I was thinking the other day, what is in a post, or what is in a blog? Really it’s hard to say. For each person it would be a difference definition for each question. To me it’s really one and the same.

In my case, I simply want to explore the thoughts of the day or what is currently floating around in my head. Simply explore the feelings of the moment, and go deeper into the moment through words. In my case I do have many things to talk about. Most of you would disagree, but they are still my thoughts and struggles. I have many ideas and many dreams. Many goals and many considerations.

I have many stories to tell, and things that need to be told. As I refocus many things in my life, my hope and dream is to begin to explore many of these ideas and thoughts. I am hoping to post something daily. Not tweets, just ideas or comments that contain substance.

I have the “Happiness Project”. I have SpamGoblin. I have the trip this summer. Many many irons in the fire that simply have been too cold for too long. Time to get them fired up and hot. It will take time, and it will take the help of others.

Thank you to those in my life who are still here, here along the journey and here helping the way. Today will be the first day of many, many more to come.

Time to head to the gym. That’s a whole other story.

The last few weeks have been pretty rough. I seem to be battling with many internal struggles relating to my place in all of this. This is, everything, life, work, family. It’s interesting to sit back and watch and observe the behavior of others and you begin to see that they don’t “get it” as some would say. I do get it. Well I think I do. Maybe I am the one who doesn’t. Hard to say.

Next week, I’ll be in Hawaii. It’s interesting how this story has evolved over time, and rest assured it will change again. That I am confident in.

The beard is coming along nicely, but not sure I am scaring children yet or if I will ever be able to. The mind isn’t working like it used to be, so maybe I will get to that point, at some point. Who knows.

What I do know is I need to change a few things and live every moment for it might be last. Continue to live without regrets and to focus on what is truly important, and as the saying goes… don’t sweat the small stuff.

More later.

As many of you know about 1 year go, I had the oppurtunity to start on a motorcycle adventure. My plan was to ride from Texas to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Then turn around and head to Key West, and finally back home to Texas. If yuou followed the story last year, I made it to Cheyene, Wyoming but had bike problems so I turned around and finally made it back home. I then caught a flight and few to Anchorage and rented a KLR 650 from Motoquest and had a blast. Unfortuantely after leaving Homer, AK right before Soldotna, AK a motorhome decided taking a picture of a moose was more important that driving safely, so I had to ditch the bike. It resulted in a pretty large smack on the ground with my head. 70% vision loss in my left eye is now something I live with, as well as not haivng my brain work as well as it used to. Some people would say it never worked that well anyways.

So why am I writing this? Well about 1 year from now I will begin the second attempt at this trip. While on the first trip I did make it all to Prudhoe Bay which is the hardest part of the trip. The good news is that I now know what to expect. The bad part is, I will be doing the trip alone. I had some folks who were interested, but so far they all have backed out for some reason or another and we have a year of planning to go. I should be able to do it in 4 weeks and it will give me enough time to take it slow and not rush the trip.

Some questions are already starting to pop into my head. What do I want to see? Can I do it in 4 weeks, should I take one more? How long do I want to ride? Do I want to camp or hotel it? Which route? Do I want to visit people? Should I take the time to read some books? Should I finish my novel? So I want to focus on making a video of the trip? Lots and lots of thoughts are coming through my mind.

To do this type of trip you have to be in the right frame of mine. You have to be mentaly in the right place, and physically you have to be able to do it.

I used to have a trainer. I think she gave up on me. She stopped showing up. I did everything she said with lots of effort. Hard not to take that personally. Either way with that and a few other things I seemed to have slipped into a depression. So I went from 242 my lowest weight back up to 265. Not good. Especially to prep for the trip. I got to do something about that.

It seems like friends are dropping like flies. Lots of stories that, everyone says it’s not me… but I am starting to disagree.

After 16+ years, CCNet – www.christian-chat.net will go offline July 4th. It’s been time for a long time, but finally pulling the trigger to turn the site off. As you can see, many things are in flux.

Over the next year I will go ahead and post thoughts and status as to what is going on and what the plans are. As the name of the blog says, it’s called Unpacking Your Life. Maybe it’s time to unpack more and more and more. Time to get back to the basics and live life right. My Faith and my Family is the core and is and what will always be important.

A special thanks for everyone who is wrapping our family in prayer. Thanks to the true friends that are left and thank you to Pastor Scott for thinking of me and being a real person of integrity.

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It would be sad if i said… Wish I was… That would mean we are still stuck. In an hr or so we will hopefully be boarding the flight home. At that point this portion of the trip will be ending. Its been fun Tokyo but its better to be back home.

Hopefully we can make it home soon. Due to the earthquake we are stuck at Nartia Airport outside Tokyo. We are moved into the Terminal now, the aftershocks are continuing. The government provided sleeping bags and rations for everyone and some water. Pretty nice if you ask me. They didn’t have to.

So now I am camped out by a power plug charging up everything for everyone. Fortuantely I bring powerstrips.

We’ll be home eventually, but everyone is safe so that is all that matters.

When you read the news, I think you can figure out why. Basically a major, earthquake happened as we were driving to the airport. The minibus we had almost flipped it was so massive. Pretty cool if you ask me. Remember I grew up with earthquakes in socal, so it’s really not a big deal. However the ones they have here in Japan are massive!

Currently we are camped out in a Airport shuttle bus, since it started raining. They won’t let us back into the terminal. It’s been a few hrs so hopefully we will be allowed in soon. Good news is, we still have a few hrs before our flight.

Here is a link to a new article.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42023385/ns/world_news-asiapacific/?gt1=43001

Today was out last full day in Japan. Tomorrow, a driver will come and take up the Airport for our long journey home. We will be flying to Chicago, then heading to DFW. We leave Tokyo, at 7:00pm on 3-11 and arrive at 8:30pm on 3-11 in Dallas. It’s weird how things can work that way. I am saddened that the journey has come to an end, or will be soon. However I am excited at what the future holds for our family. Oliver has a taste of the travel bug, and loved meetings new friends, so who knows what the future will hold.

A few observations. Vending Machines rock. Did you know that you can get vitamin c drinks EVERYWHERE! You should probably know what you are drinking when you goto a pharmacy and he gives you a magic elixir. McDonalds and Coke tastes the same almost everywhere (Russia and Israel where different). People are the same no matter where you are. Some American’s are just as ignorant abroad and at home. Hotel Okura is great.

This will probably the last long trip with my parents. It was difficult seeing how they traveled this trip. As the saying goes, they don’t move like the used to which is understandable, but still sad.

I am looking forward to getting back to the daily grind, it’s been fun and relaxing and refreshing and needed. However all good things must come to an end. Thanks to my coworkers for holding down the fort and thanks to Steve for holding down the house while we were away. It’s greatly appreciated.

Tomorrow before we check out of the hotel we will probably do some exploring and some more subway riding, but for the most part we are all tour’d out and ready to head on home.

Did you know that Mount Fuji is expected to explode at any moment? According to our guide today it is, and he is kinda giddy about it. (that was kinda weird). Our guide was a grand fatherly figure who had to have been a school teacher in a previous profession. He was very knowledgeable and very informative, and makes great snowballs (as you can see in the photos). He is the one who keeps making them so Ollie can throw them at me.

If you have never been to Japan, I don’t think most people will get it. There is an aire of formality in everything, even at McDonalds. On the bullet train, the conductorts will bow when they enter and leave train compartments. The clerks at McDonalds will give a simple bow. Money is changed hands via a tray, not directly. Arigato very much, ie thank you very much is always heard. Of course there is a whole dark side, but that’s not for this family blog.

McDonalds and 7-11′s are everywhere, so you can’t stop feeling like you are home. No GodZilla sightings today, but I did ride my first bullet train. Man was that fast. We also ventured out into the subway, no issues there. However as with every subway system we have used in the world there are always things to get used to, ie how they number things etc. Most of the signs are also in English or numbered, so you can make you way around. Most everyone so far has spoken enough english that we can atleast point on a map to get the point across. Just another day in the urban jungle.

Tomorrow, we will do some more exploring specficially in Tokyo. I am sure some more Shinto Shrines are on the docket as well as some light souviner shopping. My find today was a golden cat with a waving arm. It’s sweet!

Anyone seen Godzilla? As I look out our hotel room window (10th floor @ the Hotel Okura) we have a perfect view that really looks like Godzilla needs to pop up and come smashing through some buildings.

We made it to Tokyo. That was an adventure in itself, but I will leave that part off the web to protect the innocent. I’ll be more than happy to tell folks in person. Yes it’s that good of a story.

The Hotel Okura is across the street from the US Embassy. So I figured it was my kinda place. As we pulled into the main Lobby, I see Royse Royce Limo’s and a stretched Bentley all with drivers. This is REALLY my kinda place. We are “rolling Brian Style”. All kidding aside, it’s a very nice hotel. The hotel is actually a hotel from the 70’s but is has been maintained VERY well, so now it’s called “Vintage”. It’s amazing how that works.

You can tell the sign of a 5 star hotel by the design in the cigarette tray sand outside. I would say this is an 8 star hotel, and I am looking forward to the time here. A bit bigger than the room on the ship. The room’s sizes are humongous by Japanese Standards.

So far I am quite impressed with Tokyo. I expected a large sprawling city with some of the world’s largest buildings and commerce happening all over the place. Well that’s what we got. Tomorrow we take a tour of the city and will get to take q Bullet Train ride. We are all look forward to that, especially Ollie. No photos today, I have some but I will post them tomorrow with all the Tokyo photos.

Tonight will be explore around and see what we can find to eat and see where we are. With so many tall buildings it’s hard to get your direction from landmarks, so we have to trust maps and subways. Ollie does well, and all the Asian Females love him, so he is a great ice breaker when you need directions.

Oh and for the record, there is a calming experience when you go into a store to buy medicine, and all the boxes are in Japanese. So you just pick the one that has a picture that you think you understand. Good times.

Another adventure tomorrow…

I will be constantly updating our photo gallery at http://www.brian.net/brian/asia