I Live.

[Crowbeak]

I dunno how many of you went, "Hmm... WTF happened to Crowbeak?" after I dropped off the radar, but I just wanted to let yall know that I live. During the Rebel Strength Guide contest, I got sick back-to-back with 3-4 different things, so I was down for two weeks straight, then I was finishing up college (successfully graduated!), and then I was working on getting ready to go back to Japan when my dad died.

A lot has happened since then and I probably only remember about half of it. The first two days were awful -- within four hours of my finding out about dad's death, my cell phone battery had burned out and I had to go get a new one. My Mom and brother didn't get into town for two days, so I was bombarded with decisions that had to be made that they couldn't really help me with. Everything went pretty well and I got to kick back for the two weeks they were here because I'd be having to take care of what was left after they were gone.

A friend of dad's had called my alma mater -- HAHA I CAN SAY THAT NAO! -- trying to find me, so I knew when I got a call from the Dean of Students saying that K.S. was trying to reach me about something urgent that dad must've been critically injured or killed. I knew he was on a 16-hour motorcycle trip the day before and assumed that he'd been killed in a crash, but it turned out that he rode almost 800 miles (wearing a helmet for once, since he was riding through Canada down towards Juneau) and dropped dead while standing in a parking lot. The nice thing about this is that it was so very in character. The bad thing was that he died in Canada, which complicated the process of getting his death certificate processed.

Anyway, the "funeral" service was fantastic. We didn't know what exactly Dad wanted to happen when he died, but he'd talked idly about it a couple of times with random people, so we were able to piece together a bit. He wanted a celebration of life rather than open casket boohoos, so we preceded the funeral with a motorcycle escort/funeral procession from the funeral home to the crematorium. Let me just say... hundreds of motorcycles. In the grand tradition of Pics or it Didn't Happen, I offer a video someone took at the start of the procession: http://vimeo.com/25532020. Two and a half minutes of motorcycles getting in line.

One thing he wanted was to have his body shot out of a cannon, but that's illegal in Alaska because it's considered desecration of the remains. We're currently trying to arrange to have his ashes put in a cannonball and shot out of a cannon, with finding a cannon being the main hurdle. We haven't had time to worry about it, what with trying to sort out his very messy affairs.

That, of course, has been complicated by the fact that I'm about to leave for Japan. My not-actually-but-practically sister has agreed to be executor of the estate, since she has no plans to leave the state, I'm leaving for Japan in less than a week, and my brother's job in the Navy is as a Seabee, so he gets posted overseas on every deployment. A number of factors have prevented us from filing probate paperwork yet, but my part is done.

On a happier note!

I got my placement information for my job in Japan the day before Dad died. I'm going to be in Nakagawa-cho, a farming village in the extreme northern part of Japan -- almost as far north as you can get and still be in Japan. The town is on one side of a river in a valley, with the farms on the other side. They farm vegetables, for the most part. I've been in contact with the person from whom I am taking over, and every time I talk to her I get more excited! The town is tiny, with one each of elementary, middle, and high schools, and I'll be teaching at all of them.

The apartment I'll be living in (at 12,000 yen or $150 a month) is within 15 minutes walk to all the places I'll be working, including the main office of the Board of Education. They've been using the same apartment for the local ALT (my job) for twenty years now, so in addition to the appliances the BoE supplies (vacuum, washer, fridge, TV, bed), there's all the things other ALTs have left behind. Susan, my predecessor, says that she's thrown away most of the junk they've left behind over the course of her four years there. (In Japan, you pay high fees to have large garbage disposed of.) It's stocked with all kinds of things, though, including cooking utensils and miscellaneous small appliances. Since skiing and snowboarding are big there, Susan's leaving me her snowboard, too.

My plane leaves Anchorage at 7 AM on Saturday, the 30th. One layover -- in Portland, I think -- and then on to Tokyo for three days orientation with 800 other JETs before heading north. <3 I'll be about 8 hours northwest of the town I lived in when I was in Japan on exchange, so I have an extra leg up: I'm familiar with local slang. xD

Anyway. Those are the big things. Oh! And I learned to drive a motorcycle. I'm going to try to drive Dad's bike before I go... though I may only do so in a parking lot. It's ridicularge, an 1100cc Harley Road King. I'll tell you what, though, I've been practicing on my roommate's old 250cc, the one she started on, and I'm already starting to hate going back to driving cars. I can't see anything! >

[Crowbeak]

Oh, and one more thing: Since graduation, I haven't had access to weights for lifting. I've continued eating paleo, though, and lost another 20 pounds, even in spite of finding myself eating at fast food restaurants waaay too often since dad died. I was surprised to find that it's possible to remain relatively paleo when eating at fast food places. Carl's Jr. will replace the bun with a lettuce wrap on any sandwich, and guacamole is becoming much easier to find. BTW, I found a DELICIOUS alternative to chips and guacamole... beef jerkey and guacamole!

[zielperson]

Sorry about your loss.

Your dad seems to have been quite the character (if I may say so) .. I hope you get that cannon ball thing sorted out.

::zielperson::