Snippets from Pacific Standard Time

Who made a turkey? Oh yeah! I did! Lol -Dan

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 05:34:10 +0900

Who made a turkey? Oh yeah! I did! Lol -Dan

Yay! new Rammstein album. I bet only my brother cares...

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:58:27 +0900

Yay! new Rammstein album. I bet only my brother cares lol.

http://www.amazon.com/Liebe-Ist-F%C3%BCr-Alle-Dlx/dp/B002P7UCMC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1256842370&sr=8-1

Dan

Pizza for a year!

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:17:21 +0900

I just won a 500$ gift card to a pizza shop. There goes my diet lol. And tumblr has an iPhone app apparently. Happy Diwali.

Dan

Money-proof Your Marriage

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 13:31:09 +0900

The following is an article from USAA banking services that I think is awesome. Obviously there’s a lot of things that need to be communicated before getting married, but no one ever mentioned this one to us as clearly as this:

“Five Smart Strategies for Handling the Biggest Financial Merger of Your Life

Successfully merging your money when you marry isn’t as easy as slipping rings on each other’s fingers. Like marriage itself, you have to work at it. But learning to manage money as a couple can contribute mightily to your own personal tale of happily-ever-after.

“Some people don’t put much thought into that financial merger,” says J.J. Montanaro, a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER^TM practitioner with USAA, “and they put no effort or communication into it. Big mistake.”

In fact, 21% of couples fight over money daily or weekly, 10% fight monthly and 46% put on the gloves every few months, according to a 2008 study conducted by California State University, Los Angeles for Elle Magazine and msnbc.com.

But you can beat those stats and save your marriage from money battles before they start. Here’s how:

Communicate. That’s the key to money success before and after your wedding day. Each partner comes to a marriage with different money management styles. One might be a saver, the other, a spender. “So much of any marital success is based on compromise and meeting in the middle,” says Montanaro. “The same goes for managing money as a couple.”
Once you’re married, financial date nights are essential to regularly talk about your progress and make sure you’re both on the same page about money decisions. Spouses-to-be who discuss their money views and work together on how they can use their pooled resources may discover they enjoy the process — discovering that together they potentially have more financial power.
Share your goals. As singles, you probably had some kind of financial goals, whether they were vague, such as retire at the beach one day, or specific, such as own a home in three years. Write down those ideas and compare your lists. Then try to come to an agreement about how those translate into joint financial priorities for your future as a couple.
Your hit list should include budgeting, saving, retirement, debt management and which money decisions will be made as a team and which will be made individually, suggests Karen Goodfriend, a CPA and personal financial specialist.
Include short-term goals, such as buying a house, new furniture or planning a vacation, and long-term goals, such as including college planning and retirement savings. “Recognize there may be different perspectives, which is normal, and there isn’t a right and wrong,” says Goodfriend.
You can take your lists and meld your objectives into a family wish list, which will allow you to create a financial road map to reach those goals. If you have differences of opinion that you can’t resolve, enlist the help of an objective financial planner.
Create a spending plan. This plan will help you follow your financial road map. Goodfriend says putting it in writing will make it easier to see where your money is going. You’ll be able to plan for priority spending, eliminate waste and see if you’re on target to reach your goals.
Some married couples use joint accounts to pay the bills, while others use the yours-mine-and-ours approach. The latter might share a joint account for household expenses, then have individual accounts for mad money, funds to pay for gifts or other surprises.
Plan for the long term. Now that you’re working toward the same goals, see if your existing investments complement each other. “Look at all the different pieces of retirement plans and how they’re invested,” Montanaro says. “Next, examine how those plans are going to look together because you’re going to retire together,” says Montanaro.
If you were operating two households as singles and you’ll now be moving to one, your overall housing costs may go down, giving you a way to bump up your savings and investment rates for long-term goals.
Consider your credit scores. Make sure you know your partner’s credit history and divulge your own before you say “I do.” This is the time for full disclosure. “If one person has credit issues, the sooner the issues get addressed, the better chance to resolve,” says Goodfriend. “Once married, the couple will likely be taking on joint obligations, and if one spouse has a poor credit history, it could negatively affect the couple’s ability to get credit on favorable terms.”
The spouse with the poorer credit history could even benefit from a credit marriage. If the spouse with solid credit adds the spouse with poor credit onto his or her credit accounts, the poor credit spouse’s credit score may benefit, Montanaro says.”

We’re going to be comparing financial goals/wishes/dreams sometime this week. Never too late, right? Now he’ll know that I secretly want to retire in Paris, and have the grandkids visit for le jour de Noel, and eat Christmas cake. Ha. ;-)

-Christina

Homeschooling Book

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 14:43:13 +0900

I highly recomend checking out this book if you have time. It’s called: “Write these laws on your children” by Robert Kunzman. It is such a balanced perspective that I must share it. What are you reading? :)

-Dan

Summer (trips)

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 05:44:00 +0900

Dan started work this week and is enjoying the challenge and stimulation of being busy again. I’m happy that he got full-time shifts for October and that so far he doesn’t have to work any overnight shifts aside from one this Friday. I’m sure he’d welcome thoughts and prayers for job stability and for the wisdom and compassion needed to work with the kids and teens. He says he’s learning a ton already.

I’ve been enjoying cheap flights and free time. I visited my mom and sibs over Labor Day weekend. Two years apart was a long time and it was great to re-connect. They are all getting to be so grown-up. Only two in high school! It felt odd to be in MN again after 3 years, passing each exit on the freeway and reminiscing. Didn’t feel like home. But I’m not sure if Grand Rapids or Chicago would feel like home either.

My next trip was to CA to hang with friends who are all clustered in Northern CA. It felt way too short, but was amazingly relaxing. Hung out with Nan and John in Berkeley and San Francisco. Made me miss movie night sleep-overs in Japan from over a year ago. Stayed with Erica ( :-D ) and Matt in between Modesto and Fresno. Kind of the middle of nowhere. We drove an hour to get to a mall, haha. I’ve really missed her and it’s so nice to be back on the same continent and even in the same time zone!! Someday we’ll be back in the same city. ;-) I wish more good friends from Calvin were closer. Why is America so big? ;-P and why are flights to the other side of it so expensive?! Got to see Melinda for a fun hang-out at a farmer’s market and swap meet near Sacramento and it made me happy to see how she’s doing and see her smile again. Once again, two years on the other side of the planet is a looong time. Last but not least I had amazing fro-yo with Jenni and Eliot and got to talk about life and all the exciting but sometimes overwhelming and confusing changes and decisions. Congrats to the most adorable bride and groom. Seriously gorgeous. Definitely a people-focused trip. I’ll need to go back and be a tourist some other time.

Next trip will be a bit closer. We’re planning on seeing Cassandra and then Matt in Portland! Taking our Sonata out for a road trip. :-). Also, crossing my fingers that Jules will make it down here or vice versa in October. And then it should be Thanksgiving at the Fruehs’ in NJ. Yup, we’re really back. :-)

I’m currently busy organizing myself for school which starts in t minus 10 days. Also remembering/learning how to make healthy yummy food on a budget. Fitting in my last leisurely fiction reading before life gets crazy. Just got an email about a lecture being presented for my program on “Using Surface Electromyography to Study Vocal Hyperfunction” haha. Nope, I have no idea what that is… yet. Who am I kidding… I love that kind of stuff, haha.

Win and Lose

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:05:00 +0900

So I didn’t get the first job that I was looking into… but we did score big time on this:

Regular price is 400. We got it for… 270! It really is an amazing piece of machinery. We also got iphones:

Christina got white and I got black. They are AMAZING! We got to go on the lake too and here a pic of Christina taken w/ the new iphone 3GS.

-Dan

setting up in seattle

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 09:19:00 +0900

well, we’ve been back for just over a week, and we’ve set up a lot… in between running around in circles trying to get things done that just aren’t working out as fast as we had hoped.

we signed the lease for the apartment, and we’ve done lots of dollar store and goodwill shopping, and have found cheap appliances at fred meyer (a local store) and some other places, so the kitchen is pretty much all set. we got all the towels and sheets and such from amazon, and today we picked up a costco mattress (the amazon mattress got lost in the mail). the apartment has a weird spot in the hallway between the fridge and washer/dryer that’s only 26in wide, so finding a couch that will fit through to the living room area at any place other than “assemble-it-yourself-IKEA” will be rough. everyone who has heard us talk about couches will laugh at that, i’m sure. ;-)

so our biggest issue has been getting a car. we looked at used car dealerships in this area and didn’t find anything we were looking for. we met with a private seller and really liked the car, but couldn’t get the car into a mechanic before the seller was leaving the country, so that was disappointing, and now we’re looking at buying a car from my friend’s dad’s mechanic after he does some work on it this weekend. it’ll be a fine commuter car, but it’s just going to be a few more days or up to a week before it’s ready. so because of all the car delays, today we decided to get a small two-seater moped so that we could at least get around town without borrowing my friend’s mom’s car all the time, but apparently the fine lines of WA laws put even 50cc mopeds into the category of vehicles that you need a motorcycle license for. strike, out.

that’s been the other big issue… “proving” to the DMV that we have a WA residence. since we didn’t set up a land-line, or cable, or internet, we didn’t have any utilitiy work-orders, and you need either that or a utility bill to prove you live here. it’s kind of dumb. anyways, we’ve contacted our electric company and they are going to help us get some paperwork together that the DMV should hopefully approve. but we’re still crossing our fingers, ‘cause the past two times we’ve been to the DMV, the information we brought wasn’t enough, or wasn’t valid enough.

so anyways, we’re still at paul and debbie’s and they are absolutely wonderful hosts. we feel like we have a second family here already. so it’s nice we’re not feeling too rushed to get all our ducks in a row, but at the same time it’s just frustrating that my list isn’t getting crossed off quite as quickly as i had hoped. but hey, we’re here, and we’re healthy, and we’re still getting stuff done.

last saturday paul took us out on their boat and we got to see all of seattle from the water. it was so beautiful. i really need to upload some pictures. we’re going to like living in this pretty city. and our apartment location really is ideal for this coming year. we’re just not quite there yet…

dan’s still job hunting. the position he had an interview with this past week fell through… something sketchy about them no longer being able to hire counselors. so he’s going to tackle the latest job postings probably starting tomorrow. just another disappointment, or reality check, however you want to look at it.

we’re both a little overwhelmed at the moment, just trying to get our feet on the ground. i think that for the first 3 days or so it was wierd just to walk through an american grocery store or hear English spoken around us, but it’s amazing how quickly it all feels normal again. every day this week we’ve needed to borrow a car. i definitely forgot what living without a train line is like. but i think that after we’re more set-up we’ll be able to utilize the buses more and pick up some bikes to get around our area of town.

so, yeah, that’s where we’re at right now. i think i just needed to get that all off my chest. we do have cell phones now, so if anyone wants my number, just shoot me an email and let me know.

-christina

Dry Dock - Tokyo

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 05:09:26 +0900

Right before we left for Seattle, Christina and I went to a cute little bar called Dry Dock in Tokyo. Thought i’d share the pics!

Delicious Beer, friendly people. It was a good last place to visit before we left for good. I’ll miss Japan a lot!

-Dan

we're "home"

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:12:59 +0900

i’ve missed fruit salad. :-)

-christina

jump

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 08:43:00 +0900

tokyo was a good time. we’ll post pictures soon. pacific standard time here we come!

-christina

Dannychoo of Dannychoo.com fame organized an event that I was...

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 23:43:05 +0900

Dannychoo of Dannychoo.com fame organized an event that I was able to attend on August 4th right before I left Japan. He assembled quite a few figures from his collection and arranged them in a gallery for the enjoyment of others. HOWEVER, much to my dismay, he was not there to greet anyone who ventured in to his art concept. The good news was that his new figure that he had comissioned many moons ago was ready and available to see to anyone who wanted to see it.(it is the figure in the attached picture.) The bad news was that outside the gallery, there were people offering to give you a free Vitamin Water if you checked out the gallery. Therefore, everyone I went in with and all the three groups after me simply ignored the figures and rushed in to get a free Vitamin Water (which is a sugary drink that has the caloric content of a beer or large chocolate bar). In so doing, they missed a truly puzzling and startling installation that challenged me in the way that I think of anime and it’s current medium. There are people who believe that they are “otaku” or nerds. However, I would call myself a “Dannychoo Otaku.” This would mean that I enjoy Dannychoo’s blog and read it everyday even though I do not particularly connect with or understand much of what he posts about the Otaku subculture. Irregardless, I love his insight and dedication to the promotion and undestanding of many parts of Japanese nerd (otaku) culture as well as other sub-cultures. Thank you so much! I am so sad I never go to meet you!

-Dan

yesterday we gave some calvin students (who are here on a summer internship) a brief tour of...

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 15:40:00 +0900

yesterday we gave some calvin students (who are here on a summer internship) a brief tour of hikone. the poor kids just got here and are in “quarantine” for a few days at a hotel ‘cause their host families are afraid that all americans have the flu. :-P it was weird to hear all their reactions… like “wow, look at how tiny all the chip bags and cereal boxes are. how cute!” meanwhile i’m thinking “whoa, my perception has changed…”

also, two years post college and i feel so removed from “campus life.” apparently there’s a brand new wing to my old dorm, and calvin has an amazing brand new sports center.

so we’ve ordered our new mattress, a nice refurbished vacuum, and a few other household things on amazon now. it was like we had our own private wedding registry, haha. now goodwill needs to be kind to us… and supply the rest. ;-) i can’t wait for a brand new bed. :-)

-christina

ps. very last day of work in japan ever! and i’m off in 15 min!!!!!! yay vacation!!! :-D except there’s still a lot to do. in an hour the landlord is coming over to clean and re-wallpaper a wall that has water damage. joy. rainy season…. :-P

click for summer photo album

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:50:26 +0900

click for summer photo album:

for any non-facebook users. :-)

it's an odd feeling...

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:44:38 +0900

— packing your whole life into a few pieces of luggage. it somehow feels good to downsize and let go, but also feels very weird to say goodbye to all the little things you’ve used for two years…

-christina

It’s been awhile. I will be home in 1 month. In the mean...

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 20:45:39 +0900

It’s been awhile. I will be home in 1 month. In the mean time i’ll be enjoying the NEW sorbet that japan just came out with this week! la france and framboise.

-Dan

july plans

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:12:00 +0900

our last month in japan is filling up really quickly. we have some kind of farewell/goodbye event scheduled every weekend. we’re also going to squeeze in some last minute dental cleaning, hair straightening, etc. we’ve started a small list of touristy-type things we want to see or do before leaving, but realistically we’ll have to leave some of those things until we’re old and retired and return to shiga to re-live the memories. or maybe someday we can show our kids how cool we were, and they’ll roll their eyes and call us big nerds.

speaking of which… waaaay too many friends are having babies! this isn’t a bad thing. it’s wonderful — it just makes me feel old.

also, loving “the nest” makes me feel old and domestic. ;-) http://www.thenest.com/

-christina

little by little

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:24:00 +0900

checking things off the list. we just sold our sofa and tv set. (thanks katie and michael. :-) ) still looking for someone to take the moped off our hands. and i think everything else is going to my successor who i’ve recently been in contact with. dan just got the contact information for his successor, too, so we both get to play “senpai” and hand off 2 years worth of advice, for whatever it’s worth. ;-)

also, dan has a job interview via phone on saturday morning our time. it’s through a state certified outpatient facility that offers live-in, full-time mental health and substance abuse support to kids through teens (and their families or foster families.) it’s known as psychosocial rehabilitation services. (info: http://www.uspra.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=1) it would be awesome to have a job lined up for dan before we even get back. and he thinks this position will be challenging but a really good fit. so we’re trying not to get our hopes up too high. but major props to dan for job hunting so early. we’ll know more on saturday. pray and cross your fingers.

i’m looking forward to kobe this weekend. china town fried food here we come!

-christina

in the market for a car

Tue, 26 May 2009 17:15:00 +0900

two years without one has been great! we’re hoping to avoid using one as much as possible. buses and “zip car” options should take care of a lot of our transportation needs this next year. but i think that setting up life as an adult in another country will require wheels. at first we were looking at financing a car, and had worked it into our little budget for the year, but then we laughed and realized we’ll both be unemployed when we want to buy it. so cash in hand, craigslist on the laptop, and a generous maintenance budget will probably get us something as utlitarian and well-maintained as… http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/cto/1188814857.html

boring but should last until i get a real job. or at least until dan’s had a job for 6 months and has a good credit score.

hey look, how to take care of an old “beater”: http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/maintenance/articles/126391/article.html wow, i know nothing about cars.

i wanna be in seattle already!

-christina

it's arrived

Wed, 20 May 2009 13:24:46 +0900

welp, the pig flu invaded shiga prefecture today. all the big sports tournaments are cancelled.

classes tomorrow??

-christina