i-sako.com

A friend of mine recently landed a job in Okinawa, which is a very good thing for him. Because he has to start next week, though, he will be unable to make use of the two tickets he has for the Eric Clapton concert at Yokohama Arena on November 27, which is a very good thing for me.

He’s asked if I’m interested in buying his tickets--and, of course, I am--but most of the friends I would normally invite to such an event either already have tickets of their own or already have other plans for that day.

So consider this an open invitation to any Clapton fan in the greater Tokyo metropolitan area: ¥8000 will get you a seat close enough to smell Clapton’s cologne and an evening of reasonably un-repellant, somewhat geeky companionship, namely mine. 

I believe this is supposed to be Clapton’s last Japan tour, so it may be the last chance for Kanto-dwelling gaijin to see him live. Let me know if you are interested.

No, I’m not dead. Just busy. Although it’s true that I’ve been a bit under the weather, my legions of dedicated readers need not fear--I have returned from the brink of oblivion to entertain and enlighten one and all. (It’s okay to use plural nouns like “legions” and “readers” to refer to one’s mother, right? Yes? Good.)

Getting started at my new job has taken its toll on my blogging (a situation that does not seem likely to change in the immediate future), but has left me very satisfied nonetheless. I am pleased with the decision to switch jobs, although with my first paycheck coming at the end of this week, it remains to be seen whether the cash-flow problem will be as difficult to deal with as I had anticipated.

Fortunately, my wife has been remarkably supportive this decision, for which I am exceedingly grateful--none of this would have been possible without her loving assistance and steadfast encouragement. She jokes that she depends on me, but the truth of the matter is that it’s the other way around. I depend on her much more than she would ever admit, and probably more than she knows.

The job itself has been going very well so far. The director of my department tells me that my first major task is to determine if this is a job that one person can handle or if the department needs to hire another person to share the workload. It’s too early to tell which will be the case, but I can clearly see areas where I can contribute a lot, which is somewhat of a change from my last job, where my contributions were limited to a few areas that were somewhat narrowly defined.

This potential to make substantial contributions has tapped a wellspring of previously dormant enthusiasm for work. Perhaps even better than the opportunities for professional satisfaction, though, are the opportunities for self-improvement. Not only is there a great deal to learn at this job, but it also opens the doors to a lot of exploration in ways that my last job did not. Plus, I get paid to play with bleeding-edge technology, which is always fun.

This switch has not been entirely without sacrifices, though. You may have noticed that I haven’t been writing as much as I used to, for one thing. I also don’t have as much time to read as I did before. My Safari Bookshelf was one of the first casualties of this transition, simply because I no longer have time to use it. Fortunately, I am learning to make use of the longer commute to do a bit of both reading and writing. When the trains are crowded, I can write, albeit very slowly, with my PDA; when they are not crowded, I can read! With any luck, I’ll be able to just about break even on these two counts. At the very least, I should be able to write enough to keep my mom satisfied, but what am I going to do about my other commitments? Time will tell, I suppose.

In the meantime, rejoice. I’m blogging again!

Okay, getting new shoes is not the kind of thing most (normal) people will write about in their weblogs, but in my case, it is at least somewhat noteworthy.

At shoe stores thoughout Japan, you see, it is widely thought that 27 cm is the largest size that anyone could ever need. For those of you in the United States, 27 cm is roughly a size 10. But I wear a size 11.5 or 12 (which is either 28.5 cm or 29 cm in Japan). Don’t even bother asking about larger sizes in Japan—trust me, clerks will look at you like you’re some kind of mutant. In a best-case scenario, the clerk will tell you that the shoes you want would have to be ordered from the United States, which could take weeks.

(Actually, there are a few ”king and tall” stores that carry shoes in my size, but none near where I live--and none that are inexpensive.)

So why bother with the middle man? When I decided to buy shoes recently, I went to Lands’ End, where I found a good selection of shoes that satisfied my size requirement and my budget. My new shoes cost less than half what they would have cost had I purchased them locally. Better still, they arrived only four days after I placed my order, which was amazingly fast.

If you happen to be a big-footed gaijin in Japan, I recommend Lands’ End for shoes.

(For anyone who is curious, no, I don’t walk across tatami with my shoes on, but the tatami mats in the bedroom provided the best contrast with the shoes, that’s all. Rest assured that the shoes were clean when the picture was taken.)

I’ve added two mailing lists to my site recently. One is to keep family and friends informed of events that may be of interest, the other is a political list that will alert subscribers to noteworthy political news.

Feel free to join either list (or both!) via my contact page. I promise not to sell anyone’s address or anything similarly unethical and will promptly honor any request to unsubscribe (in fact, instructions on how to do so will be included in every message sent to the lists). Both lists are for announcements only—they are not discussion lists.

I might set up other lists if I figure out what my other interests are, but for now these are the ones I have, so sign up and keep in touch!

I am currently conducting an experiment in time-management. A number of personal and work-related reasons have made it difficult for me to check my e-mail as regularly as I would like. Because I get a lot of e-mail (several hundred messages is a relatively light day for me), this has been difficult for me.

Until just recently, my coping strategy was simply to wait until I got home from work to check my mail. This proved to be very unpopular with my core constituents, namely my wife and daughter, so I have to come up with an idea that I hope will work better.

My plan for now is to resist turning my computer on in the evenings, leaving only the morning hours before I leave for work for e-mail, browsing, and whatever else I might do with a computer. My thinking is that if I know that I only have a short period of time each day in which to handle all of my online dealings, I will come to the task prepared to make the best use of the time I’ve allowed myself.  It’s partly inspired by the Pickle-Jar Theory, partly by Dale Carnegie’s idea of ”day-tight containers”. After years of allowing myself “just a quick check” to see if I have new e-mail (and I almost always do), it will take some discipline to wean myself from this pattern (which almost invariably ends up resulting in far more time spent online that I had originally planned). I don’t think it will be an enjoyable experience, but I’m confident that I can break the habit.

My wife, on the other hand, is not so sure. She’s of the opinion that people don’t—or can’t, I’m not sure which—change their habits. I suspect that her background in linguistics has left her too inclined to believe in the fossilization of habits. I think it’s beneficial to strive to reexamine your habits every once in a while, if only to see if they still suit you. As far as I can tell, though, she seems convinced that once you acquire a habit, barring any significant aversion-inducing incident, you are stuck with it. Period.

I suppose only time will tell if my “mail-free PM” schedule will work or not, but what are your thoughts? Have you ever had a habit that you have simply chosen to give up? Chosen to have?