, ISO400 “Morning at the Lake” Cedar Park, 2016
One of the people who arrived was having a terrible morning… After he got situated, his first cast went into the tree and he started cursing and swearing. Not loudly, but still it wasn’t very good to hear, especially since there were others around… and Koa is still a kid! Then, this person tried again, but got stuck in another branch! 😯Ugh…
He finally got his line out, and I chatted with him for a bit about fishing. He had a few tips about the kinds of fish in the lake we were fishing at, and I filed that information away for safe-keeping. After that, I chatted with another couple who had their lines out and were enjoying a couple of sandwiches. They were more laid-back and friendly, and when I asked them what they were trying to catch, they just said, “Anything that wants to bite our line is welcome!” 😄
Koa and I fished that spot for maybe 45 minutes, and then headed to another small pond that is in our neighborhood. It’s kind of a run-off reservoir with a fountain – the kind that you see at the entrances to neighborhoods around here. When I used to run more regularly, I saw people fishing the pond and I talked to a couple of them. They said that they’ve caught small bass, bluegill, and even catfish in the pond. It surprised me! The man said that he’d just stop by the pond on his way back from work and fish for a few minutes. I liked that plan. 🎣
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/9, 1/600 sec, ISO400 “Nearby Pond” Cedar Park, 2016
Anyways, the water level was kind of low in the pond today and we didn’t get any nibbles. As I mentioned earlier, our setups were for bass, and we probably should have switched over to some kind of bait and went for bluegill. But, it was fun anyways. After about 15 minutes we decided to just go home and get some breakfast.
It was a good morning!!!
Speaking of morning, the picture at the top of the post is of the morning light coming into our kitchen. We keep salt and sugar on the small window ledge which is very convenient for cooking. Plus I think it looks great because you have instant bokeh when looking at the items there!
Hope you had a great day!
おやすみなさい！
– B
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My camera & photos
I use a Fujifilm X-series camera for most of the photos on this site and my Instagram. Why not pick one up for yourself?
