Japan earthquake and tsunamis

I was lying down with Theo this afternoon, half-sleeping, when I realized that my phone had been buzzing in my pocket far more than normal for the middle of the afternoon. I woke up to find that I had multiple messages from email and Twitter friends asking if I was OK.

I immediately had the idea at the time there had been an earthquake, but had no idea until I could get to my computer how powerful it had been. I've felt earthquakes here, but of course nothing that compares to the devastation in the pictures and video from Sendai and Tokyo.

We are in the far west of Japan, at least 1000 miles from the worst of the quake's devastation. Still, I've been answering questions and catching up with friends and family throughout the afternoon and evening as they wake up to the terrible news.

According to a public statement from US 7th Fleet, Ruth's ship had just pulled in this morning for a port visit in Malaysia, but has already prepared to get back underway so they can be ready to assist wherever they might be needed. I felt a bit cheated once I realized I was going to miss out on a videochat, but since I wasn't expecting to hear from her at all, that soon passed. I'm far more concerned now for the people of Japan and all over the Pacific rim who are likely to continue to be affected.

The base here in Sasebo has been affected very little. One ship that was in port is getting ready to get underway to respond to the disaster. Our sea level rise was predicted to be a half-meter or less, so I'm sure the ships that remain here have had to take precautions with their line handling, but our geography protects us from the tsunamis that hit Japan's Pacific coast.

Facebook and Twitter have been such a blessing today, as I've been able to get word to my loved ones quickly and get word from my friends in Japan who were affected by the quake. Thanks to all my readers and friends who have asked about us.

I've heard of Twitter's usefulness in other crises around the world, but this has really been the first time I've really seen its power firsthand in gathering and distributing information from areas hit by disaster. Even tonight I see people in Tokyo getting assistance with finding transportation or a place to spend the night. As a tweet that just passed across my screen noted, "I'll never bitch about Twitter again."

Hanging out...

Theo and I are catching a sleeper train tonight from Okayama to Tokyo. Right now the challenge is keeping him from disintegrating while we wait for the train, which doesn't arrive until 3+ hours after his usual bedtime. He's doing pretty well so far...

Media alert

I was interviewed a couple weeks ago by Amy at SpouseBUZZ.com about some of the unique issues of being a male military spouse. The video is online now. I really enjoyed talking with Amy!

Chills. Seriously.

Things I think every day, but never talk about

Yesterday afternoon I found this Ta-Nehisi Coates article while waiting for Theo to wake up from an unexpected nap. For once, maybe convincing myself that I didn't have enough time to start a new project around the house was a good thing.

This is how I felt after Theo was born, when I realized how close I'd come to losing Ruth. I've never escaped the knowledge that at some other place or in some other time, I would've certainly found myself alone at the end of that crazy week.

"...you need only look to the immediate past, or you need only look around the world, or you need only come close to losing the love of your small, young life to understand a correlating truth--pregnancy is potentially lethal work."

I love it when this happens

I already posted this over on Dailymile, but I've added to it somewhat here.

This is a story from yesterday's run -- the experience is actually a pretty common one as a foreigner here, but I laughed harder than usual at the circumstances. I was running down the sidewalk on a nearby main road, one that I'm on several times a week. I came upon several groups of Japanese students, probably in their early teens or so - I have a hard time judging age here.

There was one very large group of a dozen or more schoolgirls, acting as schoolgirls do. They were milling about, blocking most of the sidewalk outside a bank. No big deal, I didn't think anything of it. About 50 meters away from them, I wondered if I'd have space to make it through the chattering, giggling crowd ... at 30 meters away, I realized from their body language that *I* was the object of some of the chattering ... they were starting to make a hole for me to run through, jumping back and forth across the sidewalk. Ten meters out, they'd separated into two groups on either side of the walk, when they suddenly became eerily quiet and all started looking in any other direction than mine.

I knew exactly what was going to happen next, because it happens so often here, but it hasn't gotten old yet.

Just as I passed through the group, one of the girls -- who had no doubt been double-dog-dared by her friends -- broke the silence and meekly said, "Konichiwa."

I replied, in my best big booming voice, "KONICHIWAAAA" and kept right on running, causing the entire crowd of girls to explode into loud, giggly tween laughter.

The giant can talk! I'm never sure, when this happens, if the kids are making fun of my awful, awful Japanese or just thrilled that the gaijin can speak a few words. I figure if they're laughing and I'm laughing, I can just file it under "contributing to improved foreign relations."

I love conversations with my wife

Ruth: "So what do you think of the new Starbucks logo?"

Me: "It's fine. Who cares? It's like 90% of the old logo, are people really not going to know it's still Starbucks?"

Ruth: "Well, people don't like change."

Me: "Fuck people. What do they know?"

Tonight's example of "It's exactly like you've heard."

So I wanted a run today, but with Theo out of school for the week, it had to be an after dinner run. By the time I could get out the door, it was just before 8PM.

Along my running route there's a private school, or maybe it's a tutoring center -- I don't know enough Japanese to know the exact nature of the place. Most of the time I'm running past during the day, so I can't see inside, but running after dark I can glance inside as I run past.

Tonight, well after 8:30PM, there was a room of over a dozen kids, probably early high school or maybe slightly younger, deep in thought in the first-floor classroom, while a teacher explains a graph on the dry erase board at the front of the room. There were other kids heading from the convenience store across the street into other classrooms I couldn't see.

This didn't shock me, based on what I knew before we moved here; but it was just another reminder that we are here at a perfect time in our lives and as much as I enjoy our temporary status here, I would not be well suited to living "real life" in Japan.