June 14, 2008 - Las Vegas - Marumoto Family Reunion

I accompanied my wife and her family to her father's family reunion. Since most of them are from Hawaii, it was held in Las Vegas at the California Club.

We had a great time. Originally it was a family reunion for a group of siblings of one family since they were scattered all over the country. Then they invited cousins, and soon almost all of them came, including my wife's brothers and sisters, and her aunt.

It was a lunch and we took about four hours...for most of them, there were a few that they did not know. We met a few of the cousins in Honolulu a few years ago, and when one of the great uncles passed, my wife and her sister met a lot of them.

My daughter met some cousins who were close to her age. They had shared email, facebook, aim, cell phones, etc.

There were pictures - like when my daughter's grandfather when he was around 5, just before World War II sent him and his family to the Mainland to an internment camp. The other cousins did not, and missed the time to know him since he never traveled back to Hawaii after that.

But now that connections are made and emails exchanged, there will be more opportunities for the family members to re-meet and share experiences.

It was really a short trip for me. After taking some of the kids to the Outlet for some shopping, and since I had to drive back the next day, I went to sleep!

Toy Story Midway Mania

On Friday, I was finally able to get on the new attraction at Disney's California Adventure, Toy Story Midway Mania. An attempt earlier in the day to ride it failed since the attraction was down. After a couple of hours, it reopened. The new line slowly snaked its way around the queue. Mr. Potatohead, the queue entertainment was not on.

I couldn't count how many midway games were part of the ride. It was fun! Such a small space with so much in it. Traveling between games got me dizzy, 'tho, because the cars would spin around and those 3-D glasses didn't help either.

My score wasn't that great. My arm was getting tired, then I remembered it would be easier on my left than my right. The 3-D effect was cool.

The commercials on tv says this is "Toy Story Mania" and it doesn't mention Disney's California Adventure, but Disneyland Resort. That's something for the trivia books.

My score was a dismal 117,800.

All-You-Can-Eat Korean BBQ

Wow did I make a pig of myself. Or was that a cow?
To celebrate a colleague's birthday, our staff went to an all-you-can -eat Korean BBQ, I did the cooking at one of the grills - we were a large enough party to have three grills going. I think I kept up and still ate lots. In fact too much...I think I had enough beef to last a while.

Locovore

http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/travel/01e
xplorer.html?8dpc=&pagewanted=all (put both lines together in your URL box)

Explorer | Sonoma County, Calif.

On the Trail of a Sustainable Feast in Sonoma

If you could read this New York Times article (June 1, 2008 in the Travel Section), it is very interesting about an idea in Sonoma County on sustainable living. We live in a global economy whether we want to or not, but in Sonoma you could make an attempt on sustainable living, living off of resources within 100 miles of your home. Of course, it is not possible to be 100%, especially in Sonoma, but the county in California does have the resources to make it viable. Locovores, consuming locally produced products, are what they call themselves.

It reminds one of living off the land in our distant history - probably 80 years ago. In addition to the wine industry, Sonoma is selling itself on agrotourism, so any visitor can have this opportunity in sustainable living.

Of course, anything is good with a bottle of good wine, which we know is plentiful in Sonoma.

Indiana Jones and the Ultimate Quest

On the History Channel, I was watching "Indiana Jones and the Ultimate Quest." http://www.history.com/shows.do?action=detail&episodeId=295858 The show explained some of the myths explored in all four of the Indiana Jones movies. Could some of it be real? Apparently, some of the stories explored are also stories explored by today's archaeologists. George Lucas did not necessarily set the stories in the geographical areas that they can be found.

The show had interviews with many different archaeologists. I read somewhere that there is a brief increase in interest in archaeology that could be due to the attention that the character Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr., have brought.

I remember thinking about what fun that would be...I also thought it would be fun to be a paleontologist, too. I guess it was the adventure and the possibilities of a new discovery that was appealing.