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glowingstar71
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Name: tommy
Location: San Leandro, California, United States
Gender: Male
Interests: photography, yo! especially of the fetishy kind. :)
Expertise: Watching Welcome to the Dollhouse, Freeway, Blue Velvet, Slums of Beverly Hills, Sixteen Candles, Pecker, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Groove (for sentimental reasons), Natural Born Killers, John Waters movies, Almodovar movies, John Hughes movies over and over again.
Occupation: photographer/corporate slave
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
10/17/2004
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screw YOU, JETs who are in japan now!
from the associated press:
"The dollar, which on Thursday
fell below 100 Japanese yen for the first time since late 1995, again
dipped as low as 98.88 yen Friday. It clawed back some ground and
traded at 99.21 yen, compared with the 102.04 yen it traded Thursday."
when i started on JET, it was 107 yen to the dollar. the next year it was 114. when i left, it was 121. blah!!! the only thing i feel lucky about is that part one of my pension refund came recently and part two should be here soon.
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| Seven months later....
thanks everyone who commented on my "pulse"! i haven't been on here in hella days, and yet i can't seem to just quit this blog.
it's been jussssssst about seven months since i moved back here to the san francisco bay area. life has been pretty good! but...there have been some blah things that have happened too.
i'll make a little list of the good and the bad that have happened....now:
the dark side
- had the seat stolen off my bike at the bart station
- had the front tire stolen off my bike at the same bart station (carrying your bike home reallllllllly sucks! i hope that asshole who took it gets what he/she deserves!)
- instead of making more money than before i left for japan, i had to settle for about 20% less
- rent for my apartment is a little over double what i was paying before i left for japan
- no car
the bright side
- got my japanese pension refund back already!!
- just got my state tax refund (and did my taxes already)!
- i can once again see the golden gate bridge, pacific ocean, alcatraz, and the bay bridge from my office window
- credit card debt is about 2/3 gone
- my wifey has a job she really likes and is able to contribute to our rent (muah!)
- i seem to have unlimited PTO (paid time off) at work and can take pretty much whenever i want off (though i don't abuse it)
- everywhere i go, people can understand exactly what i'm saying!
- taco trucks!!! with completely awesome tacos!!!!
- thick, cheesy pizza!!! with proper pepperoni and everything else!!!! (sadly, no mayo-corn here....)
the brightest side
got a photo i took published on the cover of a magazine in boston!!!!!!
also got two photos in the Gaijin Eye issue of Japanzine again this past January!
because there is a japantown here, i can still get stuff like this at the supermarket:
and on a final happy note, due to positive reception of my photographic style, my nikon has now paid for itself! i now have regular clients who i shoot for on a regular basis. good times!
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| greetings from california! i had such a fun time this past weekend with my wifey out in san fran. we biked from bart to fisherman's wharf like a couple of tourists, then made our way up columbus to north beach where we stumbled upon a reading of excerpts from jack kerouac's "on the road" (this being the 50th anniversary and all). then we went down to cafe zoetrope and had a cheap pitcher of great wine from francis ford coppola's vineyard. the cool thing was that there's a roped off booth JUST for the coppolas and their guests right there in his cafe. all-in-all it was just a relaxing evening. it felt amazing to be back.... | | |
| usa
wow...i can't believe i have been in the u.s. for three and a half weeks! or is it four weeks? time passes strangely sometimes as you transition from one place to another.
i love it here, but i kinda miss japan. most of all, i miss the safety aspect of living in japan. here, i walk with a pen in my hand in the (still pretty unlikely) event i need to stab someone in the eye if they attack me. er, not sure if that would really work, but in my head it's good enough!
and man, i never realized just how large american-sized portions were! i know there's a cliche about that, but for some reason, i guess i never noticed it before. in japan, i was able to eat and get full, but here, it's like...are restaurants trying to make us all hugely obese?! dang...or maybe half of every entree is meant to be taken home? hmmm.... yeah, big america.... big portions, big bellies, and big boobs...everywhere! and what's up with milk costing almost five bucks a gallon? when i left, you could get a two-gallon pack for about four bucks and change.
anyway...small update: i live in san leandro with my wifey, and i'm waiting to hear back from an investment bank. the first one didn't work out. shot a couple of HOT fetish models. went to the power exchange sex club in s.f. with my wifey and some friends and saw nothing appealing there at all. tomorrow i will be taking a drug test for the bank. living the minimalist lifestyle with only a papasan cushion, low table, and two lamps as furniture in our 600 square foot studio. i'm trying to keep it empty so i can use it as a photo studio (bought three strobes and a 10 foot tall background holder so i can shoot even people standing up).
as always...not sure how often i will update this thing...but there ya go.... ;)
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| this is it!
i will be picked up by the good people of my board of education in about an hour. then...it's about six more hours til flight time. gotta vacuum one more time, and then that's it. kinda anti-climactic, if u ask me. ;)
see you again, japan....
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