November 16th, 2008 Scott
My band combined with the Kubasaki High School Band last weekend to perform for the opening ceremonies of the Special Olympics. There were over 800 athletes (mostly Japanese) invloved with over 3000 volunteers and support staff as well.I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I agreed to do the gig. We weren’t even allowed to meet at the band room that morning because the whole area was used for parking. My students had to take all their gear home the night before and meet the school bus at the USO on the other side of the base. Students weren’t even allowed to be dropped off near the facility because of the crush of people inolved.
The weather turned out to be very very warm, but it had rained hard the previous day (and the next day) so we lucked out on staying dry. However, the Okinawan heat can be unbearable and not all of the band fit under the tent they set up for us. We did get plenty of water to go around though.
I had heard that Tom Arnold would be around to help out with the event and had hoped to catch a glimpse of him. Turned out that he was eating breakfast with the genearl in the restaurant at the USO when I was there waiting for the buses. I didn’t even notice them even though they were the only people in the restaurant. One of my students got a signed autograph. I was kicking myself for not noticing because it would’ve been a great opportunity to let him know that he was the critical component in making True Lies my all time favorite movie (I suppose Jamie Lee Curtis had a important role as well, but Tom’s character made the movie).
Well, as we set up for the opening ceremonies at the field, someone pointed Tom out to me and he was approaching the band to say hi to the student who got his autograph. I took the opportunity to introduce myself and got a couple of pictures snapped off by his photographer (which I knew I’d never see), but also by one of my band parents.
Tom's got some jet lag
He was jet lagged but was a genuinely nice guy. He thanked us multiple times for volunteering to help out the event and I got the opportunity to let him know how much I appreciated his work in True Lies. I also asked him when the sequel was due out and he told me, “Two years, when Arnold is done as governor.” He then went on to say that he had been at the Breeder’s Cup recently with Governor Schwarzenegger and that he had indicated interest in doing two more movies after his run in office ends. Tom spent quite a while telling me the details of the story and was very enthusiastic about it. I have no idea if there is any truth to any of it, but it was very nice of him to spend the time talking to me about it.
He went on to officially present the opening of the Special Olympics and had several kind words to say about the organization and his involvement with it. All in all, it was a fund day and my band didn’t sound too bad either.
This weekend we will be marching in a parade just outside of the base. It will be interesting to see how we are recieved in an Okinawan parade. This particular event has many American representatives as it is a parade to celebration cross-cultural ties and help with community relations here between the Okinawans and the US Military establishment.
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October 16th, 2007 Scott
Those of you who avidly watch sports and are into TV trivia in general will know what the title of this blog entry refers to. For the rest of you, a little history lesson. On November 17th, 1968, NBC was broadcasting THE football game of the season up to that point. It was the New York Jets (7-2) at the Oakland Raiders (7-2), the two best teams in the league at that point. With the score 32-29 Jets and 65 seconds left in the game, the Raiders scored to TDs to win the game. However, the network cut away before the TDs to instead show the start of the movie "Heidi" because the game had gone a little long and they needed to start the movie.
Needless to say, this decision didn’t go over very well for millions of football fans and all American networks have since made it policy to show all sporting events until their conclusion so that such a travesty should never occur again.
Apparently Japanese sports & news channel NHK missed the memo.
This weekend, I watched the entire Red Sox and Indians game 2 of the ALCS through to the bottom of the 10th inning, at which point NHK cut away to the middle of a meaningless mid-season Japanese league baseball game. What ‘s the point of showing me 10 innings just to pull the rug out from under me at the most crucial point? On one hand, I’m ecstatic that the Japanese are into American baseball enough to show the big games live, but on the other hand…what’s the point without the conclusion? Interestingly, they use the American announcers, but then when you guys get comercials between innings, I get Japanese commentary while the camera stays on the pitcher during his warm up tosses. The commentaters are actually there at the game, they show them occasionally, but they apparently only talk between innings. This sort of matches with what happens for broadcasts of Japanese games. There is absolutely no commentary during the game. You hear the crowd cheering, and the ball hit the catchers mitt and so on, but no comentary. It’s ubelievably dull to watch. Even though I can’t understand Japanese, it still helps to give you a sense of excitement of what’s going on. Seems strange to me (as do a great many things in my life lately in this land of unusual).
Today I went to the Navel hospital on Camp Lester because it was the third straight day I have been suffering from food poisoning and I haven’t improved. I took Monday off from school after being sick since Saturday eveing. Here it is Tuesday evening and I still feel awful. The doctor seems to think it’s viral rather than bacterical, but we did a culture anyway just to be sure.
[WARNING: the following paragraph content is not for the faint of heart, but it is a funny story I have to share]
I went to the lab in the hospital and picked up my culture kit. She explained to me how to put the appropriate amount of material from the stool sample into each of the three vials and what to bring back in the bag and what to toss because they did NOT want it back. So, I asked for the nearest bathroom and she said that I didn’t need to do it just then, I could go home and bring it back at my convenience. Any of you who’ve been following my posts know that there is nothing convienent about getting in your car and driving somewhere around here. I wanted to get it done. Also, in my current state of ill health, to come up with such a sample was not a difficult task. Getting to a bathroom in time was more of a difficult task. At any rate, I found a restroom, took care of the the sample and brought it back to the lab. The same technician was still there and saw me come in and said, "Holy crap! That was fast!". I let her know that it wasn’t a big deal, at which point her words sunk in a bit and she immediately back pedaled significantly when irony of her statement hit her. I had a good chuckle.
I’m finally feeling a bit better tonight, but still trashed and weak and have to be careful about what I eat to keep it down. I HATE being sick and missing work. It’s a waste of everyone’s time for me to be gone, and I feel so awful that I can’t get anything done at home on the computer either. Also, it’s a drag not having a signficant other around to help. Trying to time the trip to run to the store to buy Pepto-Bismol so that you are near a bathroom when necessary is a challenge that nobody really wants to go through. I can’t wait for Gina to be here.
By the way, the Japanese don’t perforate their toilet paper. I wondered for a while why all of the TP holders here have a metal cover on them and I’ve finally figured out that it works as an edge to tear the TP against, because it isn’t perforated. So, every bathroom, no mater how fancy, has this cheesy little tin metal lid on the TP holder because of this. They can make a toilet that will automatically wash and dry your backside (really…I’ve seen them…haven’t tried one yet), but they can’t cut notches in their TP? Go figure.
Before all this illnes set in, I did a fantastic bike ride on the northern part of the island on Saturday. Steve and I rode about 62 miles with 3000 of total climbing from Nago to Hedo Point. It was the most incredible ride. This part of the island is very sparsely populated and only has a few small villages. Consequently, there is virtually no traffic. Also, I’d estimate that 40 miles of the ride were within 20 feet of the ocean. It was the most incredible scenery. It takes about 90 minutes to drive to Nago, but it’s worth the drive because the riding up there is so much nicer that the urban riding around here. The down side from the ride is that I have an annoying bottom bracket creak that has become epic in my bike and after taking it all down except the bearing cups, it’s still there. According to my repair guide, either the bearings need to be reset in the cups, or the cup threads are stripped. The former is not a big deal. The latter means my frame is toast. That bites. The tools I need to disassemble it and find out for sure are in the mail. I’m crossing my fingers that the frame is okay.
Here are some pics from the ride (note the color of the water in the last two pictures):
Unfortunately, because of the illness, I didn’t get to go to the Tug o War, but I did watch the live coverage on TV. It was very interesting. The rope starts in two sections, each about 300 feet long with a big loop at one end. The rope it self is about 5 feet in diameter and hundreds of small ropes for pulling coming off of it. There are several displays of dancing and drumming before instructions are shouted out to the 250, 000 people there to pull on the ropes to bring the looped ends together. Once together, they put one loop inside the other and bring in a huge polished log to stick through the loop to lock the two rope sections together.
I wish I could tell you what was next, but they decided to cut away to a 45 minute info-mericial and then the news. I never saw anything about it again. I don’t get it. Show me everything about the Tug o War except for…
I’m still planning on getting you that photo gallery of unusual car names….it’ll happen. Also, I’ll post MP3s of my first concert. Some good stuff to be proud of is in there, but we have a ways to go still.
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