ok, some edited photos

Ok, here are some photos that I have edited. Some were just made black and white. Some were made partially black/white and color. And then others were given a "pop art" feel. Any comments are good comments, so leave them if you want.

slater

cool news

Well, my week is almost over (I mean my work week; I still have two days of skiing ahead of me). So, this week has been busy, and it might be a late night at the office tonight. Next week, I will be starting my first adult class here in Japan. My first class will be for five weeks in a row, and will have around 20 people. Not really sure who is going to come, but I think it will be a real fun time. So this week, I need to put the finishing touches on my material for the first class. Now it is a little difficult to know exactly what materials to put on the worksheets, but after next week it shouldn't be too difficult. Like most things, I just like to have a general idea of what I want to do, and then I just wing-it.

Well also this week, I have had people over for dinner two nights in a row. On Tuesday, I had a couple of Japanese friends over for dinner; Kesami and Michiru. Both work at the restaurant on the top of the mountain in the next town over. I meant them at a party we had at the restaurant after I did a Christmas event a while back. They can speak English, and I can speak a little Japanese. So, now we trade English and Japanese lessons once a week. I hope that this will improve my Japanese. I cooked pasta, homemade meat sauce, and a salad.

Then, last night, I had a group of friends from Toyoshina over for dinner. This is the regular Wed. night dinner club, and this week it was at my house. It is always fun to have dinner with these friends. This week we made gyoza (stuffed Chinese dumplings), salad, Cha-han(Fried Rice), and dessert; very good I might add.

So, for three night in a row, I am doing dishes. And my back hurts. Do you wanna know why? It is because my kitchen counter tops are 26 and a half inches high (about mid/upper thigh on my body). This is extremely low for me? So usually I have to take a break from washing every 10 or 15 mins. For reference, most kitchen counter tops are 36 inches high in America. What a difference.

This week I have also been playing with my photo editor on my computer and have come up with some interesting photos. These will be posted later today.

AND NOW FOR THE COOL NEWS. On March 13, I will be in a movie playing a Russian diplomat. The movie is called "Silk" and is directed by Francois Girad ("The Red Violin") and will be staring Keira Knightley (Pirates of the Caribbean), Alfred Molina, and Michael Pitt. You can go to http://imdb.com/title/tt0494834/ and see a little information about the movie. On March 5 or 6 I will go to Matsumoto to have my costume fit. Right now it is being made in Italy. Pretty cool, huh.

slater

ok, tomorrow

Well, how much times flies by here in Japan. My weekdays and weekends just go so quickly, I simply don't know where times goes. Maybe in Japan, time moves at a different pace, or maybe I am just having a fantastic time (although no scientific investigation has yet to take place, I think it is the latter of the two).


Any who, I have been working on some photos and trying to do some creative things. It is a lot of fun, and after I finish working on a few photos, I will load them up tomorrow. Critiquing and praising is always welcome.

Also, I will post some information on a pretty cool thing that I will be doing on March 14, my birthday. All I have to say is that I love living in Japan. As you say in Japanese, 明日ね(あしたね, ashita ne); translation; see you tomorrow.

a beautiful morning

It was a beautiful morning and I had a little time before work, so I ran into my house and got my camera. I got two really cool shots.

The first photo shows a the blue sky with the sun shining over the mountains; this photo was taken about 8 in the monrning and is looking westward.

The second photo was taken at the same time, but is looking eastward. As of now, I am happy with this photo, but not thrilled. I think that I could do a little more. First, I think I need to straighten the photo a little. Second I need to work on the over-exposed highlight in the top right corner.

Well in additon to these two photos, I also was walking back into my house, when I caught a look at my car and the ski rack on top. For some reason I just wanted to take some up close pictures. These are the photos directly from my camera, although now I am doing some digital darkroom editing on them.

slater

in the next couple of days

Well I have been a little busy this week working on projects and such, but within the next few days, I will write a couple of different posts. I have some good stuff to talk about.

slater,

another excellent weekend

As usual, I had another fantastic weekend here in Nagano, Japan. The week just flew by; all of the sudden, I realized that it was Friday morning and another weekend of skiing was just a day away. Who could ask for more.

I left for Hakuba early, early on Saturday morning. The traffic wasn't bad getting there, so I got to the chair lift at about 7:15. This morning, though, there were quite a few cars in the parking lot; Needless to say, I was a bit surprised. Most of the time when I get to the lift early in the morning, the lot is empty. So I went up to the ticket office to purchase my two day pass, and then I realized why it was so busy.

This weekend, there was a race taking place on the mountain. While most races are exciting to watch, this one was special. It was a two day Para- Olympic style event where racers had some sort of handicap. Some racers only had one leg, some were blind, and some had no use of there legs. So how did they do it?

Well the racers with only one leg just had one ski. It was amazing to see them go down the mountain. The racers that were blind would ski with a buddy. Although I didn't see them race first hand, I have been told that their buddy will ski ahead of them and use a microphone to tell the blind racers whether to go straight or turn. And finally, the racers with no use of their legs would ski sitting down on a special sit with a complex spring/balancing mechanism that was attached to one ski. All in all, I was completely amazed by the skill of these skiers. Sometimes I have a difficult time just skiing one two skis with use of both of my legs.


Any who, this weekend I was also shown some new tree/avalanche gate runs on Happo O-ne. Now that I have my new skis, I am getting quite a bit better at navigating these runs. However, skiing through the trees and stuff is a lot of hard work; much harder than skiing on the groomed runs. But to tell you the truth, there are a 100 times more fun. It is a whole different world when you feel like you are just alone in the mountain.

Well here are some pictures of the handicap skiers.

slater

Jan. 2006 posts

So far, I have added many new posts to my blog, including a good number of pictures. So you don't miss out on any of my posts, make sure to visit the archived link on the right hand side bar to view Jan. posts. On Feb. 1, they will be archived and removed from the front page.

slater