Rocking in Hakata

Greg - you got it, buddy. :-)

Ha ha - it's your site, so it's your call. Just saying.

Deas ... I'm still reading it everyday.

Very sad around here. The memorial service for the firemen was held Friday. Parts were carried live on CNN. Well over 10,000 people attended, including firemen from all over the nation. I think we've all been surprised at how deeply this has affected all of us in the community and all over the nation.

There were over 250 fire trucks from as far away as Ohio and Florida in the memorial service procession. The rolled from the aquarium to Coming St and then by station 15 (where one of the firefighters was stationed), then down Spring St and on to Savannah Highway, past the Sofa Superstore to 526 and then to the Coliseum. The entire route was lined 2 and 3 deep. It was quite moving.

Warren Pepper was interviewing Rob Dewey Friday night and remarked at how uplifting and hopeful the memorial service seemed and that it definitely had a Christian tone and asked if that was by design. Rob answered that it certainly was by design and that the mayor had much to do with that.

greg

How about putting me on your blogroll?

sorry, the popup comments stay; I prefer them that way. but maybe tabmix plus firefox extension can make them less invasive for you?

Dude...lousy news on the job...I hope that that situation turns around for you. I'm surprised nobody has snatched you up already, though. Crazy. Keep me updated about your other possibilities. I'm rooting for you.

I'm still here... just busy chuggin away at job applications. ick. I ended up not getting that job I was hoping on, unfortunately. They wanted someone with "more higher ed experience" even though I was several people's first choice. Oh well. A couple other possibilities on the horizon.

Clay - I plan on revamping over summer, and I know that commenting on other peoples' sites pings me back into their consciousness. I was asking due to the lull in comments combined with the surge in spam filter use. Thought I was nuking non-spam by accident. That's all. But your advice is sound. You're the second person who's told me that this site is slow to load. Truth is, it loads quickly for me, so I forget that other people have different experiences. As for the template, I plan on changing it. I want something with AJAX in it for comments. What irks me about your site is the pop-up comments. I wish that would go. Anyhoo - I'll look into it and see what I can do to make a more user-friendly site. :-)

I would comment more, but it is a bit of a pain to visit this site; it takes a long time to load these black bubbles, and in the mean time nothing is legible. C'mon, I know this is a template; I've seen it before. Time to switch to something simple you yourself made.

BTW, comment on people's sites more and they will remember your site more and comment back.

Carlie - I'm basically guilty of the same thing on your site...haha...in fact, I've only commented once, if I remember correctly. :-)

Mayumi-san - Fire is scary, indeed. I'm glad you enjoyed the video yesterday. Might be a long time before I can put another one online.

As the saying goes 「地震、雷、火事、親父」, fire is scary. Oyaji doesn’t have much power anymore these days, though. haha Anyway I feel sorry for them.
By the way I enjoyed the short trip yesterday. Thanks.

I read but probably don't comment enough. I'll try and comment more :)

Mel - Yeah, I wasn't actually worried about the lack of comments as much as I was that the spam filters might be eating them all... I've only had 181 spam comments removed since I started this blog and 80 of them have been over the past week...which gave me that suspicion. :-) But you are very much correct on blogging philosophy - it is over once you care more about people commenting than anything else. No worries, I just really like comments. Ha ha. Nothing dark or warped about it...yet... (DUM dum DUUUM!)

Alex - yeah, it really does suck. 9 firefighters died. I imagine a brushfire would have been covered much more by the news due to the dramatic nature of the images you'd get. Either way, the destruction and your distance from it is uncomfortable to say the least. :-)

PS - Comments still seem to work!

Reminds me of the brushfire in San Diego in 2004. At the time I was studying in Tokyo. It sucks seeing your hometown burn to the ground.

Come now Deas, if you worry about things like the number of comments or the number of people that visit your site then it's over. :/ Quite frankly I'm used to the lack of comment thing, but that doesn't mean I stop writing. On another note since I have a feed on my livejournal I do read your posts everyday, I just don't comment often because oftentimes I've nothing to contribute.

*shrug* Ya got to things with a grain of salt. It's also summer too.

P.S. I hope you're still coming to my summer camp. Looks like we've got a waterballoon fight and wall climbing on the horizon =)

I'm still here. I don't read everyone's blogs as often though. I've been very busy with moving preparations and all. But I still do drop by from time to time :)