Category: Slice of Life

Birthday boy’s dinner

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"Mountain of Karaage" Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/100 sec, ISO640
 “Mountain of Karaage” Cedar Park, 2016

こんばんは！ Happy Monday!

Today is Koa’s 12th birthday 🎂… just one more year before he becomes a teenager. He’s still a little kid in so many ways, but he’s growing up too fast! It’s really true what they say about how they become grown before you know it. Actually, it seems like they were young boys for a long time, but suddenly at about 6th grade they change and are little adults. The time really flies by! I still can’t believe Bay is a freshman in high school. 😮

Today’s photo is of a mountain of Japanese fried chicken , which is called “karaage”. We like to call it JFC. 😋 It is so yummy, and Koa requested NO VEGGIES. But we did have grilled asparagus as well, although I don’t think Koa ate any. We let him pass on it on his special day.

The karaage was so good that now I am thinking that I want to request it for my Father’s Day dinner. This year, my family will be with me for Father’s Day, which hasn’t happened in a long time! Usually they are in Japan for over a month in early summer, so I am alone on Father’s Day, but this summer they are making their Japan trip a month or so later than usual.

Time flies so quickly these days that I know that summer is just around the corner!

Take care, and good night for now. おやすみなさい！

– バロン Barron Fujimoto

End of the tournament

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Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/8, 1/420 sec, ISO200
 Cedar Park, 2016

こんばんは！ Hello! How was your Sunday? Our day was pretty good, starting off with a 10 AM little league baseball game for Koa. Today was the day that mattered in the tournament, with yesterday’s games determining the seeding for today.

It was too bad that the kids couldn’t keep the high-level of play going, though, and they fell big-time to the opposing team. They didn’t play too badly, but the other team was on fire, scoring five runs in the first inning. Koa’s team put a couple of runs on the board, but it wasn’t enough. However, they did play pretty good, and Koa came in to pitch in the final inning. You can see him throw one inside below:

Koa got out of a jam when the opposing hitter lined into a double play. But it was right at the end of the game, when the outcome was already decided. Still, Koa was pumped after that great outing.

After the game, most of the team went out for pizza and frozen yogurt and had a lot of fun. Koa told me that he’s having the most fun this season, and I can tell from the way everyone gets along that the team enjoys playing together. It’s good that they can support each other, especially because the team doesn’t have a great win-loss record.

FJKO7923Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.6, 1/100 sec, ISO2000

Well, it’s almost Monday and the work weeks continue to be busy. The upcoming week promises to keep that trend alive!

おやすみなさい！ See ya tomorrow!

– B Barron Fujimoto

A sci-fi classic

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Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/30 sec, ISO3200
 Cedar Park, 2016

こんばんは！

I hope you had a great Saturday. Mine was pretty good! This afternoon Koa played two games in the baseball tournament, and although they lost both, they played well. Probably the best they have played as a team so far this year! However, the teams they went up against were very good… a “select” team, and then the team with the second-best record in the season so far.

Koa did great at the plate, knocking a double over the left-fielder’s head, and then coming round to score later in the evening. He later walked, but got stranded on third. In the next game, he had another hit into the outfield, getting a couple RBIs. He did great! Tomorrow, they have one more game, and I hope they continue with their great play.

After we came back home, I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey with Bay, as you can see in the photo. It’s amazing to think that this movie was release on this day back in 1968, which is the year I was born. The special effects were incredible for the time, and still look great. If you haven’t seen the movie before, or if it has been a while as it was in my case, I recommend watching it again. It’s a true classic.

Well, it’s almost bed time for me, so I’ll sign off for now!

おやすみなさい！

– バロン Barron Fujimoto

Another quick week

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Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/7.1, 1/100 sec, ISO250
 Cedar Park, 2016

こんばんは！ Hello! We made it to the weekend. It was such a quick week it seemed! But the cold weather came back today, along with the rain. Luckily the forecast for the rest of the weekend looks sunny and warmer. ☀️ Koa has a baseball tournament so I hope the baseball fields have time to dry out before the games.

Tonight’s dinner was a super trifecta of sorts… we had takoyaki, okonomiyaki, and yakisoba. And a nice cold beer to round out the meal. The takoyaki and yakisoba are typical foods served at festivals in Japan, from small stands, so tonight’s meal reminded me of when we lived there, and of course a festival is fun so they are feel-good types of food! 😋 I find it fascinating that smells and tastes can transport you back to different parts of your life. It’s great.

The photo for today is of the sky and clouds that I saw on the way to work. Last night there was a storm, and in the morning there was a break in the clouds when I took the photos. But later in the day, the clouds and rain returned. ☔ In the evening, it cleared up and we’re looking forward to a nice weekend. I hope to take some photos outdoors!

おやすみなさい！

– B Barron Fujimoto

Sandwiches and work

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Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.6, 1/100 sec, ISO2500
 Cedar Park, 2016

こんばんは！ Good evening!

Today’s weather was so warm and humid, but it felt nice to be outside. I went outside at lunch to buy some lunch at the food truck, and I was wearing a jacket even though it was in the 80s. I am not sure if my office is cold, but I feel like I am freezing while I work so I usually have a jacket on and then I just wore it outside and tried to warm up… and it helped for an hour or so, but then it was back to freezing. ❄️

Today’s photo is of a Vietnamese-style sandwich on a homemade baguette that Mariko made. It was super delicious, and the jalapeños were spicy! I love the heat. The hotter the better! 🔥

Well, tomorrow is Friday and I am looking forward to getting a lot done! I don’t have any meetings scheduled so I need to put my head down and crank out a lot of tasks. By the way, I am still using Toggl to track my work and that is going well. Once I got used to clicking on the task as soon as I start new work, it is second-nature now. I often switch between things, like I am gathering graphics files, and then I see an email come into my inbox. Before I check the mail, I click on the task in Toggl, and then check the email. When I am done with the email, I click on the task I was doing before that, then continue with the task. By doing this, I get a very accurate representation of where I spend most of my time. Yesterday, for instance, I spent 2h 36m responding to and writing email… which to me is astonishing. I would have never thought I spend so much time doing that! But I can’t argue with the data.

I guess I was getting overwhelmed with work for a while there, and I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t seem to finish certain projects… I knew I was working hard, but I kept thinking that I was doing something wrong. But now I have the visibility into exactly where my time goes… and I can see that I simply have too many things on my plate right now. Although that is a problem, at least I can pinpoint what it is and not worry that I am doing something wrong. It’s a big step in improving my daily workload and estimating time!

Alright, it’s now getting late and I am going to read. Take care!

おやすみなさい！

– バロン Barron Fujimoto