daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad
こんばんは。Here are some photos of tonight’s dinner: cioppino and focaccia. My wife had a couple friends over for “Girls’ Night” which means there’s guaranteed to be yummy food. And the cioppino was amazing! Mussels, clams, shrimp, crab, and fish in a warm broth, and homemade focaccia bread for dipping. I had three bowls of cioppino!
I hope you had a nice Friday! 😄
おやすみ
こんばんは。How’s it going?
Today I present two photos that I took around the house. The first is of a gift and card that I got for my wife for Valentines and her birthday, which are not far apart. I’m happy that she put them on display! 😀
The second photo is just of a small sketch I made while listening to a webcast. I have a mental barrier when creating drawings, and that is that I try to be a perfectionist, and I am never 100% happy with what I draw. So, I get discouraged even before I start. Then I don’t start. But, I know I can break through! Maybe at this point in my sketching, quantity is more valuable than quality.
To see all the sketches I’ve been working on, you can check out the Flickr album “My Sketching Journey”, or my Instagram account barron.sketches which I created just for posting sketches, watercolors, and stationery items.
I hope you had a nice Thursday!
またね～
こんばんは。As you can see from the photo above, it’s curry nite at the Fujimoto house! Tonight’s curry was just a “basic” curry as my wife calls it. It had potatoes and sliced beef, a mild spiciness, but served over hot rice, it really warms you up! 🍛
But today was actually very warm – the upper 70s in fact! So, this evening I felt right at home wearing my Birkenstock sandals out and about. However, this warm weather only lasts a few more hours as a cold front is hitting us overnight and temperatures will drop 40 degrees. Brrrr! 🌬
I hope you had a nice day!
おやすみ
こんばんは。How’s it going?
Even though today is a dreaded Monday, mine was pretty good! I got a ton done at work, and then later on, I helped Bay make brownies for his school assignment. We haven’t tasted them yet, but they smell delicious! It was fun to help him measure, mix, and bake the goodies. Plus, he did all the dishes. 😄
In less-good news, I’ve been wearing a Fitbit for the past month or so, but I am going to stop. Basically, the pros do not outweigh the cons. It’s kind of uncomfortable, and the syncing with my phone is unreliable. Today it finally lost Bluetooth connection with my phone for good. I’ve spent an hour or so trying to troubleshoot it before deciding that the Fitbit was not enriching my life, by rather causing frustration and negativity. At first, seeing the data was interesting, but honestly, it’s the same day after day, and I don’t really need the tracker to tell me how many steps I’ve taken. I find that it’s enough to know if I’ve planked, how many squats I’ve done, or if I’ve spent time on the bike. And when I go running, I like to use Strava, whose data I do find interesting. I guess the Fitbit just isn’t for me.
Oh, here’s a photo of Yuzu and my glasses, just because. 😺👓
I hope you had a nice Monday!
おやすみ
こんばんは。How’s it going?
This morning I was planning on seeing the 8:50 am showing of Paddington 2, but I woke up at 8:30 and had to rush rush rush! Luckily the theater is only 10 minutes away, so after brushing my teeth, throwing on some clothes, and tidying up a bit, it was off to the movies! And when I arrived, I noticed that the movie time had changed to 9 am. Whew!
The movie itself was fantastic. I heard it was good, but I wasn’t expecting to be so impressed. The entire cast is wonderful, but Hugh Grant really stole the show. So funny, especially the dog food commercial. And I loved the scene where the Browns were talking about how actors were despicable and that they lie for a living. It was a meta moment seeing actors talking about actors!
The special effects were amazing as well, with the pop-up book montage being truly breathtaking. On the other hand, the animation of Paddington himself was completely seamless and looked very natural. I never once had a “That looks so fake!” moment.
Lastly, the jokes were clever and refreshing and didn’t resort to cheap bathroom humor. The trailers before the movie, on the other hand, had a total of 3 fart jokes. I mean, come on!
I’d have to say that Paddington 2 is the best movie that I have seen this year (so far). I’m not surprised that it has a “100% Fresh” rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
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In other news, I fired up the grill this evening and made burgers for the family. What made these special was that we also had bacon, avocado, and egg! Actually, Mariko and Bay had egg burgers, which made for a messy affair. But it did look damned tasty. Anyways, all the burgers were yummy, although I overcooked the patties just a bit.
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Lastly, Mariko couldn’t get the lens cap off of one of her lenses and asked if I could do it, but when I looked at it, the cap was stuck on as if someone super-glued it. And I could hear a strange sound coming from it… It turns out that Mariko had dropped her bag (which had her camera in it) and it must have impacted the edge of the lens. I had to use pliers to remove the cap, which revealed a shattered filter. Using the pliers again, I was able to unscrew the filter, then used a soft paintbrush to clear out all of the shattered glass. Thankfully the lens is undamaged, but we’ll have to get another filter. I guess that’s one example of when using a protective filter showed its worth.
I hope you had a nice Sunday!
またね～
