Many years ago, I was in the middle of a series of heated arguments about the wisdom of building nuclear reactors in a country with such frequent earthquakes.

I found myself at the Musée d'Orsay a few weeks ago when I had only a few hours of free time left in Paris. I wasn't particularly looking for it, nor did I know that it was a part of the collection there, but I chanced by a painting by Gustave Courbet titled "L'Origine du monde" or "The Origin of the World".

So here we are, on a new incarnation of the After Hours Japan forum. This is the 2nd version of After Hours Japan, and I believe the fourth version of our community altogether. I've been a part of this Japan community for 6.5 years myself, and I'm still one of the newer folk. In Japan, it's rare to get a community like ours, and it's my goal to keep us going strong and moving into the future.

It's been an intense few days of work trying to piece this new site together, while keeping the site both alive and running, and not losing any data in the process.

So, it`s been a couple of months since my last update. I have been really busy enjoying myself this Summer and I gots tons of stories to tell, but I want to finish this thing with Kiwako. The blog post before this is a post I made back in the beginning of July in the forum that I put up here. I realize how useful this blog thing is in terms of remembering specific situations I've been in and how I've dealt with them.

This is just a quick add on..., something I am gonna put into this blog so I don`t forget. Last night I kinda fell into a date with a friend I`ve had for the past couple years. She used to be a flight attendant but now she works for the city I live in. Her husband works overseas.

The original plan was that three of us go out and get something to eat and drink, but the other girl couldn`t make it so instead of going out with two attractive girls it ended up being only one.