Seeing The Unseen

Today was a scary day to be a citizen of the world. You may not have felt it where you live, maybe things in your neighborhood were quiet and normal. But if you lived abroad today odds are, you didn’t feel that way. Most likely the embassy where you live, sent you a message to avoid protesters and stay away from large crowds even if they appeared peaceful at first. The international air is thick with tension this weekend, for many different reasons. In so many countries today the protests were violent and stem from deep religious and ideological differences that have formed a great divide of hatred. Many of those protests and much of that violence in the Muslim world is directed against the U.S. In our spot of the world the anger isn’t directed our way (something which we are very thankful for). We have always been treated graciously. But the tensions among Asian nations here are at an eruption point. In our city, and around this nation today, anything and everything Japanese c...

Our little spot in the world is famous for a few things, beer being one, beaches another, and sailing 3rd. We were given the rare opportunity to genuinely experience the last one on the list this past Saturday. Rob and Alex have gotten to know a man named Jimmy in the past few months, who is a good friend, and a witty conversationalist. They have had many varied discussions on topics all over the grid, ranging from our very favorite book down to Jimmy’s very favorite hobby; sailing. Apparently Jimmy is quite the experienced sailor, having sailed in clipper ship races, from here, to Europe, down to Brazil. The boats he takes on these crazy races are quite large and manned by a crew of a few men. But he also docks a smaller private sailboat in the marina which is for fun shorter excursions. So Saturday he graciously agreed to host us, the Tandon’s, and our friends Hunter&Sarah on our first sailing expedition. I have always wanted to go sailing. But meeting a friend w...