Long time no blog

It has been far too long since I’ve posted a blog. My last post was way back in May. Well, there’s good reason for that. I moved back to the US, as you may already know. It’s been a busy few months to say the least.

So, here’s a quick rambling recap:
I finished teaching English in Japan in July. My last classes were in the first 2 weeks of July. That’s when summer vacation starts for Japanese schools. I had to give a couple of farewell speeches. It was a sad time. Although I was excited to return to the US, I really love Japan, and I miss those students and my fellow teachers so much. Many of the students wrote me notes to say thank you. To be honest, I teared up while reading them.
We had quite a bit of paperwork to get together for my wife’s visa. That took up a lot of time, and now, she finally has it. Besides that, there was the actual moving of stuff and persons. I shipped most of my stuff via boat, because it was cheaper. Those took about 2 months to get to the US. And it was still expensive. A couple of those boxes were damaged, but I had all my stuff, so I guess it was worth it. My wife left before me to stay at her family’s place for a while. I stayed back and finished cleaning up the apartment and my desk at the school.




I then completely filled my tiny car and drove across Japan to my wife’s family’s place. It was a fun 7 hour drive. I stopped half way in Kyoto and had lunch at Café Indépendants, a fantastic boho cafe in Kyoto.
There was an interesting art show upstairs, too. (Whenever I can find a link to that show or the artists, I’ll provide that.)


Japanese rest stops, by the way, are really clean and really nice.



At my wife’s family’s house, I played with my daughter a lot, and we visited many friends. My daughter is amazing. Playing with her is the most enjoyable thing for me to do. Anyway, after 3 weeks there, I flew to the US. It was so great to see my family in the US. My nephew and niece had grown so much. Now I really miss my wife and daughter. (They’ll join me in just about a month.)
My first meal was Tex-Mex. And a couple of days later, I had chicken and sausage Jambalaya. Back in New Orleans I’ve found a few of those pounds I’d lost somewhere in Japan.
And now I’ve been back in the US for about a month. I’ve been searching for paying work, and have finally found some. This past week, I was an extra in the WWE Productions movie “Knucklehead”. And in about a week I’ll start work as a Set PA on “Chesterfield”, which is filming here in the New Orleans area. So, I’m back in the movies.

Now that I have paying work lined up, I’m going to focus in on my screenplay I’ve been trying to revise. In my last post I mentioned that I’d just finished structuring Act I. Well, I’m nearly to the midpoint now. I’ve done some tweaking to Act I, and I’ve even written a few of the opening scenes out in the actual screenplay. I think it’s turning out much much better than that first draft. It’s really seeming to come together.
The plan now is to post blogs more regularly now that I’m back and settled in the US. However, I have a lot of work to do on the screenplay, as well as on my novel, so bare with me folks. I also have another story project I’m working on. I’ll let you know more about that when I’m ready.
Until then, stay tuned.