daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad
Had a great day today, but I think I’ll just share this photo of a cloud that Bay and I saw when we went to his school’s open house this evening. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of making cloud photos. 😄
おやすみなさい！
– バロン 
こんばんは！How’s it going?
Here in Texas it’s still very warm out. Today reached a high of 90° F (32° C) so it still feels like summer. But it’s a perfect temperature for me! I love it. 🌞
This afternoon my fifteen-year-old son Bay prepared his first meal for the family! It’s a simple but delicious spaghetti recipe that we’ve had in the family for years so it was a perfect introduction to cooking. 🍝 He’ll be going off to college in a couple of years so we thought it would be good for him to get some experience in the kitchen.
I helped Bay dice the onions and garlic, then saute those in olive oil. He measured out all the spices and opened all the cans of tomatoes. The recipe calls for meatballs, so he ground the beef in the Kitchen Aid grinder using a 2 lb. cut of chuck roast, then combined with all the other ingredients and formed the meatballs. Next, he browned them in the skillet and added them to the sauce.
He also cooked some hot Italian sausages and added those to the sauce. Part of making the recipe his own was slicing the sausages in a different way, and making the meatballs a smaller size than I usually do. There were a couple other “safe” deviations from the standard recipe, for instance, adding more egg to the meatballs, going without breadcrumbs, etc. It was a chance for Bay to make this spaghetti his own.
Lastly, he boiled the water, cooked, and drained the noodles. Then it was time to eat! 🍴
I was pleased that Bay wanted to cook and was enthusiastic throughout the entire process, And Koa (his 12-year-old brother) said that the spaghetti was delicious. I think that made Bay feel pretty good! 😄
This dish is a perfect one for him to know because it is easy and delicious, plus it would be easy to adjust the amount depending on how many people will be eating.
Bay’s first meal was a huge success and I’m confident that my mom’s spaghetti recipe will be passed on to the next generation. 😊
Hope you had a nice weekend!
おやすみなさい！
– B
こんばんは！
Today I relaxed at home and recovered from last night’s activites (drinking). While my wife and oldest son were out watching a Star Trek matinee, and my youngest son was at the mall with friends, I put on a Japanese dorama that I have been looking forward to.
“Ie Uru Onna” (家売るオンナ; Woman who sells houses) stars one of my favorite actresses, Kitagawa Keiko (北川景子), as the mysterious real estate agent who can sell any house. It’s kind of a typical dorama in which each episode is a small story into itself (usually about how she solves a home selling challenge), but then there is an overall story arc that is about how she transforms the team she works with.
The most interesting part of the story is finding out why she acts in the cold manner that she does, never smiling, and only focused on her work. Although brilliant at her job, she is totally inept in her social life. So it will be interesting to see if she can solve her own personal challenges.
I’ve finished episode 7 (out of 10) and am enjoying it so far! I think Kitagawa Keiko is great, but it’s so weird to see her in a role where she scowls 100% of the time. It’s kind of a one-dimensional character which is a shame because she is a pretty great actor. I thought her performance in I Just Wanna Hug You was fantastic.
The photo above is of my Chromebook, connected via Chrome Remote to my Windows10 computer in the office, which is casting the video to the Chromecast that is connected to the TV. It’s a strange way to do it, but it works and is so convenient!
Well, I hope you had a nice Saturday… and let’s have a nice rest of the weekend!
おやすみなさい！
– B
こんばんは！How are you doing?
Tonight I went over to my good friend Mikey’s house for “Idol Nite 3”. Idol refers to Japanese 🇯🇵 who are popular for singing, dancing, and/or acting. As two otaku guys, our favorites are pretty much all the girl groups but there are a ton of popular boy bands as well and we did watch and episode of Vs Arashi so it wasn’t all about the girls! Well, actually it was, since Arashi was competing against Momoiro Clover Z!
Most of the other musical groups we watched were from Hello! Project but we also watched some AKB48 shows and also Scandal. With YouTube, it’s so easy to make playlists of videos to watch. We simply picked from a playlist of the most popular videos of the idols/groups we were interested in. It was a ton of fun (as usual), and I enjoyed spending time catching up with my friend.
And we still haven’t answered the question, “What ever happened to Sayumi?”. Hopefully the answer will become clear in the future.
Of course we had to have some refreshments too so I brought over some saké 🍶, beer 🍺, and snacks, and my friend bought some sushi 🍣 and more saké. Add some glow sticks and we were all set! 🎉
There are so many aspects to Japanese culture and I am happy to have the opportunity to get up-to-date with the pop J-idol world. It’s always so interesting and fun. 🎶 It gets me excited to move back to Japan in the future.
I hope you had a great Friday!
おやすみなさい！
– B
One of the top features of my Fujifilm X100T 📷 is the ability to charge the battery via USB. Just like a smartphone, I can plug in a simple micro-USB cable and the battery charges.
This simple feature is wonderful. It fits into my daily workflow seamlessly – so much so that I rarely even think about charging anymore!
In the evening, I’ll connect the camera to my computer using the USB cable so I can import the photos into Lightroom. I then do my editing, and after that, I flip the power button on the camera to Off. If the charging light stays lit, I will leave it plugged in to charge. 90% of the time, though, the battery will have topped off during the time I imported and post-processed my daily photo. Convenient, isn’t it?
FYI, the camera did come with an external battery charger, but I haven’t used it in months. It’s so nice to not have to keep a charger around, or pop out the battery to charge it. Anything to simplify processes is a good thing! 😄
