Muji Man or Muji's Next Top Model

Sam is finally big enough to wear his Muji outfit from his Uncle Dan and Aunt Tomo. He loves the jacket, especially getting green beans all over it like he did last night at the campout.

Bath Time and Spelunking

Here are some new videos of Sam from the last couple of weeks.

Sam loves to play after his bathes, especially splashing in the water.



And he is still exploring under the futon.

Here are two more Coedo beers--the black, Guinness-like Shikkoku and the Ruri pilsner. I know this might be anathema on these pages (the term is used here loosely) but I have to say I enjoyed the pilsner the most. Don't let its light color fool you--it's a bitter and bracing beer, just right with bread and cheese or a good German meal. I never appreciate my heritage as much as when I'm sitting down to sausages, potatoes, bread, cheese and beer.

I've gotta begin with the usual caveat: NACAS (Not As Cute As Sam) but here are a few bikes I saw yesterday that seemed worthy of inclusion in the Lug Bros. Hall of Fame. They're notable for two reasons: the first for being a mountain bike and the second for having gears. When the cool kids are riding single speeds, the COOLER kids are riding twenty one speeds.

New Road

It's been awhile since I posted an actual ride report, but since they have opened up a new road here in Utica, it is worth posting one.

Utica is no longer the end of the road. Last week they opened up a new road running out of town through the old ammunition plant. It goes from the north of town out to Indiana 62. Yesterday was the first time that I got to ride it.

It has a long, gradual up hill (about 2 miles) before topping out at the top near an old cemetery and then runs into the highway. From our house it is 5 miles up to 62.

The road is not in great shape, but is certainly ride able.

We have had a lot of rain in the last week, and there is a small creek running along the side of the road for a while, and it was nice to hear to the small waterfalls as I was riding past yesterday.

Sam New Tricks

Sam keeps growing up and learning all sorts of new things. He is pulling himself up on all fours now, and has started to rock back and further, so anytime now he will be crawling, and we are in for a whole new world of parenting.

While he is currently not crawling, he does propel himself around by rolling and scooting along backwards. He likes to try and get under the futon in the TV room. Why I am not sure, but he always makes a bee line for it when we put him on the floor. Saturday I put him on the floor, left the room for a minute, and came back to find him half way under the futon.

Lastly, he had peas for dinner tonight and managed to get them all over his face.

Two beers here--they look the same but are in fact totally different. The top, Yebisu Amber, is a seasonal beer. It went on sale yesterday. It's got Yebisu's trademark bracing clarity but is fuller and bitterer than standard (gold label) Yebisu or (green label) The Hop. I really like the new can design. Minimalist elegance.


The bottom beer is brewed by a small company in Saitama. Saitama is the prefecture directly to the north of Tokyo. Sometimes you hear it called the New Jersey of Japan. Convenient, most likely full of hidden attractions (did you know that there are more bear sightings per mile of the Appalachian Trail in New Jersey than in any other state?), but largely forgotten in the shadow of its much larger and more glamorous neighbor. In fact, some less-charitable folks call it DaSaitama, a pun that combines the prefecture's name with the word dasai which can be translated as "uncool" or possibly "frumpy". (Contrast this with Ebisu, the swanky part of Tokyo where Yebisu's parent Sapporo Beer has its headquarters.) Despite its unfashionable provenance, Coedo beer is very good (and comes in a good-looking bottle). There are four or five brews, differentiated, like Chimay, by color. In the shop by our house you can find blue, black, and red. The blue label is a light pilsner, the black label a stout, and the red label an amber lager. The red, called beniaka in Japanese, is brewed with sweet potatoes which give it a distictive sweet, almost heavy flavor, better perhaps after dinner than with food. The company has a cool website. The text is in Japanese, but it's easy to navigate by graphics alone. Here's the address: http://www.coedobrewery.com/swf/index.html