Boxing Up My California Life

Ready or not, my departure date will be here soon. I have only one week left before I leave for Korea, which means, most likely, there will be one more post from the United States.

There are a couple of big things that have changed. First of all, most of the stuff in the house is gone. This includes clothes. I have been wearing two pair of clothes for the last week and a half. Everything else was either packed or taken to the SPCA store. I have found some good stuff in the process. Swim caps. Change. Tools. Flash lights. Oh and this...
I also have been applying for my Japanese visa. I drove into San Francisco last Thursday to begin the process. The process, it turns out, is really not fun. The visa application for Japan requires information that I have never given anyone else because it is not actually useful. One of the big things was the street address for our house in Hawaii. They wanted it, not that it would do them any good. Mail can't be sent to the house, and if you want to find the house, the address is not going to help you at all. But they needed it. The other thing they needed was Manabu's (with whom I plan to stay) address and phone number. Oh well, I think it is all worked out. I go to pick it up tomorrow.

Let's see. Other major developments. Ralph, Rick, Sean, Deigo and I finished our game. Great ending. Diego managed to concoct the best plot twist I have ever seen. I will miss hanging out with them on Sundays a lot, I suspect.

Oh, and I sold my car. Last week I put an ad on Craig's List. Incredible response. I got 15 e-mails asking about the car, but only one person who actually met up with me. As an after thought, I put an ad in the paper. One person called me about the ad in the paper, agreed to see the car, drove the car, then bought the car, all in a 2 hour period of time. So here is the new owner of my precious car and I just after the sale.
Me saying goodbye.
And watching it drive away for the last time...
I miss it already, but it had to be done. I can't keep it. If I did it would just sit around and get old. It needs someone to use it and treat it well. Keep it serviced and have adventures in it.

And now, the coincidence of the month. My car was a 2000 Subaru Forester L. In my opinion, it is the best car in the world. It is fuel efficient, safe, rarely breaks down, strong, useful, attractive, willing to go on adventures and experience as much of life as possible. As it turns out, it was made in Gunma prefecture. In fact, it was made in the same town as Keiko. Draw your own conclusions...