Did you ever just look at your Wedding Ring? Part 2

I wear this wedding ring now and approaching our 1 year anniversary I thought it would be interesting to write some memories of the Lovely Mina's and my time together.

I remember going to look at rings and seeing various rings that were all nice enough. When we got to the Niessing counter at Isetan, though, they put this ring in my hand and somehow my mind was made up. Mina says it was the only ring that I reacted to with a "whoa". I had never seen anything like it. Yellow Gold and White Gold melded together so that the top of the ring is pure yellow and the bottom is pure white, but you can never see exactly where the transition occurs. Just a gorgeous piece of jewelry. Here's a photo of them:

I look at these rings as a symbol of our marriage as the melding of two cultures. Cheesy, perhaps, but in my mind here we are standing at the intersection of Japan and the U.S., teaching each other how we think as we go along. We are fusion and our children will be even more so.

So, I look at my ring from time to time and remember where we came from, and think about where we're going. I am so thankful that Mina believes in me enough to support me through this PhD at this stage of our lives. It would have been a lot easier for us to stay in Japan, for me to parlay my ACCJ job into a $100K position at some member company, and just to coast. I would always have wondered, though, what could have been and whether I wasn't really meant to teach at a university and research what I wanted to, when I wanted to. Here, now, we have the chance to make that happen.

Thank you Mina!

Did you ever just look at your wedding ring?


I met my wife while waiting for a train.

5 years ago this August I was in Japan. I'd lived there for 6 years, but moved back to the U.S. to get an MBA and then decided to spend the middle summer studying Japanese through a Princeton University program. I had been accepted to a 2nd Masters degree program that meant I had to spend the following summer interning, so language seemed the best way to spend my time given where I wanted to go.

I spent the summer learning 900+ Japanese characters and then went to spend a couple of nights at my friend Dan and his girlfiend's place. Somehow, someway, I got in touch with a friend of mine and had dinner with her an a couple of her friends. We separated at Jinbocho station and I went downstairs to wait for the train.

There she was. I don't know what it was and I don't know why, but there was something about her. I just had to say hello. The next thing, we were chatting on the train and had made plans to have dinner the next night. That she was more than willing to watch some sports, drink some beer, and hang out till all hours sort of confirmed my suspicions.

Years later, here we are in the U.S., me in school for a PhD and her providing support that I could not have imagined. Kids may be on the way and I would like them to know all about our story.

Nintendo DS Lite Commercials





I was interested in Nicole Kidman's new Nintendo DS Lite commercial. Mostly, I was interested in the drastic change in Nintendo's marketing approach. Their original DS commercials for the U.S. market were based on science documentaries like you might see on Discover channel or PBS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1JAwIwBDNg

However, this new ad just features Nicole having fun playing the Brain Age game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA_r9FUEgAA

What is really interesting about this is that it is almost EXACTLY the same commercial that Nanako Matsushima made for the same game and was used in Japan years ago: http://touch-ds.jp/mediagallery/st25.html Nanako's and Nicole's Brain Ages are even the same (52)! I am not sure what it means that Nanako was born in 1973 and Nicole in 1967 and that their brain ages are the same.

Anyway, this represents sort of a different approach to marketing this product for Western consumers.

Wine Tasting: How much fun can you have?

The 'rents were up in the 'Cuse for the weekend with my little sister, who was back from an archaeological dig in Isthmea, Greece. We had dinner here at the apartment on Saturday night, and Mina made quite a lovely feast of Japanese food. Mina had never cooked for my sister, so I think she was a little nervous, but everything turned out great.

Sunday we woke up and went to Wegmans to stock up on provisions for lunch (olives, prosciutto, a nice loaf of bread, some New York cheddar, cherries, etc.) and headed down the road to Cayuga Lake and the wineries along the Cayuga Wine Trail (http://www.cayugawinetrail.com/). We stopped at 5 or 6 places and had a nice picnic.

After lunch it was back to Syracuse for a nice dinner at the Mission, an interesting Mexican restaurant downtown. It's a cool place built in an old church that has very decent Mole sauce (those are hard to find, as you may know).

Monday, everyone came over for breakfast and then I went off to teach. School was...so-so, but the class is more or less in the books. The kids take their final exam tomorrow night, I finish up the grading, and then it's a week off before I go back to reading 4-5 journal articles per day for the next 6 weeks.

So, that's a good weekend for you. Friday, we go watch some baseball.

Formula 1 U.S. Grand Prix

All I can say is, what a weekend. The Lovely Mina and I headed back to Cleveland for a good friend's wedding on Friday, took in an Indians game on Saturday (a loss to the Braves) and then made an over and back trip to Indianapolis for the Formula 1 U.S. Grand Prix. It was 5.5 hours each way from my parents' house to the Speedway, but absolutely worth it.

The race tickets were my present to Mina for her birthday. On our first date, 5 years ago now, we watched an F1 race, actually, and she has been known to stay up until 5 am on Sundays to catch a race from the far corners of the globe.

We got to the Speedway about 2 hours before the start of the race and watched the drivers parade around the course in vintage cars. Our seats were in the Paddock section, which is under cover, along the front straight, and with a nice view of the pits. We were probably 400 meters from the start/finish line, so had a nice view (though Indy is an old enough structure that there are all manner of obstructed view seats). It was pretty darn hot, so being under cover was a blessing, and this Oil Can of ice cold Fosters certainly made me happy.

The start of the race was as impressive as anything I have seen or heard, to tell the truth. I felt like my head was going to split open as the cars took off from their standing start. It was so disorienting, in fact, that after the first lap ended I ran off and splurged $2 on some earplugs. Maybe the single best investment I have ever made from an immediate ROI point of view! I am not sure how well the intensity of the moment comes off, but here's the short video we took of the start.

At the end of the day, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton continued his unprecedented rookie season with a 2nd win. He has yet to finish a race below his spot on the starting grid and has won from the pole in the last two races. Isn't it interesting how in sports someone always comes along to help us forget the retirement of a legend? I was set for a reasonable boring year of Fernando Alonso dominating with Michael Schumacher having hung up his racing shoes, but Hamilton's performances have given me something really impressive to cheer about this summer. Hopefully he keeps it up.

With the race in the books, we did battle with the other 100,000+ people trying to get out of Indy and all I can say is that I absolutely cannot imagine what a hellish experience traffic there would have been in the days when 400,000+ showed up for the Indy 500. My hats off to all of you who were ever in that traffic jam or who are planning on sitting in traffic after the Brickyard 400 next month.

Anyway, it was a fantastic weekend and my next goal is to go to an F1 race in some more exotic locale. Indy is full of lore, but somehow it doesn't seem to compare to, say, Monaco or even the Nurburgring. Anyway, here's one last picture of Mina with the Pagoda in the background.

Ohio: THE State University


The Lovely Mina and I trekked down to Athens, OH this weekend for my brother Dave's graduation from his M.A. program. The last time we'd been to Ohio U. was almost two years ago when Dave and his wife Akiko had just moved down there to start school, so it was nice to be back. It was particularly lucky that the class I am teaching this summer meets Monday and Wednesday so that I could get down there on Thursday for a Friday A.M. ceremony.

Athens was, as my parents (1967 grads) so often put it, different, but completely the same. It's an interesting feeling to walk into buildings that were brand new and awe inspiring when you were a senior in high school, that became a second home over the years of college, and then became more meaningful over time. A drive down streets that led to your dorm, your dad's dorm, or even an ex-girlfriend's house bring back memories that can't be valued.

So, Dave is off to work at the University of Alabama and one can only hope that it's a good place for them.

Meanwhile, tomorrow, my class is having a little get together to find out what they know and what they don't know....We'll see how that goes.