Billy Joel Concert

Tonight Michelle and I went to the Billy Joel concert at Taco Bell Arena on the Boise State University campus. We had SUCH a good time!!! What an incredible musician and performer this guy is! And pretty good for an old guy; he went non-stop for over two hours without a break. Played a ton of his classics, plus some that we had never heard before, like "Root Beer Rag" (click to hear 30-second snippet) from his 1974 album Streetlife Serenade. We had GREAT seats, center of the floor six rows back from the stage. You can kind of tell how good our seats were by the posted photo (sorry the quality of photos from cell phones is so low).

At one point during the show, Billy Joel announced that he likes to feature new talent, and he invited one of his "roadies" up to sing a song. So this middle-aged, chunky guy covered in tatoos got up and "sang" a song. Before he sang, Billy Joel announced that this guy (nicknamed "Chainsaw") would be singing a nice religious song, that we might all be familiar with from church. When the guitars fired out the first chords everybody could tell right away that it was AC/DC's "Highway to Hell." He did a GREAT job with it, and it was very fun.

What a great show!!!

Delighted!!! (actually... "Lighted")

Today we started our Christmas decorating, beginning with hanging lights outside. Last year, we hung our lights on Thanksgiving weekend, and we resolved never to do that again. But alas... with my travels, etc. we didn't get to it until now. The challenge is that at this time of year, daytime highs are only in the 30s, and the roof shingles are frozen. Therefore, our angled roof becomes nothing more than a giant slide, and it's nearly impossible to crawl around up on the roof! Combine that with our underpowered circuits (last year with about double the lights we were continually blowing circuits), and we couldn't go all out in decorating. But hey... we're the first ones on our cul de sac to get our outside lights up, so we still win! :-) Below are pictures of during and after. Merry Christmas (season), everyone!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

What a great dinner we had today!!! Turkey, ham (for those of us who think turkey is fowl), potatoes, corn, stuffing, etc. and WAY TOO MANY desserts.

Last year we had 24 people here, but this year it was a much more "quiet" 15. :-) My oldest (but still young!) sister and her husband and their grandson were here, as well as Justin's girlfriend's family.

We attached two six-foot tables to our dining room table, creating a large "T." Posted here are three photos of the crowd, as well as our dessert island. I made my world-famous cheesecake, but even still, I think it lost out to that chocolate cake you see there.

John and Christopher in Japan

Christopher reminded me today that I never put up pictures from our Spring Break trip to Japan earlier this year. So sorry! So here's some more catching up the blog.

Most of you probably know that we have a tradition in our family, of each of our children getting a one-on-one trip to Japan with Dad after they turn 16 years old. I took Justin two years ago (will get around to posting those photos, too), and during Spring Break of 2007, I took Christopher.

It was actually Christopher's second trip to Japan. He had gone there a year-and-a-half earlier on a Irvine-Tsukuba Sister Cities exchange program. Tsukuba is just outside of Tokyo and Christopher had already experienced much of Tokyo, so we spent only a little bit of time there, and traveled pretty extensively from Tokyo, south all the way to Nagasaki. Here is roughly where we visited:

• Nagoya: Nagoya Castle, my old Toyota City branch of the LDS Church, and some friends there.
• Kanazawa: Kenroku-en Park (one of the most beautiful places in Japan, I think).
• Nara: Todaiji, Kasuga Taisha, Nara Park, and Byodoin.
• Kyoto: Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion), Kiyomizu-dera, Nijo Castle, Ryoan-ji, and Toji (tallest pagoda in Asia).
• Hiroshima: Peace Park including Atomic Bomb Dome, Hiroshima Castle, and Miyajima Island. And also happened to discover completely by accident probably the best Italian restaurant I've ever been to - a little hole-in-the-wall place we actually went to twice!
• Fukuoka: Used this northernmost major city of Kyushu as a springboard to visit Nagasaki, and the Peace Memorial there, too.
• Tokyo: Tokyo Disneyland, Harajuku (Takeshita Street), and visiting Yosuke's family (Yosuke was a home stay student with my family when we lived in Whitter, CA and I was 16 years old!).

Anyway, we had a really GREAT time!!! In this posting I've only included four pictures (at Kenroku-en Park, Kinkaku-ji, Miyajima Island's O-Torii Gate, and Tokyo Disneyland, in that order), but for all photos from the trip, please click here for all 341 photos on Flickr, or here and here for the photos on Facebook (two sets, due to the set limitation of 200).

Christopher Swim Awards

Christopher's swim team awards dinner was this past Tuesday night (a week ago), and he won a fish-in-water award. He's standing here with his two swim coaches.

First Snow!!!

UPDATED AT 8:15AM:
So... it's actually snowing harder now, and some of it is starting to stick. Two more pictures; the first one here of the Hudson's place across the street, and the second one of our house. I turned the flash on to catch the falling snow flakes better.
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At 6:00 this morning, it was a toasty 36 degrees and lightly snowing outside. Our first snow of the season (in the city, anyway). It's pretty much immediately melting, and the posted picture here will look like child's play in a couple of months, but the first snow is always fun! :-)

Mark Arrow of Light

At our November 8th Cub Scout Pack Meeting, Mark earned his Arrow of Light award, Cub Scouting's highest award. Here's a picture with Mark and Mom, and also of Mark and Parker looking at their awards.

"Dine In or Take Away"

I enjoy visiting other English-speaking territories, because the "English" they speak there often doesn't match the language I learned. Some examples of this are:

• Dine In or Take Away. When ordering at a fast food restaurant, this is "Here or To Go?"
• Boot. When I picked up my rental car in Melbourn, the attendant offered to put my suitcase in the "boot" for me. Cute.
• Lift. Elevator.
• Flat. Apartments are "flats" in the U.K. and in Australia (I assume other places?).
• Car Park. I had to park my car in the hotel's parking garage (er... "car park").
• Bottleshop. No, not "battleship" but a bottleshop, or liquor store.
• Chemist. No, not somebody who blows off the entire left side of his body (he's all right now) mixing chemicals, but someone who fills your prescriptions, or a pharmacist.
• Fag. No... I'm not being condescending to those with traditional gender-preference issues, but I'm referring to a cigarette. One of my associates from the U.K. said he learned not to ask to borrow a cigarette by asking, "Can I bum a fag, please?"
  

Anyway, there are certainly a lot more, but these are the best that I can remember.

No Tea Breaks???!!!

Driving around in Melbourne earlier this week, I heard A LOT of political advertisements on the radio, due to the November 24th national elections there in Australia. It's not good, but at least comforting(?) to know that it appears politics don't change anywhere. In one politically charged ad, I heard a challenger say that Prime Minister John Howard's "wartime policies" were going to result in the elimination of tea breaks at work. Heaven forbid... no tea breaks!!!

Sydney

This morning I scheduled a long connection in Sydney, en route from Melbourne to San Francisco. I'm so glad I did; Sydney is amazing. The iconic Sydney Opera House is at the end of a long stretch of land that is dominated by the Royal Botanical Gardens. I could have spent all day just walking around that beautiful area. But alas, I spent only about three hours there. Then, I went to see the LDS Temple in Sydney. It is a small temple, but the drive there was really interesting - got a good taste of Sydney. I got some good photos, only two of which are posted here (Opera House and the Harbor Bridge). To see all the photos I took in Australia (including 66 in Sydney), please click here.

A Nice Drive in Australia

This afternoon I took a nice little drive out of the city. Melbourne is the second largest city in Australia, home to about 3.8 million people. I just felt an urge to get out of the city, so I just got in my car and drove. No particular destination - I just went wherever my car went (and the navigation system in my rental could have bailed me out if I got lost). I ended up driving from Melbourne to Traralgon. Drove almost due east for about 100 miles before turning around and heading back. The countryside was quite pretty, and it was good for this Idaho boy to get out of the city! :-)

Unfortunately, it's late Spring here, and I'm having one of the worst hayfever attacks I've ever had. The sniffing and sneezing just won't stop, and tonight I'm keeping this short. I was having fun today observing some of the differences between American and Australian English; I'll have to elaborate on that later.

Enjoy the pictures below. For all the Australia photos I've posted so far (36?), please click here.

This little pond out in the middle of nowhere was kind of cool.

Australia's equivalent of our "Keep right except to pass." I kept wondering, however, overtaking what? Seems kind of aggressive. :-)

They had A LOT of rest stops on this highway (the "M1" highway). They had signs quite often that if you were feeling sleepy, to pull off at a rest stop and take a "powernap" (one word). This shot was taken from one of these rest stops.

There were a lot of cows out here. When I had a steak at the 100 Mile Cafe yesterday, I'm sure I ate one of these cows' relatives.

Aussie Wave

Walking down the street here, you might think that everybody is REALLY friendly for all the waving they're doing. Well... they might be friendly, but that's not why they're waving! When the temps warm up down here, bush flies are everywhere, and walking around I find everybody, myself included, waving their hand in front of their face to prevent them from landing on your face. I wish I had a hat like this guy does (pictured at the right). Anyway, this has become so common they call it the "Aussie Wave" or the "Aussie Salute." It even has its own Wikipedia entry.

Melbourne - Quite a City

I've been very impressed with Melbourne. It's quite a bustling city, with lots of diversity, some very cool architecture, and some great restaurants. It seems to be an "eating out" culture here. I've just been here for just two days, but even my U.K. associates whom have been here all week have said what I've noted: Every restaurant in this city is packed!

Last night we went to a very trendy Japanese restaurant, the Nobu Melbourne. The Nobu franchise has restaurants all over the world and Robert De Niro is part owner of this chain. The food was absolutely fantastic, and the place was hopping. VERY busy.

Tonight we went to a restaurant in a shopping center / train station called Melbourne Central. What a unique place this is; more in the photo captions below. But the restaurant we ate at is called the 100 Mile Cafe. The theme is that everything served there is grown/produced/raised within 100 miles of Melbourne. And WOW was the food outstanding!!! I had a porterhouse steak that was mighty delicious! And this place, too, was absolutely hopping. Every restaurant we walked past was full to capacity. Definitely an "eating out" culture here.

Below are some pictures from around Melbourne today. The captions will explain.

The architecture here in Melbourne is quite diverse, including everything from modern concrete-and-glass skyscrapers to this type of medieval gothic type of structure, pictured above. Walking past this place a couple hours later after the sun set, there were no lights on inside, and it really looked sort of creepy and haunted.

Kind of "central" to Melbourne Central is the "Piazza and Shot Tower," some ancient tower that they decided to protect by erecting a glass cone over it, and then turning the whole thing in to a giant mall built over a train station. This glass cone is quite visible from much of the city. Notice the the modern skyscraper visible through the glass, towering above this.

Some of the building facades here are really interesting, like the facades on these buildings. Certainly different than most of the buildings we have in the U.S.! I took this shot from the balcony of the restaurant we are at tonight. Notice the cars driving on the left - eek!

OK... they are REALLY environmentally conscience around here. In the "loo" at the restaurant tonight, they had a hand washing sink that drains in to the urinal, so that you wash your hands and flush the toilet all at the same time. Efficient, I suppose!

A Radical Shift to the Left

Now... based on that title to this posting, don't go getting all worried or elated that I've changed my political views... just my driving orientation. I've rented a car (a Holden Statesman) here in Melbourne, and they drive on the left here. It's been 20 years, since I lived in Japan, since I've driven on the left. I was thinking I was getting the hang of it again, when they threw a curve at me. Well... not a curve, but a roundabout. We just don't have many roundabouts in the U.S., and Americans (including myself) are not used to them! I must admit that I REALLY had to think hard about how I was driving around that thing, to branch off to the correct street.

By the way, of course I'm paying for the rental car with Australian dollars. Picture included. Why is it that the United States has the most boring looking money in the world?!?! We should take lessons from other countries!!!

Australia

Greetings from the land down under. After an all-night flight from Tokyo, I arrived in Brisbane early this morning. There I caught a connecting flight to Melbourne, when I am attending a conference this week. I have a few press interviews lined up with local games press, so that should be fun. I'm also joining two guys already here from Emergent's U.K. office.

Posted here is a picture taken from the window of our aircraft; from the air, Brisbane looks pretty much like every other city I've seen!

Additionally, I'm posting a picture of "Hungry Jack's." This is the brand name for "Burger King" in Australia; they even have "Whoppers" on the menu. Their breakfast menu is a bit different, though; I had a "Brekky Wrap," which was egg, sausage, bacon (ham) and cheese wrapped up in a flour tortilla. Yummy!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas...

...everywhere you go. OK... so now that you've got that song stuck in your head, here is a picture of a live Christmas tree I saw in Shinagawa, in Tokyo the other day. Justin... if you can remember, this is right by that Mickey Dees near our hotel, that sustained you for a couple of days. :-)

Yes, the tree was live, and it smelled WONDERFUL!!! Made me want to rush out and buy a Christmas tree. I suppose we'll do that shortly after I get home from this trip.

And then admittedly, the second photo in this posting doesn't look much like Christmas, but it's one of my favorite views in Tokyo. The weather was absolutely gorgeous most of the time we were there, and this photo is taken from my 30th floor hotel room window. This is looking out over the Sumida River, the main river in Tokyo. You can see Rainbow Bridge spanning over it (lower left corner, largely obstructed by a building, but you can see the two main towers). I love Rainbow Bridge - it's cool. If you ever see a coffee table book featuring famous bridges from across the globe, this one is sure to be included.

Tribute: Barbara Jean Wilcox Goodale

Three years ago to nearly this exact hour, I checked in to a hotel in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, to find the following e-mail waiting from Michelle:

Hi John. Please call me as soon as you land, even if it is late. The kids are fine but I need to talk to you.

Thus began probably one of the loneliest days of my life, as I sat around Tokyo waiting for the next available flight home to be with family. Michelle informed me that my mother, Barbara Jean Wilcox Goodale, had passed away while I was en route to Japan. It's ironic that I again find myself in Japan, on this the third anniversary of my mother's death.

Hence herein I pay tribute to mom. Mom and I had a tradition: I would call her on the way to the airport every time I went out of town. Therefore, we actually spoke pretty often. Mom didn't pick up the phone that morning on my way to LAX, and I missed that last chance to talk to her. Even now, three years later, each time I head to the airport, I wish I could call mom.

Mom: I miss your wisdom, your wit, and even your complaints that my life is too busy. It still is. But I'm a better man today because of your love and concern, and the way you raised me. Thank you for providing a life for me grounded in solid principals. Thank you for teaching me how to love my kids. Thank you for teaching me to respect women, which attribute caused me to marry the greatest woman in the world!!! Thank you for teaching me the value of hard work and perseverance. Thank you for teaching me to appreciate the many great blessings I have in life. Thank you for teaching me the principal, "Privilege equals responsibility" - it's a motto that has stuck with me and continues to guide me today, as I try to be responsible with the privileges granted me.

I miss you, Mom, and I look forward to the day when we can be together again, in a much better place.

Like I did for Michelle's brother, Michael, I have posted a lot of pictures of Mom (and family) on our Flickr site (click here). Below, though, are just a couple of fun photos:

Boston, Massachussetts, April 9, 2001. We took mom with us on a 15-day vacation to the East coast, more than six years ago. What a GREAT time we had!!! Here, mom is standing with Justin, Brianna, Andrew, me (holding Steven), Mark, Christopher and Michelle (and our guide at the Boston Tea Party site). Mom was very patriotic, and really enjoyed all of the national historical spots we visited.

We figure that this shot was taken some time in the mid-1940s. I like this shot, in particular, because Mom has signed the picture.

Eat it before it runs (swims) off!!!

Hating to do a posting without putting a photo along with it, I'm putting up this picture that I just took from my 30th floor hotel room window. I really love Tokyo nights.

In this fair city, though, tonight we ate at a restaurant that serves fresh seafood. "How fresh?" you ask. Thanks for asking - I thought you never would! Some of the food they bring you is still twitching. One dish they brought out was anago (eel), and it was twitching (I daresay "flopping") pretty vigorously. They also brought out a very twitchy tako (even though it's pronounced the same as the folded, stuffed corn shell Mexican food we all love, this is actually octopus).

I enjoyed both twitching sea creatures, but the non-twitching fugu I ate was absolutely awesome!!! "Fugu" is the poisonous blowfish you have probably heard about. But worry not, only the liver of this turkey is toxic, and here in eastern Japan, the government doesn't even allow this portion to be served. In western Japan, they CAN server fugu liver, up to a one-third fatal dose. But I don't care for liver, nor do I care for toxins, so I don't think I'll pass.

Absolutely EXCELLENT dinner tonight, and very reasonably priced. About the only bad part of the evening was that I forgot to take my camera! :-(

Mushrooms... How Much???

OK OK OK... today I saw the craziest thing I think I've ever seen!!! First of all, start singing in your head, "How much is the doggie in the window?..." Got the tune in your head? OK, then, replace "doggie" with "mushroom" because that's where I'm going with this story...

We had meetings down in Kyoto this afternoon, and in between lunch and these meetings, we had about 30 minutes to kill, so we went walking along this very famous row of local food shops. Apparently, in Kyoto, they grow the best mushrooms in the world. I had been "warned" that they were expensive, but I had NO IDEA!!! So this one store had some Kyoto mushrooms (yes... mushrooms) enclosed in a glass case for sale. So just how much are the mushrooms in the window? You see the price in the photo here: 78,000 yen!!! So for those of you whom are not used to paying in yen, at today's exchange rate of 109 yen per dollar, that's $716. Over SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS for a small box of MUSHROOMS!!!

Man... they better be REALLY good mushrooms. Or, perhaps my L.A. friends would say, "Only if you're smokin' 'em, dewd!!!"

A Travel Tradition - Cuddly Toy

As long as I've traveled on business, my kids and I have had a tradition that we keep. While I'm packing for each trip, the kids will get me a small "cuddly toy" to take with me. The ideas behind this are that they get to send a part of them with me, and also that when I get lonely while traveling, I have a toy of theirs to cuddle up with. Silly? Perhaps. But I think not! I wouldn't travel any other way!!!

Anyway... for this trip, Steven gave me a Sonic plush toy. How appropriate, too, considering I have a meeting with Sega on Wednesday! But when I checked in to my Tokyo hotel this evening (The Strings), I got to my room and discovered that the staff had given me a small teddy bear as part of the turndown service. So I thought I'd take a picture of the two "cuddly toys" together, and I'll have to take a cuddly toy home to the kids from this trip!

Anyway... a fun tradition. I hope my kids continue it, even when they're much too "old" for cuddly toys! :-)

Pictures from Seoul

I'm in Seoul attending game industry show G-Star, and although I had a lot of meetings set up Thursday and Friday, I took today (Saturday) to just hang out in my hotel room and get a lot of work done. I took a break from it, though, and went on a walk around my hotel. I'm staying at the Grand Intercontinental Hotel in the Gangnam ("south of river") area of Seoul, near the COEX Center.

I've stayed at this hotel probably two dozen times, but I have never taken a stroll to the Bongeunsa Temple near here. Somebody was giving me a hard time about this, so on my afternoon walkabout I went to check it out. Very different from the Japanese Buddhist temples I've visited.

A few of the pictures I took are below, and you can see all of the pictures from my trip by clicking here.

Fun Christmas display out in front of the Hyundai Department Store here in Seoul.

Normally there's just a long concrete sidewalk running alongside the COEX Convention Center, but there's currently this huge flower display set up there, including miniature houses, waterfalls, etc. It was cool.

The facade on the front of this building has always intrigued me.

Taken at the Bongeunsa Temple.

Taken at the Bongeunsa Temple.

Taken at the Bongeunsa Temple.

Taken at the Bongeunsa Temple. I loved all of the bright paintings and colors that adorned the buildings.

Seoul Food

Greetings from Seoul. I arrived here last night, and am attending the annual G-Star convention. I have several press and customer meetings while I'm here, all set up by Emergent's local distributor, GameBase.

Tonight I went out to dinner with the GameBase staff, and we had a great time. And yummy Korean BBQ, too! We talked a lot about business, of course, but we also talked about something three of us have in common: raising kids. Mr. Park, the guy in the white shirt and blue tie, has a two-year-old, and we talked about how his son is walking, talking, and climbing. Ahhh... kids are the same worldwide! :-)

Tomorrow will see more press and customer meetings, and probably another Korean BBQ restaurant! I'll be here through Sunday, when I fly off to Tokyo for a few days of meetings.