daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad
Ramyun + nira + ground pork + sausage + mushroom + kimchee + mozzarella cheese = ♥️
For dinner tonight, we enjoyed soba and tempura. The tempura was bought from Costco and it’s surprisingly good! I highly recommend it. It’s so easy to prepare too: just defrost and heat up in the microwave, then pop into the toaster oven to crisp up. Simple and delicious. 🍤♥️
While looking at ukuleles online, as I often do, I came across a really cool design. It’s a concert-sized ukulele from Kala, called the “Surf Swell” (Model: KA-SURF-SWELL) and it was basically a love-at-first-sight situation. 🥹❤️
I have another Kala concert ukulele, and they are both exactly the same shape. However, the Surf Swell is made of different material, and has different tuners and tuning knobs. It’s got a really retro vibe to it.
Another difference between my two concert ukuleles is that the old one has fluorocarbon strings for a more “modern” sound, but the new ukulele has the nylon strings for a classic ukulele sound. I love both!
But why do I need another ukulele? (I already have 3) Well, I have come to love the concert-size as my ukulele of choice, and the one I had was strung with a low-G. Therefore, I couldn’t play a couple of songs that require the standard G and access to the higher frets that a soprano-size cannot provide. So instead of having two soprano-sized ukuleles (one low-G and one high-G), I am going to go with two concert-sized ukuleles, and probably sell my soprano with the low-G, and keep the pineapple ukulele.
I hope you had a nice day! またね〜
Today I spent several hours in front of our tv, which is rare but does happen on occasion. First, I watched 10 episodes of Demon Slayer. I has gotten through the first episode last year but then got sidetracked, and kind of forgot about it, but decided to pick it up again. It’s good! I like the story very much, and even though it’s kind of dark and gruesome, there are fun and lighthearted moments as well. I am looking forward continuing the series!
Next, I watched the movie The Half of It. I also enjoyed it quite a bit. The main character Ellie Chu is fun and her relationship with her father was interesting. A nice movie!
I hope you had a good day! またね〜
Excuse the click-bait-ey title, but I thought it was funny. Anyways, on really hot days, I’ll take off my shirt when I go running. Mariko says that the “naked” running is never done in Japan. In fact, you might get the police called on you! But here in the States, or at least in Texas, men run shirtless a lot. (We now jokingly refer to it as “American-style” and to her, shirtless is “naked”, while to me “naked” means no clothes at all 😆)
For the longest time, I was too self-conscious to take my shirt off even though I wanted to get some sun. First, I have a farmer’s tan, and second, I am not skinny. My mind was in a bit of a conundrum: if I was skinny, I wouldn’t worry about the farmer’s tan. And If I was tan, then I wouldn’t worry about not being skinny. So I was stuck. I don’t want to look silly and have people laugh at me.
But now I am older, and simply don’t give a f*$k what others think. And honestly, most people don’t even care. And even if they do, that doesn’t concern me. I don’t even know these people, and they don’t know me. So off comes the shirt, and after a few runs, my farmer’s tan is well on its way out. I still have my love-handles but whatever. Maybe someday they’ll be gone, but it doesn’t really matter any more.
All that being said, I don’t run shirtless all the time. The sun is just too strong and I gotta protect my health. But just having that option is liberating.
I love running so much. It’s really my time to refocus my mind, listen to my body, listen to music, and perhaps practice some gratitude. I don’t ever want to give that up.
Also, I like to look at things when I go running. For instance, this puddle leftover from the morning rain reminds me of Maui. 😊
I hope you had a great day! またね〜
