One Year: Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami

Japan marked the one year anniversary of one of the most devastating natural disasters in recorded history.

At 14:46 on March 11, 2012, the nation came to a standstill as an one-minute moment of silence was observed. I also participated from the East Coast of Canada, at 00:46 of March 11, 2012 in marking this tragic anniversary.

As I have mentioned to some of my friends and twitter followers, my continued interest with the earthquake and tsunami roots from the fact that I experienced the Great Hanshin earthquake while I lived in Kaisai region. Though I was not in the hardest hit city of Kobe, the experience of Shindo 4 when I was merely 5 years old forever etches certain things into your mind.

In the aftermath, I spent three sleepless weeks as I followed every incident happening in my homeland. You have no idea how it feels to be so helpless as you watch your homeland face a crisis not unlike that of war.

I hope some of the people reading this will convey on the message from the Emperor, the Japanese people and supporters of Japan throughout the world, that:

I deeply thank the people of the world who gave tremendous support to the people of Japan in this time of need.

                                                                                                       – Emperor Akihito

Remember that life is precious but fragile. Enjoy the joys of living, because to borrow a famous quote, the day you wasted is a day that someone else wanted to live.

Happy New Year 2011!

To everyone, a Happy New Year 2011!

To everyone who has visited my blog in 2010, a big thanks for helping my blog grow into a 70,000+ hit site! I really appreciate your readership.

Hopefully 2011 will be a great year for you all!

Since 2011 is the Year of the Rabbit in the Chinese/Japanese calendar, here are some bunny art!

Just a little something

A beer opener I got from a friend that visited Hawaii last week.

Looks very nice!

Updating Blog Layout

Tonight, I will be updating the blog layout after four months of using monochrome developed by mono-labs, a Japanese-based WordPress development group.

Anyhow, while I update several sections of the blog, the site’s layout will be a mess – please bear with me while I try to finish as soon as possible!

UPDATE: Done! Didn’t take much editing!

Reinstalled Windows 7

Took some time from my evening to reinstall my dying Windows 7.

It’s been running since early January when I reinstalled it last; I usually do a full reinstall every 4 months. This time, I let it rot for 6 months and a whole lot of gunk had built up in addition to some features of 7 dying on me for some strange reason.

The whole reinstall took only 4-5 hours. Only Microsoft Office 2010 to be installed next, and I will be done!

My fresh desktop!