Colder Than Mars

"Yeah, I can't believe we're going into the 'polar vortex,'" I've been telling everyone. Including "Juan" at Trader Joe's yesterday who casually mentions that Chicago is "colder than Mars now."

Big Dog had just read that it was colder than the South Pole. Now it's colder than MARS?!

California's been having the most spectacular heatwave. A week or so ago, our Central Coast area was THE warmest place in the U.S. Hotter than Hawaii; hotter than Puerto Rico. I look up at the gorgeous blue cloudless skies and pray for rain. Only in my dreams are the hills changing color to their normal winter green.

So why the heck are we flying into the Deep Freeze?

I have never been in that kind of cold in my life. When my friend in Chicago tells me, "It's not that bad: temps have gone up to 9 degrees" I don't even know how to feel. What's the difference between minus 19 and just plain 9 degrees? I can't imagine anything colder than, say, 30 degrees, so anything below it is still fantasy land for me.

My father used to tell us how cold it was during the winters in Manchuria. He and his older brother loved to tell us it was so cold they had to take a hammer to the bathroom "because your pee would freeze and you'd have to knock it loose from your pecker." We believed them.

I am frightened. And when I am this scared, I am also terribly excited. As if I were getting ready to go to Mars.

Ten Year Anniversary

I don't remember the exact date I left Japan, but I quit all of my live radio shows in December of 2003 and I did one last gig on New Year's Eve of that year. I still had a few obligations in Tokyo and I continued to do specials on radio and tv for the next several years, but my days of being trapped in Tokyo because of regular radio and television shows was over.

A few days of wrapping things up and I was off to the Philippines where Big Dog and I began our Post-Japan Adventures.

Us dogs at play!

Land of Spectacular Sunsets

Wish this was our house...

That was ten years and many adventures ago.

To commemorate our ten years of freedom, what do the Dogs do? Buy an RV! And not just any RV but one on eBay that we have never really seen, been inside or driven; one that is in Chicago, THE coldest place on the planet right now. And we're going to drive it through the ice and snow… "from the midnight sun where the hot springs flow… our only goal will be the western shore… aaaaaaaaaaah - ah!" (Better pack that Led Zeppelin CD…)

Happy Year of The Horse

No, not that Neil Young movie. It's the Year of the Horse in the Chinese Zodiac, silly.

Time to run wild, run free.