Nomi Network

Alright this is a plug for my friend Diana Mao she has started a non-profit organization called Nomi Network to help girls who have been trapped in sex-trafficking. She has presented her idea to idea blob and is a finalist for the $10,000 prize. This money will really be able to get this thing going so please vote! Today is the last day to vote so PLEASE go now! It takes only 3 minutes to register and vote. Think of the lives you could help change in only 3 minutes! I know we are all busy, but 3 minutes out of our lives is NOTHING and especially when you compare it to the lives of these girls. Please look at her site too. Read what she's all about. This is an amazing non-profit. 

Go to ideablob.com now! Vote! and then you can come back and read the rest of my blog :)

So, I got an email from a friend about this today. I thought it was interesting to get this email for two reasons 1) I actually already got an email from another friend about voting for this and I just deleted it cause I didn't want to do the hassle (even though I have plenty of time). Then, today at work some of us were talking about the red-light district and where it is here in Japan. One of the girls went out to dinner last night with a group and they walked past a "buy a drink bar" (which for those of you who don't know is apparently a place where guys buy a girl a drink and they can do anything they want with her, and I have no idea how far that goes). So this girl was saying how she has heard of these places, but it was kinda crazy actually seeing one. She said the girls were dressed just like hookers (cause they are) and the "dancing" that was going on was ridiculous. It is just so sad to me that these places exist. These poor girls... who knows how they got into this, but I am sure most of them feel trapped, some may be, and some may just think there is no other option. No matter the reason for their being there, it is sad. Abuse, neglect, trauma, sadness... it's a terrible sad way to live life. I wish I could just go there one night and take them all away from there... though I know it would never be that easy.

So after all this I come home to an email about my friend in SB who is starting Nomi Network. How awesome is that? The second email I have received about this and you can bet I definitely did not delete this one. I know most of you got an email from me and I really hope you take the time to go vote. Please know that Nomi Network is not going to reach every country (well, who knows someday it might), but I mentioned my thoughts on Japan, and every country has junk like that, but Nomi Network is actually specifically for Cambodia.

So anyway, hope you all vote! Go vote now if you haven't already! If you know people who will vote call them up and tell them to vote! This needs to happen!

VOTE!

Horses!

So I am SUPER excited about going to a horse ranch on Tuesday! The guy who led the rock climbing trip I went on (Tetsuya) is a nice Japanese man, and I figured he must know the area pretty well so I asked him if he knew of any horse ranches nearby. He said yes and then he looked it up online (of course it was all in kanji and katakana). Apparently there is one pretty close, probably about 20 minutes from base! So I was very excited as he wrote down the directions for me. I was a little disappointed cause he said the price is about 8,000¥ per day ($80) and they have a monthly memebership that is some other outrageous number. BUT I am excited to go regardless. The BEST part is... he said he wants to talk with Steven (our manager) about putting together a trip for horse-back riding and so he offered to go with me to check out the ranch! Yay! I will not only finally be able to get to this ranch, but I will have my very own translator! I am really hoping that we can set something up where we have a horsey trip once a month and I can be the leader and go for free. That still would not fill my horse need, but it is a start. Apparently there are horses at another military base about 1-2hrs from here so I am going to check that out at some point too.

So yay! for Tetsuya being such a nice guy! Tuesday will not come fast enough... I am sure you all think I am crazy, cause I know I sound more excited about this than I do when Brian comes home, and to be honest I guess I am a little. But it's different. Imagine you doing something for 1-3 hrs 5-7 days a week for the last 6 years and the time before that just dreaming about it... that is kinda crazy to just cut it out of my life cold turkey, right? I am hoping that I can somehow go once a week. I could live off that. Once a week is all I ask. I will let you know how it goes.

Sandy

OK folks, so this may be the longest post you'll ever read... Today my beloved Sandy died. Well, she died on Monday morning, and I found out this morning not too long after. Mom found her sleeping on the porch and she just knew something was different. They saw her earlier that morning and said she looked fine. It was just her time. She was old, and she lived a good life. The pic above is a fav of mine... that is, of the nice portrait ones I have of her. Below I have many great memories with her that I would like to share in her memory. She was seriously the best dog EVER. Thanks to you David for winning the bet, and thanks to you dad for following through with the deal. Dave... don't lose those golf skills man... they are handy :)

So I got Sandy when I was 13 years old and I spent all kinds of time with her. Good and bad. I trained her and taught her all she knew. I was the lucky one who got to clean up her pee when she was in house training... which is quite the chore for a St Bernard (one time I specifically remember Jon and Dave yelling for me to clean up one such mess and I seriously thought they had dumped a bucket of water on the ground. It was only after they yelled at me to get down and smell it that I believed them... and no I did not smell it.)
Sandy was wonderful to our new member of the fam, Shugo. She clearly did not like him much at first, but he grows on you like a weed and she quickly took the mother role in his life. Many times I caught her licking his head like he was her own...

She taught him the best place to sleep (of course right where you can see in the house and watch me 24-7). I would like to note too that this is only a few days after he had been with us. She did take to him quickly.
And as he grew, she continued to love him :)

During the summer in SD I would shoot horse shows and I would bring her with me. She would follow me around, find the closest shade as long as it was within about 15-20 feet of me and just lay down. Never any problems with her. It was great too cause people always knew who I was... "the photographer? Oh, that girl with the red hair and huge St. Bernard? Yeah, I know her..."
Yes, she rode IN the car. Everywhere. The ranch, the beach, the post office, the vet, the park, Auburn, Santa Barbara, Tamara's (Brian's Sis), anywhere and everywhere she loved to be with us.

Yes after the beach she would be slobery and wet, and though it doesn't look like it Brian still loved her even then... :) I always told him not to talk to her in the car... if you talked to her she wanted to get right in your face and give you a kiss. I always just let her do her own thing in the back and she never bugged me while I was driving.

Her at the beach... not always a good idea. If it was hot then she would like to get in the water, which is nice, but if she gets in the water she then feels the need to drink the water and then... well, then she gets diarrhea. Ew.

She LOVED the car. This is a St. Bernard folks... they are lazy, and they would seriously rather go for a ride in the car than take a walk. That was her outing everyday... a ride in the car and she was happy.

This is funny. She loved to lay in the exact same spot in our yard day after day after day. So, we decided (since we didn't want to pay whatever our landlord would charge us when we moved out) that we would put up a fence to keep her away from it, let it grow back and take the fence down... didn't work.

She is just so cute, I loved to get on the ground and just pet her...

Slobber and all... she was awesome

She loved to do this. If I was standing somewhere with my legs even slightly apart, she would come up behind me and squeeze her huge head and body between my legs so she could get through and sit on my feet and have me rub her back. Bad puppy habit that I didn't break... luckily she wasn't any taller cause she would have been taking me for a ride.

Fun pics while we were bored... this was while Brian was away and before Shugo... What else is a girl to do?





And yes... the last day, the last moment we saw each other. I was giving my hugs good bye and of course the cameras came out. For those of you who can't tell Sandy is the one laying down. Gunther is sitting, he is my parents' Saint, and also Sandy's husband. They had two litters of pups together. He just wanted some lovin' too. Notice Sandy is much redder than Gunther. When we got her the people we bought her from had actually nicknamed her "red"... funny huh? It was meant to be.

Seriously she was a great great dog. I will always cherish my memories with her and I am very grateful to have had her with us in SD for the last year and a half. I honestly kinda feel like she died a little sooner cause she was heartbroke that we left her. I know she was happy and very well cared for at my parents', but her and I had a special bond and attachment that will not be replaced. I know you all think I am crazy, but this is my dog, this is my life, I love my animals, you all know this. This may be the sappiest you ever hear me on this thing...

Below is one of my favorite videos of Sandy. In SD we would always leave our side door open so Sandy could feel like she ws a part of our life (we didn't allow her in the house cause neither of us wanted to clean up after all that slobber and hair!). I love how Brian gets in her face and I can just see what she is thinking... " Oh I love you too. Oh! Can I come in! Wow you love me so much! I will come in :) Uh Oh... you don't love me? I guess... um... ok I will go out." Yeah watch the movie you will see it all. And by the way, Brian does that to every dog. I think it's the best way that he embarrasses himself. He just sticks out his tongue and starts breathing like a dog, and then I give him that look like, "What the crap are you doing?" and he says, " What? They like it." Apparently Sandy did... we love her and will always miss her!

My climbing trip

So this is where I went climbing... pretty cool view.

The water was really clear! I wanted to jump in, but it was too cold!

There I am! Climb away! I would have more pics of me climbing, but I had some strangers taking pics and they did a bad job... so this is the best I got.

See, look how clear the water is!

This was on the way back... very pretty sunset. There was a lot of open space and I tried to get some good pics, but my nice camera was under the bus so I was stuck with the point and shoot... still pretty though :)

So these are from the same weekend as the snow monkey thing. We went to see the monkeys first and then went to this castle which was pretty cool. Nicer on the outside though. The inside is totally empty and we had to take our shoes off even though it was freezing cold, AND the stairs in this castle are the STEEPEST EVER. Anyway, it was fun, and there was a pretty sunset too.

Tomorrow I am going rock climbing! Yay! I heard that the location is really beautiful, some cliffs overlooking the ocean. So look forward to seeing pics from that! I am still debating bringing my nice camera though. I don't want to have extra things in my bag and I also don't want to hurt my camera... but I probably should bring it. Anyway, I have to be there at 4:15am so I need to get going.

Today I miss...

Yes, I miss the awesome awesome burritos of SD. I took my Japanese friend to the military base for lunch today (she had never been to "little America" before) and of course she wanted to eat at Taco Bell and try "mexican food". Oh, if she only knew...
Seriously, does it get any cuter than that?
He will be with us soon enough :)
Click on it, and look at it closer, it's freaking awesome :D
Yeah, I guess I miss him too
I definitely miss this guy.... the first man in my life.
And yes, I guess it did get cuter. How could anyone not miss that?

A castle

So on Monday I went on a tour with my friend Lauren. I can't remember where all we went. We stopped at about 3-4 places. I called it the strawberry tour cause the last place we stopped was a strawberry farm and we could eat all we wanted for about 20 minutes! Yum! The whole thing was a lot of fun. The castles are cool. GREAT photo place on the outside. The inside is totally barren with wooden floors and we have to take our shoes off. But there is always a nice view from the top.

My favorite part of this tour was at one stop we had some soft serve ice cream... the BEST EVER! Soooo good. I had vanilla/strawberry mix and it was incredible. I have had soft serve plenty of times here before, but this place topped all... or maybe it was just the flavor. Either way, it was AWESOME :)

Don't Judge me

"Don't Judge Me!" These are the words I find most annoying in life. How stupid... don't judge me. First of all everyone judges everyone about everything. Right or wrong that is just how it goes. The way you dress, the way you talk, the way you walk, the way you smile, the choices you make, the places you go, the friends you have.... these are all things that people judge others about. I do it, you do it, we are all guilty. Honestly, I don't find too much harm in it. Of course it depends on how you express this opinion of yours. Usually it is best kept to yourself, but if you must speak it aloud so be it. 

I bring this up because I clearly offended this girl that I work with twice today and I thought she just might poop out her baby 5 months early. I just laughed inside cause what we were talking about was so meaningless and I was not passing judgment, I was merely stating the obvious that eating McDonalds all the time just might kill you. She freaked out. "I don't give two #$%^& and a $@%^! what I eat, I am fat and I am pregnant and I don't care..." First of all she is fat, not because she is pregnant, but more likely due to her eating habits and hatred for exercise. Who cares! I DON'T CARE! I was just jokingly stating my thoughts of surprise how they eat McDonalds so often. I wasn't even thinking about the fact that she was overweight. The other thing I offended her about was even more meaningless... I can't even waste my time writing about it.

The thing is, later at my lunch break my manager asked how I was getting along with everyone. I said fine, and then mentioned that I had clearly offended this girl earlier that day. He said she had already told him all about it! What! She told him I am "so judgmental".... what?! This girl is psycho, sensitive, and sassy (3 bad sssss), and she is not this way because she is pregnant. 

So my question is this. Am I judgmental? I know I always have an opinion. I am not sure that I would classify myself as opinionated, and I don't think I would call myself judgmental. I am critical and I like to set higher standards for people. Is that so bad?

Wild Snow Monkeys!!!

So here are the Wild Snow Monkeys of Japan! No the one with red hair is not a monkey (I know you were thinking that!) We went to see these monkeys on a tour through the military. It was really cool. We took a long buss ride and when we got there it was snowing and the monkeys are just there, roaming about. We were told not to look them in the eye so that we wouldn't get attacked. I did not look them in the eye, but I wonder about my friend Carol in the pic below.... she said she didn't look it in the eye, but it decided to jump on her back anyway. It was pretty funny. It stayed there for a bit and eventually got off when the Japanese man who works there yelled at it in Japanese and started to run over there.
Brian with a monkey behind him. There was an Onsen that was built specially for the monkeys to relax in. They like it, although I have no idea how they can go into a warm cozy onsen and then just jump out into the freezing snow with wet furry fur.
I know there is no onkey in this pic.... but Brian looks good doesn't he? :)
This monkey looked a little cold... I thought it was a funny shot.
And us with the monkeys, yay. Please keep in mind none of these pics have been color corrected and they clearly need it so sorry for the snappish looking pics from the nice camera...

Busy Bees...

So we have been pretty busy.... well, I guess I have been busy, Brian has been busy working ever since we got here :) I got a job working at the Outdoor Rec Center, Yay. So I am officially working about 40 hours a week with wonderful people... maybe not so wonderful. I think it is probably the same no matter where you are (military or not), but people just like to complain about life and it is freaking annoying. Not to mention the fact that all everyone talks about for the most part is going out drinking. I was thinking about it today, cause I know that it is not just the military. Most people no matter where you work do not like their jobs and they also love to complain about their personal lives too and people drink, they party, it's the "fun" thing to do. 

I guess I just realized today that I have had very few "normal" jobs. Growing up I worked at my dad's gas station and Dairy Queen. I think those could be considered "normal". But I was young, and didn't listen much when people complained and always did a great job of staying out of it. After those jobs the only other "normal" ones were working at a restaurant, but I think it is easier to avoid people's comments and complaints in those jobs cause we are busy, you have your own tables, and you are working your own section, no need to interact much with other workers.

I dunno, maybe I have had plenty of "normal" jobs, it's just that I have tried to give people the benefit of the doubt and also not let them get to me. AND I just thought of this! It's probably also the fact that then I had other things going on like school, horses, pets... now I have a limited number of people to hang out with and the only other thing I really do is workout. Obviously I do other things and I am doing plenty of sightseeing, it's just different somehow. I feel surrounded by these people who are annoying! 

Either way, things are going well, I just had to complain a bit.... see, they are already rubbing off on me! I am actually going to be switching jobs to work at the Teen Center in a month when my background check paperwork goes through, so that will be good. 

Brian left today. He is supposed to be gone for 4 weeks. I am counting on 6wks (no not hoping, just setting myself up to NOT be disappointed when their schedule changes cause it always does). The nice thing is I now have a job and will be quite busy with that, teaching English (and trying to get more students), and trying to find photography work. Brian and I had a really cool weekend this past weekend and I have pics I need to post, but no time to go through them right now, so maybe tomorrow :) Just thought I'd fill you all in since it has been a bit.

"The face"

So does anyone remember "the face"? When I was little I apparently made this "alien face" and everyone asked me to do it and when I did they would laugh. Anyway, this picture reminded me of it. I guess the face looked like an alien face, but I know that some friends from high school would call it a "seahorse" face... whatever that means. I know that only my siblings, maybe my parents and possibly the Rineers would remember this face. My memories of it are limited, but those are the only people I remember being around while doing it. So does anyone remember this? Or was it all a dream?

The Imperial Palace

So on January 2nd Brian and I went to Tokyo to the Imperial Palace to see the Emporer wave at us... sounds exciting, but in reality it was a little boring. Basically too many people crowding around you (I don't recommend being in such close quarters with complete strangers... a little awkward) and then we waited forever. Finally, they come out, but they are behind some bullet proof glass so it's difficult to see. Though I am short, I didn't feel bad for myself because right next to me in this ridiculous crowd is this little Japanese lady who stands about a foot shorter than me. I thought Brian should put her on his shoulders so she could see, but with the language barrier we figured it would be best not to try to offer such a thing :)

Lots of flags, lots of people, very little personal space equals claustrophobia/anxiety attack interesting, but not something I care to experience too often. So that's it our trip to Imperial Palace was not too exciting though we did see the Emporer and family waving at us. Woohoo :)

Ahh... 2008

Looking back last year was fast. Too fast. I feel like half of it was lost cause Brian was gone so much. So let's see... the year started with much anticipation.

-I was starting a new job at Bally Total fitness as a personal trainer (with no schooling or training... how did I even get the job).

-Brian joined the Navy in January, and was off to Great Lakes to start his Navy Seal training... finally.

-with Brian gone, I was living by myself for the first time ever. Boring at first, but after a few weeks I learned to enjoy it, and tried to make the most of our time apart.... a trip to Santa Barbara, riding, working, hanging out with friends, leaving water glasses anywhere I wanted to...



While brian was gone, I did get a little lonely. What's a girl to do when you go to a horse show and there is a really cute free puppy? We (I) got Shugo in May. Brian's first dog that is just his. I know he would have taken him home if he was there. I sent him pics and he named him, and fell in love right away.

July we had our 2nd anniversary. Brian wasn't able to make it home cause he was in BUD/s. So we celebrated on the 3rd. Went out to dinner and a movie... awesome!

Soon after that we were attacked by a bird sized moth. Absolutely ridiculous. I found him in the shed and next thing I knew he was in the house.
In July I got in my first accident. A fender bender gone bad. Stupid lady hit me so hard I hit the guy in front of me (and no I was not too close). Luckily the dogs were ok (they were in the back seat). The car was totalled so we got money for it and bought a new Toyota Tacoma.

Brian dropped out of BUD/s in July. Crazy, unexpected thing. But for the first time all year he was home every day (that was definitely an adjustment). We carved pumpkins for the last time in America well, not the last time, but you know what I mean.


Sexy Halloween costume huh? My job at the gym wasn't paying so well, so I started working at a restaurant.... Brian liked my apron :)

A last fling in San Diego.

A surprise visit to Kansas to see fam before I leave for a while...
Now in Japan! Traveling, speaking another language, getting lost, having culture shock (even when I am on base).
And of course the year went out with a bang! We celebrated by going bowling and out to dinner... lots of fun! I bowled the best I ever have! A score of 129!
Soooo 2008 was full of change and weirdness, fun and fast. I suspect more change and weirdness for 2009. Many great pictures, good stories and even more video!