This may be my last posting. I am home and well and happy to be back at my work(s). I just spent an hour updating the "Raining Cats and Dogs" post with detailed description of the presentation--my last task. I may become motivated to reformat some earlier postings in order to place pictures with appropriate text, but, well, I can't promise that will happen: There is other work to do, and I'm back in the throes of it after a fantastic, rewarding, friend-making experience. My heartfelt thanks to Vince Durnan, USN Director, for having the faith in me to offer that I go; to Peabody at Vanderbilt Dean Jim Hogge, for all the coaching and for facilitating my journey; to Associate Professor Masafumi Kogawa of HUTE for inviting me and for so graciously and hospitably hosting my visit; to Jimmy Suzuki for his patience and his shepherding; to Darrick Mosser and his beautiful family for receiving me and for providing a gentle and enjoyable "decompression" from America to Japan; to Rei and Beatrice for capable tour guiding and companionable conversation; and finally to my wife and family and my school, for doing without me for a week, in the service of presenting the good work we are doing and sharing it with the world. Sayonara!
posted by Scott Merrick at 6:01 AM

Darrick and Atsuko's Photos
Up in the wee hours of Easter morning, raining cats and dogs in Nashville (I wonder if they're the same cats and dogs...?). I took some time to reformat many of the pictures from Atsuko's digicam, burned to CD for me by Darrick. There's also a neat 8 Mb or so movie, but I might not put that up on the Web (though it's great to have--I think I'll surely share it with my faculty and my family).

Here they are, and this time I'm going to do some explaining!

The pictures start off with a couple of Chogi (cho-ji), the Mosser's loveable pooch:

and move on to some taken at the yakitori (grilled chicken) restaurant where the Mossers and their neighbors, Dave and Becca, took me the first night on Rokko Island. This was in Kobe, and wow, was the food good. Also, as you can see, was the company...

The last series was taken at Harborland, a vast mall where we saw the amazing perpetual motion sculpture I described earlier. Meg and Masato were fun companions, and they really enjoyed the big Japan Soccer League recruitment festivities. Soccer was certainly the theme that weekend in the mall, as Japan prepares for hosting the upcoming World Cup competition:








posted by Scott Merrick at 5:05 AM