So long 2008, Hello 2009!

As Ewen says, I was an absent blogger in 2008. There are many and varied reasons for this. To sum it up, it was a year of change for me that made it more difficult to blog, both practically and motivationally (is that a word?). I changed jobs in January, entering duty the day after returning from a 3-week visit back to Australia with the family. We celebrated my parents' 60th wedding anniversary on Jan 10, then poignantly said goodbye with a feeling of foreboding about my dad's health. Within a few days of arriving back in Japan it was confirmed that he had cancer of the liver; he had refused chemotherapy. He passed away aged 86 on the 3rd of March and I was suddenly back in Australia for a brief visit under the worst possible circumstances. Of course I wrote about this at length on this blog at the time, so there is not much point going into details other than to say that this event has been a shadow for me over the entire year of 2008.

My running, which is ostensibly the reason for this blog, experienced highs and lows. I managed to run a sub 3-hour at Tokyo marathon in February despite suffering constant pain from a chronic Achilles injury. Following Tokyo I resolved to do whatever was required to get the Achilles right, even if it meant giving up running forever. It was mentally so hard to cut back from the level of fitness I had to adopt the almost sedentary lifestyle required to get the Achilles right. I went to the gym, I swam, and eventually I did very little before taking up walking a few mornings a week. Soon the walks turned into walk-jogs, as the Achilles allowed, and by late August it seemed the Achilles was improving under this regime of light bipedal exercise. So from there I have ever so gradually increased the workload, always conscious of not over-stressing the Achilles. The Achilles was soon behaving itself nicely and I got back to fairly regular aerobic training runs in September and built into October, eventually running a hard 40:00 10k at Ohtawara in November. Since then I have built the mileage a little more and just kept at it as the Achilles continues to remain pain free, even though I still feel a slight nodule in the middle of it. The next race is Ome 30 k on February 15. Maybe that will be my next post :)

Work was interesting. The new job was shaky until our company, which was mostly domestic, miraculously absorbed Japan's largest international engineering consulting firm. This propelled me from a position of floundering for a role to suddenly having more things to do than I could handle. I honestly can't imagine how the year would have turned out if this merger hadn't taken place. It is almost as though it was destined to be. Still, economic times have been tough and we face challenges into the new year, so don't expect the blogging to start back too frequently.

I was fortunate to have been able to help guide the launch of a new web site for my running club. Later in the year we launched a forum and that has also gone well, though I'd like to see our 100+ members make more use of it.

It was also a good year in brewing for me. I used to keep my equipment at a friend's place and brew with him, but for one reason and another we abandoned that arrangement and I brought my pots and pans back home early in 2008. I have progressively added a lot of new equipment through the year and have been brewing more and more regularly and enjoying communing with a bunch of like-minded gaijin and Japanese home brewers in the Tokyo area. I was fortunate to win the best-of-show prize at the main (only?) home brewing comp in Japan with a Belgian Tripel (similar to this beer) and that led to commercial-sized brewing of the recipe on December 23rd. The beer is still fermenting as I write this post. It will be released to the Tokyo beer-consuming public in a couple of months.

Of course 2008 brought other events of note for me and my family, but I think that sums up the main things.

I will close by saying a happy new year to one and all who happen to stumble upon and read this post to this point. If you actually do, for some perverse reason, happen to have an interest in the doings of my life, I am sorry for the infrequency of posts of late. I will try to be a little more consistent in 2009, though no promises!!

Take care all!

Steve

News items

A few things I have been meaning to mention:

• Got news last week that I got selected in the lottery for the Tokyo Marathon in February. Guess I'll have to run the bastard now.
  
• The family & I will be in Australia, mainly Sydney, Newcastle and Coffs Harbour from Dec 28 to Jan 13.
• If I haven't already mentioned it, Tatsuya has decided he'll come back to live in Japan next year. He's had his ups and downs, but basically decided that he'll be more comfortable living with his own family and completing school in the Japanese system. He has got a lot out of his time there and definitely picked up some Aussie ways, like the impulsive crew cut at the brandishing of a set of clippers when on holidays at the rellies.

Bass Instincts

After running yesterday, I did what my friend Gareth describes as a "Good Thing".

My son Kohta joined the (electric) guitar club at school some two or three months ago. He had to fight us a bit for the permission because he is already in the brass band club, and there is only so much a kid can fit into one life. One problem was he didn't have a guitar, nor any experience playing one, nor a parent that knows the first thing about it. The other kids in the club (all three of them) declared that what they really needed was a bass player. So Kohta was volunteered for that role. And he was keen. But unfortunately he didn't have a bass. Nor did he have especially sympathetic parents. We were a bit worried about several things: a) Would it just be a passing fancy? b) Would he be able to practice without disturbing the neighbours? c) Who would teach him? (the guitar club had no teacher) d) Wouldn't this cost us a fortune?

He located a second hand bass in a nearby trash and treasure. It was only 5000 yen (A$60?). Hmm, pretty cheap. But we were still not convinced due to reservations about quality of a 2nd hand machine and that he would still need an amp, strap, case, etc, none of which we knew much about. So we let it go, days went by, then weeks, and weeks turned into a couple of months. Still he kept raising the topic. I have been feeling symathetic to his cause for a few weeks, having been convinced of the strength of his motivation, and so we managed to convince the financial controller that we should invest a modest amount to give him the chance to try it. But still there were questions....

Then two things happened. Firstly, he told me a couple of days ago that the new headmaster has his own band and is going to teach the guitar club...AND, he can play/teach bass. That was one big obstacle out of the way...at least he would have every opportunity to learn, and it would be entirely up to him. The one remaining obstacle was the complete state of ignorance on the part of his parents when it comes to all things musical. And that was where Gareth came to the rescue. He has been learning electric guitar for the past couple of years, his 50th birthday present to himself. To cut the story short, he emailed me after the run yesterday to point me towards Rock Inn, a guitar shop in Shinjuku that sold starter bass sets for 20,000 yen (a bit over A$200). He then very kindly met us there later in the afternoon. And to cut this rapidly lengthening story even shorter, we ended up getting a slightly more up-market starter set for 25,000 yen: an Ibanez GSR320. It is a pretty nice machine (picture shows actual colour), and since that price includes a 10 watt amp, bag, strap, leads, tuner and assorted other bits and pieces, it felt like a bargain. It was one of those shopping experiences that really made you feel good. It certainly made Kohta happy and it was fun watching him pop the study DVD he bought into the player and get stuck into the practice as soon as we got home.

Could this be the beginning of the career of the first musical Lacey in existence?

Sayonara baby!

Thanks for all the kind comments on Tatsuya. We saw him off last night. It might have been more emotional for us if his 24 current and former schoolmates hadn't shown up at the airport! We could have got a good game of touchy footy or cricket going. Half the kids, even the boys were bawling (actually I don't think the girls were!) He lost it a bit giving everyone a hug goodbye, and I suppose it must have hit home to him as hard as it possibly could that he is very popular and greatly loved here. Let's hope the quiet and lonely first few weeks in Australia aren't too hard. I had a long hug with him and let him have a good cry. I told him to be strong. He said he was. Told him to sieze this opportunity with two hands and use it to forge his identity as being firmly of two countries and two cultures. Not half Japanese and half Australian, but fully Australian and fully Japanese. He said he would. I was so impressed by the words from the Prophet I posted yesterday. So I told him that Mum and I are just a bow, and you are the arrow, and now we are releasing you to fly straight and true and make your mark in the world. He nodded, and I think he understood.

For a laugh, you might want to try looking at the boys' blog when run through Google translator. Don't ask me to explain!

Your children are not your children

Tatsuya will be leaving tonight to start year 11 in Australia and we head out to the airport with him later this afternoon. I mentioned to a friend yesterday that this would be just a little gut-wrenching (if gut-wrenching comes in degrees). It prompted him to send me an excerpt from The Prophet by Khalil Gibran. It echoed what I already hold to be true, but I just thought it was worth posting as I prepare to see off my eldest. It seems it was only a few days ago that I pulled into a shop in Military Road on my way home from Royal North Shore and bought a teddy bear for my newly born son (the very same bear my wife discovered a few moments ago in his hand luggage!). Anyway, here is the passage from the Prophet

Chapter 3 Children
And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children." And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

The lads...

We bought a new digital camera just before Christmas. I just downloaded the first batch of photos and there was a nice one of the boys; for no particular reason, here it is for your viewing pleasure. L-R are Tatsuya (16), Chiaki (12) and Kohta (14).