Goodbye and Hello

Hi there faithful readers.

I am being a serious blogger and writing this from the airport to kill time provide insight to my year in Manhattan.

I will miss my job at Trading Metrics terribly. Not only did the senior Java programmer write beautiful code (thus allowing me to learn by example), the company was small enough to
1) feel like a family and
2) allow you to actually make a difference through the work you do. But there are benefits to leaving Manhattan, like
1) leaving our roach-infested apartment... it was getting bad by the end.. and
2) going back to the land of wonderful customer service! (not to mention hot springs.. :D)

Luckily my boss has connections with some of our business partners centered in Tokyo, and is passing my resume along. I'm keeping my fingers crossed as I got a little spoiled with my nice fat paycheck here, and really don't want to go back to the In'n'out Burger stand salary I was receiving in Tokyo. I flatter myself and believe I did a pretty good job while I was here (I completely redid the user interface of our product into something much more attractive and consistent)... so I was promised a glowing review. (yay! here's hoping!) Still, I kind of doubt I'll be able to find a place that allows you to choose your own furniture and has a ping-pong table. (I'm going to miss you, my white chair! And John if you're reading this, do NOT use it as a foot rest!!!)

We went back to California last weekend for a last visit before our jump across the pacific ocean, and my family is as silly as ever, to my relief. We went to Berkeley and celebrated my maternal grandmother's 70th birthday! (happy birthday Grandma Blue!)

Anyways, at that park opposite the rose garden where we had our party, there was a giant concrete slide built into the hillside, which my mother slid down when she was little, and she dissapointedly reported it had "shrunk". It was still about three stories high though, and so she made all of us ride it so she could ride it herself and not feel silly. (don't worry mom, you still looked silly! hee hee.) Once was clearly not enough, so the entire Weaver clan (Takeshi included) ended up going down it three times. Ahh memories.

I also ended up dragging Ellen along to Napa Valley so she could teach me how to taste wine, with a moderate degree of success. I was able to tell that the red wine Takeshi just brought for me here in the lounge was a Merlot because of its slow 'legs' and from the smell of the 'second nose'...(the sniff you check after the 'legs'). Oh wine, so fun and pretentious. Anyways we drove up to the hills around the valley and discovered charred sections of hillside and a *melted* metal fence. the air was also very smokey, so I just have to give a shout-out to the California firefighters... thanks for putting out the fires and saving the wine! :D

I put some photos up on Flickr in the usual place (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kyranoshashin/)that vaguely follow my adventures, so feel free to take a gander. (there should be a link/badge thing to the right).

All right, that's the last post from the 'Little New Yorker'. Next post, the Little Gaijin returns!! (dum-dum-duuuuuuuum....)