Uncle Wally

This is your old Uncle Wally, signing in. Haven't been on this forum in years. Glad to see people still use it.

Happily married for 10 years now. 

JET Program participant 2003-2006, met the old lady back in them days. Living in New England with a halfu sprog.

I think my profile says that I'm 62 and my wife is 15, but we're both in our late 30s now. 

The only thing I don't think I posted here was the adjustment of status. Submitted a bunch of pictures of us at family Christmases, weddings, vacations, etc. to make evident that it wasn't a sham marriage, and we hired an immigration attorney to process it all just to play it safe. No problems.

Bump, for parody thread effect.

Paris, Texas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris,_Texas#Demographics

They've elected a new mayor:

It still happened, and it happened because of PC b.s.

Say what you want about global warming, but Al Gore isn't looking out for polar bears, Al Gore is looking out for Al Gore.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/64...illionaire.html

I'm not surprised that this happened here in Massachusetts. The PC crowd has been trying, with a marked degree of success, to take our schools over for years. As for it being alarming that he substituted himself for Jesus, who cares? He's 8. When I was 8, girls drew rainbows over pink houses with floral curtains in the windows, boys drew guys with bazookas blowing up dinosaurs and helicopters launching missiles at the school. Nobody was sent home.

I'm also not surprised that the family tried to play the race card. I'm sure race had nothing to do with it, but the PC mentality here leads folks to jump to that conclusion prematurely. No sir, it wasn't because your kid is black. It's because his teacher is a self-righteous hippy jack@ss.

Meanwhile, in the same state, it's perfectly OK to teach 12-year olds about fisting and ####### usage (per the thread here about that the other day).

A local school here in western Massachusetts had a big sign up in a window that I noticed a few weeks back: "TO THOSE WHO CELEBRATE: HAPPY THANKSGIVING".

I was glad they put that little disclaimer on there because being thankful and spending time with my family is against my religion and I'd have been offended otherwise.

I haven't changed my habits at all. If I want to go somewhere, I hop in the car and go. If I ride my bike, it's because I want some exercise and fresh air, not because Al Gore said I should. If I take the train into NYC, it's because I don't want to deal with parking. If I don't go somewhere far by car due to thoughts of gasoline consumption, it's only because I'm cheap and hate seeing that sumbitch at the filling station tick up to the better part of $40 bucks for a top-off. If I found a good airfare to a place I wanted to go, I'd go- and the 'carbon footprint' of the airplane wouldn't even cross my mind. If the wine from Australia is a better deal than the wine from California, I buy it.

I make a pretty good effort to recycle (even though 'recycling' is a volatile market and half that ###### ends up in a landfill much of the time anyway when scrap aluminum drops below $50 bucks a ton or whatever) , but I always have. Nothing to do with all the current hype.

You?

Me: certificate from US Army Electrician's School, class of 1966.

Wife: regular diploma, when she finishes high school the year after next.

some of the best therapy i've ever had.

You beat me to it, brother.

Of course, you're recommending this therapy for the feller who's married to this lady I presume.

It was super awkward. We had an awkward hug (yes, my fault.. hehe I sorta turned away a bit coz lots of people were watching, not used to PDA).

Hey, don't feel bad -- it took me about a day to get used to being kissed by my wife in public. I instinctively turned my head a few times when she was going in for a kiss...even though I'm a guy and LOVE to be kissed! I think it's natural that there's going to be slight awkwardness at first...just getting used to being around each other, learning one another's quirks and mannerisms etc.

This is what I don't understand about meeting and becoming intimate with someone on the Internet, possibly even becoming engaged to marry them, without ever having met them. It just seems like an a$$-backwards way to go about things. These "quirks and mannerisms" are a big part of why you fall in love with someone, in my opinion. How can you commit yourself to someone prior to having experienced that? What's it like to have your first kiss with your fiancé, when that person became your fiancé before you ever kissed them, let alone met them in person?

What squirrelly times we live in.

It looks like you put some serious work into your thread here and it wandered down to page 3 with no replies, so I'll bump it back up for you.

I met my old lady in a bar when I was half in the bag with all my buddies, back when I lived in Japan. We weren't even on the pull that night- we were just out for a good old fashioned booze-up.

That night, I only chatted her up for about 15 minutes and got her number. We texted back and forth for a few days after and eventually made a date.

A few years later, thinking I was complimenting her on her good looks, I told her "Boy, was I happy when you showed up for that first date and you were smoking hot, just like I remembered you. I was pretty hammered when we first met, and I was afraid you'd show up for our date and be lookin' pretty rough."

Oddly, she didn't take it as much of a compliment. Go figure.

"First world", "third world", "developing", "undeveloped" and "developed"... these terms are a bunch of PC nonsensical catch-phrases.

We all know there are only two types of countries: Countries where you're guaranteed a case of the runs for a few days when you visit, and those where you aren't.

Vote.

If I was from West Virginia, I'd be p!ssed about this.

With all of this talk these days about "going green" and "doing away with coal", enough American minors are gonna be out of work as it is. Does it really help to turn a blind eye to an influx of illegal immigrant minors?

It's ####### like this that makes me wish I still smoked cigarettes sometimes. When you're a smoker and someone says something to you like "Oh no, you shouldn't buy that garlic from China (that costs 1/3 the price of the domestic garlic), it has a much higher heavy metal content!", you can just say "Listen, you wanker- I smoke a pack of butts a day. You think I give a toss about the heavy metal content of Chinese garlic?"

If these a$$holes didn't come up with something new for us to be all worried about every few weeks, they'd be out of a job.

On our wedding anniversary last weekend I promised my wife I'd treat her like a princess. And I was as good as my word: I took her out for an expensive meal in a rented Mercedes-Benz, got completely sh!thouse-hammered, and on the way home crashed into a concrete pillar in an underpass at 125mph, killing her instantly.

So I guess we mediocre losers have nothing to worry about then.

Picked her up in a bar like a real man.

Got a chuckle, a nod of approval, and a "Nice..." out of the feller doing the interview at the embassy when he asked how we met, too.

Where's the option for "Only when the old lady is around."?

Here's a little Christmas jingle that's NSFW, but jolly none the less:

Seriously, I remember some extra step you had to go through to get your avatar changed. What was it?

What a one-of-kind great he was!

Well, thanks. The old lady really likes it here.

I'd be better if I could remember how to change my avatar (can someone link an avatar troubleshoot thread or just tell me how?).

Throw a bunch of Christmas tunes on this thread.

Here's the first:

I apologize preemptively if my tone sounds patronizing, but from what I've gathered by reading this website, many of you may not be very familiar with Japanese food and cooking. I consider myself to be relatively knowledgeable on the subjects, and especially considering the threads that pop up here seeking advice for helping a Japanese spouse overcome homesickness, I wish to share what I know.

**********************************************

I'm of the opinion that when a couple from two cultures cohabit, the food they eat ought to be proportionate to that arrangement.

If your spouse is from Japan, you should find a source of Japanese ingredients for your spouse to use, and you should learn to cook some basic Japanese dishes yourself.

Seek out a local Asian or international foods grocer. Mixed in on the shelves amongst the Thai, Vietnamese, and Chinese products and whatnot, you should find an assortment of non-perishable Japanese basics to combine with fresh ingredients from the American supermarket. American supermarkets often have an 'international foods' aisle where you can find a few of these items, but they will likely be domestic versions of lesser quality and higher price. For example, the Stop & Shop nearby has packaged sheets of nori seaweed, imported in bulk from Japan and re-packaged in California for about $5 each. The Asian market sells the same basic product packaged in Japan for half the price. Tubs of domestic miso paste at Stop & Shop are twice the price of their larger Japanese counterparts at the Asian grocer's. This is common to nearly every Japanese product the Stop & Shop has. The Asian market also has certain Asian vegetables that are simply unavailable elsewhere nearby.

If you can't find an Asian grocer, and if you live in a part of America where even the most basic Japanese ingredients are unavailable, seek out a source on the Internet. There are many Japanese import companies in the United States from which you can mail-order these products from an online catalog.

Next chapter to soon follow…

The comfort foods we grew up with are the medicines that will remedy our most impulsive longings for home when we live abroad.

While I was living in Japan for 4 years, my kitchen was my refuge from culture shock.

Good cuisine is the same the world over. We all basically eat the same stuff. We just season and cook it differently.

If you posses proper ingredients, seasonings, and cooking techniques, it is possible to approximate any cuisine anywhere in the world, using only fresh, local ingredients.

To cook proper Japanese food anywhere in America, you need but a few things:

* You need a basic American supermarket, or better yet- a fish market, a butcher's, and a farmer's market or vegetable garden.

* You need a few basic Japanese seasonings that are definitely at your disposal (though you may never have known that you had access to them).

* You need the ability to make basic culinary improvisations when certain ingredients are unavailable.

* You need to be literate in English, or any other language in which resources are provided for basic Japanese cooking.

I aim for this to be a thread in which we share recipes for cooking Japanese food, a relatively simple food, food that allows our beloved Japanese spouses to feel more at home. After all, home is pretty much where we eat and sleep, and we can sleep anywhere. We can only truly eat at home.

Here it is, folks. Share away.

More specifics from me to follow, but now it's bedtime.