I just love Star Trek. That was not always the case. I am too young to remember The Original Series (TOS) when it first ran, and I do not remember seeing any reruns as I was growing up, though I suppose they were on somewhere. I remember watching Star Trek: The Motion Picture at the movie theater. I suppose I should say that I remember falling asleep during Star Trek: The Motion Picture at the movie theater. I think there were quite a few people who fell asleep at the time. But Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn was a big improvement over the first motion picture. But I was still not hooked. And in fact, in 1987 when I watched the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), I was much less than impressed. I recall thinking that we had a crew with people I could not relate with. Jordy had his visor that let him see what others could not. Worf was a Klingon, not human at all. Deanna Troy had telepathic powers. And of course there was an android named Data. There was not much to relate to. I may have watched another episode or two, but I never got into the show.

Not until I moved to Japan. I moved to Japan in December 1992. At the time we were so poor that all we had was a TV. There was no VHS (we had a BETA machine that did not work and for which no one was making tapes for anymore anyway) and cable had not yet even started in the Mizusawa area. About the only English language programming I was able to watch were Sesame Street and some children shows that were produced to help children learn English. Eventually we got a VCR with stereo capabilities so that if we watched through the VCR I could use the bilingual function to watch a few more English language offerings. Mizusawa Cable opened for business a while later, but it was still out of our league. They wanted close to $300 just to set us up, not to mention monthly fees for content after that.

It was not until a few years later that a miracle happened. The city was building a new hospital near our house and as luck would have it, quite a few people complained that the tall building was blocking the signal from reaching their houses. Personally, we did not seem to be affected, but we were within whatever boundaries the city had set up, and the cable company installed cable to our house at the expense of the city. We would only have to pay monthly fees, and we got three months free up front to see if we wanted to participate or limit ourselves to the regular broadcast channels.

One of the channels offered by the cable company was Super Channel. And it did not take me long to realize why it was so "super." Super Channel is dedicated to foreign TV shows, mainly dramas, but some sit-coms and other shows mixed in as well. One of the shows offered was ST:TNG. At the time, it was not a high priority, but I figured I would give it another try. And boy am I glad I did. Since that time I have watched all of TNG, TOS, Deep Space 9 (DS9), Voyager (VOY), as well as all ten movies. I have also watched all of the first two seasons of the latest Star Trek adventure, titled simply, Enterprise (ENT). Many of these shows I have watched more than once. I will faithfully watch anything else produced under the Star Trek banner. I will even watch all those reruns that will forever be offered. In short, I feel about Star Trek as does Wendy Stevens expresses in her quote below.

With all this in mind, I have started this page dedicated to Star Trek. I am starting out with just a few links and some quotes. The quotes may take a while to really get going. I do not intend to scour the Internet looking for "good" quotes. I want to experience them myself. So as I watch reruns and find more that touch me, this page will expand. Please join me in this adventurous "trek."

Eat your hearts out, American residents. I remember from my trip to the US that you are experiencing a shortage of the flu vaccine this year. Even President Bush announced his intention to forego the shot this year. (I read a commentary that questioned the wisdom of letting the leader of the United States go unprotected from a disease known to kill people, but I suppose others are happy about that.) Apparently there is no such shortage here in Japan. I went to visit my doctor and the only thing I wish I had done was get there ten minutes earlier. Some mother had brought her little darlings in for their shots. Three of them, which meant I had to wait that much longer. I am not a very patient person. But I have mine. Shuko pointed out that the shot did not work so well last year. Actually, it did work. But instead of influenza, I came down with pneumonia. Hopefully I will not come down with anything this year.

A few weeks ago I saw Broom Hilda, the comic strip. In the first panel a character (sorry, I do not recall the name) calls out "Happy Birthday" to Broom Hilda. In the second panel, Broomie points out, "But it isn't my birthday." And in the final panel the first character calls out, "HAPPY!" Taking that to heart, for the past few days I have tried to bring some happiness to Shuko's life by giving her a little present every day. I started out with a cactus and some of the other gifts include a heart shaped pillow with the US flag on it, a calendar and some glow-in-the-dark earrings (suitable for children aged 3 and up). However, I do not know how well things are going with my giving. It seems like whenever I give her something she wants to know what kind of misdeeds I have been doing that make me want to atone by giving gifts. The questioning kind of grates on my nerves. I will persist a while longer and hopefully Shuko and the kids will realize that I am just trying to be nice. There is one selfish motive. I am hoping that if I can continue for the next 30 or 40 years that I can make it into a Ripley's Believe It Or Not comic panel as someone who has given his wife a birthday gift every day for 30 or 40 years.

At my behest and her aunt's example, Rebecca has taken up wanting to become a pharmacist in the future. Last week her school gave all the sixth graders an opportunity to visit the work place of their choice to see how people actually work. It gives the students a taste of reality and the teachers a short break. Rebecca chose to go to a local pharmacy. According to her report, she was allowed to actually make some of the medicine, mixing up powders and sealing it in pouches. I cannot help but think that she was mixing placebos (I certainly hope so), but I do not see any harm in letting her think she was doing the real thing. In any event, she came back quite excited and with an even greater desire to become a pharmacist. Thank goodness. I am trying to instill in all of my children a desire to get a real degree that leads to a real job, rather than doing what I was stuck with.

Jeff has always had a persistent runny nose. It never matters how much he blows, there is always more to come. While in America Grandpa Bill commented that he might have an infection or some such. Shuko finally had enough of the sniffling and so today took Jeff to an ENT doctor. As it turns out, Jeff is allergic to mites. Unfortunately, there is nothing that will get rid of the problem. He will have it forever, but at least now that we know what the problem is, perhaps we can make the house a little bit more suitable for him and we can get some medicine for him when it gets really bad.

I also asked Sarah what she wanted to be when she grew up. She said a school teacher. The reason? Because she wants to write with chalk on the black board. Personally, I cannot stand chalk. It makes my hands messy and the dust makes me sneeze. Give me a good old white board and marker anytime.

Food is on my mind again. It would be on yours, too, if you had had what I had for lunch today. It was another one of those concoctions that only someone born and raised in Japan could come up with.

As usual, I have my mother-in-law to thank for this unique experience. I wrote before about my French toast, carrots and cucumbers lunch. Today I had a variation on that theme. The French toast was the same, (though there were only two slices) but instead of the vegetables, today I had chahan. The best way I can explain chahan would be to say that it is fried rice, though it is a little different from what most Westerners would think of as fried rice. As an extra added bonus, the chahan had little flakes of (probably fake) crab meat in it. Living in Japan just keeps getting better and better.

Today's lunch was the catalyst for the comments I am writing now, but it is by no means the only reason I have food on the brain. I have recently been reading "Green Eggs and Ham" the classic tale by Dr. Seuss to my children classes. "Green Eggs and Ham" is the classic tale, in rhyme no less, of someone who finds out that actually trying a new food may be good for you. Personally, I have already eaten green eggs, thanks to the fact that my home town of Savannah, GA has a huge St. Patrick's Day celebration each year. Some of the children in the classes to whom I read the book react to the hilarious pictures, others to the message, and yet others sit there with their mouths wide open, drool dribbling out as they try to decide which finger to dig the snot out of their noses with.

But I decided to take the plunge myself and try something new. There is a chain store that sells bento, or boxed lunches, called Hokka Hokka Tei. I usually purchase something that I have had before simply because I know what it is and / or it is more or less westernized food. But Shuko had told me the other day that I did not eat whatever she put in front of me. In an attempt to prove to her that I can eat just about anything (there are two things that will never pass my lips again), I ordered a ni-dan nori ben. Starting at the bottom there is a layer of rice, a piece of dried seaweed, another layer of rice, some fish flakes and another piece of dried seaweed. On top of the seaweed is a piece of fish, some scrambled eggs and something else that I cannot remember at the moment. There is also some gobo (a type of turnip) and carrot salad as well as some pickled vegetables. I am not quite sure what they were, but I ate them. I ate the whole thing. And it was not even bad. I can see myself ordering the same thing again some time in the future. But for now, I think I will take advantage of where I am and really start experimenting. Why not? Maybe someday I will even have some green ham.

I used to really enjoy Christmas. It was a fun time. Back in America I always looked forward to driving around town and looking at all the Christmas lights on Christmas Eve. That drive was the closest thing we had to a family tradition. Try as I might, I cannot think of any other "traditions" that we had.

When I arrived in America on October 22, I was somewhat surprised at the lack of Halloween decorations around the neighborhood. Even some of the stores gave little indication that it was near Halloween. I remember as a child some of the houses had turned their garages into haunted houses. I saw nothing like that while I was in America this time. But the mall had started putting up their Christmas stuff before Halloween was over. By the time we came back to Japan there was a Christmas village and Santa's "castle." The same day I went to pick up my permanent residency stamp in Morioka, I stopped into the closest thing there is to a mall around here and even they had Christmas decorations up. Or in their case, X'mas decorations. I sometimes get the impression that Japanese do not know the word Christmas.

There were some things about Christmas that I did not understand when I was growing up. One of those was the need to start decorating before Thanksgiving. I just did not understand that. And across the street from where we lived, a person kept their Christmas lights up all year round. Of course, they were not turned on except during the Christmas season, but they were up for anyone to see. I thought that was the stupidest thing ever. After putting up some Christmas lights of my own, I realized that far from being stupid, it was one of the smartest things I ever saw. We have a couple of strings that we keep up all year round. We even turn them on, but then we do not just live in a house. We have the English classroom so the lights help attract business. Or so we hope.

But getting back to the original sentence, I think that instead of loving Christmas, I am rapidly getting to the point of really disliking it, perhaps even hating it. Shuko buys new decorations every year. Not that we have gotten rid of any past ones (except those that have broken). No, we just keep adding on. And putting up all those decorations takes time. And turning them all on takes money in the form of electricity. One of those houses we always went by on Christmas Eve was covered in lights and the lawn was covered with decorations. I do not know when they start decorating each year, but it must take them a month to get everything going. I am beginning to think that we are their rivals. Shuko has bought at least two new major decorations and I do not know how many minor ones this year. I told her there would be a moratorium on new purchases next year, but I doubt that she will pay any attention to me.

I guess we are not too bad off. I still think decorating should take place after Thanksgiving, but we are only a week and a half before Thanksgiving, and after all, here in Japan there is no Thanksgiving. And it is not only my house, but also my retail service business. The grocery store down the street and another business down there has already put up Christmas trees. There may even be more decorations inside that I have not seen.

So I suppose I will have to learn to live with this early Christmas, but I cannot help but think I will never quite recover the magical feelings I had as a child.

After we finally got through Immigration and Customs we had to make our way through the airport to the next gate. That was approximately three weeks ago and I do not recall anything major happening on the way. We got to the gate with time to spare. We had to wait for the flight to be announced.

(Which leads to an interesting aside. While I wait for a flight, I sit down in one of the chairs provided and just wait. That does not seem to tire me. I can sit and do whatever. But sitting in those airline chairs really tires me out. There is so much less room in the airplane and we are generally asked to not move around. I suppose that is it, but I think it strange that one form of sitting is relaxing while another is so irritating.)

Once we were on board I did what I always do, I pulled out the safety information sheet and looked it over. I do that every time and I cannot for the life of me understand why. The fact of the matter is that if the plane goes down, the passengers are going to die. For the most part, anyway. So why bother with safety cards? If you know you are going down, try to make the most of it. I would not know how to make the most of it, but I suppose I should.

After the plane took off I started looking through some of the other offerings in the pocket. I found the barf bag. (I have only had an upset stomach one time on an airplane. We were going through a lot of turbulence at the time. I asked the flight attendant if they had anything for an upset stomach. I was informed the only thing they had was aspirin, not exactly something for an upset stomach. Seems like they should definitely have something like that. But, as usual, no one ever asks me.) There was also the in-flight magazine which I had already looked through on the flight from Narita to Minneapolis. Behind that was a catalog of expensive and largely useless junk (though I am going to order one item for my father for Christmas, though not necessarily from that catalog).

That is all the airline offered, but the person who had flown before me had left a special present for me. Keep in mind the "norm" for flying these days. There are to be no jokes about bombs or guns or terrorism or any such. I recall a Japanese person being held upon landing because he wrote "suicide bomber" in the margins of a newspaper. He wanted to study English, but someone took that as a threat and informed the crew who had the man taken into custody. So when I saw what I saw I did not know what to do.

I did not know what to say. What is there to say? I have been accused of many things in the past. Perhaps the one that hurt me the most was when someone accused me of being a racist for the simple fact of being white, conservative and from the south. I do not know what my accuser would say now that I am libertarian.

It was a copy of a magazine about guns and ammunition. I think it was called something like "Southern Guns" or some such, though the exact name escapes me. My first thought was to inform the crew, but the last thing I wanted was to have the airplane turn around and land before "security" rifled (how do you like my pun?) through everything and being delayed for six hours. So I hurriedly stuffed the magazine back down into the pocket and hoped no one around me had noticed.

I also thought about telling the crew after we had landed in Atlanta, but again, I did not want to have to deal with anything. I probably would not have, but why take the chance. I was so close to home. For all I know, the magazine is still in the airplane, everyone as scared as I am to make a scene.

I am still far behind in my reading of e-mail and newspapers. But the newspapers make for some really interesting reading. I am still on pre-election publications and some of the articles are quite telling. Some of the articles make pretty good predictions on how the election turned out whereas other articles are no where close.

I am still most impressed by the Beltway Boys on Fox News Channel. They accurately predicted the exact electoral college vote count and came within one seat each in their predictions for the House and Senate. Too bad I will not be able to watch them for some time. It costs too much to watch FNC here in Japan. I will make do with the web site for the foreseeable future. (sigh)

After we safely made it onto the ground at Minneapolis / St. Paul, I was rushing myself and Jeff to get moving as I did not want to be late for our connection to Atlanta. It seems they never give you enough time. When we got into the arrivals lobby for immigration I got into what looked to be one of the shorter lines. Jeff had to go to the restroom so I waited in line while he took care of business. It did not matter, though. The line may have been (relatively) short, but it was quite slow moving. For one thing, there was only one immigration officer for the line I was in, as opposed to two for the line next to mine. And even though we were in the line for US citizens and residents, it seemed to be taking the immigration officer longer per person or couple than did some of the others. Perhaps it just seemed that way because I was in that particular line.

Perhaps not. Perhaps this guy just liked being a pain to everyone who came through.

When it was finally our turn the officer looked at us and asked, "How many are you traveling with?" Just the two of us. "And who is this?" My son. "And his mother?" In Japan. "Do you have a letter authorizing travel?" No. I did not know I needed one. "You could be kidnapping your son."

I did not know what to say. What is there to say? I have been accused of many things in the past. Perhaps the one that hurt me the most was when someone accused me of being a racist for the simple fact of being white, conservative and from the south. I do not know what my accuser would say now that I am libertarian.

Thinking back on it now, I wish I had had the courage to say that the US constitution was the only authority I needed to travel with my son. I wish I had had the courage to say that everyone was to be considered innocent until proven guilty and that I had not even been arrested, much less charged with a crime as serious as kidnapping. I wish I had had the courage to say that he could do whatever he wanted as long as he was willing to let me call my US representative, my two US senators and my lawyer, not to mention the mass media so that there could be a major investigation as to why a US immigration officer would not let two US citizens into the country.

But I did not have such courage. Actually, I did not have long enough to build up any courage if such was forthcoming (and it probably was not). The immigration officer started punching in something or other into his computer. "There it is." With a little more small talk he allowed us in.

To this day I still do not even know what a letter authorizing travel is. Is it a simple letter that my wife signs? How would the immigration officer know whether the letter was authentic or not? Is it an official letter from a (to coin a phrase) "controlling legal authority," and if so, which authority would that be? The whole idea is warped.

I am back in Japan. I really wanted to keep up with my writing every day while I was in America, but things kept coming up and I never really got around to it. I did keep a few notes on what I was doing while I was there so over the next few days (weeks?) I will be sharing some of what I did. Hopefully I will get back in the habit of writing fairly quickly now.

Even though I tried to keep up with e-mail while I was in the US, (something I was never able to quite do), I came home to almost 1000 new e-mail messages, two weeks of newspapers and over 20 videotapes of TV shows that are on my "must watch" list and that Shuko was kind enough to tape for me while I was gone. She has already told me that she was not able to get everything, so there is no telling how many tapes there would have been had she gotten everything. Needless to say, I will be "busy" over the next few days, weeks and months.

That is enough of an introduction to my return. I have a lot to write and I will get to it eventually.

Interestingly, my first real post after returning to Japan is not about my trip at all.

I believe I wrote that before I left for the US I had applied for permanent residence in Japan. I was told that it would normally take between two and three months before a decision was made. That put the inside boundary just before I was to get back to Japan. Sure enough, as soon as I got off the train and into the car, Shuko informed me that I had gotten a postcard from the Immigration Office.

Unfortunately, the postcard did not exactly say that I had been granted permanent residency. It simply read that a decision had been made and to bring my passport, the postcard and 8000 yen in the form of a revenue stamp. I took it to mean that the permission was granted. I certainly did not want to pay 8000 yen and take all the time to go to Morioka (an hour drive) to find out that my application was denied.

But Shuko agreed that certainly they would not call me to tell me I had been denied. They could have told me that on the postcard, or more likely in a polite (or perhaps not so polite) letter. So this morning I woke up at 5:00 (I still have jet lag) and decided to go on and find out. Shuko had to work today so I was going on my own. I do not really know Morioka that well. Usually when we go up Shuko drives. I do not like driving. And since I do not want to see when I will die, I usually read a book, newspaper, whatever, on the way. Hence, I only had a vague notion of how to get to the immigration office. But luckily I can read Japanese and knew that the immigration office was somewhat near the Iwate Prefecture capital so I just followed the signs and ended up where I wanted to be. The only point at which I was not quite sure of where to go was after I had parked. I had been told there was a post office (where I could buy the revenue stamp) near the immigration office, but I was not exactly sure where it was. So instead of going across the street at the crosswalk, I went down the "wrong" side of the street towards the immigration office hoping that I could see the post office from a wider angle. As it turned out, the post office was on the "right" side of the street and there was no need for me to go past the immigration office at all. It was on the way. So I jay-walked and got the revenue stamp.

The immigration office is on the second floor of a building somewhat hidden from the main streets. I debated on whether I should take the stairs or wait for the elevator. Though I could certainly use the exercise, my nervousness won out. I did not want to walk up a flight of stairs with wobbly knees.

When the elevator doors opened the immigration office was right in front of me. I tried pulling the doors open only to find a sign that read "Push." So I pushed and walked in. No other foreigners were in the room so I walked right up to the counter. There were three immigration officers working at their respective desks. The one farthest away walked up to the counter. I handed over my three documents and was told to wait.

So I sat down.

Three minutes later I was called back and my passport had a new stamp in it. The stamp is the same size and shape as those for prior visa extensions, but there is much less information in there as well. It reads simply, "Permission for Permanent Residence" in both Japanese and English, then has the number, the number and the "Date of Permit." It is "signed" by the Minister of Justice, Japan. And that is it. There is no space for "Until" or "Period." I am just "Here."

I kind of expected a talk or a little speech. A small "congratulations" at the least. But I was disappointed. I did not even get a lecture on how to be careful not to commit any crimes. Looking back on it, I should not have expected such. After all, immigration officers are bureaucrats just like any other bureaucrats. Just push the papers and stamp the stamps.

As I walked out of the office I got to thinking about what this means. For a long time I did not want to obtain permanent residence because there is a psychological factor telling me that now I will not move back to the US. But in the end I took it because things will move a little easier for me now. If I ever decide to buy a house (and that is a big "if" here in Japan), permanent residency will make it easier to obtain financing. There are even talks every now and then about allowing permanent residents to vote in local elections in Japan. I do not personally think that will happen, but if it does, now I will be eligible. And I will not have to go back to the immigration office every three years to renew my visa. I will still have to go to get a re-entry permit if I want to leave the country temporarily and I will have to go when I get a new passport to have the visa stamp transferred, but that should be it. And I am not required to reside in Japan permanently.

So what does this new stamp mean? A little more freedom to do what I want to do. And I suppose that is a good thing.

I traveled to the US on Oct. 22, a little more than a week before Election Day. Flying from Narita to Minneapolis / St. Paul took approximately ten hours. It was a l-o-n-g flight. I do not particularly like traveling. Just before Jeff and I went over I was watching a TV show called "Now See This." The show often features excitement such as car chases, tornadoes and daring rescues. On this particular episode they just happened to show footage of an airplane taking off from Osaka. All of a sudden a bolt of lightning came down and hit the airplane and went on down to the ground. It was a very interesting sight, but I did not want to show it to Jeff, as he has a way of worrying about a lot of stuff anyway. The announcer on the show pointed out that lightning hits airplanes quite often and that even though it looks horrific on tape, the passengers probably did not even know they were hit and that modern aircraft was more than equipped to handle such encounters.

What worries me more about flying are the timetables used. I know that airlines exaggerate estimated flying time to make their on-time rates higher. Even so, when you only have a short time to make a connection, and you have to go through immigration and customs during that time, every minute counts.

So we were all ready to make the final descent into Minneapolis when the pilot came on line. "Folks, I hate to be the bearer of bad news," he started. To make a long story short, Air Force 2 was in Minneapolis (Minnesota and Wisconsin were considered swing states after all) and the airport was closed. To make matters worse, the long flight had spent up the fuel and there was not enough to circle around waiting for clearance. We were going to be rerouted to the alternate airport in Milwaukee. There were audible groans all throughout the cabin. Further, we were to refuel and fly back to Minneapolis. Our scheduled flight to Atlanta would be long gone by the time we made it back. I was never much of a fan of Bush. Cheney was on my list as well, at that time.

The pilot ended his spiel and the Japanese interpreter had just started her interpretation when the pilot came back over the intercom. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have some new information." Apparently Air Force 2 had taken off and we were cleared for landing. Splattered applause filled the cabin.

We were on the ground a little while later. I was so happy I was thinking about changing my vote. (In the end, I did not.)