Ramblings..

Ugh. A new year's resolution coming up--"Do Christmas shopping throughout the year to avoid the last minute crunch".

Gosh--I had to fight the crowd at the Mall tonight, with all three kids in tow. What a struggle. Mariko was tired and whiny but Akira and Kailea were all patient and well-behaved. But it was the whole sopping experience that sucked the energy out of me. And when I got home I couldn't play Halo--I sucked bad. I was tired.

I put up a new post on my other blog about deaf businesses. I'm excited about that and hope that gets some attention. I don't know if I was right in putting up the post about my work, but then again I put the issue out there for others to see. That's how I justify it.

I'm tired. Mind's going all over the place so I'll report back later. Adios.

BF

My family

'nuff said

discovering the digital world...

I'm excited. The other day, I created a video collage of my family--gathering several pictures that were taken over the past several years and putting them together into a slide show, complete with a soundtrack as well as captioning overlay for the lyrics of the song. The lyrics were so fitting as well as the tone of the music and well.. it's a pretty special piece that I made. I hope it lasts forever so that when my kids grow up, they'll have this piece and say that "Daddy made this when we were young." With everything all digital, there's no reason to believe that the stuff we're making can be destroyed.

It was fun and challenging to lay down the tracks and time the captions. I really enjoyed it though and upon thinking further, I realize that with the vlogging revolution that the Deaf Nation is experiencing right now, it's only fitting that I dive into this and make myself useful with digital video. I even looked up courses at the community college to see what class(es) I can take in digital video editing and etc.. there might be a class I can take for free since I teach ASL at this very same college.. I'm also going to make a proposal to my supervisor to let me create a video greeting in ASL for our program's webpage.

Anyways, I'm on a roll with video and I'm searching around for new ideas.

Aloha,

BF

Kai lost her tooth

Well, it finally happened. After two weeks of loosening itself, Kailea's tooth came out. We had just left the photography studio in the mall and 30 seconds later Kai ran to me exclaiming "My tooth came out!!"

Sure enough, there lay in her hand, her tooth. And it had to happen in the mall? Well, there are lots of things that are not in our control.. She managed to stop bothering it long enough to get through the pictures. It sure would have looked funny with a little gap in her teeth for the Christmas cards.

This marks a milestone in child-rearing. The day they start to lose teeth, you know you're in trouble because the next thing that happens is that they start to hit their teens and learn how to drive and crash cars and... *Shudder*

I'm a daddy, I'm supposed to be doing this.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays...

Kai lost her tooth

Me

My first video

First post--trial run..

Ok so I've tried starting a blog in the past.. but usually as with most other folks, the idea of having a blog sounds fun and as a way to connect with people.. and after the first couple posts... well, they tend to forget about it and just literally let their newfound blog die. Whither.. melt away.. wash away..

Yeah.

Soooo.. why am I doing this, then? I've got grand ideas up my sleeve! But first I want to get the hang of this and see if this is something that will gain momentum.

Noooo.. I'm not going to let you take a peek into the depths of my soul, but rather give you an inkling of the ramblings of my mind.. which, to me, seems distracted 24/7.

I live in Salem, Oregon and this town seems to me to be quite the town to fit the "BLAH" type of label. Seriously, as a 30-something year old this town does not have the amenities to keep a guy like me enthralled. Give me Portland anyday, with the abundance of nightspots. But rather, since I'm not originally from Oregon, (I'm from Hawaii.. really!) I'd rather be back in da islands and catchin' some surf breaks out at Sandy Beach on O'Ahu. So how'd I get stuck in Salem? Long story!

I left Gally in 1999 and since my mother was living in Portland, Oregon at the time I had chosen to come here and live here for awhile until I got back onto my feet. Well... 7 months later my girlfriend's pregnant so we move down to Salem cause it was cheaper and I was getting ready to go to Western Oregon University to embark on graduate studies. *fast forward to today* I still have one more class to finish for my Masters.. and I'm married to that girlfriend and we now have three children.. the oldest who is four months shy of 7, the 2nd is 4 years old and the baby is 2.5 yrs old. To protect their identities I elect not to share their names or social security numbers or anything else.. Three little tykes--that's all you gotta know.. oh yeah, they're half-Japanese.. I can tell you that much..

So hopefully if I become interested in doing this then It'll pick up steam.. like I said a few paragraphs back I have some plans..

Oh by the way Carl Schroeder lives a few miles down the road, across the river, up on the hills of West Salem.. KAlalau's Corner, sound familiar? HE lived in Hawaii too and one day he showed up at the OAD meeting at the Oregon School for the Deaf and we connected very well, considering he lived on Maui in the same town as my true-blood cousin.

Today my oldest daughter has to be in a ballet performance and we are headed to the ballet store to get her a new set of ballet shoes.. her third in a year.. god those are expensive.. like 20 something bucks.. and new tights.. she keeps ripping them.. ugh.

Anyways, aloha nui loa!