Category: Slice of Life

Bachelor Summers

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"Time for a Drink" USA. Texas. Cedar Park. 2016.
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4, 1/125 sec, ISO6400
 “Time for a Drink” USA. Texas. Cedar Park. 2016.

こんばんは！How are you doing today? Have you already started the weekend?

As you can see from today’s photo, we had a couple of drinks this evening. Do you know shōchū? It’s a drink popular in Japan, stronger than saké but not as strong as hard liquor. It’s got an ok taste… I prefer saké, but I’ll pretty much drink anything!

Earlier today, I went out to lunch with my friend and coworker to a pizza place that serves Chicago-style pizza. It was so good, but I ate so much that I skipped dinner. I often skip meals, but I think it is ok to do so if you are getting enough nutrition. (my nutrition intake is questionable, however!) But I do enjoy fasting too. I believe the longest I fasted was about three days. Once you get over the initial hunger (which hits me in the afternoon of the first day), I think it is pretty easy to fast for two days. And you really do feel good and alert, although maybe a bit weak as well.

Well, on to today’s question:

My Favorite – What’s the most time you’ve ever spent apart from your favorite person? Tell us about it.

This one is an easy question to answer. My favorite person(s) are my wife and kids and they usually go to Japan in the summer to visit my wife’s family. So, for at least a month I am apart from them. I believe the longest time apart has been 6 weeks!

During that time, I have my “Bachelor Summer” which is a term that my friends who are married to Japanese wives use. Each summer there are a few of us temporary bachelors who will get together for barbecues, to watch a ballgame, or celebrate the 4th of July. 🎆 It’s a time when I eat no-so-healthy foods, but I also exercise a lot more since I have plenty of free time. And I also have time to go on day-long motorcycle rides, which is so fun!

But I do miss my family of course. It’s nice when they return – absence really does make the heart grow fonder!

Well, I have to wake up early again tomorrow, so I’ll end this post here. Please stay warm, especially if you are in the Eastern part of the US! ❄️

おやすみなさい！

-バロン Barron Fujimoto

This post was prompted by The Daily Post from WordPress.

Sunrise

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"Sunrise" USA. Texas. Austin. 2016.
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/6.4, 1/320 sec, ISO400
 “Sunrise” USA. Texas. Austin. 2016.

こんばんは！How are you? Today’s photo is of the sun just rising above the clouds. I took it from my office this morning. I usually arrive early to work which is nice because I can really get a lot done in the hour or two before meetings start. I really am a “morning person”!

( YAWN ) What bores you?

This question (from WordPress’ Daily Prompt) is a tough one to answer for me… I can’t think of anything that really bores me! My kids often will come to me and say, “I’m bored”. This happens towards the end of long weekends or vacations when they get tired of their video games or computers. Luckily school will start soon for them!

I guess I used to get bored sometimes when having a conversation with someone, and the subject matter is just not interesting to me, or if I’ve heard the story before. (I feel a little bad about saying that!) But that was ages ago! If the subject of the conversation is not so interesting, I focus on the way the person is saying what they are saying, their conversational style, or imagine the reasons why they are sharing the information with me. Sometimes I will try to pinpoint the interesting things about that person (there’s always at least one thing!). I believe that you can learn something from anyone or any situation, so I am always trying to find value. If there isn’t something to learn externally, I try to internally observe what I am currently feeling and maybe I can improve myself in some way.

But back to the original question… I honestly cannot remember myself every saying, “I’m bored”. It’s really odd… I have a hard time imagining what boredom feels like. It’s like the part of my brain that activates the boredom emotion is just not there anymore. (insert joke here!)

By the way, I haven’t written anything from a Daily Prompt in a loooong time now, but it’s fun! I guess I might start doing it again every so often. You can go back and read my other Daily Prompts by sorting on the category if you are interested.

Well, Friday is almost here! I hope you have a good one!

I’m going to get some rest. おやすみなさい！

-B Barron Fujimoto

Fun colors

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"New Pens" USA. Texas. Cedar Park. 2016.
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4, 1/125 sec, ISO5000
 “New Pens” USA. Texas. Cedar Park. 2016.

こんばんは！How are you? I am well! Happy to be healthy and full of energy. I’ve been thinking lately how lucky we are to be alive. It’s such an amazing thing to imagine that we could have been born in a different age, but the one we are living in now is so incredible! I have no idea what the future will bring, but present day is pretty dang awesome.

Speaking a bit more “down-to-earth” awesome… my new Zebra pens arrived! I was looking for a nice pen set that would work well for writing on Instax prints and the reviews recommended these. So far, I like them! The colors are vibrant and the ink dries fast. The pens have a regular-size tip and a fine-point tip, which is convenient. Also, these pens are refillable – you can buy ink cartridges separately. Not sure if it is easier to just buy a new pen or the cartridge, but it’s cool that there is that option.

So now I have a nice set of pens, I am starting to write on the prints I have created. I’m at least putting the date on them, but I want to also write a little more about the photo location, or the day, or the weather, etc. It’s fun and adds a lot of character to the album, IMHO.

Well, the week is half over. I hope you have a great Thursday!

おやすみなさい！Take care!

-B

Tuesday’s okay

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"Back to School" USA. Texas. Austin. 2016.
Photo info: Panasonic DMC-TS2, 4.9mm, f/3.3, 1/40 sec, ISO125
 “Back to School” USA. Texas. Austin. 2016.

Hi everyone, how’s it going? The days are just flying by. I cannot believe it’s already the 19th of January… before you know it, we’ll be into February!

Yesterday was a school holiday, so the traffic was very light. In fact, there wasn’t any kind of traffic jam on the way in. But today, school is back in session. But at least it gave me a nice photo. I took this one using my Panasonic TS-2 camera. It was in the side pocket of my backpack, and the X100T was inside the backpack, so I just grabbed the compact camera and snapped the photo above. I think it came out pretty good, especially with a bit of post processing to remove noise, fix perspective, crop, adjust colors, and add a vignette. I am getting pretty fast with Lightroom… the adjustments to this photo took about two minutes. And it’s fun to do!

Well, we’ve just about made it to Wednesday! Or, if you are in Europe, Africa, or Asia, you are already well into hump-day!

Good night all! おやすみなさい！

-B

Getting cozy

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"Getting Cozy" USA. Texas. Cedar Park. 2016.
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/60 sec, ISO2500
 “Getting Cozy” USA. Texas. Cedar Park. 2016.

こんばんは！How was your Monday?

Today was a busy day for me at work. Lots to do, and not enough time to do it all! But the work is interesting and kind of fun, with a lot of challenges. I am really thankful that I do the type of work that I do. It’s funny but I never gave too much thought about going into a creative field when I was younger… it just sort of happened. I remember when I was in High School, I told my counselor that I wanted to go into graphic design or art and that was probably what put me on this path. It all just fell into place after that. Come to think of it, I never had much of a long-term vision about my career… but things have worked out. I think it has been a good professional life!

Today’s photo is of our dog, Lani, relaxing in the sleeping bag. That green sleeping bag is usually stored in Bay’s closet, but it came out because Koa went to a sleepover and since then it has been used in front of the tv, and now as you can see, Lani loves it too. I guess it could use a washing, and then I’ll put it away.

By the way, my new JanSport Hatchet backpack (in Grey Tar color) arrived today and I like it! I’ll write up some more thoughts about it after I’ve had a chance to use it. But so far, so good!

Well, tomorrow should be another busy day, so I will get some rest now. Take care!

おやすみなさい！

-B