This is a story about an international couple raising and home educating three young boys on a small island in Japan, half living in buses, engaged in organic, self-sufficient farming in the middle of a mountain forest while dealing with climate, cultural, and personal challenges. These pages are about pretty much anything and everything all guided by our family motto, Taking Chances, Making Changes, Being Happy. Thank you very much for joining us on our ongoing crazy adventure.

Comments or questions about this blog?....message me at Facebook.
 
AGROFOREST        STORY        THOUGHTS        ABOUT US
Home - Story - Ancient History 1960 - 2000 and Present
STORY ANCIENT HISTORY
This page is for my family, especially my kids, and for friends from Kenmore, New York, and San Diego, California, and Japanese friends, and anybody else who might be interested in my story. Although the page is titled "Ancient History" and mostly applies to the years 1960-2000, there is a lot of overlap of other story pages all the way up to the present. This is a story of love, success, miscalculations, and keeping the resolve to move forward and not give up.
Places Visited
New Orleans, Louisiana
This was a really temporary move. Gosh, was only there for about 6 weeks when I was about 16 years old and on the road to dropping out of school. Spent most of the time drinking and can't really remember much.
Oji, Nara, Japan
Pretty much a little hick town but, in many ways, a lot like the place where I grew....um, except everyone is Japanese. Centered in one of the most historic prefectures in Japan (Nara) you can find what seems like an unlimited supply of Japanese temples. The Summers are unbearable for most people. Really hot and humid. I happen to like this type of climate and looking forward to getting a good sweat on. Japanese beer from the tap tastes incredible during the long, hot, Summer days.
Oji, Nara, Japan.
Amanohashidate, Kyoto, Japan.
Places Traveled
At least half of the United States.
Mexico.
San Diego, California.
Taiwan....Philippines.
Saipan....Palau, Micronesia.
Toyama City, Toyama, Japan.
Oji, Nara, Japan.
Thailand.
Korea....Japan.
Thailand.
Places Worked
  • During college and before - Insignificant jobs - numerous to get myself through college. More about these when I feel like writing about them....um, and if I can even remember.
  • From graduation from SDSU until 1992 - Security Pacific National Bank - Appraisal Officer - This was a very cool place to work. Probably would have stayed there if stinky BofA had not bought them out.
  • 1992 - Bank of America - Appraisal Officer - Nothing good to say about this bank except working for this company after the merger (yeah right-takeover) with Security Pacific for eight months gave me the motivation to form my own company.
  • Somewhere in there was my brief attempt at an acting career. Will try to pull out the pictures and videos at a later date.
  • 1992-1999 - Paramount Appraisals - Owner - Residential real estate valuation company.
  • 1995 – Began teaching English to International Students
  • 1999 - Retired and went back to school to learn Japanese.
  • 2002 – ALT at San Diego State University
  • 2003 – English teacher at various places in Kansai Region
  • 2003 – Created an online English language learning website
  • 2007 – Changed the website name to FunEasyEnglish
  • 2009 – Began teaching English on the Internet
  • 2010 – EnglishGlobalGroup website and school were created
  • Currently - Still retired, well semi-retired, and actually making an income now from my Internet projects.
My interests
Interests
Hiking - Really into hiking since my place is one mile from Mission Trails Regional Park in two different directions. This is one of the largest urban parks in the country and encompasses 5,800 acres. In the background you can see Cowles Mountain which actually is the highest point within the San Diego city limits. The hike is about 3 miles round trip and is a level 5 trail, which is considered to be difficult based on a 1 to 5 rating scale. From the top is a panoramic view of San Diego which stretches all the way from the ocean to the mountains at the edge of San Diego County.
Mountain bike riding - This is a picture of the back of Mission Trails Regional Park. This section of the park has miles and miles of trails through meadows and over small hills. Mostly grassy with some small bushes much of which turns brown during the Summer months.
Camping - We usually go camping a couple times every year in the Cleveland National Forest. This is our favorite campground because the camping spaces are really spread apart and, if you go during the week, you can pretty much get the place to yourself. This campground is up at around 5,600 feet in elevation. Not exactly Mount Fuji but pretty high for San Diego County. Tons of wildlife up here including birds like blue jays, woodpeckers, crows, and hawks. You can also find squirrels, raccoons, field mice, coyotes, and an occasional mountain lion, although very rare. Oh yeah, one year it had just rained and there were thousands of small tree frogs everywhere. They were even in the bathrooms. They were really cute although Akiko wasn't too thrilled with them.
Wine - I was really not much of a drinker over the years except at parties and other social occasions. After Akiko and I met several years ago, I began to appreciate wine. Akiko knows quite a bit about the different varieties. My favorite is Cabernet Sauvignon. Last year we drove up to San Francisco to visit friends and went up north to Napa Valley and Sonoma County, California wine country. We visited many wineries many of which offered free wine tasting. It was a lot of fun.
Traveling - You can find out more about this if you visit the places section of my site.
Learning languages - Hmmmm, let's see. I studied the following languages.

English - Fairly proficient.

Hebrew - Studied for 3 years. Can still read a little bit but pretty much forgot most of the vocabulary.

French - Studied for 3 years. Can read a little and still remember some vocabulary.

Spanish - Took one semester and can understand a little.

Japanese - Completed an A.A. degree in Japanese studies. Traveled to Japan on four separate occasions. Two of the trips included three months each with Japanese families. Can understand and speak the language at least enough for a basic conversation. Really technical conversations are not possible due to lack of vocabulary. Can read a little bit but need to learn thousands of kanji, Chinese characters.
Learning about different cultures - Probably the best way to learn about the world is to travel to your countries of interest and hang out with the locals. This picture was taken on a really old sleeper train which we rode for 10 hours from Bangkok Thailand to Chiang Mai, Thailand, a city up in the northern mountains. It was right before New Year's and we went to Thailand for 10 days including this trip up north for a 3-day trekking tour. This was the party car in the middle of the train where everyone was drinking, including the train workers. Akiko is in the orange shirt, and Rieko is a Japanese girl we met on the train who was en route to Africa to continue her world travels. It was an unbelievable experience.
Star Trek - Pretty much limited to the Original Series and The Next Generation. Really could not get into the other spinoffs. A couple links for watching the old shows.
Full episodes of the original series on Fancast
Full episodes of the original series on YouTube - Season 1
Full episodes of the original series on YouTube - Season 2
Full episodes of the original series on YouTube - Season 3
Total science geek - Anything related to meteorology, geology, geography, astronomy.
Surfing - Hey, this Summer I am going surfing for the first time after many years in SD.
https://surfing-gooroo.com/
Fishing - Yup, I really like fishing. Spent the last few years trying to work out a formula to figure out when the fish would be biting. Needless to say, still working on it. This is a picture of the Ocean Beach pier. Anyway, thought it might be cool to put this fishing report up this year since this is the last fishing season before moving to Japan.
Ocean Beach Fishing Report
Date Caught Fish Conditions
4/19/09 18 Sardines Warm-80's, calm wind
4/20/09 12
1
1		 Sardines
Jacksmelt
Mackerel		 Warm-80's, calm wind,
Ocean H2O-64
Light Waves
5/7/09 0   Awful conditions, record high surf, looked cool but no fish
5/18/09 1
1		 Mackerel
Smelt		 Cloudy, windy, and not very warm
San Diego, California and Japan Time Differences

Japan is 17 hours ahead of San Diego using Pacific Standard Time (PST) and 16 hours ahead of San Diego during Daylight Savings Time (DST) in Spring and Summer.

I put this information together for those of you who want to chat and are confused about the time differences. Since most of you are in San Diego, this page will include time differences between California and Japan. Hoping to talk to all of you soon. Until then.