This post is kind of overdue because for some reason, Spaces won't let me publish - the button just hasn't deemed to make itself clickable. So, as with most other things, I find myself experimenting with new software, in this case Windows Live Writer, to get this done. It's been strange really, how things have been falling apart around me. And yet, having served as the catalysts for me to move on, they have not been without their benefits. Always look for the silver lining I say, and it always does exist. It's just a matter of perspective.

Well, over the last couple of days, I have redone the album for 2005 that centered around Hiroshima, and uploaded my Hokkaido pictures. For Hiroshima, I decided to include the pictures while I was interning at Hiroshima Gas in 2001. These were an odd array of pictures that mostly featured those others who had gone with me, and would thus have been unusable by themselves. The Hiroshima album was certainly an interesting one to put together...I was able to reflect on my days as an undergraduate, when life was certainly a lot simpler. Anyway, I should add that most of the Hiroshima Peace Park pictures were taken by my friends Jyo and Yonutsu since I had gone off to do some fieldwork at the company where I had interned instead. Once again, you will not see either of these people prominently (Jyo-san doesn appear here and there in the background) because I have opted not to post my friends' images out of respect for their privacy.

The same thing goes for the Hokkaido pictures. I have no excuses here regarding shot selection - Jyo-san's pictures were simply much better compositions, and so I defer to his masterful captures of the barren Hokkaido winter landscape. The one thing that I would like to mention is that the travel route included doesn't exactly follow a linear chronological order, since the Sapporo jaunts were split over 2 days. Thus, the university and beer garden session took place on the first day, followed by the trip to Jozankei, before we return again to the Shiroi Koibito Park and Old Governor's Office.

I'm not sure exactly what to put up next at the moment, since the tons of pictures I still have are all over the place, and I don't really want to clutter the multimedia page with too many small albums. At the moment, I'm thinking of folding my Koya-san pics into the 2004 Wakayama album, and of creating a Kyoto album, and maybe and Ise-shima and Nara album. In any case, I really need to get some work done, so I think that all shall remain as is for the present time.

Whatever the case, as sparse as she is, this is my baby, yeah! Programmed line by line to the very finite ends of my knowledge of HTML in notepad. It's like how some landlubbers need to be in touch with mother earth to feel tangible and real. The intent here is not to reject newer advances in technology, or Web 2.0, but to exert the kind of rigor that an auteur would; it is said that there was always intent behind each character, no matter how minor, in every scene of a Kurosawa film. If there was a bald bystander, there was a reason. If a dog scampered past, it has to be read contextually within or without the boundaries of the film. If it rained, it was probably meant to evoke an emotive state of sorts. Similarly, the control I have been able to wield over every nook and cranny has meant that every element of this site was created purposefully with artifacts that are of special symbolic to me. Personally, I think that the design of a home page triumphs over functionality if there is a conflict between the two. My anti-establishment nature has also meant that just because no one else is doing it does not suffice as sufficient cause for me to abandon my individuality to a pre-determined template. Oh, I'm no advocate of nihilism, but being a humanist, I'm afraid that at any fork in the road, I would rather make the biggest colossal mistake of all time than to be one with the masses, especially when the masses, as far as my unreliable senses of the empirical world suggest, are in agreement. The trick of course is to be able to repent, which is where a dose of humility is always necessary, and which should be the case, for there is little (if anything) in this world that warrants self-aggrandizement. And ultimately, as someone once said, and this is not verbatim, "Home is the place where you can always return, and where they can never turn you away." This is my little corner on the WWW, and she is where I'll always feel at home. So welcome to my cartoony little corner of the Web (yes, academics are like little children, so be gentle...), low in functionality, but where a part of me will always reside.

To the stars, despite adversity.