Akita on CNN!!

Just caught a quick glimps of Akita on CNN's Situation Room. Due to the nuclear plant threat, they evacuted Anderson Cooper from Sendai to Akita City! I can't wait to take a look at Akita tonight, just to calm my nerves that everything/one is okay. From what he said in his preview for AC360 it looks like aside from supplies and utilies it's okay in Akita...even though I know, I'm still worried...

One thing after another...

Well, I've been holding off on this post as quite frankly, I was still looking for people. On March 11, 2011 off the eastern coast of the Tohoku region Japan an 9.0 earthquake struck. This was further aggravated by a catastrophic tsunami and the looming threat of a nuclear meltdown. I've been spending the past few days practicing my multi-tasking skills: watching CNN, NHK, NHK-world, Asahi, Tokyo TV, Fuji and NNN simultaneously while scouring written reports for clues on what was going on. Initial information, especially from sources here in North America were frustratingly vague in the beginning (WHERE in Japan?!?!), and the mispronunciations didn't do anything to help suave my frayed nerves. After what felt like forever, I finally heard from most of my friends in Akita to be assured that everyone there was okay. The lack of power was hampering communication. There are lines for basic supplies. While they were shaken and stirred, everyone was okay. It appears that there were only some injuries in Akita. I am waiting on one more family to respond, but I'm hoping they're staying with family in a more secure building. My friends in Gunma, Chiba and Tokyo were also in similar situations. They were okay but their lives are a bit hectic due to the frequent aftershocks and blackouts. As one put it, "I need to go and make onigiris to prepare for the blackouts!"
The worse part was waiting on friends from Sendai and Fukushima. As the airwaves were flooded with horrific images, in combination with the lack of information from those area, the radio silence was brutal. Finally got words through friends that our Sendai friend was okay. Still not sure about my friend in Fukushima. I can only hope she has picked up and evacuated. Her city, Koriyama, was inland enough that she should have been safe from the tsunami, but with the aftershocks and nuclear threat I can't help but still feel uneasy...I can only tell myself that she's far away enough. According to Google Maps she's still outside the evacuation zone (she's about 70km from the plants). And I've caught snippets of Koriyama in the mountain of coverage. One person mentioned stopping in Koriyama for supplies on their way to Tokyo (stores open are a good sign, right?) And some of the footage of them checking people for radiation were also taken in Koriyama.
I guess, as much as I want to jump and a plane and start digging...All I can do is watch and hope.

Darn you Google Search!!!

One step forward for google equals I don't know how many steps back for me....
If you read my last post, I have been creating a new website for Kids for Kaga, an organization I volunteer with. However, I have been struggling with getting it to come up in search engine results. Earlier in the week, I finally got the site up to show up on the second page! Not bad after only 1 week. But, when I checked again today...DOOM!! It was nowhere to be found. Even when I searched for the site using "site:...", only my sitemap came up. Oh search engine gods, have I angered you in some way?

List Darn it!!!

Well, I've been helping with an organization called Kids for Kaga since last year. It's a grass roots programme that sends students from the twin cities of Dundas and Kaga on cultural exchanges. I decided it would be fun to work on a new site, as the old one is out of date, and it looks like it's run by city hall, so updating it out of our hands. The main structure of the site is up. I still need more content but I've been trying to get it up in the search results. So, that has been a bit of a frustration, as the builder I used doesn't have what I want....anyways, this is the ulterior motive to this post. One of the recommendations is to have other sites link to it so that spiders will find it. so, here goes the shameless plug!
Kids for Kaga
Kids for Kaga
Kids for Kaga
Kids for Kaga
Kids for Kaga!!!

benefits of the insomniac

Well, the other night, I was up...again. I sometimes wonder if it would be more productive if I worked the grave yard shift. Anyways, this night however, my sleeplessness actually worked to my benefit. As I turned in between tosses, I remembered that there was a lunar eclipse that night/ morning. I looked at the clock, which read well past 3am. Too late I thought, if only I had remembered around 2am. But, since I was up, I thought, "eh, why not?" So, I crept out of bed, trying not to wake anyone. These efforts were soon negated when I forogt and let my screen door SLAM shut behind me as I went into the backyard. Much to my surprise, it wasn't too cold. Also to my surprise...snow (I didn't know, and was still in slippers). I looked around and couldn't see anything, but just to be sure, I ran behind the house to check the sky. Behold! Not what I expected! I thought the lunar eclipse would cause the moon to be blacked out. Instead, the fully eclipsed moon before me was almost full, its silvery face stained with a rusty orange glow. This meant of course, I had to run inside to get my photography equipment. This was when I realized that a) I should really finish reading that manual for my camera and b) it gets a lot colder when you're handling a metal tripod and kneeling down in the snow.
Oh, and someone else in the house ended up getting woken up. But that turned out to be a great thing as well.

over-employed and waiting for hot chocolate

I've been told that I need to add my recent adventures. They were indeed rather exciting, but I have been nursing my upper respiratory track as of late.
So, first...job. When it rain, it pours. I was recently sitting at home going over notes for a phantom interview. And then, in quick succession, I end up with 2 interviews and now it would seem 2 jobs. Reason to celebrate, yes. But also reason for concern. After consulting with the sages, I've decided to risk signing contracts with 2 different school boards. One is in my home town, but apparently is a contracting board. The other board is a bit of a drive, but has a great reputation and is expanding. While I am exciting about both, I have to admit a tinge of guilt for doing this...as I have so much support in my home board. But, with an uncertain future (I have one friend going into her 5th year of supplying), I keep telling myself that I'm only being prudent (eggs in one basket...).
On a more exciting note, quite a few JETAA events as of late. First, there was an amazing documentary and speaker. Setsuko Thurlow, an atomic bomb survivor and activist came to share her experiences and her mission with us. I usually tend to think of myself as a pretty poker faced person when it comes to more serious emotions, but I pretty much lost it. I found myself talking about fears I didn't even knew I had. I suppose that time waking up to warnings of a long range missiles test (complete with little TV animations) on TV heading towards us hit me more than I realised.
Then, last weekend was the annual skating event. I have been trying to go to this thing for the past 3 years. My skates had been sharpened and waiting in the back of the car for 3 years. So I was going to go regardless of rain and ridiculously overpriced parking. I showed up to find an empty rink. After walking around for a bit, I thought **** this, strapped on my skates and gave the artificial but thankfully tented rink a go. After a shaky start, I finally found my footing and that's when I noticed that some of the maniacs skating in the rain were Asian (we're not known for our affinity to skating). So, I went out there and found a few familiar faces. I thought, okay, I guess the hot chocolate will be out here, so I relocated to the outdoor rink. To my surprise, despite the lowered visibility, it was actually quite nice skating in the rain as it created a constant, freshly Zamboni-ed (yes, I'm making it into a verb) effect. While the crowds (and hot chocolate) were probably scared away by the rain, the few brave souls did have fun...until *BAM* *GUSH*. Yes, one of our newer skaters hit the ice face first, and our afternoon of skating in the rain turned to an afternoon group drive and sitting in the ER (with lots of bowing). Hopefully, a few stitches were all that were needed to put him back together.
Our outing ended with food...rather inappropriate food. We decided that the best way to end the day was with meat. So we ended up in the most random burger joint called Dangerous Dan's, where the burgers are big, the woman's bathroom is small (I suppose if you eat too much there it would eventually become an issue), the seats are recycled from mini-vans, and if Dan takes a liking to you, you get his wang for free (a la mode)! The walls, plastered with pro-meat propaganda was a perfect accompaniment to the amazing burgers. For some reason, he felt guilty for something he said ( for me, all was forgiven when I started eating), but our table was the proud recipient of of a free wang (deep fried banana with ice cream). And, it was probably the best fried banana I'd ever had. I wasted no time in cutting it down to size with one swift stroke (not the first time inappropriate food has been served to me), and I was declared to have "Bobbitt-ed it" (yet another new verb).

"Honestly Monica..."

I came upon an article today that quite frankly astounded me (although I'm not sure why anything that happens should anymore). Monica Gaudio, was informed by a friend that some of her writing had been lifted from her blog and reprinted in a print magazine, Cooks Source, without her permission. Now, this is the part I find astounding. The editor, Judith Griggs, responded by saying that the Internet was public domain and that the author should have been grateful. She went on to say (more like insult) that Gaudio's writing was of poor quality. My favourite (in case Ms Griggs is reading, I'm using British spelling) part is her use of the phrase "as a professional". Ironic choice of words, considering that I would not classify any of Ms Griggs actions as anywhere being close to professional (perhaps she needs to google the word). From her decision not to obtain proper permission to use the material as well as her subsequent responses. I mean even the SPCA asked to use a 10 second video clip of my rabbit for their fundraising campaign. And I also have questions regarding her skills as an editor. Her responses have been either the world's worst attempts at an "apology", or she really need to work on her writing tone (i.e. lack of professionalism or sincerity, dripping with condescension). As for the public domain portion of the argument, I would love to see someone lift an article from something like the Time Magazine site (where I spotted this article) and reprint it...let's see how well that argument goes over. I also enjoyed the argument of how lifting occurs in many other places...Brooklyn Bridge anyone?